We arrived at Kouyasan, or officially the town of Kouya, at noon on Saturday. This mountain is the home to Shingon (Mantra) Buddhism and consists mainly of a large network of Shingon temples connected by a long road of souvenir shops. We were greeted by a Swiss Shingon monk named Kurt who seemed eager for the chance to finally speak to someone in a language he understood. He took us to the main Shingon temple but only explained the meaning of the artwork, with brief asides about how we were standing in the entrance to the Department of Trees which manages all the trees for the town. I would have loved to know a little more about that but we moved on.
This is a rock garden-- not a Zen garden, as Kurt insisted, but he explained no more about it.
This is a huge Japanese stupa. Inside was an enormous golden statue of Dainichi Nyorai, the central (all-pervading) Buddha of Shingon.
This is an unretouched photo. It shows the actual colors of Kouyasan on the day we were there. The full fall colors haven't yet come to the Kansai region and it's already amazingly beautiful.
Inside the stupa, the name of which I am too tired to spend thirty minutes looking up, there were some women singing a beautiful sutra. Kurt started talking very loudly over them about dharanis and samadhis, so I decided it was time to break off from the group. I bought a special surprise for Carleton meditation students in town.
The students on my program were planning to sing a song for Kurt at 3:30, but my aim was to get to the mausoleum of Koubou Daishi, or Kuukai. Koubou Daishi was a genius of early Japan. He is claimed to have invented hiragana, written the song we were going to sing (Iroha Uta), built hundreds of temples, and performed miracles throughout Japan. It is generally undisputed that he went to China and brought back Shingon, a form of Buddhism which integrates many different Chinese sects into a coherent and fluid whole, and also makes heavy use of Sanskrit siddham script, which would not have been very easy to learn in ancient China. Like the founder of Tenrikyo, he is thought to be still alive in his mausoleum, and the priests who live there claim that they cut his hair and trim his nails on a regular basis. Unlike her, he does not need a television, as he is in eternal meditation.
But on the way to Koubou Daishi's grave I got sidetracked by a forest of deep and powerful yuugen. Yuugen 幽玄, which is written with my favorite kanji 幽, is a feeling of beauty and transcience which is difficult to describe. It appears frequently in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, although it goes unmentioned. In this forest in Kouyasan, an old graveyard of monks which was slowly being overtaken by moss and roots, yuugen was unavoidable no matter where you looked.
The pictures I took came out poorly but this should give you a flavor: stairs tumbling apart over time, mysterious siddham letters, moss growing freely. There were sections of the graveyard where nobody had gone, and it was a perfectly silent and peaceful work of nature, like a Miyazaki movie. 3:30 quickly came and went. I wandered slowly through the graveyard.
Towards the end I saw a completely abandoned and derelict grave. The stones had fallen down and roots were taking it over. Someone had left a one yen coin on this grave. I felt I knew what that person was paying homage to.
Eventually I arrived at Koubou Daishi's grave. It was a spectacular place but, as with all of Japan's national treasures, photography was strictly forbidden. I took this photo directly on the other side of the "no photos" barrier. Nevertheless the women seen in the photo thought I was being disrespectful to Koubou Daishi. Well, they did not sell postcards of the inside of the temple, and it was a beautiful work of lanterns and darkness that is difficult to describe.
This is a pyramid of Buddhas and other images left by unknown medieval Shingon believers that they found in the dirt while building the modern mausoleum.
On my way out I ran into Kurt and his remaining followers from my program. He had made them run all the way through the graveyard! I'm glad I broke off when I did. In any case I got to ride a taxi back with him and sing the Iroha Uta to him and the other monks at his temple.
I felt really accomplished as this day closed. We spent many hours riding back to Kyoto but I was pretty much happy the whole way through. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time to study...
