Kyoto

This post is part of a series on my trip to Japan.

 Getting to Japan from San Antonio was a little less complicated than I thought, since there is a direct flight from Dallas to Tokyo, so I “only” had a total of three flights. During my last layover (in Tokyo), I met up with two more KonMari Consultants, and we flew together to Osaka, from where we took the bus to Kyoto and, finally, a taxi to our hotel. I said a quick hello to my roommate, took a shower, and went straight to bed!

DAY 1

Tuesday morning (May 21st), we met with our wonderful guide, Aki-san, who explained that Kyoto was the capital of Japan for about 1,000 years and is still considered the cultural capital of the country. Our first stop was Kinkaku-ji Temple, whose main pavilion is covered in gold leaf.

We then had a private vegetarian lunch prepared by monks at Sennyu-ji Temple. This was our first traditional Japanese meal, with lots of little dishes arranged in a bento box, and it was a great experience! We were encouraged to eat mindfully, focusing on our food, its taste and texture, rather than getting distracted by each other. After lunch, we had some fascinating conversations with Kenmei, a very personable white Esoteric Buddhist monk originally from Florida.

For those who are curious, Kenmei’s journey to Buddhism started when he was in the 8th grade, and another kid at his school self-immolated in front of him. This traumatic event opened his eyes to what other people are going through – to this other kid, the flames must have been less painful than what he was going through. From there, Kenmei started reading up on various life philosophies, from Stoicism to Buddhism, and ended up at his local Buddhist community center. Eventually, they gave him a scholarship to their university in Taiwan, and then based on his beliefs, he was assigned to an Esoteric Buddhist shrine in Japan. Since Sennyu-ji Temple hosts members of the imperial family as well as ambassadors and various dignitaries, they decided that it would be helpful to have “the white monk” who speaks English, so much like in a sports team, he was traded for two of their monks!

He now translates ancient texts from Sanskrit into English, to help pave the way for other Western monks. He once meditated for 4 days straight (and his master for 7!), which shows mastery over oneself. When he first started training as a monk, he would go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 2am to start his day. (At this point, thanks to jet lag, I was indeed sleeping like a monk myself!) He has a cell phone, which he uses to text other monks within the monastery and to keep in touch with his family – he even has an Instagram account.

Kenmei gave us a tour of the temple, including the 400-year-old garden in which they meditate by moonlight. (Even if the moon is not visible in the sky on a given month, its reflection will be visible in the pond of the garden.) He emphasized interconnectedness, trying to understand where other people are coming from, and having love and compassion for all beings. All of this gives us purpose.

We then went to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is specifically dedicated to the cultivation of rice, but is now generally worshipped for a plentiful harvest and success in business. There are fox statues everywhere, because foxes helped keep the mouse population down, which in turn protected the rice harvest. This place is known for its senbon torii, or thousand vermillion red gates. It’s a shade I would call deep orange, meant to ward off evil.

Torii gates symbolize the passage from our everyday world to the divine world on the other side. You must enter them on the left or right, because only deities walk down the center, and you bow before stepping through. You can make wishes with the intention for them to pass through the gates, or leave some inscribed on pieces of wood at the shrine itself. You can also write down thoughts you want to let go of on pieces of paper and leave them to be burnt at the shrine.

Our second-to-last stop of the day was the Komyo-in Temple, where we split into two groups. First, my group spoke with a Buddhist monk, who taught us zazen meditation, in which you keep your eyes half open. The setting was a tatami room next to a beautiful garden. The monk told us to simply accept the background noise. Don’t look for perfect silence – if you hear a bird or a chainsaw or a tourist yelling, it just is; let it go.

Then we went to an adjacent room for a tea ceremony, in which matcha tea was expertly prepared, one cup at a time. Since matcha is bitter, it was served with a sweet chocolate mochi pastry. Yoshie, the woman leading the ceremony and preparing the tea one serving at a time, is an expert at her craft, and was very much in the moment, taking her time and focusing all of her attention on her task. You could tell she really loved transmitting her culture to us!

We started talking about the phrase ichi-go, ichi-e, which means “one time, one meeting”. This moment is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and will never happen again, so we must appreciate it for what it is. This is true of most gatherings, really – even if you manage to get the same people together again in the same location, it will be different.

We then regrouped to talk with the landscaper who had designed the garden, Makoto Kitazawa; he is already such an expert at the age of 26, having apprenticed since the age of 15. He even dreams that he is a rock! He will be working on a garden in Los Angeles later this year.

Finally, we had a multi-course dinner in the Gion district, during which an 83-year-old geisha serenaded us for 20 minutes. We also saw a geisha outdoors, and the contrast between her traditional garb and her smartphone was jarring to me! Geishas start training at 15 years old (miko) and become geiko (“real” geishas) at 20; the oldest geisha is currently 92 years old.

