Mount Kōya / 高野山 (Patreon)

Hello there~ How is everyone holding up?

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Osaka so Richard could speak to a bunch of English school owners. On the day I drove back (7 hours! -- oof! -- but good music and lively conversation made it fly by), I woke us up early so we could drive an hour or so out of the way to visit Mount Kōya. <-- be sure to elongate that "o". I mentioned it to my neighbor and she corrected me.

I've always heard of it, but never knew much about it. A little info and then some photos.

Kōya-san is actually a mountaintop basin 800 meters above sea level. It's surrounded by two concentric rims of hills, each rim has eight peaks. This makes it look like a giant unfolding lotus flower. How beautiful is that!? We didn't get there early enough, but at dawn and dusk there are supposed to be beautiful purple mists.

Today it's the center of the Kōya-san sect of Shingon Buddhism. The legend is that Kūkai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of Shingon, was still studying in China when he threw his sankosho ...

 ... toward Japan. Later, when he was back in Japan and searching for a place to start his new religion, he found it stuck in the branched of a pine tree on Mount Kōya.

Basically, it's a small town! There are hundreds of temples and shrines, a religious studies university, the famous Okunoin Cemetery, so much history.

In the bit of reading I did, it looks like quite a few temples offer lodging. So you can go, stay the night, attend a Shingon ceremony no doubt, eat incredible vegetarian temple food (shojin ryōri), and then spend an entire day exploring.

I recommend at visit if you're in the Kansai (Osaka) area and like this kind of thing. The mountain itself is in Wakayama Prefecture, a little south of Osaka.

I gung-ho-ily recommended driving on the chat, but, naw, there are busses that make the journey and it would a lot less harrowing visiting that way. Driving mountain roads in Japan is not something I'd encourage anyone to do.

Richard took a few seconds of the drive. Let me take out the music we were listening to (it got flagged on Youtube) and I'll post that.

Anyway, for me two days wouldn't be enough. I only got to visit one temple. It was so hard not to stop and explore, but I knew the long drive was waiting for me.

So we went straight to the Okuno-in Cemetery. I hear it can get very crowded on weekends. So I recommend a weekday. It was perfect people-wise. We passed a few, a few passed us, but not crowded. Sadly, or weirdly, quiet a few foreigners and Japanese just walked straight through without stopping marvel at the gravestones old torii gates. ODA NOBUNAGA's grave was there!!

Funny story, we were looking for it and went back toward some of the larger gravestones but nothing. I found a young man raking leaves and asked him and he showed us. It was so unassuming and ... small. Part of me wanted to cry because ODA NOBUNAGA! But part of me wanted to cry because the company that makes hair plugs for men had an enormous site and stone.

 I mean, couldn't anyone give him a new basket even? Seriously, if the shit ever hits the fan, I'm going there and just volunteering to tidy up the grounds, make sure everyone is properly respected. I'll be like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, sweeping the hallways of the University for Religious (Buddhist) Studies. Here, let me solve that koan on the wall: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Here, let me share some photos. I really didn't take too many. Really just soaked up the atmosphere and breathed a lot.

When you first enter the cemetery, there aren't really any trees and all the graves are new, and pretty huge. You can see who has money.

Here's a map of the cemetery. There are over 200,000 gravestones (the biggest cemetery in Japan!) because everyone wants to be near Kūkai even in death. The walk from the first bridge (Ichinohashi) to Kobo Daishi's (Kūkai's) mausolum is about two kilometers. Very easy walk. I did it with my bad leg and in crocs.

So at first you have all the newer companies who bought up land and made their fancy and weird headstones. Here's UCC coffee.

And this one by a pest control company. It's dedicated to all the termites (shiroari) that have been killed over the years. The words under Shiroari read: Yasuraka ni Nemure / Rest (sleep) in peace.

One more weird one. The grave stone to graffiti (rakugaki). Both Richard and I were a little shocked. But it was encouraged to graffiti it.

Keep walking, then you'll get to the power spot part.

Look at this beauty. So. Much. Moss.

I guess the below is a famous couples ojizo statue. Nakayoshi = getting along well.

There was a little snow on the ground.

 In retrospect, I wish I had taken more photos. But also, I want t go back. I really wanted to visit Uesugi Kenshin's grave but couldn't find it 😢. There were quite a few I couldn't find or just didn't have the time to explore. R was kinda like, let's hurry this along. I kept having to hobble-run to catch up. If you don't study beforehand you miss so much. Seriously, there were people just walking straight through! Everywhere, there were grand old grave stones and mausoleums and we tried so hard to figure out who some of them were but couldn't find a sign or read the one that was there.

Remember the episode on godai (stupas), the five elements (earth, water, fire, wind, void). They actually had them written on the towers.

Okay...

I'll end with this lovely.

Thank you and stay well and safe, my friends. ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

XO,

t

P.S. All mail is going out this week!!