visiting beauty (culture tip #14)

Every once in a while, I will have a real spiritual experience. Perhaps I have been neglecting myself lately, or parhaps I have been too busy to look out into the world recently. I`m not sure, but it's been about a year since I've had a spiritual thought. Yesterday, however, I certainly had a beautiful, serene experience when I visited a temple in Nagoya. (Yes, yes, there's nothing to do in Nagoya, I know! But this temple popped out as I exited a subway and was a delightful surprise.)

Sometimes you just feel that there's something great about the place. It leads you in and you find yourself wondering around the yard, listening to chants and thinking about life. I stood on the porch for about 45 minutes, breathing incense and staring at pigeons scavenging the yard for food.

fig 12 - culture tip 14: The incense is considered purifying and people will waft it onto their bodies, and especially over sick or injured parts to help them heal.

The temple yard was surrounded by buildings because Nagoya is a rather big city, but standing on the temple porch was completely quiet and peaceful, and life seemed to go by at the slow pace of nature.

Every temple has two guardians standing watch over the entrance. Raijin, the thunder god; and Fujin, the wind god. Here there was a giant painting on Fujin on the apartment building walling off the temple yard. It's cheesy I know, but once you have been to Japan you except that the Japanese make very little distinction between cheesiness and high-culture.


I sat on the porch thinking and thinking. And under the giant lantern tied with people's wishes, I felt some deep 4th-dimensional feeling of understanding. Like time was overlapping and the I saw life ever-so-briefly through the temple's eyes. It's impossible to fit into words...But it was beautiful.