Tag Archives: Religion

A Flood Day to Dry Hard

Posted on by

The news tells me that today there is an excessive heat warning in place in Wakayama. My oh-so-reliable weather application tells me that it will be cloudy all day. The gods split the difference. As I exit the bus unprepared for anything other than heat or cloud, the heavens split open in a thunderous rage of fury.

I am at Kumano-Nachi Taisha. As the thunder rolls over the sky I manage to take just one photograph of a torii gate and the mountains beyond, right then, before the rain catches up with the thunder. Luckily for me, there is a shop, so I enter, purchase, then poncho up.

I duck inside the Treasure Hall. No photos allowed, but I explore freely. I wrote about the Nachi Pilgrimage Mandala yesterday, but seeing the real thing up close is something else. I enjoy the other art, artefacts, simple objects from a time lost in the past. Most of the treasures here were discovered in 1918, but are from around the 10th century, with the shrine itself being 1,700 years old.

Stepping out of the Treasure Hall, the rain has intensified fivefold, and some of the ground has already flooded. People cower with umbrellas.

The rainwater crashes down and smashes into the roof of the shrine like a torrent of broken glass, slicing through the air with a merciless, unyielding force. I have never experienced rain like it. The raindrops actually hurt.

I came for the waterfall. Or so I believed. Right now, I feel like I’m inside one. I struggle to see where the waterfall could even be in comparison to the falling water. A monk passes me, dressed in dark blue. He carries an umbrella and seamlessly manoeuvres the flooding and the puddles, calm as you like.

Legend has it that the first emperor of Japan, Emperor Jinmu, found the waterfalls when his boat landed on the Kii Peninsula and he saw something shining in the mountains. At the time, he had been following a Yatagarasu (a mythical three-legged crow sent by the gods as a guide).

I follow the path down the mountain toward Nachi Falls. The sky bellows with more thunder, the road is full of water. Am I walking in the rain? Or am I swimming in a river? At points the water is knee-high. The drains can’t handle it. I can barely handle it, but I persevere.

I make it to the pagoda view, the one that’s often featured on the cover of a largely poorly written guidebook. They’ve never featured it in the rain. I enjoy my photograph very much.

Beside the pagoda sits a big statue of Hotei. God of fortune. The Laughing Buddha. Naturally, despite my soaking wet legs and shoes and inability to understand the point of it all, I rub his massive belly. Good luck and prosperity coming my way, again.

I venture on, down flooded sloped paths and dangerous steps, and eventually, I do arrive at Nachi Falls. The heavier rain drowns out the sound of the waterfall. There’s a story of some star-crossed lovers that leapt from the top of the waterfall in the belief that they would be reborn into Kannon’s paradise. I also know that this is one of the Top Three Waterfalls in Japan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and also plummets 133 metres, making it the tallest in Japan.

I head down some slippery steps, careful to hold the handrail. Below, the waterfall itself. Having already taken a spectacular photograph of the rain-soaked pagoda pavilion with Nachi Falls as a backdrop, I find it to be immensely difficult to capture the waterfall from up close, due to the intense rain and heavy flooding.

I stumble back up stone steps to a bus stop. Typically, upon arriving back at Kii-Katsuura Station, the rain suddenly stops. At the Turtle Boat back to my hotel, I stand at the dock. A Japanese salaryman stands beside me, perfectly dry. He glances at my poncho and then at the sky.

From the boat, I see a crow in the air. It looks as though it has three legs, but it’s just the tail feathers, fanned out in silhouette against the sky. Something that could easily be mistaken for three legs.

Back at the hotel, I hairdryer my shoes for two hours whilst waiting for my laundry to wash and dry, before heading out in search of a crow to photograph. In the end, all I find is this lousy t-shirt.

The Men Who Scare At Boats

Posted on by

There’s a massive clock outside Kii-Katsuura Station. Each tick sounds like a nail being hammered into a coffin. About a twenty-minute walk from the station, between the mountains and sea of Wakayama Prefecture sits Fudarakusan-ji, a small, unassuming Buddhist temple with a wooden boat outside.

The temple was built to face the Pacific Ocean because that is the perfect location for casting boats out to sea. The only problem with these boats was the reason they were cast out; the priests inside them were trying to reach Fudaraku, the Pure Land.

