Koya-san, Part II

We woke up early to attend the dawn prayer ceremonies. We were quietly led into a dim candle-lit hall, and gestured to kneel in a line near one wall. Three monks knelt in their voluminous robes in front of an altar, chanting and droning in low hummed tones, broken by the occasional rumble of a drum beat or the rattle of their cymbal-like instrument. Clouds of incense wafted up from a dish in the center. It was very hypnotic to listen to them, but after half an hour I couldn't feel my legs anymore from kneeling and had to switch to sitting with my knees to the side. The Japanese among us made it the entire time kneeling, although the middle aged woman next to me had trouble standing at the end.

Jana and I went back to our room to await breakfast only to have a monk burst in saying "Hyaku!" (Hurry!) we quickly followed him to find the rest of our group leaving the temple to go to an adjacent shrine. There, we once again knelt, this time in front of a fire pit. One monk chanted and beat on a drum while a second monk knelt in front of the pit and carefully built a tier of wooden sticks. With great ceremony he lit a fire brand and set it under the tier where the flames licked the wood above it...and then gradually died out. He had to quickly light another brand, which this time did the trick. I think this second monk was a novice - he wore an orange robe and was constantly referring to the book in front of him, which we at first thought was a prayer book but eventually decided was an instruction manual ("Drop 3 ladle-fuls of water on flames. Add 1 bunch of leaves. Toss five pinches of powder into flames. Repeat.") It was a pretty neat ceremony though and I'm glad we didn't miss it!

We returned to our room to find breakfast awaiting us:

Again, delicious!

Here's a couple more shots of our temple:

After our meal we set out to explore the cemetary in Koyasan. Kobo Dashi is interned in a mausoleum in the mountain, and it is said that he is only at rest and will someday awaken and take his disciples to enlightenment with him. Everybody of course wants to be nearby for when that happens, so cemetary real estate near Kobo Dashi's tomb goes at a premium. The cemetary extends for quite some ways, and there are even corporate plots that current employees visit and leave business cards at. At the end of the path is Toro-do (Hall of Lanterns) that has thousands upon thousands of glowing lanterns hanging in tidy rows up and down the ceiling and in racks extending the length and width of the hall. Some are said to have been kept glowing since the 12th century. Behind this sits Kobo Dashi's tomb - pretty plain after the Hall of Lanterns.

Our tour of Koyasan complete, we were ready to escape the constant drizzle of rain and head back down the mountain: to Kyoto! All in all, I felt like my time in Koyasan was similar to Cinque Terre in Italy: in some ways the most authentic experience of Japanese life, although always with the knowledgge that it is still quite the tourist destination. I enjoyed it immensely however and am really glad we splurged a little bit and spent the night on the mountain. It was an amazing meditative experience and a great glimpse into how another people live.