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awolfroams · 4 years

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2017 Summer in Asia, Part 2: Koyasan, Japan

July 2, 2017 7:21pm on the train from Nara to Osaka

It’s hard to believe how much I’ve seen since last I wrote. We took a train into the mountains, where we took an uncomfortably-steep cable train up Mt. Koya to the town, where we caught a bus into Koyasan.

We checked into Shingoshin-in, where the monks showed us to our private room with a balcony overlooking a winding trail up a piece of the mountainside, and the temple’s soothing koi pond. We had the red bean cakes and tea provided in our room, then went downstairs to reclaim our shoes at the gate (I felt a bit like Chihiro, I won’t lie) and walked into “the magical shrine area which would only take 5 minutes to explore” as I justified it to @taketheshield, which naturally turned out to be Okunoin.

For the better part of two hours, we wandered through the Buddhist cemetery, past ancient shrines towered over by massive cedars which seemed as old as the mountain itself. Halfway along the trail, I saw a path winding up a hillside and into the forest with a sign pointing in Japanese. @taketheshield said it led to some kind of garden and that he wasn’t interested in going, so off I went up the hill, past shrines and shinto temples, into the woods. Along the way, through the dense trees that turned midday into dusk, I felt like I was being watched. I wanted to turn back, so I started singing “How Far I’ll Go” in my head, because if Moana could go out into the great unknown, then so could I, damn it. After ten or so minutes of walking through the forest, I emerged in a gorgeous field of wildflowers encasing a maze-like cemetery, surrounded by mountains, their peaks catching the sun. I walked around for a bit and took a few photos before steeling myself back toward the woods.

This time, whenever I passed a shrine amidst the trees, I bowed, and weirdly, I almost felt more protected than watched as I made my way back, eventually to @taketheshield, who steered us out onto the road about two-thirds of the way down Okunoin, and we walked back to our temple for dinner.

The monks prepared us a Buddhist meal alongside rice and tea. There was tempura, red bean, fresh cherries, pickled plum, hot soup, jiggling tofu that @taketheshield said was the best he’d ever eaten (if you know him at all, you’ll understand how much of a compliment this is, as nothing ever excites him that much), and a slew of other foods I photographed as we ate.

After dinner, I watched the sun set from our room while @taketheshield went off to catch some Pokemon in town. Later that evening, I took a Japanese bath - showering first before stepping into a scalding hot wooden tub for the three minutes my body could stand it, then showering again and heading back upstairs to our ryoken-style beds (pads on the floor which @taketheshield claimed were far too well-cushioned to count as proper Japanese style, but I wasn’t complaining).

The next morning, we were up at dawn to see our monks pray in their Buddhist ceremony at 6:30 am. Their prayer room was beautiful, full of candles, and they recited for a full hour. I wish I’d been able to understand what they were chanting. After the ceremony, we had breakfast and then got ready to head into town.

We decided to catch the bus out to the furthest point we wanted to see and then make our way back walking. We started at Nyonindo, the last of seven temples Buddhist temples for women still standing. It used to be that women were not allowed to enter Koyasan (Ah, patriarchy. Even in another hemisphere you manage to annoy me.) so a woman created Nyonindo as a place where women could worship. I paid my respects, and from there we walked to @taketheshield‘s next choice, the Tokugawa Family Mausoleum.

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July 3, 2017 (David’s Birthday!) 5:30 pm On the train from Himeji to Kobe

Tokugawa was a shogun, who essentially unified the city-states of feudal Japan. His sons remains and his were enshrined within two tombs at that mausoleum. Having just read more into the history of Himeji and Japan in general, I’m grateful that I got to see this monument.

After the mausoleum, we took the bus to the Daimon, the massive front gate into Koyasan. The structure was two-tiered and red, its doorways at least three times my height. Giant Buddhist deity warriors carved in wood and painted in gold stood guard on either side.

We passed through the gate and stopped at a bench to eat a couple of sandwich packs and matcha Kit Kat (Well, I ate the Kit Kats. @taketheshield somehow doesn’t like matcha. Weirdo.), we walked to Kongobuji, where we witnessed a Buddhist prayer ceremony with pilgrims from who-knows-how-far-away; saw the largest rock garden in Japan of two dragons encircling and protecting the Kongobuji; walked through rooms of beautiful sliding-door paintings of willows across the four seasons, the two black and white dogs who led Kobo Daishi to Koyasan, and murals telling the story of how Kukai traveled to China and returned as Kobo Daishi. We also had complimentary tea and sweet rice crackers served by Buddhist nuns in the tea ceremony room, where we got into a heated discussion about religions and ethics. ( @taketheshield is a self-proclaimed Burger King Catholic, while I find Buddhism, though hypocritical in some cases, a better religion overall).

