A stay at Koyasan – March 27th/28th

on the cable car

Saturday 27th saw us up and ready to go at 6:30am. We drove to the city and then bussed to Osaka where we took a train then finally a cable car up to the top of Mount Koya in Wakayama. Mt. Koya is a 900 meter high plateau surrounded by eight peaks. The eight peaks are thought to represent the eight petals of a lotus in bloom.. In the year 804 Kobo Daishi (Kukai) crossed the sea to China in search of Buddhist teachings. He returned to Japan in 806 and began teaching the ideas of Shingon Buddhism. In 816 he got permission from the Imperial Court to build a monastic complex deep in the mountains at Mt. Koya. He entered into eternal meditation in 835. His mausoleum attracts countless numbers of pilgrims each year. He is believed to be still alive at Okunoin (cemetery) tirelessly striving to give aid to all beings. Two meals (breakfast and lunch) are offered to him daily.

After getting off the cable car we took a quick bus ride into the town. I was surprised at how un-remote it felt considering we were on top of a mountain. From our bus stop it was only a few minutes walk to the temple we were going to stay in for the night - Ekoin Temple; a working temple of esoteric Buddhist monks where we could stay and experience some of the everyday things that monks did. We checked in and were led to our rooms, which were massive, and mine and Todd’s room conveniently joined with Holly and Julie’s room so we quickly took advantage of the complimentary tea and relaxed in our room together. At this time we also read about the wish sticks in our room – little wooden sticks that we could pay 300 yen to write our name and a wish on, and the monks would burn them in the fire ceremony the next morning.

Outside our temple

The temple garden

Our room connected with Holly and Julie's

A nice cup of tea!

The two upstairs windows are our room.

View from our window of the temple grounds

After tea we joined up with the rest of the group and walked to Kongobuji Temple. The name was originally intended to refer to all of Mt. Koya and its many sub temples. Construction on the main hall was begun by Kobo Daishi. It functions as one of the main centers of religious activities at Mt. Koya. During the look around the temple, we were given free tea and enjoyed it in the Shinbetsuden – the large room constructed in 1984 to accommodate visitors gathering for the 1150th anniversary of Kobo Daishi’s entrance into eternal meditation. Then we saw the Banryutei rock garden. This is the largest rock garden in Japan and is supposed to represent a pair of dragons emerging from a sea of clouds to protect the Okuden. The dragons are made of 140 pieces of granite brought from Shikoku (the island where I live) and the white sand is from Kyoto. Rock gardens don’t really do much for me, making them my least favourite type of Japanese garden, but it was still cool to see this one seeing as it is the largest rock garden in Japan. After we left this temple we walked to Konpon Daito – the Great Stupa. Inside this building were huge statues demonstating the non dual nature of the Shingon teachings. This was complete in 1937. The principle deity is Taizokai Dainichi Nyorai and images of the four Kongokai Buddhas are enshrined here (no photos were allowed, sorry!).