The boats were designed with a sealed cabin, no windows or doors; a claustrophobics nightmare. Ever had a dream about being buried alive? The priests here lived it. They’d climb inside, and the boats would be nailed shut from the outside. The orange wood and torii gates surrounding all four sides of the boat are a nice touch.

Water, a small supply of food, and a fuel lamp were placed inside before the priest’s departure. The lamp was there so the priest could keep reciting sutras and appeals to Kannon until they found the Pure Land, until they reached the end of their journey, or their life.

Some of the boats washed up in Kii-Katsuura Bay. A few priests escaped. Most died of starvation, drowning, or dehydration. To stay on theme, I book a night in Urashima. To get there, I have to board a boat myself. This one features no death, just a turtle mascot. The four huge buildings making up the backdrop are all part of my hotel: one on top of a mountain with an observation platform, one at the side of the mountain connected through a network of tunnels, one at the base of the mountain by the dock, and one that isn’t shown on any maps but is there, accessed through the labyrinth.

Checking into my accommodation I’m provided a map. The hotel is so large it features a multitude of interconnected buildings attached through tunnels and cave systems carved into a mountain. The place describes itself as a resort and spa. It has everything: five onsen baths, a games centre, karaoke rooms, a Lawson Stores, shopping streets, massage parlours, restaurants for eating, ballrooms for dancing, ball rooms for ball games, conference rooms, well you get the idea.

There’s one area where I have to take multiple escalators rising the length of 154 metres that take about five minutes. There’s rest areas between each escalator with sofas and tables, just in case the standing becomes too much. I exit onto the 32nd floor and admire the view.

On one of the random floors, I find a replica of an original painted tapestry held in the Treasure Hall at Kumano-Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine. I’ll visit there tomorrow, weather permitting. The full tapestry features the Nachi Pilgrimage Mandala, which displays all the details of this area, from the top of the waterfalls down to Fudarakusan-ji. Here, at the bottom, one of the boats is being cast away into the Pacific Ocean.

Walking through the hotel, I feel as though I’m in some cult dystopian movie. Everyone is walking around in matching yukata. Some of the tourists are not Japanese and wear their yukata crossed the wrong way, for funerals. Everyone goes for breakfast at the same time, for dinner at the same time.

The hotel feels almost haunted, some entire areas are abandoned. It would be the perfect setting for a horror movie. It makes me feel like a rat in a maze or a character in Severance as I navigate the hotel’s endless, echoing corridors.

Having just about explored every length of the hotel, I decide to end the day by soaking in the healing power of a hot spring bath. Of the five to choose from, I opt for the one carved into a cave that looks out onto the Pacific Ocean.

The onsen is so peaceful that I no longer feel as though I’m in a hotel. Sadly, I’m not allowed to take photographs in the onsen, for obvious reasons, so instead, here is the view from the 32nd floor looking out into the bay, the 40 degree sky, and the town of Nachi-Katsuura.

I sit, submerged in hot water, staring past the cave and out to sea. I think of the lost souls who once set off from this shore, sealed inside a boat, nailed shut.

Quivering Heights

Posted on by

I’ve come to Mount Hoju in Yamagata Prefecture to experience one of the best views in Japan. At the base of the mountain is the usual buzzing of tourist-targeted shops selling shaved ice, overpriced noodles, and fish-shaped waffles. Beyond that is the oldest beech wood building in Japan, home to a massive wooden statue of Buddha.

The statue is Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing. They say that if you have an illness or ailment, something you want cured, you rub that part of the Buddha, then climb to the top of the mountain and you will be miraculously healed. Naturally, I rub the Buddha on the neck and hope my scars fade.

Next, it’s time to climb the mountain. The road to the temple is 1,015 stone steps surrounded by thick woods and strangely shaped rocks. Cedar trees make up the mountain forest. The Risshakuji Temple at the top of the mountain means “Mountain Temple,” which is the perfect name for it, considering it is atop a mountain.

Some of the steps are in sections of 108, to represent the 108 Buddhist sins. There are Jizo statues scattered throughout the ascent adorned with coins. There’s a monument engraved with another poem by Basho, and it’s a famous one:

Such stillness,
the cicadas’ cries,
sink into the rocks.

