On trains and temples
Today Aki, Ida and I went on a day-trip to a big, popular temple around here; or at least not that far by train. I'm surprised how reasonable the maps are at the subway and train-stations, but I'm seriously getting annoyed by handling tickets of the tiny variety that you are still supposed to keep safe, so you can actually get out again.
Anyway, the temple, Tofukuji-temple, was a very big area with various smaller buildings strewn around the big ones and cemetaries inbetween as well. I remember thinking, 'well that map looks like it is illustrating an amusement-park' when we were studying it to determine where we were supposed to go, it was just that big.
We went on our way though and as we walked among beautiful white buildings with elegantly curving roofs, impressive gates and well-kept geenery out front, I felt a strange reverence, the same I feel when I'm visiting churches. I get spell-bound by the beauty of devotion and the structures humans create to communicate their faith and apparently it doesn't matter what kind of holy place it is.
Another thing that impressed me about Tofukuji was the sheer size of the biggest, central buildings, the abbot's hall and the main-building - they are huge, absolutely huge and they take up so much space. We went into the abbot's hall and though I was bothered by the slippers we had to wear inthere, because my foot does not appreciate slippers, I was enormously impressed by the zen-gardens and the immaculately cut bushes in square and round patterns.
Around the temples we also saw bamboo, japanese marbles and we walked along hovering roof-covered wooden bridges in the sunlight, peering over the tops of the trees below. The koi in one of the ponds were curious and stuck their heads out of the water to gape at the western tourists pointing at them and marveling at their size and colours.
Other than that we saw an eerie, but beautiful cemetary, where a gentle wind blew across the flowers and the cups of tea offered for the dead and we observed the life of a dragonfly; first by seeing a young, beautiful blue one perched on a grave-stone, then seeing an older, yellow one with sagging wings and as we left we mourned the death of a big, shiny dragonfly we noticed by the side of the road.
On vibrant colours, Omamori and dragon-fish.
After the temple we went on to fushimi-inari taisha. This shrine, at the base of the mountain Inari, primarily houses the god of rice and is known for having a wealth of torii; the traditional red, japanese arch-ways. At Inari there are over a thousand of them!
It was a fascinating transition to see the brightly coloured buildings and archways in green, red, white and black, compared to the simplicity of the black and white zen-temples. The torii shone in the sunlight and you could hear the hollow sounds pf bells as people pulled on them, clapping their hands and bowing, making noise with the bell to draw the attention of the gods before making their requests by prayer.
When we arrived, we went to wash our hands, first the right and then the left, drinking and then rinsing our wrists as well. Then we were free to continue on further to the individual shrines, properly decked out with protective wards, made out of hemp-rope and paper-charms. Inari is a place where tourism is much more apparent than at Tofukuji, but still we only saw about a handful of westerners there. At the shrine you can buy charms for protection, called 'omamori, which basically means 'protection' and you can buy small prayers to tie to branches along the paths between torii-rows.
If you have a wish you want granted, you can tie a tousand tiny paper-cranes to a wall near one of the shrines or to one of the small, more private shrines further away. The torii themselves are so close together that you can barely look out between them when you pass through and the bright, red colour is only occasionally interrupted by an arch made of stone.
All the torii are donated, either by firms or the older ones are donated by city-rulers. The biggest one is donated by an ancient warlord and it is still there.
We passed through endless rows, while taking silly pictures and then finally reached a lake deep in the forest behind the main shrine, though not very high on the mountain. There we found more koi, white and orange, and a couple of turtles. One koi was a big, golden one and we all agreed that its face really resembled a chinese dragon, strangely serene and knowing as it swam around below us in the water.
We also met a couple of shy tabby cats, both white, orange and black, seeming to be utterly at home among the shrines and occasional grave-stones and matching the colours of the torii perfectly. I couldn't help but think of a maneki-neko seeing the two of them.
On mikos
At one shrine a woman in a traditional priestess-outfit, white shirt with red hakama-pants and her hair wound by a long piece of white cloth, was preparing bells for a ritual, slowly lining them up in a row in front of her. Unfortunately I never got to see what she was going to use them for, though I would have liked to know.
Finally done at Inari, tired and with aching feet, we took the train back home to Kyoto and finished the day with dinner.
All in all a highly satisfying day.
~A~
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