Koyasan—August 13, 2005

****note the date this was posted is inaccurate in reference to the event****
Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:45 to catch a 6:50 train headed towards Koyasan, located northeast of me. Japan has many many festivals (matsuri), but this time of year is the peak. And this month is Obon, the exact meaning of which I am not exactly sure of, but is a time when festivals that honor deceased ancestors are held. Koyasan, a town in Wakayama-ken, is the center of Shingon Buddhism (the main sect of buddhism found in Japan) and has one of the most well-known matsuri for Obon, the Candle Festival.

I boarded my local train at Gobo station and about a half-hour later, my friend Sean boarded as well in Minoshima. Not long after that another Wakayama JET named Kate hopped on and after making a few transfers, in Wakayama city and another town, Sarah joined us as well. The meticulously prompt trains in Japan make this sort of meeting-up possible. Koyasan is located in a mountain basin about 1,000 meters above sea level, so the last leg of our three hour journey was a cable car ride up the side of one of the mountains. Quite a sight to see despite the packed car, it would be nice to make the hike up the mountain on day. All of the mountains surrounding this pocket of peace and calm are thick with trees, so much so that from far away it looks like moss. And the way that the fog settles around the mountains, blanketing the valleys is, to be cliche, something you would find on a postcard. Speaking of which, very few postcards in Japan. Anyways...

Koyasan as I said is the center of Shingon Buddhism, founded by Kukai, now known posthumously as Kobodaiishi. It is the center of Japanese Buddhism and is essentially one large seminary, made up of 117 temples, 53 of which are residences or provide temporary lodging. We were lucky enough, on this very busy holiday weekend to stay at one of the temples for the night. A small and calm town, you can walk from one end of the other, stopping at temples along the way, some which now double as museums of sorts, others which are so unassuming, you might just pass them by. By far, the most stunning structure in Koyasan, because of its bright orange color and its tremendous size, is the Grand Stupa, or the Konpondaito Pagoda. It is massive, standing nearly 50 meters tall and jumps out at you as you walk along the sacred space. A tour of the main temples in Koyasan culminated with tea. What a treat, my kind of a place. And speaking of tea, although I knew that tea was so commonplace in Japan, I don’t think I realized the extent of its presence. I drink tea everywhere.

The candle ceremony began at 7pm, the time that it begins to get dark here. Hundreds of people entering the cemetery proved to be a smooth process. I was given three candles at the start, and already as I stepped onto the stone pathway surrounded by hundreds of tombstones shaped as deities of many sizes, fire already paved my way. People in front of me and in back, young and old, gaijin and Nihon-jin, some in Yukata, kneeled down occasionally to place their candles along the edges of the path, some stopping to pray as well, others quickly proceeding forward. And to tell the truth, it was not as sad of an event as I thought that a festival honoring the deceased would be. To be generic, it was more festive. We talked along the way, took pictures, found a huge toad, gawked at it for a while before moving on, leapt over the fire at times to get a different angle and possibly a better grasp of the massive procession that we were a part of. At one point I began talking to some Japanese boys, and tried to teach them the West Side hand signal (dumb really, but when spoken language provides little ability to communicate, hand signals are golden in making connections and having a laugh with people). Girl scouts passed out more candles. Not too sure where we were headed, how much further we would be walking, occasionally losing the group and then regrouping, we pressed on. Finally after two hours, we reached the point that cameras could not pass (unlensed that is). We had reached the bridge leading to the Okunion, the central sanctuary of Daishi faith. We had reached the end of the journey, or rather the culmination...

The next morning, waking up at 5:30, one of the monks and the director of the temple where we stayed, a man named Curt, explained to us some of the history of Buddhism and Koyasans place in that history. Curt, a man of not more than forty and probably in his late thirties, is very kind, one of those people that exudes intelligence and calm, a bit intimidating at first, but too friendly to allow the feeling to persist. He spoke with a German accent (I believe he is from Switzerland) and at first spoke to us in French when we arrived, thinking that we were part of a French group of tourists that came in. When we spoke English, he spoke it back, periodically stopping to tell someone else something in Japanese. Later I heard him speaking on the phone in Italian. He was quite a man, someone I would have liked to sit down and talk to, but there was little time for that. Busy weekend. Maybe I will be back and will look him up. Either way, he took the time before morning prayers and meditation to give us a briefing of what would happen. There were a few women studying to be monks at this temple, one who was not Japanese. I liked that. It felt very healthy and hearty to be there, if that makes sense, with communal bathing and vegetarian eating, comfortable bedding, tea and a wonderful garden. I left refreshed. The long journey, the three trains, was well worth the short visit, and I am thinking about heading back in the winter.