Going into Kongobuji

Tea in the big hall

The largest rock garden in Japan

Konpon Daito

Posing as Koyakun - Koyasan's mascot

Ready to start our meditation session

Enjoying the comfy cushions

 After that we walked back to our temple and went to the meditation room ready to get a lesson on meditation at 4:30pm. This was an interesting experience and definitely more difficult than I anticipated. First off we all sat down on a little pouf pillow that were laid out around the hall. Then a monk who spoke brilliant English (we found out later that he has studied in Manchester for a while) came to take us through the process of meditation. Our first instruction was to get off the pillow! Then we had to cross our legs and place our right foot up onto our left leg. Here’s where the pillow came in as then we had to position the cushion underneath us so that it allowed both our knees to touch the ground evenly (I don’t think I quite had this part down which probably aided in me feeling pretty sore afterwards!) then we placed our right hand on our left palms up with the tips of our thumbs touching (another point I missed! Whoops!) We were told to push out our hips (making our stomach push out) and then relax everything else from the waist up, which was definitely easier than it sounded. The final part of the physical preparation was how to position our eyes – not fully open, but not fully closed –in a half open state, which I found incredibly difficult at times but I definitely got used to it as we went through. Then the breathing instructions: three deep breaths to start with, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Once we had done these calming breaths we then breathed in and out through the nose counting to 10 (in and out = 1) once we had done 10 we then started again. And that was how it was supposed to go. Finally we were given advice on how to clear our minds. We were told to think about our problems as a leaf or a stone (maybe you feel hungry), so imagine that hunger as a leaf. If you place the leaf right in front of your eyes then you are only going to focus on that, but zoom out to see a forest. You can’t even see your hunger leaf any more as it is so small in insignificant compared to the many leaves and trees surrounding it. That was what you had to do with all your thoughts. I tried this technique, and although it helped a bit and made me ignore one idea, the place of that thought was quickly replaced by another. If meditating taught me one thing, it’s that I am very good at thinking of multiple things at one time whilst still counting to 10!! After meditating for 20 minutes we then headed back to our room to get ready for our 5:30pm vegetarian dinner!

Delicious dinner!

Instead of having dinner brought to our rooms (which is the standard for most people staying at the temple) we opted to eat our dinner all together. Now at first I was a little disappointed by this, and unfortunately I had a little moan about how it would have been nice to enjoy the experience of eating in our rooms, however I quickly shut up when we were guided to our own personal heated tatami room with our trays laid out in two rows placed across from each other. I was embarrassed by how I thought we would be shoved into a horrible canteen like room to eat our food, how wrong I was! We were left to our own devices and as Julie poured the tea, and we helped ourselves to the rice. We then sat down at our places and were pleasantly surprised by a gift given to us by our temple – chopsticks with our temples name engraved onto one, and something about long health and happiness on the other. It was such a nice gift and completely unexpected which made it even more special. After a chorus of ‘itadakimasu’ (wrongly roughly translated into ‘lets enjoy eating’) we quickly tucked into our food. Before dinner we were all a little worried on how we would get on with the food, above all, whether we would be full or not afterwards (we had heard from other friends who had had a similar experience in the past that they had to go out for more food afterwards!) but we needn’t have worried as we were absolutely stuffed after we had finished. Everything was absolutely delicious and I think we were all incredibly happy with what we had just consumed. After dinner we decided to go and get a few drinks (and an ice cream for me) before our next scheduled activity – a night-time guided tour of the local cemetery- Okunoin.

Ready to eat

Missed Julie in this, but here's us at dinner with rice and tea in the middle to serve

 Okunoin is a huge graveyard holding more than 200,000 graves - from military commanders to the common folk. The nice part about this graveyard is you can be buried here whatever your religion, race, or beliefs as long as you believed in Kukai and all he represented. We were guided around the graveyard by the monk who took us through meditation earlier in the day. He was very informative and it was great to listen to him tell of myths and stories about the place. The walk took us along a 2km path winding through the graveyard in between cedar trees hundreds, nearly thousands of years old. These things were huge and very humbling. I couldn’t get my head around the idea how old these trees were, what they have seen and what they have outdated. Not only towering about us, they also have a majestic feel in the way that they grow – their bark twists up and around the tree. There are three bridges you cross during your walk through the graveyard. After the third bridge we were no longer allowed to take photos and had to take any hats off our heads as we were entering very sacred ground. Although we had already cleansed ourselves before we entered the place (washing hands and rinsing our mouth) we had to re-purify ourselves before entering the final part of the graveyard. The monk told us that other monks cleanse themselves by meditating in the river in the middle of winter where temperatures drop to negative degrees, but he allowed us to splash water on the statues in front of the connecting bridge and imagine that the water we were throwing on the statues was actually cleaning us. So once across the bridge we headed towards Okunoin Gobyo – upon his death, Kukai’s disciples erected a mausoleum here where nearby flows the clear water of the Tama River. It is said that one day Kobo Daishi went into this room and shut the door to meditate, and was only opened once for someone to cut his hair and beard. Since that time, it hasn’t been open, he still sits there meditating to this day. We prayed/made a wish to him whilst our monk spoke a mantra/sutra. It was another very humbling experience. We then had great fun walking back through the graveyard, after the tour had finished, trying to scare each other (I may have screamed once thanks to Jansen!)
These photos are from our visit the next day, but I thought I'd slot them in here anyway...

