Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple and More – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

I continued my sightseeing in Kyoto this morning with a visit to Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple and some other sights. I know I said in the introduction to yesterday afternoon’s post that I was templed out, but after some sleep, I was ready for more. That’s a good thing because this morning I visited another temple and a shrine in addition to Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple, with a walk along a highly recommended path in between them. It was all great, but it was not as splendid as it could have been.

You know what they say. Into every life a little rain must fall. Why the heck do they say that? They jinxed it.

And who the heck made up that rule? I know we need rain to water farmers’ crops and other vegetation. But why does it have to rain on people? I say, keep the rain away from populated areas except when people are sleeping indoors.

True, some people keep odd hours. And other people are forced to sleep rough due to their circumstances. Okay, that can’t be helped. (And the people who willingly choose to sleep outdoors are just asking for it. Sorry. It can rain on them, for all I care.)

Fine. Change the rule to: in some people’s lives, a little rain must fall.

Or if that is still too difficult to accommodate due to the number of people who would have to be considered, then change it to: Into every life except Joel’s, a little rain must fall. What good is a god if it’s not willing and able to fulfill that small request?

Whatever. The point is, it rained this morning, and the forecast is for rain the whole day. Nevertheless, I persisted with my touring of Kyoto.

WARNING: This is a very long post. Please stick with me. If you plow through to the end and you aren’t completely satisfied, management will be pleased to offer you a refund, no questions asked. That is, assuming you can find management. They usually hide in the nearest broom closet when they see anyone coming. They are slobs who don’t see any need for brooms. So, the closets always have room to provide refuge from angry customers.

Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple

I’ve seen the English version of the name of this temple written a few different ways: Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple, Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji Temple, Eikan-do Temple, and Eikan-dō Temple. For simplicity of typing, I’m going to go with Eikan-do Temple from here on in.

Eikan-do Temple is an amazing place. I know I’ve used similar superlatives about other places in Kyoto, and there’s probably more to come. But that’s only because Kyoto has many amazing places.

After paying the admission fee, I walked to the temple complex past a charming pond surrounded by trees and other vegetation. One of the trees had turned a vibrant red as it’s now the start of autumn here, on this ninth day of November.

Before stepping off the stone floor in front of the temple, you must remove your shoes. You can’t step on the wooden floor of the temple with shoes on.

At the entrance, they handed me two identical disposable plastic bags. They were the size and style that you get at a low-end convenience store to hold your purchases.

One was for my shoes. The other was for my umbrella. I was handed identically sized bags because I had a collapsible umbrella. People with non-telescoping umbrellas got long, slender plastic bags for those.

There are receptacles to dispose of the bags when you leave. They don’t appear to recycle the bags. When I was there, they handed everyone fresh, crisp bags. The Eikan-do Temple must hate rainy days. Their bag costs are almost double on those days. (Most people, but not everyone, had umbrellas.)

Well, that was a long, boring discussion, wasn’t it? I haven’t told you much about the temple yet, have I? Sorry about that.

I said “temple complex” above because it consists of multiple temple buildings. They varied in size, but all were of a typical Japanese temple design: wooden construction with peaked roofs that are decorated in front.

Here’s the special part. The temple is built on the side of a mountain. The various buildings are at different levels. They are all connected by outdoor walkways and stairways with generously proportioned roofs that successfully kept the rain off the wood walkway floors. I doubt they’d have succeeded if it had been windy. That’s something to keep in mind if you visit Eikan-do. Remember, you have to walk around without your shoes on. If the floors are wet, your socks will be wet.

The rule, as at many temples in Japan, is that you can’t take pictures of the interiors of the rooms, whether standing in the room or looking in through an open door, but you can take pictures of the buildings from outside and of the grounds.

And most of the rooms forbade entry by the rabble.

That’s okay, for the most part, the rooms that I could see in were sparse, sometimes with muted murals. The doors to some rooms were shut. I thought I heard what was probably a service happening in one room and discussion groups in others.

There was, however, one open room where the general public was allowed inside, even me. From what I remember of it, it was beautiful.

From what I remember, the room contained one or two large Japanese lanterns, hung from the ceiling. However, that might be a false memory. They might have been something similarly shaped that morphed into larger lanterns in my feeble mind. Perhaps they were small giraffes in cages. But probably not. I’d remember that.

This room also had some Buddha sculptures. One of them had lifelike eyeballs. I found that somewhat unnerving.

On the upper level of the temple buildings, there was an area where visitors could walk out into the grounds after putting their shoes on the stone floor beyond the wooden floor. There were some stone stairs leading farther up the mountain from there. My walking tour app advised walking up those steps for a beautiful vista point. I’ll take the app’s word for it.

