At Koshō-ji Temple

After coffee at the Aladdin, we hit the highway to our next destination, Koshō-ji Temple. It was still pretty early. Taka wanted us to get there in time to attend the temple service at 8 o'clock, and then afterwards, we would visit his mother Yoko's grave, which is in the temple cemetery. This visit was full of meaning, as Brock and I were going to pay respects to the mother of our best friend in Japan, a soul that worked and struggled hard for what she knew was true, and passed her legacy to her four sons and, I wouldn't doubt, to her husband as well. A little bit of her story is told in the prequel Jesus in Japan. I wish we knew more about her, but there is still a lot of unknowns at this point.

From Taka's attitude toward Buddhism, I gathered that it hovers on the periphery of his mind. He seems to hope that whatever the chanting monks do will help Yoko wherever she is, and that vague hope seems to be the normal Japanese attitude about their dead. They leave flowers at their graves and burn bundles of incense, sensing that this somehow soothes the dead, or makes them happy.
Japan appears to be coming to the end of its religious past, modernity and the speculations of other races are cutting the last few links they have. Like the Greco-Romans at the time of Christ, they only half-believe that the gods are there, and barely believe there is any help in them. Both systems, the Greek and the Japanese, were full of the highest and noblest ideals, and yet they seemed to dissipate like morning mist when the sun rises, and when the Son arose.

Here we are, we've arrived at Koshō-ji. It's very much in park-like surroundings, everything ordered to bring peace to the mind and heart. Well, almost everything. Here too, as everywhere else at temples throughout the world, that world has the job of door man to the faithful. This was our first encounter with temple commerce in Japan, spiritual materialism—incense, prayer sticks, and a whole line of religious items I had no inkling existed. We stopped there momentarily, while Taka enquired, "Is there a service today?" And who should be there today but the great Buddhist abbot, fourth in rank in all of Japan, that personally prays for Yoko. Like all Buddhist prelates, he was friendly, even jolly, as he greeted Taka. "He's not here all the time," said Taka to us, "we lucked out!" Taka let him know that he was bringing two gaijin 外人, foreigners, with him to the service.

Koshō-ji Temple dates from the 17th century and consists of a number of fine buildings including an impressive five-storey wooden pagoda completed in 1808. The temple and grounds of its attached graveyard are situated in pleasant woodland on Yagoto Hill. There's an annual "1,000-Lantern Festival" at the harvest moon and also small flea-markets are held there on the 5th and 13th of every month. Unfortunately, we came in the off-season for both.

We approached the temple steps, removed our sandals, and stepped onto the clean wooden floor of the porch. We'd never been inside a Buddhist temple before, except the Portland Buddhist church off southeast Powell, and that's exactly what it felt like, a church, complete with pews and hymn books. But not this temple—this was the real thing. I looked around carefully and intently, looking for signs of Christian influence. Why? Because Eastern Orthodoxy arrived here at least two centuries before Buddhism via the Silk Road in the form of the Nestorians.

It is certain that many of the oldest temples and shrines in Nara, Kyoto and other places are built over the burned out ruins of Christian churches. Buddhism, with imperial support, vigorously overcame and absorbed the Nestorians, and there are supposed to be vestiges of Orthodox culture in the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, Mongolia and Japan. So I looked, but all I could see was layer upon layer of rich symbolism in a semantic very alien to me.

When we entered the temple, it was deserted. There were about six backless benches in the hall in front of the main "altar," if you can call it that. There was a huge golden image of Buddha there, and lots of other stuff. "The benches," explained Taka, "are for modern Japanese who sit in chairs all the time and can't sit cross-legged on the floor for very long. You can sit there if you like." Then, after we looked around a bit at the temple furnishings, Brock and Taka sat down on the floor, and I on a bench, while we waited for the service to start. Brock got his camcorder ready to shoot footage of the temple service, which he did. I can't wait to see it.

The abbot and about eight young monks, all sturdy young fellows none older than about thirty, entered and stood in two facing rows opposite each other, with the abbot in the center with his back to us. Then, the abbot and his disciples sat down, and the chants began, punctuated by the sound of wooden and metal chimes that made more a hammering sound than a ringing. It reminded me just a little of the Orthodox simandron, a wooden board hit rhythmically with a hammer, to call Christian monks to services.

We listened hard. I, trying to distinguish words in a language I knew. Every now and then words that sounded Japanese were chanted, but mixed up with other words that sounded Sanskrit. Taka said he couldn't make out a thing they were chanting. For twenty minutes, as the monks changed their tune several times, Brock filmed, and all three of us changed our posture, sometimes sitting on the floor, sometimes on a bench. Anything to keep our bottom halves from "going to sleep."

Abruptly it was over. The monks had taken no notice of us, but I'd seen one or two of the younger ones furtively glancing our way. They all stood up, bowed slightly toward us and filed out. We sat alone in the temple, and talked about some of the things in front of us, trying to guess their meaning. We walked around the inside of the temple once more, stopping at a little shrine with about 5 primitive muddy looking doll-like images. The multi-slotted money box that we were to see at every shrine and temple in Japan beckoned hungrily. At this shrine you dusted off one of the images, and made an offering, and you got blessed or something.

Before we left, the abbot and his monks filed past us again and went to the porch to say some mantras out there, at least that's what it looked like, but then it turned into something like a staff meeting at the beginning of the day, "Who's gonna do what today?" sort of thing. By the time we exited the temple and got our sandals, the monks had disappeared. Through a screen I saw a woman kneeling in a side shrine, quietly. We re-entered "the world of the real" with our feet re-shod, and I bought a prayer stick and a bundle of incense as a souvenir for 200 yen. A real bargain, I thought, until I got a box of five bundles of incense for 100 yen a few days later at the 100 yen store!

We hiked up some stairs and onto some gravelly paths into the great cemetery on Yagoto Hill. It didn't take long for Taka to find Yoko's grave. It's a new monument, and beautifully carved in deep calligraphy with the Imayama family name. We read the inscription for Yoko on the back of the monument. I can at least read Japanese dates, which are expressed not in A.D. years, but in the regnal years of the emperor. Yoko was born in Showa 6 (1931) I think, and she passed away in Heisei 16 (2004). If I've made a mistake, I'll correct it later.

Taka had brought some incense, and he lit the bundles and placed them in the incense urn. I didn't think they would burn, but they did. "If the smoke goes straight up," Taka explained, "the soul is happy." The smoke rose pretty straight. Taka smiled. He dusted off the monument, and we all just paused there. Brock and I paid our respects, and silently prayed. It was a connecting moment. Then we withdrew, did a bit more sight-seeing on the temple grounds, and walked back to the car.

As we taxied down the runway… I mean as we got back on the highway… we started thinking about what was next on our morning agenda. Nagoya Castle. But first, time for Mister Donut!

Four more pictures…