In most of the countries we’ve traveled to on Easter, places have been closed. Here in Japan that certainly wasn’t going to be a concern. But in keeping with a spirit of religious observance we elected to make a morning visit to the Eikan-dō Temple. An early local bus took us to the foothills of Higashiyama, Kyoto’s eastern mountain where the 1200-year-old temple (aka Zenrin-ji) rises up into the trees.
A place of learning that nurtured the Pure Land sect of Buddhism that Ella will talk about, Zenrin-ji has a two-story tahōtō pagoda that has wonderful view of the city.
A terrace down from the pagoda, Zenrin-ji temple has covered stairs and numerous halls connected by covered walkways that look out onto zen gardens.
We weren’t allowed to photograph inside the temple, but it had colorfully designed crossbeams that looked like dragon tails above elaborately sculpted flowers framing a Buddha enthroned in gold. Beneath the floral sculpture were offerings on platters in front of the altar. It was a busy arrangement of symbolic design. There were no other visitors in that part of the temple, so we sat on a bench taking it all in.
In one of the connecting halls there was a long room with a white stripe leading to a bodhisattva. Covering the wall to the left of the stripe was a silk screen painted with large blue waves curled and crashing in a turmoil of white. Along the wall on the right the silk screened colors were a swirling dark red against a smokey background. The stormy sea was meant to represent passions of lust and greed; the fiery dark red, anger and rage. The idea was to walk the white stripe between these passions towards the enlightened bodhisattva. It was an amazingly effective proposition. If there hadn’t been a low-slung rope denying me entry, I wouldn’t have been able to have stopped being drawn up the white stripe to pay the bodhisattva my respects.
