Saturday: An insider tour of Daitoku-ji

Today wasn't as much about what I saw as who I saw it with.  I spent the day with Yuho Tom Kirchner, who marks 50 years living in Japan next year, almost all of them living in a temple or monastery and practicing Zen.  As well as being great and easy company, Yuho is a Zen treasure trove.  I think its fair to say he knows Japanese Zen like few other Westerners, and he knows just about everybody in the Japanese system I've met or heard of in the last fifty years.

He trained under Mumon Yamada Roshi together with the now Roshis Noratake, (the abbot of Rinzai-ji) and Harada (abbot of Sogen-ji and Tahoma-ji a couple of islands up from us).  He knew Morinaga Roshi (who wrote the Wednesday night book we read recently, Novice to Master), lived at Daitoku-ji and Kennin-ji and for spells, and on and on.  He also edited the very fine version of the Record of Linchi (Rinzai) that I use frequently as well as a koan collection, Entangling Vines, and now he's the gatekeeper at Tenryu-ji, which we'll visit in a couple of days.

So I spent a lot of the day asking him questions about this and that.  We visited Daitoku-ji with Wes and Sheila, and then Yuho and I had lunch and he acted as tour guide for the Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji, the most classic rock garden at Ryoan-ji, and then my home lineage temple complex, Myoshin-ji.

First, Daitoku-ji.  I don't have time tonight to run through the history of the place, but suffice it to say it's one of the two most famous and storied Rinzai monasteries in Japan, the other one being Myoshin-ji.  Both of these monasteries have many subtemples on the grounds, and many more dotted around Japan.  Unlike some of the more heavily visited sites, these have a working feel and no entrance fee - you can stroll around their grounds, through almost all of the subtemples are closed to visitors.  As you'll see, we got to visit one that's never open to the public.  Here's Wes, Sheila, and Yuho in at the front gate.

Below is the impressive Mountain Gate (Sanmon) at Daitoku-ji.  Yuho used to clean the top floor, and he reckons there's hundreds of Arhats hanging around up there, not just the 16 we saw at Nanzen-ji.  Yuho explains all these temples have the same structure:  a small gate - kind of the front door (see above), then the much larger Mountain gate, then the Buddha Hall and then the Dharma Hall, then, if I remember right, the adminstrative buildings.  I read recently that these central buildings are often more Chinese in style, reflecting Zen's heritage, whereas the outer temples are more Japanese.  

Here's the Buddha Hall, which we could only peek in to see.  

And as is often the case, a dragon on the ceiling - can you make it out?

This is the pine tree that's in front of the Buddha Hall, held up by wooden supports and wire.  Yuho tells us it was brought from China 800 years ago.  That's one venerable tree.  All the more impressive because apparently pines don't naturally grow in the Kyoto area, but on the coast of Japan, so they sometimes have a difficult time keeping them healthy.  

The left-hand corner is where Yuho lived 45 years ago when he was finishing up his university degree.

Next we walked to the subtemple where Yuho lived for four or five years, Hoshun-in, now led by his Dharma brother Rev. Akiyoshi Osho.  Akiyoshi greeted us kindly and had us in for tea.  Here's the art that greets you as you come in the door.  I love how much Zen art has a kind of cartoonish, humorous quality - it's been evident on this trip.  As a tea companion we were given a Daitoku-ji specialty - dried natto - that is, whole fermented soybeans, somehow turned black, rich, chewy like licorice, and salty.  In Norway they make an unsweet, salty licorice - it reminds me a little of that Norwegian stuff, but better tasting.  Sorry my darling wife, I know you love the stuff.  

This temple is known for its copper roof - I think it's the only temple with such a roof.  

It has a lovely little rock garden.  Akiyoshi Osho does a lot of the gardening himself, helped by his sons.  One of his sons is leaving in just two days to train at Tenryu-ji, where Yuho is living.  This is a big moment for him.  Yuho says at his place the custom is to sit ourside for 2 days, then for 3 or 4 inside in a room without anything at all, not even a zafu.  Wes and I agree that they could at least give the guy a zafu.  If he stays Akiyoshi's son will then train for 2 years or so, and then return as an Osho, and be qualified to inherit the temple from his father.  

The copper roofed building above is the Founder's Hall.  Flanking the Buddha are to his right, the first Abbot, and to his left, the woman who had this temple complex built after her very wealthy husband died.  Here she is.  We've noticed a number of women in this position in the Founder's Hall.  

Two intererting statues from what appeared to be the memorial hall - lots of wooden memorial tablets lined one wall.  The first is a stone block from Cambodia with 1000 little Buddhas engraved in it.  The second is a lovely memorial statue for the daughter of a patron who died young.  

After our visit with Akiyoshi Osho Wes and Sheila head off, and Yuho and I walk to the entrance of the Senmon Dojo, the training center part of Daitoku-ji.  Peering through the gate it looks quiet - Yuho says it's probably seikan the three month period of less intensive practice between training periods - we had the same rhythm at Mt. Baldy.  I asked how many people were there now, he said 4 or 5.  "So low?!" I said, "How about during the training period?"  "About 4 or 5."  It's remarkable to me that in this storied and huge institution only a handful of monks are training.  Yuho guesses that there are only about 40 new monks a year coming into the Rinzai monasteries - that's in the whole of Japan.  We talk for a long time about how it's gotten to this.  Too much to relate here, but it's a stark reminder for me that the Zen, not as cultural heritage but as a serious spiritual path, is in trouble in it's home country.