After taking our train trip to Nirvana, we returned to Fukuoka to search out the Tocho-ji Temple. It sits, like the Little Temple That Could, squat among modern high rises in the middle of the city.
Founded in 806 AD by the Buddhist monk Kukai, the temple is over 1200 years old.
Enshrined near the temple is a carving of a daibatsu, or wooden statue, of a Buddha 36 feet high weighing 30 tons.
Behind the Buddha is a dark passage that is meant to remind people of Jigoku, “a place of torment where beings are meant to suffer for their negative actions.” The idea of Jigoku comes from the Shingon school of Buddhism practiced by Kukai. Along the wall of the curved passage were panels divided into hellscapes.
At the end of the Jigoku paintings we entered a narrow, twisting, pitch black passage. Or at least we thought we did. The space was so tight and dark we couldn’t tell if it led anywhere. Luckily we could hear people ahead of us and it sounded like they were moving. Did I mention how claustrophobic Ella gets in confined, lightless places? The point of Jigoku was made. Soon we heard voices ahead of us laughing with nervous relief. We staggered into the light at the foot of the daibatsu.
Ella seized the prayer rope and rang the bell. Our temple trek for the day was done.
Sounds a little like the Christian idea of purgatory, being that it is temporary, unlike hell. Although my image of purgatory is not hell-like but mostly boring. I might add that when we complete this Camino we’ll get an indulgence so we’ll be in and out of purgatory lickity-split.
A way to work off negative karma and can be quite painful. A motivation for building good karma. That short walk in the pitch black maze we did at the end of, the visit shocked me and I’m still wondering about the significance.
Is walking the Camino considered to be a penance?
I think in medieval times it was a penance. The indulgence gets you time off of your purgatory stay. It never seemed that useful me since indulgences, as I understand it, don’t affect the big up or down decision, they only help you if you are going to heaven (eventually). When I was a young boy growing up Catholic they gave us little books which had prayers and how much time saying them you got off your purgatory sentence. I remember the shortest one was “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph pray for us” was something like three days. Being the nerdy kid I was I went through the book to find the most efficient one.