Tag: Buddhism

Temple on a Mountainside, Kyoto

Located in the foothills around Mt. Otowa to the east of Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera Temple overlooks modern Kyoto. The temple was established in 788 CE during Japan’s Nara period, and affiliated with the venerable Hosso sect of Japanese Buddhism. Today, the monks caring for Kiyomizu-dera belong to the Kita-Hosso sect. Taken from the balcony of one of the smaller halls, this image shows the temple’s Main Hall and the pagoda in the entrance area on the far right with the city of Kyoto in the distance.

The West Gate is in the foreground with the temple’s pagoda directly in back. I am facing due east at 9:00am on an overcast morning. Why I have no photo of the larger, more impressive main gate to Kiyomizu-dera just to the left of where I am standing to take this photo is absolutely beyond me. I do, however, have a photo showing part of the main gate taken from inside the entrance with Kyoto in the distance. To the west, some blue sky has broken through the clouds.

For awhile it appeared that the day would become bright and sunny as the photos of the pagoda above and, below, of the West Gate from inside the entrance to Kiyomizu-dera suggest.

Kiyomizu-dera’s Main Hall sits on a steep incline and is supported by a wooden trellis that sets the building’s platform some 13 meters above the base of the incline below. My photo of the Main Hall does not really do justice to the building itself because I am distracted by the size of the crowd on the platform. It is no surprise that crowds of people want to visit a site like Kiyomizu-dera with its magnificent examples of Japanese temple architecture in a beautiful setting offering breathtaking views of its surroundings. I am taking the photo below at 9:45 in the morning on any old Tuesday in October. The crowd is bound to be larger by midday, and one can only imagine what happens on weekends or holidays. It is no wonder that some locales are instituting reservation systems that allow access at a specific time on a given day for popular sites with high volumes of visitors. If they are not in Japan already I would not be at all surprised to see such reservations systems arriving soon in Kyoto and elsewhere in the country. With literally billions of people able to afford relatively low-cost flights and budget tours, the problem of unsustainable over-tourism is not likely to get better in the foreseeable future.

A short way up the hillside from the main temple area, this small pagoda overlooks the Main Hall. By this time the clouds had returned and there was not much sunshine left. I did not make it all the way to the pagoda, instead turning to head down to the Otowa Waterfall at the base of the incline with the Main Hall at the top. Water is indeed falling from three pipes into a small pool, though Otowa is not what we generally think of as a waterfall. Be that as it may, Wikipedia tells us that Kiyomizu-dera means “pure water temple.” Those who drink a cupful of water from the falls are purified. I decided a single cup was unlikely to meet my needs for purification and kept on walking.

Despite the crowds of people, there were quiet spots and moments of peace for contemplation throughout the temple area.

To-ji, an Ancient Kyoto Temple

Early Monday morning, my first day in Kyoto, I set out on foot, walking to the To-ji Temple about 2km from my hotel. To-ji was established in 796 CE shortly after Japan’s imperial capital moved to Kyoto from Nara. It was one of only three temples allowed in the new capital city.

The buildings in the temple compound, built of wood that was darkly stained, were magnificent. Though the designs of the buildings are similar to temples I have seen in China, I have come across nothing comparable to this unpainted, natural wood style in temples elsewhere in the region. The photo above is of the Kondo, To-ji’s Main Hall. The original structure in this location was destroyed by fire; this reconstruction was completed in 1603. One of the pieces I read about To-ji says the Kondo incorporates elements of an Indian temple design style.

I choose this temple, in part, because I could walk to the site. The main Kyoto rail station that was near my hotel is the city’s transportation hub. Not only does it offer bullet train service to other parts of Japan, there are also half a dozen or maybe more urban rail systems that originate in or pass through Kyoto station. The place is enormous and both the station and the surrounding area are crowded with people, as I discovered when I arrived in the city late on a Sunday afternoon. I did not feel like figuring out how to navigate the city’s public transit system, with its multiple providers, to get to another site on a dazzling October morning. A quick check of Google Maps indicated To-ji Temple was in easy walking distance, and a quick look at Wikipedia suggested it was worth a visit. Both were correct.

The southern gate of To-ji that opens directly in front of the Main Hall is another impressive natural wood structure. To-ji rendered in Japanese, as seen on the two white lanterns, is 東寺, which means “east temple.” The two characters have the same meaning in Chinese, though the words in the two spoken languages do not sound the same at all. At one time there was a “west temple” near To-ji, but it was destroyed at some point in the past.

The Kodo or the Lecture Hall sits behind the Main Hall. The first building on this site was completed in the 9th century CE. The present Lecture Hall, which retains the design of the original was completed in 1491.

I arrived at To-ji Temple a bit before 8 in the morning; it was a beautiful day, a delightful opportunity to stroll the grounds when there was virtually nobody else around. The Main Hall and the Lecture Hall are fenced off, you cannot get close to them without a ticket, something I did not realize when I walked into the compound. I eventually found a ticket office and bought a ticket that gave me access to a garden with a five story pagoda in its midst, and the main temple buildings. Upon entering the ticketed area, I immediately went down a rabbit hole that I hoped would lead me to a vantage point that allowed me to photograph the pagoda without shooting directly into the morning sun at the same time. I failed; the vantage point for morning color photography was to the south outside of the compound.

After I settled for some disappointing shots of the pagoda, I left To-ji and headed back towards the train station area. Having purchased a ticket that gave me access to the central temple compound, why I left when I did instead of doubling back and taking a closer look at the main temple buildings is absolutely beyond me. This trip convinced me that my approach to the kind of travel photography I like is too erratic and undisciplined. More research in advance of going to a site I may very well only visit once would help me walk away with a folder of photos that has a chance of capturing what the site is about.

Back at home in the digital darkroom, I eventually gave up trying to process color images of the pagoda. With the sun more or less in my face, I could bring out virtually no detail at all of the building itself. It was just undifferentiated shadow. I got better results when I converted the images to black and white.

Buddhism with Vietnamese Characteristics, Da Nang

The Buu Dai Son Pagoda (Chùa Bửu Đài Sơn) is one of my favorites in the Da Nang / Hoi An area. It sits facing the sea (my back is to the beach and the East Sea) several kilometers from downtown Da Nang on the seaside road heading to the Son Tra peninsula. Like many Buddhist sites in Southeast Asia, Buu Dai Son is garish and colorful, in this case in a distinctly Vietnamese way. I looked but could not find the date this pagoda was founded or the date its current structures were built, though I have no doubt the buildings are of recent origin. At the same time, there is no question that the designer was inspired by historical sites like the Eastern Guard Tower in Hue and numerous other traditional Vietnamese structures, both religious and secular in origin, scattered throughout the country.