Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Koya-san : My Birthday Pilgrimage

So, I have decided to spend the night of my 27th birthday on mount. Koya, one of Japan's sacred mountains. It belongs to the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism, and their many temples on the mountain offer lodging for travellers and some insight into the lives of the believers. I have been curious for some time about the inner world of the Buddhist temples in Japan, and decided it was time to do something about it. I made reservations through this English site that connects you to ryokans and hotels all over Japan (very effective and useful, considering that many hotels don't have websites of their own, even in Japanese) Highly recommend - they offer plenty of information. respond quickly and, well...one can only understand the joy of seeing the English language used properly after living in Japan for a while. My train trip, with the usual exhausting connection in Osaka was sleepy and uneventful, but I found myself enjoying both the easiness with which I can now converse with Japanese information workers, and the luxury of travelling with no luggage. Pretty much all I had in my backpack was - as "The Hitch hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" advises - a towel.

From the train station a cable car ascends to the top of the mountain, almost vertically. I love cable cars with a kind of juvenile passion, can't explain it. Most of the passengers were foreigners, moreover - tourists, and they were getting rather chatty and friendly with each other - exchanging information about sightseeing in Tokyo and Kyoto and what not. I decided to ditch those people before they cramp my Zen, and got off the Koya city bus at the most deserted looking station, having barely taken a look at the map.
However, a five minute walk brought me to my first destination - Kongobuji Temple, the main temple of Koya Shingon association. It was spacious and ellegant, resembling a Zen temple with its serene wooden corridors and sand and stone gardens, but more colorful - many beautifully painted sliding doors, depicting scenes from the life of Kukai (Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon), and also natural scenes in distinct Chinese style.
Tea with local sweets was served in a big reception hall covered with red carpets and decorated with mandala paintings by Shingon artists and a portrait of Kukai. There were only a few other guests in the temple, something that would never happen in Kyoto on a weekend, so I was able to soak in the atmosphere. The aesthetics of Shingon temples won me over at first sight, as have the artifacts and quirks such as this altar with decorations of fruits and vegetables... In the temple grounds visitors can also observe the kitchen used by the monks and so on. The feeling of the place is rather warm and majestic, not quite as ascetic as one might expect. Outside it was a beautiful sunny day, and light was streaming through the corridors and in through the attic windows.

I wondered through another temple complex with buildings and pagodas that were beautiful, but not unfamiliar to a resident of Kyoto. In fact I found the very Japanese mixture of styles (various Buddhist and even Shinto influences in the architecture) kind of confusing. But, the lines and colors were still dazzling against the sunny sky, and the mountain air chilly and free of city noises, so I was in a good mood. I was walking towards the temple where I made reservations for the night, on my way passing many of these "lodging temples", all of which looked like any zen temple, usually with a stone garden or a natural sculpture of some sort visible from the gates. The city itself is very small, flat, and not at all touristic. The only souvenirs sold were of strictly religious nature, and at 4 pm almost everything was closed and quiet.

I was to stay at the Rengejo-in, one of the bigger temples which, upon approaching, seemed completely deserted, dark and, well, anything but a hotel. At the entrance I was ordered by signs in English to take off my shoes and change into slippers before I go in. Those slippers, which I've met with many times before while exploring the insides of Japanese temples and castles, have made my list of "most idiotic ways to leave this world" as they are slippery and hold on to nothing, fretting at all times to fly off your feet or off the stairs along with you...
So after standing in the empty hallway for a few minutes I was invited into a little Japanese style room where the priest and two old men were sitting. In one of those situations where I can't imagine what they would do with a non-Japanese speaking costumer, I was asked to fill in forms and pay and so on. Then, allowing me to observe this "office" for long enough to notice a Mac and a Russian matryoshka doll on the desk before which he was kneeling, the priest lead me up to my room, on the way explaining me the schedule of the meditation, dinner, and bath time.

The third floor ( I believe I stayed on the third. Can't be sure as while climbing the steep stairs I was concentrated on trying to hold the slippers with my toes), unlike the entrance, looked like a perfect Japanese style hotel (ryokan) - brightly lit corridors, smell of new wood and sliding paper doors. The inside was fancier than any ryokan I have been in - the golden painted sliding doors, the private kotatsu table ( I turned it on and spent all evening under that blanket, and left my clothes inside for the night...brilliant invention) The room also had an air-conditioner and a TV, which I found to be excessive. But then again, these days the temples and the city probably depend on tourism, including that of barbarians from the west.

The 40 minutes meditation practice was held in a ceremony room that was almost completely dark, only above the altar candle light reflected in gold and near us on the floor big gaz heaters opened their red eyes. On my way there I noticed how the sand in the garden sparkles in the freezing darkness. After all, I have never before seen a zen garden at night.
It wasn't my most successful try at meditation, as I've been having problems with my knees lately, and far from assuming the lotus position, bending my legs in any way for 40 minutes made me too uncomfortable to concentrate. But I gave it my best and so did the other guests (all but one foreigners), breathing in the scented air, thinking about everything and nothing in a dark room of a temple, high on a mountain in a foreign land.

Later, dinner was served in a dining room that also resembled that of a ryokan - you sit on the floor with your personal little table, being served food on many little plates...Food in Koya temples is completely vegetarian, and the dinner was very filling and colorful - 3 or 4 types of tofu (different levels of sponginess...one of them i found edible), tempura (deep fried vegetables) beans, pickled...something, rice, soup and even slices of fruit for dessert. Young boys were serving the meal - shaved as monks but dressed normally. I later learnt that they were graduates of Shingon studies who did not belong to priest families and had no temple to go back to. They served at temples on Koya-san until they were adopted into temples without heirs all over Japan.
This and more I learnt from the mother of the head priest of Rengejo-in, a youthful woman of at least 80 years old, who came to talk to us after dinner. She studied English in Tokyo before the war and ever since became a valuable asset on Koya, helping the temple families to communicate first with soldiers and then with tourists. She indeed had probably the best English I heard from a Japanese person, although pronunciation of words such as "wordily" and "splendid" should probably be forbidden in Japan. She told us about the history of the mountain - since Kukai was led there by a Hunter deity and his 2 dogs and chose it as the base for his sect, through the years of war and hunger, until today.

I went back to my room, treated myself to some green tea (another ryokan perk - there is always tea in the room). Then I couldn't resist the opportunity to change into yukata robe, specially since this time I got a warmer winter robe to put over it. I made my slippery way to the public bath, and as I guessed it was empty. Western women are not that into soaking naked in boiling water surrounded by strangers. I however love sentos and onsens (specially the outdoor ones of course), and having such a big bath all to myself, being able to practically swim and dance around in it totally made my night. Back in the room I almost fell asleep under the kotatsu blanket, but at midnight my cellphone was awakened by birthday greetings. And when I finally got into my futon (which was spread in the room during dinner) I realized that having loud foreigners behind paper walls was not the ideal combination. Why don't more people travel to these places to enjoy the atmosphere and to shut up, I wonder? So between their talking, snoring and packing and my own not necessarily temple-appropriate thoughts I slept about an hour that night. A new enlightening day was approaching fast.
.....To be continued.....