We left Kongobuji and walked to Koyasan center, passing through the smaller Chumon gate with four guardian statues to see the Kondo shrine and the Danjogaran pagoda, both of which we were able to enter after removing our shoes. The pagoda fascinated me the most, as its inside was a three-dimensional Buddhist mandala with massive statues in the center and paintings of the deities along the walls. We also got to see the Fudodo, the oldest wooden structure in Koyasan, which had been built around 1197 and unlike most structures in Japan’s pyromaniac history, managed to avoid fire, lightning strikes, and fire bombings, likely because of its humble size and relative seclusion.

We passed by a few more shrines in the central complex, including the home of a poet and allegedly the original cherry tree he had planted centuries before, then dragged our tired feet over to our final stop of the day, the Reihokan Museum, where we saw beautiful ancient Buddhist art, Sanskrit texts, and centuries-old floor-to-ceiling tapestries of the Womb and Diamond mandalas, the two most important in that sect of Buddhism.

After another delicious Buddhist dinner by the monks at Shingoshin-in, and a long, hot shower and bath, we passed out on our floor mats for our final night at the temple.

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Tuesday, July 4, 2017 12:45 pm On the bullet train from Osaka to Hiroshima

We woke up at 7 on our final morning in Koyasan so we could pack before 7:30 breakfast. We opened the sliding doors of our breakfast room, just next to the Koi pond, to be greeted by the largest spider David and I had seen in Japan. I danced around the floorboards outside and frantically pantomimed a spider crawling to the very confused and concerned monk who had come to bring our breakfast, his hands balancing a tray loaded with bowls, while David seized one of the sitting pillows from the room and unsuccessfully attempted to gently sweep the spider into the hall. The spider was having none of it, and dodged and feinted animatedly until David accidentally killed it with the pillow and swept the gruesome corpse into the hall, where the monk took it off towards the Koi pond.

We apologized and entered the room, and breakfast was served. As I poured our tea and David filled our rice bowls, we heard the monks chanting outside of our door, which they hadn’t done before. David, paused, listening, then slowly closed his eyes and stammered, “I think they are praying over the spider.” Half-joking that we were probably blacklisted from Buddhist temples, we finished our food and hurried out.

I decided I really wanted to pay my respects to the founder of Shingon Buddhism, Kobo Daishi, since we had left Okunoin that first night before reaching his mausoleum. @taketheshield was not particularly interested, and pointed out that we had less than an hour before leaving if we wanted to properly spend time in Nara, so I told him I’d be back by then, since I was already packed, dashed down the main hall to grab my shoes at the gate, and sprinted to Okunoin, stopping just to rinse my hands and mouth at the cleansing station and put on some bug spray to ward off morning mosquitoes.

The cemetery was even more beautiful in the early-morning sunlight, filtering down in dappling stripes through the ancient cedar trees to glint off of the faces on the shrines. True to my word, I resisted the urge to pull out my camera for time’s sake, and hurried past the small throngs of visitors and worshipers, past the trucks and workers cleaning and maintaining the graves, past the cleaners sweeping the dirt and fallen branches from stone steps, past the ceremonial tea house (only crying a little on the inside) and other tributary buildings crowded near the entrance to the mausoleum, finally pausing for breath at the bridge crossing into the sacred land of Kobo Daishi’s tomb, the holiest site in Koyasan. I took one photo from the bridge, read the plaque, bowed in respect, crossed the bridge, and made my way up to the massive tomb where it is believed Kukai is still alive, bound in eternal meditation, ready to lend a hand to those in need.

I walked slowly over to the tomb, my shoes crunching on the pure white stones of the path, up the steep wooden steps beneath the dozens of hanging lanterns, and into the dark doorway. Inside the dimly-lit shrine, I bowed deeply and murmured, ��thank you’ - for Koyasan, for Okunoin, for preserving the ancient cedars and beautiful nature of this mountain.

I slowly backed out of the tomb and back down the steps, across the path and over the bridge, where I again bowed before running back through the winding cemetery, aching to take a photo of the komorebi - sunlight filtering through trees - but instead picking up my pace until I finally made it back to Shinjoshin-in, removed my shoes, and sprinted upstairs to arrive at our room one minute before the promised time.

Somewhat still embarrassed about the spider situation, we hurriedly thanked the monks and left to catch the bus to the cable car, down the mountainside, to the train to Nara.

#summer in asia 2017

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