After the second set of 108 steps I’m already worn out. Half a million steps last month, I now find myself humbled by a mere 216. I’m already close to spiritual defeat. The day is hot, the air quality poor, and it’s very humid. It has a way of wearing me out, I suppose.

It’s so hot that every now and again there will be an ever-so-slight breeze, and every time there is, I notice it. A lot of the Japanese people are carrying these little portable electric handheld fans. A country famous for fans, so it makes sense. At about 550 steps there’s a massive rock that everyone is photographing.

Further up, there’s Risshakuji, founded in 860 AD, a small temple of minimalist qualities. From here I realise just how high up I am, that I can make out the city below. The thing that’s unusual is there is no barrier here. I could fall off the mountain in an earthquake, and that’s exactly what almost happens.

The mountain shakes, ever so slightly. A shift. Nobody else seems to react or notice. It’s just the subtle shift. The whole thing took a tiny step to the side. The mountain itself… adjusts. It’s not dramatic. Nothing tumbles. There’s no sound. But I feel it. And for a moment I am filled with dread. Then it stops. I wonder if being on a mountain is the worst place to be during an earthquake.

Very close to the top of the mountain is a post box. At the bottom of the mountain there is a post office, a mere 940 steps away. I naturally feel sorry for the postman whose job it is to walk up and down a mountain every day to collect what is likely just the odd piece of mail.

1,015 steps. I reach the top. The cicadas’ song fills the humid afternoon here, sharp and piercing, like needles being driven into a heart. Their cries echo, sinking into the ancient rock.

A cemetery at the top concludes the climb. Crooked gravestones pushing through moss. Everything here is slanted, aged, dignified in its entropy. I sit beside the tombs, trying not to melt into them. The mountain temple echoes these themes of death, decay, and transcendence as it climbs through cemetery terraces and silence.

I stand to rest, to catch my breath, to take it in. My shirt clinging to me like skin, thirst calling me to a vending machine back at the base of the mountain. But I linger. Amongst the graves, everything feels tilted. Stones, time, even thought.

Walking down is the reward as I can see it all. All the views, all the way down. There’s something about a good vista. I say goodbye to the top of the mountain, and goodbye to the vista. Hasta la vista. Until I see the view again, opening like lungs exhaling. I can see the whole valley now, softened by haze.

Back at my capsule hotel, I voluntarily entomb myself in a plastic drawer like a very polite corpse.

Castaways and Cutouts

Posted on by

There’s a frog at Hiraizumi Station with the title of World Heritage Advertising Manager. His name is Kero-Hira. A speech bubble on the Carnival Cutouts cheerfully instructs, “Make lots of memories and relax!” He stands beside what appears to be a member of the Fujiwara clan riding a horse next to a woman riding a pig.

Today I’ve travelled a little further south, to Iwate Prefecture, in search of old ghosts and even older gold. I’m here to visit Chuson-ji Temple. Stepping past the frog and out of the station, the first thing I notice is the view of rice fields stretching out toward the distant mountains. The second thing I notice is the rack of travel pamphlets for Iwate Prefecture. One of them is familiar. Too familiar. It’s the same pamphlet I wrote ten years ago for a travel company I was working for at that time.

Having never set foot in Iwate Prefecture until now, it feels strange having already written about it in the past. That’s unfortunately how those travel companies operate, stock photographs and regurgitated information. I’m just fortunate enough to be able to visit these places as I am now, and use my own words and my own photographs.

It’s a twenty-minute walk to Chuson-ji Temple but I don’t mind it. The scorching summer sunshine is brutal and the humidity is high. Chuson-ji is a UNESCO World Heritage site that boasts two car parks, so I expect it to be busy. To enter, I must hike about ten minutes up a shaded forest path, lined with lush verdant trees of the cryptomeria variety. If I’m honest, I’m just pleased to be in the shade.

Before the main temple hall, there is Jizo-in, a smaller sub-temple. This temple features a picturesque Japanese garden. However, and as is often the case in life, the moment can’t be truly enjoyed. A man and a woman with leaf blowers fill the splendour of the garden with mechanical shrieking. The serenity is soundtracked by smug futility.

