A three week adventure chasing the cherry blossom in Japan. Part five.
Leaving behind the beautiful temples of Kyoto, we jumped on a train, and another train, and another, and then a cable car and then a bus, and eventually arrived at the mountain spiritual retreat of Koyasan.
It is a small, peaceful temple town which is the centre of Shingon Buddhism, a sect introduced by Kobo Daishi. I knew nothing about this particular branch of Buddhism, and was just blindly following my friend who suggested we experience a night in a Buddhist temple. It was a truly brilliant experience and one I recommend even to people who don’t feel particularly spiritual.
There are around 50 temples you can stay in at Koyasan, and I think they are all reasonably similar in the experience on offer.
When we arrived, we were greeted by monks who took us into their office to sort our booking. There was something slightly incongruous about having these orange-clad monks photocopying our passports and asking for our credit cards, but I guess these monks have solid business sense.
The five of us were sharing a big room, so sleeping on the floor on tatami mats and with a small table for tea. It was simple, classic and felt wonderfully authentic. We also had been given kimonos to wear while in the temple if we wished.
As a guest of the temple you are expected to join in evening and early morning meditation. I found the evening meditation slightly hard to get into, and spent a little too long fidgeting before getting into it. Half an hour later, it was over and time for dinner. The monks are strict vegans and so the food at the hostel is not for the unadventurous. They do things with tofu I could never imagine. I’m not sure what half the stuff in the bowls was, but it was a tasty mix of sweet, savoury, sour and of course came with as much rice and green tea as you could wish for.
After dinner we enjoyed the temple’s onsen and then got an early night, as the early meditation session started at 6am…
When we woke in the morning, the whole mountain had been dusted in a fine layer of snow, giving the place an even more silent feel. I found myself getting into the morning meditation more easily (could be that I was just sleepy…) and actually began to see what people get out of it.
We used our early start to explore the rest of the temple town, which unsurprisingly, is packed full of different temples. The highlight for me was visiting this massive, wooded cemetery called Okunoin. With the early morning fog and the atmospheric combination of tall evergreens and stone tombs, the place had a really eerie, peaceful feel to it.
The whole trip up Koyasan mountain really helped me put Japan’s Buddhism in context and I felt really privileged to have experienced staying somewhere so spiritual and peaceful. More snow than blossom though.
Next stop – somewhere rather less peaceful… Kobe.
