Red maple leaves and Zen gardens in Tofuku-ji Temple

When autumn falls deeply my wife and I always think we have to look at red maple leaves. The best urban area to see red maple leaves in Japan is Kyoto, Tofuku-ji Temple is one of great red leaf places in Kyoto. Because the temple has the utmost red maple leaves scenes like nothing in other urban cities in Japan.


After getting out from Tofuku-ji Station of Keihan railways, the way to the temple has good aspects in a pavement. Over the short shopping-street, each time you turn right or left at corners of the pavement, each scene from the pavement gradationally changes. Firstly, ochre yellow barriers including black roof tiles and stone blocks, secondly, road trees with yellow leaves, and finally, long banks covered with green grass and moss. Those raised our appetite for red maple leaves.


Tofuku-ji Temple


A wonderful scene of Tofuku-ji Temple is a wide view from the view point of “Tsu-ten-kyo” meaning “the bridge to heaven” in Japanese, at an upper place on a path for looking at red leaves. We could emotionally look at a lot of trees with bright red leaves beneath our feet. It’s like a view by standing at the top of a mountainous slope. I think the predecessors of the temple endeavored to make a premier one-cut-beauty scene from nature, which is not solid but changing, in the temple. It is a Zen method, and it’s ordinary how to put beauty on something for Japanese people.

Japanese people say “I’m full” when they look at a widely marvelous scene. Of course the scene made us achieve the fulfillment of our appetite for beauty. And many foreigners’ appetite for red maple leaves might be fulfilled.


The guide path invited us to other scenes of red maple leaves. Those were with some structures like old stone stairs, white barriers, edge of wooden walls of small temples, fallen red maple leaves on the moss ground or red camellias. We could look at any photogenic-cut scenes. Those might be mechanisms not to bore people looking at many red leaves. And those are similar to Japanese cuisine which has no main dish and various different foods which are assorted on various plates. The view from Tsu-ten-kyo must be the main dish served by the temple, but other scenes also fulfilled our appetite as beautiful as the scene from the bridge.


Gardens


Leaving from the red leaves path, The Hojo House of Tofuku-ji Temple was waiting for our visit. Different atmosphere of Zen Buddhism gardens welcomed us. The house has four gardens, which are located in each direction of north, south, east and west. The first was “karesansui” in Japanese. Wild rocks and small green miniature hills on white sand ground with clean-lined-ripples are in a place which is surrounded by barriers. It expresses one nature. The ripples of the white sands imitate waves of rivers or seas. Wild rocks imitate steep mountains. We had to try to imagine nature. The activity in my mind was not analytical but whole-thinking, not linear but nonlinear. We had to wholly communicate with the garden in silent in a different way from scientific thinking methods. At last the garden becomes non-materialized but organizational. That is just Zen! Grasping the whole in a moment is Zen. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Karuta competitions by the 100 Poems

Image
I saw on TV news that many young foreigners competed karuta competitions by the 100 Poems. I was surprised at that, as well as I was interested why they played karuta competitions and why they knew how to play. Because karuta competitions are so difficult that the number of those who play the game isn’t large even in Japan. Eventually, I never have played karuta competitions. Incidentally, the 100 Poems, “hyakunin-issyu” in Japanese, are familiar with Japanese People. Japanese people in most cases learn the 100 Poems in their junior high-schools or high-schools, and they sometimes play a game of competing accuracy and quickness with several people that players grab a card written with the only second phrases of a poem from cards on tatami listening to full phrases of a poem. Of course I learned the 100 Poems in my junior high school and sometimes played the game, but I was a weak player of karuta games. Karuta competitions are a severer sport than the game above, so the sport dema
Read more

Warikan Custom In Japan

Image
Culture in a country is the result made by the specific customs based on the thoughts of the people, if it is true, to try to look out for the specific custom of a country where you visit is a joyful challenge during your traveling time. When I visited foreign countries I experienced the different customs from Japan and I was happy to know it. Many anthropologists say that Japanese culture is especially different from cultures of other countries. Then foreigners visiting Japan will feel pleasure by finding out the different customs from their countries. Warikan is the one specific Japanese custom. Warikan is to split the bill among members who ate dishes and drank in restaurants and it is generally a popular custom in Japan. I have a foreign friend who has been in Japan from Australia and I sometimes have drinking parties with him. He knows Japanese customs but perhaps his true sense depends on western customs. At paying the bill when I suggested “sloping warikan” to him as a mat
Read more

Satsuma-biwa music

Image
Hiromi Hakozaki, who is a Satsuma-biwa player, played biwa music at the machiya of Onishi-tune-shoten and explained how biwa instruments became its present form. I want to write about one of Japan’s specific sound instruments according to her explanation. Before my explanation I want to mention my impression after listening to her play, I said to her in this way. “The sounds of Satsuma-biwa is calm in terms that it allows a human physiological phenomenon like that blood pressure will be peaceful, but is very deep in terms that it lets the human spirit vibrate strongly.” Biwa v.s. Lute Biwa(Japanese lute) came far from Persia in the 8th century via The Silk Road. The picture above is an ancient Persian lute instrument(front and back) which is stored as a national treasure in Syosoin next to Todaiji or Kasuga Shrine in Nara City from the 8th century. There is an opinion that the lute in Syosoin is the original biwa(lute). And the long history for thirteen centuries in Japan tra
Read more