Saturday, November 2
After a bit of confusion at the hotel—we wanted something light, the hotel wanted us to do the forty two dollar buffet—we found an a la carte option and piled into a taxi headed for northern Higashiyama and the Philosopher’s walk.
The cab dropped us below the imposing gate of Nanzen-Ji. In 1380, not long after the introduction of Zen Buddhism from China, this great monastery counted as the most important of the five major Zen monasteries in Japan.
The massive gate, supported by enormous timbers, offers viewing platforms of the temple grounds and the surrounding hills.
This view suggests the relationship of most of the temples to the city: they lie in the hills that ring the city.
The image hall–the center of the temple–is closed to visitors, but we were able to peer into its dim recesses. The temple precinct is huge, with a number of sub temples (although it is considerably reduced from its former size, when it had 62 sub-temples and over a thousand monks; there was a movement against the monasteries in the Meiji period).
The grounds are lovely, but the main attraction for visitors is the Abbot’s quarters, or Hojo. One section holds reproductions of a series of precious paintings, the other a series of remarkable dry gardens, one of the characteristic features of the Zen monastery. In many of the Zen temples in Kyoto, the dry gardens flow around the Hojo, affording constantly changing views or rather opportunities for zazen, or sitting meditation.
The garden pictured here is known colloquially as “Tiger Crossing a River with her Cubs.” In their scale, the perfection of their proportions, in short in the sense that they create an entire world in miniature, the dry gardens are certainly conducive to meditation.
A very short stroll brought us to Eikan-Do, a monastery of a very different sort. Where Zen emphasizes the abnegation of self as a meditative practice, Pure Land or Jodo Buddhism—the largest sect in Japan—is much more cosmological, focused on Amitābha, a celestial Buddha often referred to as Amida in English. Eikan-Do holds a precious statue of the Amida Buddha in a highly unusual pose, looking back over its shoulder as if checking if we were following.
Pure Land temples are marked by their bright banners, and Eikan-Do is one of the loveliest. I was trailing the group fiddling with my camera when a procession of monks turned the corner right in front of me. I didn’t want to shoot them head on out of respect, but I did manage to snap something as they vanished down a corridor.
The visitor’s path takes one through the main worship halls and then high up on the hillside to a pagoda with panoramic views over the city.
The gardens of Eikan-Do are pure pleasure parks, wholly unlike the Zen garden.
Eikan-Do marks the start of the Philosopher’s Path, a cherry-lined walkway along a stream that connects Eikan-Do with Ginkaku-Ji, popularly known as the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. The path is so named because it is thought to have been the site of a daily meditative walk by the philosopher and Kyoto University professor Kitaro Nishida. Nishida’s work fuses elements from Eastern and Western philosophy; he was a close friend of Suzuki’s and one of the three sites at which his ashes are buried is next to Suzuki’s grave.
Before strolling along the path, we wanted a bite, and stepped into an unusually inviting tea house on the canal. We were very lucky: it was a serene place, with a special, very private feeling. We tried a number of dishes: this was Matcha ice cream with fruits.
A 30 minute walk brought us to the end of the path and the end of Vladimir’s patience with temples! He peeled off in search of knives and other dangerous implements.
The three of us forged ahead and into the precinct of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, originally the retirement villa of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the eighth Shōgun of the Ashikaga Shogunate. On his death in 1490, the villa was turned into a Zen temple. The popular name of the temple is disputed: some accounts have Yoshimasa planning to cover the temple in silver foil in emulation of his grandfather, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-Ji, which is actually covered in gold leaf. A more likely, or at least more suggestive account has Yoshimasa giving moon viewing parties; the Japanese preference for indirection would have the guests looking at the silvery reflection of the moon in the pond that lay before the villa as they sipped their tea. Thoughts of Women in Love and “Moony!”
The pavilion itself sits in lovely gardens; this is one of the most visited of all the temples, and visitors are restricted to a path that winds through the temple precinct.
Although there are Zen elements to the gardens, with large raked and shaped areas of gravel, this is not a garden made specifically for zazen; it was built for the pleasure of the Shōgun and his guests.
The dry gardens here aren’t related to the abbot’s quarters, but are purely ornamental.
With a three temple day under our belts, we called it quits. The three remaining stalwarts jumped on a city bus and set off on a quest for gifts. The first place we landed, the Kyoto Craft Center, wasn’t great; many kinds of things on offer, but we had the sense that each thing was done better elsewhere. After a careful but frustrating perusal of the sake glass options, we headed for the shopping district, where we visited a well-known dealer in antique woodblock prints. The place was incredible: two floors chockablock with antique prints. Without a spoiler alert for certain people who may be reading this blog I can’t tell you what we got, but the prints on offer are quite beautiful and a fraction of what they cost at home.
Back at the hotel, we initiated a “tradition” that we carried through every night in Kyoto: drinks in the really gorgeous Touzan Bar. Then on to dinner at a lovely restaurant recommended by Andrew and Emily, Hafuu Honten, which specializes in steak (which comes all the way from Kyushu, the next island down).
