and stalls of wicker household ware.








Then there are the memorial services in the temple (to the left a picture of praying monks and to the right a special altar with offerings) and performances: a dance performance by children (YOU TUBE movie) and a orchestral performance by monks (YOU TUBE movie).


You can visit the entrance gate “Sanmon” and climb to (YOU TUBE movie) the second level where you have a wonderful view over the temple grounds and part of the city and the sea. Inside on the second floor wooden statues are preserved behind glass. You still can see the colors of the paint.
The faces and composure of the body of the praying monks
(YOU TUBE movie) are full of expression.







And the gods standing next to them are protecting them.

This is the invitation brochure of all the shows during this special event week at Koyasan.
Look at the temples on the top of the hill of the drawing: elevate your spirits!

Kôyasan is a sacred place that always welcomes people with Buddha’s great love.
It is home to an active monastic center founded twelve centuries ago by the priest Kûkai (posthumously known as Kôbô Daishi) for the study and practice of Esoteric Buddhism. It is the headquarters of the Kôyasan sect of Shingon Buddhism, a faith with a wide following throughout Japan.
Situated on a small plain at the top of Mount Kôya is the sacred area known as the Danjô Garan, a complex of temples, halls, pagodas and Buddhist statuary that welcome visitors to this serene and hallowed place.
Surrounded by a thick forest of massive cedars, the area known as Okuno-in, or the Inner Sanctuary, is the setting for a vast cemetery that features the mausolea of numerous famous Japanese, including that of the samurai ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi as well as memorials to the spirits of soldiers killed in the Pacific War.
On July 7, 2004, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named Kôyasan as part of the “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range” to its World Heritage List. Now as in the past, Kôyasan continues to attract visitors, including believers and devotees, from around the world.

You can read more about Koyasan on the date of January 5, 2009 of my blog. We went there with the family last December. So, please look in the categories of Family or Temples.

The inside of the invitation brochure.

Zaimokuza was a thriving port. In 1232, the port of Wakaejima, Zaimokuza’s old name, was constructed to cope with the expanding commerce. Following expansion, the area became a trading center for lumber, and many lumber merchants settled here. It has been declared a national Historical Landmark in 1924, because it’s the sole surviving example of artificial harbor of the Kamakura Period.

The Gosho Jinja Shrine was built in 1908 to combine 8 shrines in this neighborhood. This shrine is the tutelary deity of Zaimokuza.

There is a lively festival on the second Sunday of each June. The festival is attended by many local people and starts with a service at the Gosho Jinja Shrine and requests for blessings and good trade. The “Mikoshi”, a portable heavy shrine , is carried by the faithful on Zaimokuza’s streets and into the sea at Zaimokuza beach. This takes more than 3 hours. The Mikoshi is thought to be very old, because the repository contains a plaque marked and corresponding to 1642. A small structure next to the repository holds a neatly preserved stone tablet, inscribed with an era name corresponding to 1262 and has been designated a National Important Work of Art.

Many laborers hauled carts loaded with lumber from Wakaejima Port, loudly chanting kiyariondo,a lumber-carriers’ chant on their way to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, the new shrine for Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun of Japan (1147-99). This chant has been handed down as tenno’uta in the Zaimokuza area. And so, it is still loudly chanted by all the carriers in a rythmic movement, swaying from one side to the other side of the street.(See the movie)

It is carried by men as well as women.

Also, children have their own mikoshi (on wheels) and learn it already at a young age.

On top of the shrine is a phoenix bird: the symbol of fire and divinity, immortality and invincibility.

Arriving on the beach.

And into the water!!

Watch the YouTube movie of the carriers coming out of the water and with their chants: Zaimokuza Festival: carrying the Mikoshi

After being in the US for a while, I finally returned to Kamakura, Japan.
Three years ago when we moved partially to Kamakura, we were just in time to see some “Sakura” and the Spring parade. It was a wonderful start to enter Japan. Now again, after making the decision that I’m going to start a studio here, I feel really blessed by all those falling Sakura leaves and joy of spring!

We went to the Hachimangu Shrine with the big pond. Incredibly beautiful.

And then of course, we went to our favorite neighborhood Komiyoji Temple. The path toward the main temple is adorned with “Sakura”.

All those falling leaves!!!!

This is the Ebisu-do Hall built by the 1st shogun Minamoto Yoritomo to honor the guardian gods of the village. Ebisu is the Japanese god of fishermen, good luck, and workingmen, as well as the guardian of the health of small children. He is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune and the only one of the seven to originate from Japan. And Kamukara with a border on the sea, Sagami Bay, has lots of fisherman.
Nichiren lived in this hall to continue his missionary work. He was a Buddhist monk and is credited with founding what has come to be known as Nichiren Buddhism, a major school of Japanese Buddhism.
In 1436, the main temple got built and part of Nichiren’s ashes were brought here.

The main temple.

During the New Year holidays crowds come for the Ebisu festival and lucky maidens “Fukumusume” distribute sacred sake to the temple visitors.

