Day 15 : Koyasan
I’m up at 6 for the ceremony. Every morning the monks gather in their main temple to chat and pray. The tourists are invited to watch, pray, and to take an active role if they would like to. The ceremony starts with the monks bowing, kneeling, arranging their robes, the rining of a gong and rubbing prayers beads together. From here the rest is a mystery to me.
After the initial ceremony we are invited to view the temple - a journey around the building explained in Japanese (eek!)even into the cold belly of the building where we walk through a corridor of engraved cans that we must rub. It’s interesting in a “I like being bamboozled at 7am” kind of way.
Breakfast is back in the dining room, and I manage to get my shower question answered - there’s no hot water in the morning, bathing is only allowed at night. My stinky self genuinely cried into her breakfast at this news. See? Hormones! I don’t give a shit about how I smell normally (although I do usually shower at least once a day, wear two deodorants, use two fabric softeners on my clothes and occasionally wash my hands in bleach) but give me a situation completely out of my control and not getting my own way and I’m instantly a sullen child.
After breakfast I packed all my bits and bobs up and dragged my suitcase ten minutes down the road to Eko-In - my second temple lodging. Instantly, I am greeted by a monk in English who takes my bag and tells me to come back at midday. I head to Okunoin, the enormous cemetary where the great monk, Kobo Daishi Kukai lies in eternal meditation (I think that means he’s dead).
Okunoin is incredible. The cemetery path goes on for 2km to the main temple. The path is flanked by thousands of gravestones, memorial pagodas and huge, towering cedar trees. You cross a bridge to enter and instantly all noise is cancelled out. Everything is covered in moss, the light is green and dappled, it’s cool and dank and probably my new favourite place.
I stroll up and down the tiny paths and stairways in between pagodas and trees for hours, finally making my way to the Mausoleum and Torodo temple. The temple is filled with hundreds of lanterns. It’s truly beautiful.
After hours wandering through Okunoin I return to Eko-in to check in. I am taken to my room and tlaked through the schedule and offered a meditation session that afternoon. Sure! Let’s do this!
Before that I have four hours to kill and I am recommended a walk up through a secret path to the Women’s Pilgrimage path. Historically women were not allowed to enter Koya so they had to make do with a mountain path and a few temples on the fringes of the town. Bit harsh.
I am told by a monk that the temple at the top of the secret path, I am not allowed to enter because it is the ‘serious temple’.
He also tells me to take a bell and to watch out for bears. Sorry… What?
Up this desolate deserted path over hills and hills and hills I spend three hours walking alone, followng the paths, jingling my bell and hoping that bears here are still hibernating. (Didn’t see a single temple, only the entrance to the “serious one” that I avoided, because no one wants to piss off a monk.
The paths are all steel and twisting, the steps made by roots and logs, the down hill ones doubling as streams in places. It was bloody wonderful! Somewhere along the way however I took an odd path and ended up on a deserted road, lined with weird rusty warning signs and the odd burnt out car, quite enough of that I gave in to google maps. The path I am following is a dead end with no temple or ruins (as the sign suggested) on the map. Fuck that. I headed back in the opposite direction for another 25 minutes, past the fork that may have foiled me in the first place and to a new conundrum. The ruins I was looking for in the first place. Apparently. I couldn’t see a single brick.
I hear a bell in the distance and freeze. I’m lost, I need to make a decision. Where am I going? The mountain route that looks pretty overgrown to Daimon? That could take another hour or so, or the path to Koyasan town - is that the easy way out? The bell appears round the bend on the end of a sturdy walking stick. The middle aged man holding it says hello, and asks if I am lost. He is dressed shabbily, his shoes look like they are about to fall off his feet, but then this is a hiking path. I go with my gut and accept his help - he is returning to Koyasan, he will show me the way. We walk for a while, he is from Tokyo, he studies at the university in Koya, he offers me a handful of sweets which I put in my pocket for 'later’. In my head I’m thinking “no good story ever started with 'I met this guy while I was lost in the woods…’”. The path leads to civilisation and he stops at a run down looking house. “This is my house! Wait a minute!” He opens his door and I assume he’s gone in for something to kill me with so he can boil me and eat my skin. Because that’s how I feel about people. He comes out with a bag containing a bread roll and an enourmous apple - “this is a snack for your travels!!” We shake hands and he points me to the right road and I let go of the fist size rock I’ve been clutching in my pocket ready to defend myself with. Genuinely just a nice man showing me the way.
Strange old afternoon.
Next I head to Daimon Gate to the far west of Koyasan - known as the entrance to the city and also the largest gate in the area. There’s a great view over the mountain and as it begins tocrain I head back to my Temple for meditation and dinner.
The meditation is led by an English speaking monk, to an all English speaking room. It’s a bit of a white wash all of a sudden and I feel dubious about experiencing anything relaxing in a room of honeymooners. (Everyone appears to be on a couples spiritual jaunt… As opposed to my super meaningful self love/xenophobia trip )
The meditation is Ajikan meditation - based on the Sanscript character for A and stage one is counting meditation. Basically counting to ten and deep breaths. Which seems simple enough. However if your first hurdle is fitting your stupid legs into the cross legged position you may struggle. I went for a cushion straddle in the end, thought that counts!
The meditation was very nice, easy and obviously, relaxing, until a fit of coughing and wriggling did its round of the room breaking the lovely silence and soon ending the session.
Dinner was again a delicate mix of flavours, Eko-Ins chefs blasting the previous temples chefs out of the water. Served with a giant beer that I felt I deserved after my epic hike, I felt ready to hit the onsen. And I stank there was no choice really.
Taking every towel I could lay my hands on (onsen towels are more for washing yourself, but in line with everything in Japan being smaller, the towels barely cover my essentials) I headed into the shared shower and bath.
( See my next post on How to Onsen)
I styled it out in the shared bath and shower, despite slipping off a stool and doing and impressive crab like pose, legs akimbo with an audience.
Time for another early ish night, ready for the ceremony at 7 am the next day.
Jemima x
