"Breakfast With Divyam and Yasuko" Would Make a Good Morning TV Show

The crazy previous day had actually been pretty darned helpful. With no real sense of scale gained from the taxi ride to Yonbanchi, places on the map that had seemed a good distance away were brought into perspective. As it turns out, the part of Kyoto we were in was quite compact, and even the furthest things we wanted to see were well within easy biking distance. That afternoon's semi-lost scramble had been good for allowing us to see exactly where the hell in relation to everything we were. Feeling rested and a bit more ready to roam around, we headed downstairs to see what Divyam had in store for us this day. After the positively enormous feast the previous morning at Teiseikan, breakfast was a refreshingly light mix of wonderfully fresh fruit (some I had never seen that were of decidedly alien appearance), jams and marmalade, all washed down with thick strong coffee. It was definitely a meal designed to start a busy day. As we sipped our coffee, the morning briefing began. First, we gave a report on the previous days activity (I believe we received a C+), then it was back out with the maps and the real work commenced. Divyam was concerned. Between the things we hadn't hit the day before, the couple things I wanted to do, and the things we needed to hit today it was possible we would need to pull a late night to fit it all in. Oh well, "don't forget to get lost" and we were again cast into the street. We decided to ease into the day in a manner our host would allow, so delayed jumping on the bikes right away and walked up to the end of the street to take a stroll through the grounds of Yoshida Shrine.

Yoshida is part of the fascinatingly complex Japanese relationship with religion. If you are looking for a single topic that could be used to chart the evolution of the Japanese people, there is none better. Deep breath....out of the misty haze of Japans prehistory, through its complex relationship with mainland Asia, the first contacts with the west, the history of its ruling family, the birth of the state, the enormous societal changes that came with the arrival of Commodore Perry, the relationship with America it brought, the fall of the Shogun and the Meiji Restoration, nationalism, the rise of militarism, WW2, modern Japan, (whew!) all are intertwined with the history of Japanese religion. It has been a centuries long give and take, with one shaping the other and vice versa. Religion has been a reflector and director in Japanese society. And to put it simply, its everywhere. There are nearly 100,000 Shinto shrines in Japan, and lord only knows how many Buddhist temples and sub-temples. For a nation's religion to be that omnipresent, you would think that would make for a very openly religious people. But there can be no more stark contrast between how different cultures interact with religion than to compare it to America. Here, you can't watch a post game interview, a news broadcast about a natural disaster, or a political campaign without tripping over religion. People's religion in this country is not just worn on a sleeve, but waved like a banner. In Japan, most would likely describe themselves as non-religious, or mostly secular. But that is skewed if viewed by our standards. Religion, to some degree, is the culture of Japan. Its more normal, you don't trumpet your faith to the world. The difference between someone who believes, kinda believes, and doesn't believe is a grey area at best. Throw in the odd subtleties of Japan's religions and things can get even grey...um...er. This is because many aspects of religion have an almost purely secular purpose, where the culture to which you belong is what you are worshiping, not a deity. Particularly since the Meiji restoration (but certainly rooted much earlier) it has been central to the concept of Japanese Uniqueness (an actual defined concept, though the term itself is a post-war one). Its part of the social fabric that has allowed Japan to define itself (for better or worse) in its own eyes and within outside perceptions of the Japanese, particularly by the west. In short, the changing nature of religion in Japan, specifically with regards to Shinto, is the story of Japan, and its a very fascinating one. I am trying not to go on too much, here (failing, perhaps), because the topic has filled many books by people far more knowledgeable on the subject than myself, but so many of the images you are likely to see on this little travelogue (even ones seemingly unrelated to that cultural heritage) relate back to those themes. Any attempt to put them in any context, even in my own mind, requires a modicum of understanding of these issues. And since we are currently at the Yoshida shrine, lets jump right into Shinto, shall we.

