Learning from pain. To each their own. In my case...

My knee is acting up. It hurts. It started about a year ago, I think. But you know, it doesn't get worse even when I go mountain climbing. The pain doesn't get better, but it doesn't get worse either. It hurts when I climb stairs. And on mountain trails. Paved roads are fine. Even on slopes, as long as it's a paved road, it's fine.
Because it hurts, I favor one side while climbing. As a result, the muscles on the favored side waste away drastically. Because I'm not using them.

In the end, it's probably just a lack of exercise.

When I touched the feet of the Eleven-Faced Kannon, the pain eased. Oh my. What a miraculous blessing. No, no. What a gullible person I am, thinking things like that. But, perhaps, that's fine.

Right. Illness starts in the mind. If the pain eases or lightens, that is something to be grateful for. I am grateful to the Eleven-Faced Kannon, grateful for the place of prayer that has continued for so long and the efforts of the people who maintain it, and grateful that I was able to encounter that place as if by chance.

And then I realize. If it's a lack of exercise, I should just exercise. If there is an imbalance where muscles are wasting away due to a lack of load, I should just apply a reasonable load to the weaker side.
So, when I have time, I lightly raise and lower both heels, and do shallow bends and stretches with the painful knee. I tried it. In just two days, the pain is clearly subsiding!!
I repeat the bending and stretching just up to the point before it starts to hurt. Only I can know what that limit is.

Without going to a doctor, taking medicine, or getting tests, I am using myself as a sensor and getting better. Hehe. I'm so glad!!

This whole realization is surely a blessing from the Eleven-Faced Kannon and the place of prayer.

It's not a prescription that works for everyone. It worked for my pain.
That whole experience is a blessing from the Eleven-Faced Kannon.

Such places of prayer and the triggers for them surely exist all over Japan and all over the world.
The Earth itself is a grateful place where all of that exists.