DAY 2

We started with a personalized tour of Kiyomizu-dera, starting in a room where President Obama was once received. The temple is on Mount Otowa, so it has beautiful views of Kyoto. Our tour guide, Eigen Onishi, is a third-generation monk who was born right in that temple (though he took a detour to the States for a few years before making his way back to Japan and, eventually, the temple).

We were given sweet rice crackers and tea made with holy water, then we got to see an amazing room that is not generally open to the public. It is about three stories tall, built with an open well in the front and a platform near the top at the back (where we were). The walls are covered with over 4,000 carvings of Buddha, and the bottom floor has a design of his footprints as well as an altar. We dropped paper petals to represent our wishes, and it was magical to see them cascade to the ground below and scatter on the altar and footprints. We moved on to a short meditation in a beautiful garden.

The monk talked about how we perceive time. As we age, the space that our past occupies gets bigger and the future comes at us more quickly. You’ve noticed how years go by more quickly then when you were younger, right? Being in the moment helps us not worry too much about either the past or the future. However, the best preparation for the future is to use our past experience to make our potential future bigger, which then squeezes the present moment into a smaller portion. (Obviously I haven’t mastered that part. I’m all about learning from our experiences and making choices that will bring us closer to our ideal lifestyle. I feel satisfied with that.) He also used the expression tadaima, which literally translates to “right now” but which to him means “I am here, in peaceful harmony with another, in the moment.”

If there are two things that the monk wanted us to take away from this encounter, it is that 1) nothing is independent (meaning that we are all interconnected), and 2) nothing is permanent (this too shall pass, the good as the bad). Take the example of a delicious meal – we can, and should, enjoy it, but we will inevitably be hungry again the next day. Also, the meal cannot happen on its own; not only is it better enjoyed with others, but you need everyone working together to grow, harvest, transport, and prepare the food. Even though everything is impermanent, we can cherish moments and bring them to mind again in the future.

We then visited the temple itself, which is built on a high platform overlooking a natural spring. (Thanks to Duolingo, I knew that “mizu” meant water, and it turns out that “kiyo” means pure.) The platform is 12 meters high, and in the Edo period, people would jump from it to prove their faith – if they survived, it was because their inner Buddha had saved them (though it should be said that there are a lot of trees below as well!). Apparently, 85% of people who jumped survived. It gave birth to a common expression in Japanese, “to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu” which means to take the plunge or take a risk. Fun fact: Ryokei Wajo, the previous master monk who oversaw the recent restoration of the temple, lived to be109 years old!

We went into the main hall to see the naijin, or inner sanctuary, from which we could see the statues in the nainaijin, or innermost sanctuary. There is a box there that is opened only every 33 years. The temple is dedicated to Kannon, a deity that can appear in 33 different forms and can answer any prayer; the name comes from kan (subjectivity) and non (objectivity).

We had some free time for lunch, which allowed us to do some souvenir shopping as well. We then made a quick pit stop at the hotel and got on a private bus to Nara. Our visit there started with more free time, which we obviously spent with the local deer! They come down from the mountain each day and hang out in the park, waiting for tourists to feed them. They have learned to bow to people, which usually gets them food because people think it’s adorable!

The highlight in Nara was our visit to Todai-ji Temple, which has the tallest bronze Buddha statue in the world (15 meters and 50 tons). Each curl of his hair was the size of a human head, and each finger was 1 meter long. The base was built roughly 800 years ago; the body, about 400 years ago; and the head, about 200 years ago (the original versions were destroyed in fires). The temple itself is huge, and has enough building material to make 3,000 houses! We got the VIP treatment and got to go up close to the statue (no photos allowed), and the monk who was guiding us was so pleased with how attentive we were that he invited us to touch the base of the statue! It is shaped like a lotus, because that beautiful flower blooms out of mud. This symbolizes that Buddha can help you bloom despite your impurities.

This monk loved telling stories, like the allegory of the long spoons (but with long chopsticks), to symbolize that the world is a better place when we all take care of one another. He also told us a story of how a family’s dog died – the little boy was very sad to lose him; the father was angry because he thought the dog breeder had concealed some defect; and the neighbor was relieved that he would no longer hear barking. The point was that every reaction has merit and is right; the important thing is to understand where others are coming from and to accept them (interestingly, understanding was more important than empathy here).

In essence, Shintoism is the act of accepting nature; Buddhism is changing one’s mindset so as to minimize suffering and reach contentment (rather than happiness). So Buddhism is really living with oneself. That being said, we are not living alone; we are at the mercy of all living things. Shintoism is a way of life, while Buddhism is a faith (because of Buddha).

We had dinner at the hotel that night and prepared for departure the next day.