Shinto is usually translated to mean "the way of the gods", which somewhat clouds things because for the most part we are not speaking of "gods" in the sense of our western, Judeo-Christian or Greco-Roman notions of god-like beings. Shinto is the modern incarnation of the early folk traditions and prehistoric animist beliefs regarding the natural world and the Japanese place within that world. Like many other folk traditions that evolved with prehistoric nomadic populations as they settled down, began farming and started establishing villages and cities, it changed from the worship of the spirits found in the natural processes around you to a religion where you needed to "house" the spirits and gods responsible for those processes. Where Shinto gets interesting is because this consolidation was occurring at the same time that Buddhism began arriving in Japan. Buddhism was already an established, venerable institution by the time it arrived on Japanese shores by way of China and Korea. It brought with it a structured, ordered, doctrinal system of belief somewhat at odds with the incorporeal native spirituality. However, in a process that is uniquely Japanese, the new did not displace the old, but instead facilitated the refinement of the old. One source defines it this way: "Shinto, per se, did not exist until Buddhism gave it a place to be". In fact, a great deal of modern scholarship informs that Shinto did not exist as an independent religion until the Meiji Era, when it was separated from Buddhism for completely non-theological reasons. Whatever, the ancient folk traditions combined with early Japanese Buddhism and the end product was the "modern" Shinto shrine. Despite the enormous diversity in types of shrines, mainly dependent on the time they were established, their presence is always announced by a Torii gate (though of unknown origin, this is likely of mix of Buddhist architecture with native shamanic structures), traditionally marking the beginning of sacred ground. Due to the very naturalistic background of Shinto, the shrine can be a large structure, or a small enclosure with a little representation of a storehouse for the enshrined deity,

or it can enshrine an aspect of the wider natural world itself, such as a sacred grove, a significant natural feature, or even a hillside or entire mountain.

However, the oddly syncretic nature of Buddhism/Shinto and its shared melding of heritage and symbology is usually quite visible, as seen here with a nice lovely torii and its sanctuary flanked by stone Toro lanterns, which are representations of the 5 Buddhist elements with the base being earth, followed by water, fire (traditionally a representation of the Buddha), air, and void.

Some symbols are more representative of the more temporal connections Japan had with the world, for example the Komainu, or lion dog, traditional shrine guardians. Though specifically of Chinese origin, brought by way of Korea (some sources specifically refer to them as "Korean Dogs") they are more an example of the wonders of the portability of ideas along the Silk Road. With the mouth of one slightly open pronouncing the syllable "a" and the other with it closed pronouncing "um", they are as a pair speaking the Sanskrit "aum" representing the beginning and end of all things. So a people who had never been within 2000 miles of a lion, and likely never visited China nor heard Sanskrit spoken, guarded their local shrines to their native spirits with a Chinese image brought from Korea of an Indian or Persian lion speaking an ancient Buddhist word that relates to a concept still common in modern Buddhism and Hindu belief. Take that, globalism.

The Japanese even took this a step further, mixing in their own folk traditions as they saw fit. Sometimes the guardians are deer, sometimes monkeys, at one shrine in Kyoto its rats, but often its the fox. There was a long tradition of foxes and fox spirits within their folklore. This homegrown tradition became mixed with foreign folktales (and, once again Buddhism) to create the kitsune, a distinctly Japanese version of the komainu linked to the god Inari, and therefore usually seen guarding the entrance to any of the some 30,000 Inari shrines around Japan.

Inari him/her/itself is an interesting figure, likely being a Buddhist deity placed on top of an ancient native spirit(s). Depending on the region and the shrine, he/she/it is possibly male, female, androgynous, a snake, a dragon, with foxes as messengers, or a fox him/her/itself, maybe a mix of 3 or 5 deities, a patron of blacksmiths, rice, farmers and worldly wealth... likely no Kami better represents the fluidity of Shinto. And if you need more evidence of the odd nature of Shinto and its rather wonderful "come one, come all" nature, its notable that all the images used as examples here were taken at Yoshida shrine. Oh, we also found the following cryptic icon, but I can't find it's heritage. Probably Buddhist as well.

