Koyasan: Monks, Meditation and a Family Mart meal

Three trains, a subway, and a two hour hike after we’d left home Wednesday morning, the Daimon gate appeared through the trees. I gasped, having been surrounded by pine needles and endless forest for what felt like ages, the towering structure that was suddenly before me stood dramatically out of place. The top of Mount Koyasan is a small town with 117 temples, 50 of which are temple-hotels where visitors can stay a few nights and experience Buddhist monastic life. We were headed to the Hoon-in, a temple stay that has been run by the same family for generations. 

Me beside one of stone markers on the Choishi-michi trail to Koysan 

The Daimon gate marks the entrance to Koyasan, which was founded 1200 years ago by the monk Kukai (posthumously called Kobo Daishi). Kukai travelled to China as a young man to study the Chinese sect of Buddhism known as Vajrayana, and after a few diligent months was instructed by his teacher to return to Japan to spread the teachings of esoteric buddhism. 

                                              

The Daimon Gate

 

                                                       

A guardian deity statue in the Daimon gate 

According to legend, Kukai threw a three pronged vajra (sacred ritual tool) toward Japan, and when it landed on Mount Koyasan, he knew that should be the location of his school and monastic retreat. The emperor granted him use of the whole mountain range, and in 819 Kukai began work on Koyasan. The sect of Buddhism practiced in Koyasan today is Shingon esoteric Buddhism - a uniquely Japanese and Kukai influenced branch of Vajrayana.

Kobo Daishi, to his most devoted followers, is still “alive” a thousand years later. He entered into eternal meditation in 835, and remains in this state inside the mausoleum of Okunoin cemetery, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. People still bring him two meals a day, and he is worshipped as a bodhisattva!

Bo and I walking through the Okunoin cemetery toward Kobo Daisi's mausoleum

But Koyasan town today is not just temples, it has a school, dozens of restaurants and shops, and of course a healthy Japanese quantity of convenience stores and vending machines - roughly one every two blocks. We had our first Family Mart meal, since the time that my stomach begins craving second lunch is also the time all the restaurants are closed in between lunch and dinner. The Family Mart miso hard boiled eggs were delicious, but the pizza flavored chips I optimistically chose were barely edible and soon relegated to the trash bin. 

The Koyasan monks would never dream of a konbini lunch, however. The Shingon monastic diet is called shojin ryori, and involves what felt like a million tiny little dishes of mysterious textures and smells every morning and evening. Of course as temple guests, I’m sure what we were served for breakfast and dinner was different from what the monks ate, but it followed the same shojin ryori principles. 

 

Mama and me eating dinner at the Hoon-in. Next to us is David, a fellow temple guest 

Every meal incorporates the five flavors: sweet, salty, bitter, umami, and sour, the five colors: white, yellow, red, blue/green, black, and the five methods of preparation: raw, stewed, grilled, steamed and fried. It also strictly avoids the five pungent herbs that are considered too stimulating for the body and mind: garlic, onion, leeks, chives and scallions. These are thought to cause agitation and aggression and attract “hungry demon ghosts” while repelling celestial beings and hindering focus for meditation.

At the Hoon-in, we enjoyed a monastically minimalist room with four futon beds, a public bath, and attendance at morning prayers. The first morning in Koyasan, I woke up to the 6am alarm blaring and had twenty minutes to dress and brush my teeth and stumble upstairs to the prayer room. Mountain tops are cold, Koyasan especially, and the Hoon-in temple was unheated. I pulled on gloves and two pairs of pants and my huge down puffer to experience my first Buddhist prayer session.

Our Hoon-in tatami room with yakata and wool haori

Copying sutras

Women's bath at the Hoon-in

The prayer room was a different world from the simple, immaculately clean temple I had so far seen. Statues, piles of gold baubles, walls covered in ancient Sanskrit, flowers and incense and  a thick, opulent atmosphere of worship filled the small room. There were three monks kneeling at the altar, and before that a few rows of chairs for temple guests. Despite the unexpected visual bombardment, the air was still, quiet. I sat down, self conscious of my many rustling layers of New Hampshire Winter Gear. 