It was still raining. There were large puddles at the base of the stairs that would have been difficult to avoid. And the steps were wet and possibly slippery. Oh, well. How much beauty can an old kvetch like me stand anyway?

On the lower level, there are at least two meditation areas on the outer edge of the walkway that hugs the exterior of the building. Having said this, people generally didn’t use the areas for meditation. Most walked by the meditation areas, chatting as they went. And even those who did sit chatted rather than sitting in quiet reflection or meditation.

The overhang of the roof over the meditation areas was generous enough to keep people sitting there dry despite the rain.

One of the meditation areas looked out on a lush garden with an, I don’t know what you’d call it, in the middle of the garden.

I don’t think it’s a Zen rock garden, but it’s probably intended for the same purpose. It consisted of two concentric ovals of fine-grained stone. The inner oval is raised a bit from the outer oval, with a precise slope between the two.

Patterns were shaped and raked onto the surface of the inner oval. And concentric oval lines were raked around the circumference of the outer oval exposed beyond the inner one.

Hanging from the corner of the roof in this area was a chain of black shapes that extended down to the ground. The rainwater on the roof was directed to the chain and ran down it in a pleasing way.

I took a video of the scene. Unfortunately, there were a lot of chatterers around, so their voices distract from the pitter-patter of the raindrops. Nevertheless, I posted the video here. (I hope I’m not breaking any union rules by not crediting the guy whose feet and hands made it into the video.)

The other meditation looked out onto a garden with a small fishless (as far as I could see) pond. I also sat and reflected on this scene for a while.

Those were just two delightful areas. But there were more visible from both the building walkways on all levels and on the walks through the grounds.

There’s a somewhat larger pond in a forested section visible from the walkway around one of the lower-level buildings. It had an albino fish leisurely swimming in it.

The path from the entrance took me past an enchanting forest with a moss floor. The path to the exit took me across a bridge over one end of the larger pond I mentioned near the start of this section. The pond had several fish of different colours in it. I didn’t notice them before because most of them congregated by the bridge. I imagine they were hoping for food to fall magically from the sky there.

More pictures of Eikan-do Temple grounds:

Philosopher’s Path

Philosopher’s Path is charming. It runs immediately beside a narrow canal. Lots of trees on the other side of the channel overhang the canal.

As I walked along Philosopher’s Path, all of the riddles of the universe unfolded before my eyes. That’s not easy for riddles. They like to stay folded. The problem is, once unfolded, it’s almost impossible for mortals to refold them. They’re like old-style paper roadmaps in that way.

The riddles only unfolded. They didn’t provide the answers, so the riddle-unfolding didn’t provide me with the enlightenment I was hoping for from Philosopher’s Path. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly charming, peaceful walk, even in the rain. Or maybe because of the rain.

By the way, notice the placement of the apostrophe in “Philosopher’s Path.” That’s the official name, not “Philosophers’ Path.” It must be for only one philosopher, which might explain the design.

Where I entered Philosopher’s Path, it consists of a single line of paving stones wide enough for only one person to walk along. It’s not a one-way path. If someone is coming the other way, one of you has to find a patch beside the path without a puddle to step off on. That’s probably not a huge issue on dry days. Today was not a dry day.

The path was not crowded, but it wasn’t empty either. Sometimes the other person stepped off the path. Sometimes it was me.

There is a wider path that runs parallel to Philosopher’s Path, farther away from the canal. For most of the way, there’s vegetation between that path and Philosopher’s Path, so there are limited opportunities to switch between the two paths.

There are some points where Philosopher’s Path stops for a short while. Then, you have to walk on the wider path for a few steps until Philosopher’s Path reemerges.

I didn’t walk the full length of Philosopher’s Path. I veered off it at one point to visit some sights. However, I did walk the equivalent of quite a few blocks. About halfway along the part of it that I walked on, Philosopher’s Path turned into two parallel lines of paving stones, thus eliminating the passing problem.

A weird thing happened on Philosopher’s Path. Shortly before I reached the point where I veered off to see some sights, a Japanese man who spoke quite good, if accented, English, approached me. There were two women with him, but they stayed on the wider path a few steps back.

I’m terrible at estimating Caucasian ages. I’m probably much worse at guessing Asian ages. But I’m quite certain that they were past middle age.

He had the most crooked teeth I’ve ever seen. I had a hard time not staring at them while he spoke.

He asked me where I was from. I told him, “Canada.’

“Oh,” he replied. “Canada. Montreal. Toronto.”

I stopped him at “Toronto” and told him that’s where I lived.

Then he asked me where else I’ve been in Japan and where I was going next. I told him.