Cleansing ourselves before we went in

This photo reminds me of Ghibli films

Moons on the lanterns represent the shape of the brain

So I can’t remember the order of when our guide said these things but here are some of the main stories/ideas/myths that our guide told us during our tour.

1. Lotus flower. I absolutely loved this analogy. The lotus flower is incredibly beautiful, but it grows in disgusting conditions in bogs, marshes and muddy ground. We should aim to create the way of the lotus flower – sometimes in our lives we will be put into unpleasant situations but if we stay strong we can come out from it just as whole and clean as before, we don’t have to let our environment bring us down and make us worse.

2. Gravestones – Many of the gravestones in the cemetery are shaped the same using 5 stones. These stones represent the 5 elements, water, fire, earth, wind and sky. There is also a sixth element which everything in this world possesses - consciousness, which I embarrassingly misheard to be cautiousness. Everyone loves a cautious flower!!

5 stone elements

3. Sweaty Buddha - There is a shrine in the graveyard which holds what is known as the Sweaty Buddha. When you are sick, your temperature usually raises. People come to this Buddha to pray to him to help take their sickness away. He will start sweating for you and you will start to feel better! Nice!

4. Death Well - Next to the Sweaty Buddha is the Death Well. The story around this well is that if you look into it and can’t see your reflection in the water then you will die within three years.

5. Death Stairs – there are some stairs in the graveyard and rumour has it that if you fall up or down any of these stairs then you will die within the next three years. Watch your step!

6. Sin Stone – this stone is as heavy as your sins. You have to use one hand to pick up the stone. If you have few or no sins then the stone will be easy to pick up, the more the sins, the heavier the stone…

7. Spirit guides – there are many statues in Japan that sit on the side of the road call Jizo. They usually have red bibs around them. The popular belief is that these statues are there for women who have lost children or babies, and for the babies to follow them to the afterlife. However, there are not there simply for this, but are there to guide all spirits to the spirit world. That is why there are so many of these statues on the side of the road – after a car accident these are placed to help the spirit of the person in the accident to the spirit world.

8. Water babies – This was one of the saddest stories in the graveyard. There are little stick shrines sticking out of the water underneath the third bridge in the graveyard. These represent the children that were aborted and never born. They are known as water babies as they were in their mother’s womb but disappeared like water. That is why their markers are in the water. I haven’t explained this very well but it was very sad to see these upright in the river.

9. Grave for foes and friends – there is an area in the graveyard that is dedicated to both Japanese and Korean soldiers. You can pray for these soldiers side-by-side. Even though the Korean soldiers were the enemy, they were still individual persons and just because the fought against the Japanese doesn’t mean they were bad people. That is why they are honoured beside the Japanese soldiers in this grave site. Which leads me onto the next point;

10. Good and bad Buddha soul in everyone – this is what it sounds like. Each person has a good and bad Buddha spirit in all of them. Just because they are bad, doesn’t mean they have no good in them. Everyone has good and bad in them but just because they have the bad in them, doesn’t mean they are not good. This is a main teaching in the esoteric Buddhism beliefs and is why they can have graves that cater for enemies as well as friends. This is one of my favourite aspects of the Buddhist belief.

11. Make Up Buddha – there is a small statue about half way down the path that it covered in makeup. The theory here is that if you pray to this statue, you can pray for them to make you prettier (cue cheesy line from Todd that I don’t have to pray to this statue then! – yup, he went there, and I loved it!)

So these were just a few of the many things we were told on our tour. We all lamented on how we wished we could have a recording device or a notebook to write down everything that the monk said as it was so interesting, encouraging, and informative and I’m sure there’s many more facts that I really enjoyed hearing about that I simply forgot due to my terrible memory and general tiredness at the time!

Our comfy beds for the evening!