After several long minutes of observing the room, the chanting began. I couldn’t understand a word, and being in Sanskrit I doubt even a Japanese person or follower of Shingon Buddhism would have known exactly what was happening. That was a theme of my time in Koyasan - little explanation, simply being thrust into an unfamiliar ritual or space and making what I could of it from what I saw right in front of me. Koyasan has long welcomed tourists and visitors, but doesn’t cater their rituals to them. You are simply given an opportunity to see, completely undiluted and with no elucidation, the ancient practices that have been maintained as part of daily life on the mountain for thousands of years. 

Me praying in the prayer room of the Hoon-in after morning prayers

The prayers were mesmerizing. Chanting sutras is a major component of Shingon practice, and I was blown away by the sheer vocal strength of these monks - in the morning prayers and in several other rituals we witnessed in other temples. Breath control, perfect timing and rhythm throughout almost an hour of intense, focused chanting. And perhaps the most impressive part was the orchestral synergy of the three monks. When one took a breath, the others voices filled in. It was clearly something they had done a million times before, and was executed with a breathtaking ease and naturalness. I could see how chanting is used as a way to focus the mind during meditation - I was only watching and I still felt all my wandering thoughts and emotions calmly settle down while I was swept up in the flowing rhythm of the monks prayers. 

Me in the Okunoin cemetery 

A major component of Shingon esoteric Buddhism is the sects’ focus on habitual action. Shingon uses ritual and practice to recenter the mind, focusing on awareness of your body, thoughts, and speech. They see enlightenment as an attainable state that anyone can reach through habitual practice and focus. Shingon Buddhism emphasizes meditation, chanting, copying sutras and visualizing mandalas. It teaches through these direct actions, rather than through studying and describing.

We attended a guided Ajikan meditation at the Hoon-in one afternoon. The head monk, in blue robes, knelt before us in the prayer room. He told us in that we were going to go through three phases of meditation, and to begin we needed to sit cross legged on a cushion, left leg laying over right, and with our hands layered on top of one another, palm up, thumbs touching to form a circle in the cosmic mudra.

The monk, who we later saw with his wife and baby grandson (yes! Shingon monks can marry and have families!), told us that by first becoming aware of and controlling our bodies, we could then focus our minds and thoughts. I breathed in, breathed out, trying to keep my eyelids acceptably “half-open”, and tried to visualize the air I inhaled as a cool, blue light spreading through my body. From my mouth through my head down to my toes the cool air travelled, purifying me, and on my exhale I could almost see the air I released as my anxiety and bad memories streaming out as muddy brown smoke. 

My stomach unwound, and my thoughts that so frequently wander and prevent me from truly entering into a relaxed, meditative mindset were swept into my visualization. The blue light, the brown smoke, there was no room for thoughts about my schoolwork or dinner or my sore muscles from hiking. The blue-robed monk had instructed us to “please sit until I say”, so I had no timeline for my breathwork or visualization, and was surprised after what was not very short but also not very long of a time I heard his voice asking me to open my eyes.

I won’t pretend to have had some sudden monastic enlightenment during my forty minute meditation, or during the fire ceremony I saw or Jukai initiation ceremony where I received the Buddhist lay precepts. But I did witness a way of living totally unrelated to my modern lifestyle, and yet filled with universal wisdom. I have no plans anytime soon to shave my head and pledge my life to a temple, but I hope to carry a bit of that monkly wisdom, awareness and intentionality into my daily life. Like the grandpa monk said during the guided meditation: “It is not good to sit [meaning meditate] for long time, but little bit of sitting throughout day is good, beri good for you.”

The almost two hour fire ritual we saw near the cemetery

The wisdom of Shingon, for me, isn’t in its complex sutras or mysterious ceremonial rituals, but in the way it takes direct, physical action (beri good sitting!) and uses that action and centering of your body as a way to calm your mind. It’s not about meditating perfectly, but about forming habits that allow you to consistently step out of your cluttered head, temper your reactions, and remember the Buddha inside you.

 A temple in Koyasan, and the town's mascot in front. It's not Japan unless there's something kawaii!