At the beginning of the new year the temples will chime their bells with the magic number 108 times. This is to finish the old year and welcome the new one. Each ring represents one of 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana.
Every body can ring the bell and you stand in line and pay 100 yen.

Then you pull the rope and the wooden block hits the big bell which resonates for a long time.

And the new year begins! GOOD LUCK in 2009!!!!

Mount Koya, set amid black cedars at an altitude of 1000 m., is Japan’s most venerated Shingon-Buddhist site, a major school of Japanese Buddhism and brought into Japan by the priest Kukai when he came back from China with many texts and art works in 804. He established this spiritual center  and monastic retreat in 816. There were almost a thousands temples on the mountain by the Edo period, but typhoons and fire have since reduced the number to 123.

Going up the mountain by train.

And very steep cable car.
We stayed the night in the Shojoshinin temple, one of the 53 temple lodgings.
It was such a beautiful temple. It was very cold though and then you are glad to wear slippers on the very cold wooden floors.

Delicious vegetarian prepared food in a warm room heated by a little gas stove.

Beautiful (sumie) paintings on sliding doors everywhere.

The next morning, Christmas morning, we got up at 6am to participate with a Buddhist service. They chanted all the way through their book with hitting the gong in between. This was a beautiful spiritual start on Christmas morning.

After breakfast we packed up our things and got on our way through the necropolis of over 200,000 tombs to Kukai’s mausoleum, Okuki-in. Great status is attached to burial on Koya-san.

All over you find the “Gorintos”, which are used for memorial and funerary purposes. Gorinto is the Japanese name of a type of Buddhist pagoda found in East Asia. In other countries it is called “Stupa”. The stupa was originally a structure or other sacred building containing a relic of Buddha or of a saint, then it was gradually stylized in various ways.
In all its variations, the gorint? includes five rings (although that number can often be difficult to detect by decoration), each having one of the five shapes, employing the basic geometric forms, symbolic of the Five Elements: the earth ring (cube), the water ring (sphere), the fire ring (pyramid), the air ring (crescent), and the ether ring, (or energy, or void).

The stone-paved approach to the mausoleum is flanked with statues, monuments, and tombs housing the remains of Japan’s most powerful families.

In front of Kukai’s mausoleum is the Toro-do (Lantern Hall). Day and night 11,000 lanterns burn here, including two that are said to have remained lit since the 11th century.

On the other side of the mountain is a big park filled with temples.

This is the Konpon-Daito, an impressive two-story vermillion-and-white pagoda rebuilt in 1937. The pagoda is regarded as the symbol of Koya-san.

The 2nd day started out with a demonstration of Euan Craig to make different kinds of ceramic ware for the food part of the tea ceremony: “Chakai seki dori”. They were all busy throwing or making slab plates or using plaster molds to make plates.

Then, after eating a delicious bento box lunch, we went to see the Tea Master Saito Noriko.
We’re waiting for the train to Kita-Kamakura, an one hour train ride.
We divided in two groups and I took 8 participants to the Engakuji Temple (see blog 5/14/06 or Kamakura/Temple category) and the Kamakura Old Pottery Museum, which I just had visited last week (see blog 10/17/08 or category Kamakura).

It was pouring, but that gave a special, wonderful, mystic atmosphere.

A  lantern on the Engakuji grounds.

Saito Noriko-san and her team of helpers. In the back ground the Tokonoma with a scroll “Kakemono”. I wrote earlier about the teaceremony (see blog 2/9/07 or category chanoyu tea ceremony).

When we arrived again at the International School of Sacred Heart, Kusakabe-san showed us how to make teabowls other than throwing.

Here he makes a coil tea bowl.

He makes a tea bowl by carving out a block of clay. First, he made a texture on the outside and trimmed a foot. Then you empty the block with a carving tool.

Euan drying a textured, slip colored block of clay with a torch. Debbie throws it on the floor to make it a slab from which she later made a vase.

Jennifer making a vase out of the torched slab and working on a coil pot.

Helen and Milan both working on a block chawan.

Steve Tootell, the organizer and camera man and everything else. He made everything possible. Thank you.

The first thing I did was walking on the beach, seeing lots of vacationers and going to the neighborhood temple, the Komyoji. Kishu Teien garden has a pond with beautiful lotus lilies,turtles and dragonflies.
The lotus or sacred lotus is called “Nelumbo”, which is an aquatic plant with large, showy, water lily-like flowers. This is the well-known national flower of India.

Please, click on the images for resizing.

A dragon fly on top of the lotus.

A turtle swimming around with its head peeking out.

Turtles bathing in the sun.

Lantern and water basin in a rock with a bamboo drip faucet.

Just incredible!

This is part of the moat going around the Imperial Palace.

And so many people come to look at the cherry blossoms!

The  Yasukuni Shrine:


Everybody wants to sit underneath the trees and eat or drink and come together in groups.

Plum and Azalea