Entry to the Konjikido, or “Golden Hall,” costs ¥1000. It’s unassuming from the outside, just a rectangular building in weathered wood, but inside it’s another world entirely. No photos are allowed. Inside the hall is gilded in gold leaf, with three golden statues of Amida Nyorai flanked by bodhisattvas, all encased in a protective hall to preserve the original 12th-century architecture. The Golden Hall sits inside a larger protective concrete building, almost like a shrine within a shrine, carefully sealed off from time.

Because I couldn’t take any photographs of anything inside the Golden Hall, here is a photograph I took outside the hall, of a golden dragonfly:

On the way out, I draw an omikuji fortune slip. Once again, I pull “Excellent Luck.” I always seem to get the best one. It comes with a small Fortune Arrow trinket that is said to invite happiness and fulfilment of my wish, because an arrow hits the target. I tuck the trinket into my wallet for prosperity and fulfilment, a wish taking aim, and keep reading. It says that on travel, I will have an impactful journey, and that my lucky item is still dried flowers.

As I stand reading my fortune, I hear a voice. “Hey you! Come here,” shouts a Japanese man. I wander over to the man. He appears to be pointing at a large tree. It’s not until he speaks again that I realise what he is pointing at. “Look, a snake,” he says. “Very dangerous.”

After failing to take a decent photograph of a snake crawling into a tree, I wander to the final part of the complex, where the dead have clearly been hard at work. More stacked pebbles. Castaways from another world, trying to build their way back. The resemblance to Osorezan is uncanny. It turns out this temple was founded by Ennin, the same monk.

On the way down, the view opens up to a sweeping panorama of green hills and sky. It is simply stunning.

Leaving Chuson-ji, I walk another twenty minutes through thick heat and dense sunlight to reach Motsu-ji, another World Heritage Site. This will be the third temple this week founded by Ennin, and I have a fourth planned for later this week.

The famous haiku poet Basho visited this temple and left behind a haiku carved into stone:

Summer grasses—
all that remain of
warriors’ dreams.

Motsu-ji was mostly destroyed by fire, and the poem mourns the fallen glory of the Fujiwara clan and the entropy of all things. Since then, some of the buildings have been restored, like the main hall, but many of the structures are just rocks or sticks marking what used to occupy the now empty spaces.

Motsu-ji’s most enduring feature is its Jodo Garden, a symbolic recreation of the Buddhist paradise. It stands in quiet contrast to the ruins around it. The lake, said to evoke the Pure Land, now feels more like a mirror for dreams long since cast away.

I wander into the gardens. Aside from the lake, they are vast yet empty. There’s a small lily garden, the remains of what once was, and some immaculately cut grass. A single lawnmower sits abandoned atop summer grass, having half completed its job. It now lies idle in the heat.

I leave the gardens and return to the station, waving a silent goodbye to Kero-Hira, who is still smiling. I take the train north to Morioka. On the way to my hotel, I spot a sign for “Demon’s Hand Prints in the Rocks.” I decide to check it out.

At the small temple sit three massive boulders, wrapped in rope and chain, said to have been thrown down when Mount Iwate erupted in a fit of rage. Locals once lived in fear of a demon who tormented the area, and they prayed each day for protection. One morning, the demon was discovered bound to these very stones, condemned to cause harm no more. Before his power faded, he struck one of the rocks with his hand, leaving behind a print that remains sealed in stone to this day.

I look at the rocks but don’t find any handprints. I do, to nobody’s surprise, find the customary Carnival Cutouts.

Good News About Hell

Posted on by

In the far north of Japan, where the land is as silent as the dead, there is a mountain where nothing grows. A place where souls hesitate. Osorezan, one of the three most sacred sites in Japan, is known by another name: the Jaws of Hell.

I often find myself drawn to stories of mortality and the afterworld. Today, I will glimpse into the hellscape of a Buddhist afterlife.

Sacred Mount Osorezan seen from the base, shrouded in cloud and myth, believed to be a path to the underworld.

Before I reach the summit, I come across Osorezan Reisui, a fountain flowing with cold, clear water. It looks like a typical purification site, but legend has it that drinking the water from this spring will make you ten years younger.

Desperate to claw back lost time, I reach for the water, drink from its flow, and fill up my water bottle before continuing the climb.

Lush spring of Osorezan Reisui, legendary fountain said to make visitors ten years younger with a single sip.