In the Japan of today, the one we briefly visited, Shinto is just...kinda...there. By its nature it doesn't intrude into peoples daily lives, its very polite. Much like the Japanese themselves. My favorite description of it is this: "Unlike Buddhism or Christianity, Japanese Shinto has no founder, no sutras, no body of law, no closely knit organization or priesthood. There is no Shinto heaven or afterlife, no orthodox moral code -- only the social etiquette of the community and some ideas borrowed from Confucian philosophy. The Shinto universe is amoral and indifferent. Virtue is not always rewarded, nor is evil always punished.....Emperors and rulers may come and go, but the Japanese people and their nature will remain constant. All life forces have rough and gentle natures, all are demanding and then forgiving. The underlying nature of the people does not change, the underlying "nature of nature" does not change."  It is so positively not a pain in the ass it is truly refreshing. If only all religions could be that unassuming. Which brings us to Buddhism, which I'm not really going to go into here because I think one religion per post is about the right amount. However, leaving the Yoshida Shrine and jumping on the bikes took us to the next spot on our Divyam approved to do list, and away from the Shinto world and solidly into the world of Buddhism. 

The Silver Pavilion, Ginkakuji, is a good example of how Buddhism got into a bit of trouble on occasion. Having more structure than Shinto, it was more intertwined with the political and intellectual elites, as structured religions often are, which meant its fortunes rose and fell and doctrines changed and splintered off with the political and intellectual tides. More on that later, back to Ginkakuji. It was built as a retirement villa/temple for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who would sit within and contemplate...things...as Kyoto burned around him in the late 1400's.

Because of all this, the temple/palace has a much more administrative/luxurious look to it

The overall attitude is more aimed at the notion of calm and order through control, but its likely contemplative is the word I'm supposed to use. Probably nowhere is this attitude more visible then in its application towards nature, although landscape architecture is a better description. Where the Shinto perspective was a veneration of nature as we exist within it, this is more an attempt to exemplify an ideal outdoors. It's the extension of a modern concept of nature that stems from a society built around cities, rather than the folklore that survived as the farmers moved from the wilderness into cities. It was amazing to see the gardens around this and other temples, where entire hillsides would be turned into meticulously manicured constructions of moss, rock and water. It certainly is impressive, and being the contemplative type I'm considering something similar for my backyard. Though anyone who's seen my backyard or is familiar with our lack of "meticulous" or "manicured" will likely know how that will turn out.

One of the best parts was getting a nice birds-eye view of our 'hood. The leafy green hill in the middle ground is Yoshida Shrine

Having gotten all Zen with our bad selves, we were back on the bikes and off along the Tetsagaku no Michi, the Philosophers Walk, named after the 20th century philosopher Nishida Kitaro who apparently lived nearby. I tried to find out a bit about this Nishida, and why he would get a leafy canal-side path named after him, and found philosophy speak to be completely impenetrable. Although I can't speak much to the virtues of "contradictory self identity" I can say the Philosopher's Walk was lovely. This used to be the outskirts of old Kyoto, and as such is pretty heavy in the temple and monastery department, which is good because it makes it a good place to try some temple food. This was especially good because Holly chose to have an "eat...now" moment right in front of this place

Delicious. It was an entire multi-multi-course meal made up entirely of different ways to prepare tofu. To be perfectly honest, I think they were showing off. After all, I'm not sure the world needs that many ways to prepare tofu, but they were all incredible so I'm not really complaining.

Properly fed, it was time for more Buddhist stuff. This was Nanzenji, part of a large complex of Rinzai Zen temples that fills up most of this area. This is the path leading to the Sammon (main gate) built 1628 as a war memorial of sorts. Also, apparently some particularly notorious thief was captured here and then boiled in a large iron cauldron...hmmm.

One of the many things that fascinated me about Japan for many years was their history of woodworking. It was exciting to actually be able to see some of this work first hand. These are truly impressive structures, on many levels. The ability to work wood on this scale is incredible to see. It is light in design, yet nearly overpowers you with its scale. Therefore, to show my respect for the majestic structure, I felt posing as a bouncer was the best way to go

Just behind, the Nanzenji Hojo, or Abbots Quarters

The interior,

And I guess I'll leave it there. There was plenty more this day, but even I am getting tired of typing whatever comes to mind, so I'm just going to get to it in next post.