We then headed back to the temple (pretty tired by this point as it had been an early start and a long day with lots of walking) and whilst the others went to take advantage of the public bath (no thank you) I crawled under the kotatsu (headed table) for a quick warm up then slithered under the covers of my futon and stayed there until Todd came back and turned off the light, at which point I fell asleep very quickly!


The next morning the alarm was set for 6 o’clock to get us up and ready for a chance to watch the morning prayers. Here we sat in the main temple hall and watched as the monks chanted their mantras and sutras (not sure if they did either or one or the other but it sounded good!) we also got a chance to go to the front, pick up some incense and add it to the burning pile whilst making a prayer. After this 30 minute ceremony we all gave thanks to the Buddha (individually going up and bowing to the statue) before heading for the second event of the morning – the fire ritual. Here we watched at a monk create a fire and added various herbs and liquids to it whilst another chanted whilst playing a taiko drum. It was all very atmospheric and amazing to see how they can control the fire to die down to practically nothing before bringing the flames back again. At one point the whole room became shrouded in smoke then, a few minutes later, there was hardly any at all. At this point we got to watch our wishes that we had written the night before get placed onto the fire to hopefully get granted. Again once this ritual was finished we all bowed and gave thanks to Buddha and left the small temple for our 7:30am breakfast!

Prayer Hall

The path up

Outside ready for morning prayers

Making a prayer whilst adding incense

Fire ritual

Adding our wishes to the fire

So much smoke!

Yummy breakfast!

Breakfast was just as delicious (and filling) as dinner and we were happy to see that we had been given the same room as the evening before. We took our time and enjoyed our breakfast before heading back to our rooms to tidy and pack up before checking out ready for our morning on the mountain. The morning’s activity was simple – we were going to go back to the graveyard to see it in its full glory in the daytime. Making sure we tried out the small myths to see what we could do. After making sure we didn’t fall up or down the stairs we first came back to the sweaty Buddha and the death well. Even though I knew it was a myth, I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous as I peered over the edge to spot my reflection in the well’s water and I’ll admit I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw my ugly mug staring back at me! I was with Dani, Sergio and Todd at the time and we were all happy to report that we all saw our reflections hopefully meaning we won’t die within the next three years! After speaking to everyone else afterwards I am happy to say that everyone will survive a bit longer yet!

Taking a photo as proof!

I'm definitely there!

We stepped off the path to see the biggest of the gravestones there. This thing was huge! Definitely very impressive and the 5 different stones were very clear.

Rocket gravestone

Back on the path it was interesting to see some of the more modern grave stones, including that of the founder of Panasonic, and a gravestone shaped like a rocket. We then made it to the sin stone and, under the watchful eye of a couple of old Japanese folks, we each attempted to lift the stone. It was incredibly hard as the stone was placed inside a wooden ‘crate’ with a hole wide enough for your arm to fit through – not the best lifting conditions in the first place. And I have to say, I was a little worried I was going to snap my elbow back the wrong way because of the angle! However, I tried and was proud of the fact that I could at least move the stone, Todd could get his hand under it, and Sergio moved it around its hole, then Dani steps up to the mark and practically threw the thing across it’s box! Turns out, Dani has the least sins among us (well, at least according to Buddha!). Being across the third bridge we then headed to check out what wasn’t open the night before – the Torodo – the lantern temple. Countless of lanterns have been bought and donated over the years with names, ages and origins of people who have died. Some of these are stored in a huge hall and this was the one that we ventured into. It was crazy wondering through the many lanterns housed there and a little overwhelming. If you are a Harry Potter fan like me, you couldn’t help but compare it to walking through the Department of Mysteries prophecy room in the Ministry of Magic in the 5th book/film. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in this room so here is a snap shot from the movie to emphasise how I felt in this room!!

Instead of blue balls imagine orange glowing lanterns.

After this we started making our way back to the temple ready to start the long journey home (with a quick stop off for a Mexican lunch!). It was an absolutely fantastic trip and I had a great time surrounded by all the wonderful culture. I have to thank Sergio especially as this whole trip was his idea and he did all the research around it. If it hadn’t have been for him I wouldn’t have known about Koyasan, nor would I have thought about staying in a temple. So yeah, thanks Sergio!