Further up, the trees and grass make way for shale and volcanic glass, and it is dry. There has been no rain of late to keep the dust down, so with every step the sulphurous ash creates clouds under my feet. Some gets into my mouth, and I choke. Luckily, I still have water from the fountain of youth, so I wash away the bitterness and the years before carrying on.

Higher up, the mountain opens its mouth wide. Nothing moves. There are no roots. There are no birds. Just the crunch of my footsteps echoes through the wasteland. Everything else is… still.

Desolate volcanic wasteland of Mount Osorezan in northern Japan, sacred Buddhist site known as the gateway to hell.

In the distance, Lake Usori lies in eerie repose, a lake of poison. The acidity is so high that nothing can live here. Even the wind seems unwilling to touch the surface, but I am.

Kneeling, I dip my hand into the water. A freezing chill shoots up my arm. For a moment, the water feels alive, tightening impossibly around my fingers. Not liquid, but something with intent. I wrench my hand away, breath unsteady, as if something almost followed me out.

Eerie, acidic waters of Lake Usori in Aomori Prefecture, Japan—still and lifeless, at the heart of Osorezan.

I remain kneeling a while longer, lost terribly in thought. I watch as the ripples in the lake distort my own reflection. I see not just my face, but the faces of every version of myself I’ve left behind. I watch them shifting, like a shimmer of sorts. I take a deep breath, stand up, and walk away, before something walks away with me.

Draining from Lake Usori is the Sanzu River; its waters flowing silently, black and sluggish, like blood oozing from a wound that will never heal. It is at this river the dead must cross to move into the next world. The journey across this river reflects the life one has led: the good cross by bridge, the average wade through the shallows, and the bad must swim amongst the river’s monsters.

Red bridge over the Sanzu River at Osorezan, symbolising the soul’s crossing into the afterlife in Japanese Buddhist lore.

I watch the river for a time, wondering which path I would take. I approach the bridge, its red painted wood the only colour I’ve seen up on this mountain. I take a step toward it, but something inside me pulls back. Not fear or superstition; just a quiet, sinking knowledge that maybe I was here before, and I don’t think I should be here again.

Along the riverbed, piles of pebbles litter the landscape, said to have been stacked by the spirits of unborn children or those who died young. These children build piles of rocks as an offering to Buddha, only to have demons knock them down, condemning the children to rebuild over and over, for eternity; forever trapped in the netherworld, unable to transcend.

Gravel mound with windmills at Osorezan, symbolizing unborn children stacking stones in the Buddhist afterlife.

Not far from the river stands Bodaiji Temple, where monks pray for the lost souls who wander Osorezan. After all the stories of sorrow, the temple stands as the only promise of mercy.

Inside, the air hums with low chants. The scent of incense curls through the dim light, thick as fog, as if the prayers themselves are rising. The monks recite sutras; their voices steady. For all the suffering that lingers in the air, this place feels… still.

Entrance to Bodaiji Temple at Osorezan, where monks pray for lost souls in Japan’s most haunted Buddhist sanctuary.

As the sky darkens, bruised and swollen with the weight of a coming storm, I take one last look at Osorezan. The myths here aren’t just stories. They are things we carry. Things we live. The demons at the river are the silent battles fought in hospital beds. The pebbles are the burdens we carry and rebuild, again and again. And the river, the slow, black current, is the harrowing divide between despair and hope; a crossing that everyone must face.

I turn away and begin my descent.

Dark storm clouds gather over Mount Osorezan—an ominous sky reflecting Japan’s Buddhist land of the dead.

Back at my hotel, an old building stitched together with crumbling wallpaper and tired walls, I try to relax, but the lights buzz like a wasp in a lampshade, and the floorboards creak even when I’m not moving, as if something beneath them is shifting.

I turn on the television. The screen blinks to life; the world rushes back in, bright, absurd, relentless. A puppet show flickers on, but the puppets are just human hands wearing tiny masks. They bow, expressionless. The audience laughs. I change the channel. Static hums for a second too long. An old woman in a blindfold stumbles through a collapsing obstacle course. Laughter again, louder this time. The world keeps moving. Always moving. And I am here… still.

I change one last time. A man in a bear costume is balancing ramen bowls on his head whilst a studio audience screams. I turn the TV off. Hell can wait.

Outside my window, the mountain holds its breath. Somewhere, beneath the floorboards, the dead keep stacking stones.