This week and next week we are attending Shingon services at Toji, just a few blocks to the south of us. It is actually extremely rare for a Buddhist temple to have lay services, let alone a daily service; I will spend my free month investigatign this and Toji will likely be a case study. We wake up at 5:20 and arrive there around 6AM. Today the sun was rising just as I arrived.
I'm not entirely clear on why people come to the sunrise service but it is a group of older Japanese, evenly distributed between men and women, who come every day and chant. One man will stand outside and recite the Heart Sutra. We all go inside and chant about a dozen different mantras, sutras, and hymns, almost the same every day. This morning I got congratulated by one of the ladies for my accurate reading of the scripture book. However, as the organization of the service is not posted anywhere, it often takes me a while to find where in the hymnbook they are reading from! Most of those attending have already memorized the entire service and do not bring their books at all.
Because this service only occurs at Toji (why? another mystery...) and only at 6AM, and it is not advertised anywhere, we are the only foreigners who ever come. Subsequently there is no English translation or transliteration. This photo I just took is a good example of what a page in the hymnbook looks like. It probably looks fairly complex to someone who does not know Japanese, and most of my classmates have trouble, but it's actually easier to use than one would expect. There are furigana to the right of every kanji. To the left of every syllable is an angled line. The meaning of the lines are obscure but they seem to have something to do with the tone and length of the syllable as chanted. There is a squiggly angle (not shown) which appears at the bottom of some hymn lines which means that the last syllable is drawn out for a second beat after a pause. It reminds me somewhat of ioriten. I'm not going to explain why I know about ioriten.
At the end of the service a monk comes around and touches us on the forehead and hands with the relics of some holy person. We're not sure whose relics they are. All in all it is quite an interesting experience. Here is a picture of Obama being awesome.