I should say at this point that I’m not a trusting person. That comes with my neuroses. The thoughts going through my head were ones like, “Is this a distraction crime? Are those two women going to pickpocket me while the man distracts me? Or is he about to tell me a heart-wrenching story and then hit me up for money”?

Despite these thoughts going through my head, I’m Canadian and culturally conditioned to be polite, so I answered him.

He then told me there are lots of temples and shrines in Kyoto.

“Yes, I know,” I replied, “I’ve already been to some and I’ll be going to more.”

“But do you know the difference between a temple and a shrine?”

“No.”

He then told me the difference between the Shinto and Buddhist religions. I didn’t quite understand him, but I think he was saying that one has shrines and the other has temples. I wasn’t clear on which one had which, but I didn’t want to ask him because paranoid thoughts were still wafting through my head. I just wanted to move on.

The above probably sounds like the weird part. It’s not. Here comes the weird part.

He then told me that when they meet tourists like me, they like to pray for them to have an enjoyable journey, for them to have health and prosperity, and for world peace.

Nodding to one of the women, he then said that she would like to pray for me, too. She came forward.

He then asked me to put my hands together and close my eyes for one minute while they prayed. Um. Close my eyes and put my hands together in a praying position, away from my pockets. My paranoid thoughts intensified. My Canadian politeness compelled me to do it, but it didn’t stop or quieten my then raging paranoia.

After about a minute, he asked me to bow slightly, while they prayed some more. I did. And they prayed.

When they finished, he thanked me and we parted ways. And that was that.

I know I sometimes make up weird stories in this journal and then tell you, ha ha, I was just kidding. I’m not going to tell you that this time because, yeah, that really did happen to me on Philosopher’s Path.

So, that was weird. However, at least I’m now assured that the rest of my trip will be good, and I’ll be healthy and prosperous. And I’m particularly looking forward to that world peace thing.

Otoyo Shrine

From an unexpected weird experience to an expected weird little shrine.

After I left my prayers and the Philosopher’s Path behind, it was just a short walk to Otoyo Shrine.

It’s tiny and it has two or three equally tiny neighbours all in a row. But there’s no mistaking Otoyo Shrine.

Many shrines have animal statues out front to act as guardians. They might be lions, fierce-looking dogs, a hybrid of two species, or some other real or mythical beast.

Otoyo Shrine also has animal protectors out front, one on each side of the little shrine. They’re not fierce. They’re mice.

One is holding a scroll, symbolizing academic prowess.

The other is holding what my walking tour app tells me is a sake bottle. It looked like a ball to me. The app tells me that it’s “believed to bestow luck, fertility, and long life upon worshippers.”

I’ll gladly accept the luck and longevity, but I’ll pass on the fertility, thank you very much. I’m too old.

So, that too was weird, but an expected weirdness.

Anraku-ji Temple

From the weird back to the sublime, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Fortunately, Anraku-ji Temple is small because this post may already be a record length for this journal. A big temple would have required that I spend more time describing it, making this unbearably long, if that ship hasn’t already sailed.

The entrance gate building is of a relatively plain, dark wood construction. However, the roof distinguishes it. It is thatched, with moss growing on it.

The moss was rather patchy on the side facing the outside. But when I left, I was treated to a display of bright green moss that fully covered the roof on that side.

One of the rooms of the temple was open. I went inside. It was beautifully furnished with Buddhist items. There were no signs prohibiting photos, unlike in most shrines In Japan. Still, I was hesitant. But there was a man dressed in what I took for a monk’s or other religious person’s outfit.

He was sitting at a desk, inscribing something on a fancy piece of paper. When he stopped inscribing, I pulled out my iPhone, pointed to it and asked in English, slowly, so that if he spoke any English, he could make out the words, if I could take pictures. Without hesitation, he responded, “Yes, please.” So I took some pictures.

There was another room that I couldn’t go in, but I could look into. It was much more subtly decorated. It didn’t have any “no photography signs, and someone else took a picture, so I did too.

There is a meditation area facing out into the temple’s gardens. It too is gorgeous. Anraku-ji Temple is not as popular as Eikan-do, so after some quiet reflection on the scenery, I took another video with the sounds of rain and birds chirping. I hope you enjoy it.

The grounds of Anraku-ji Temple are equally gorgeous, with trees, a lot of other lush vegetation, and a pond. There’s also a small grotto hidden away with a statue in it. And, while it’s not an official part of the temple, I came across a small creature crawling in a puddle. It looked like a tiny crab, but without a shell. Apple Photos was not able to tell me what it was. I included a picture here. If you know what it is, please let me know.

Well, I think that’s more than enough for this morning, don’t you?

More pictures of the grounds at Anraku-ji Temple: