Mount Koya and Kukai
I was so happy to find a letter from you when I arrived here at Koyasan. I thought of you often while taking the train here so was pleased to hear the news of the village. The monks at the Temple Inn smiled up at me as I registered. They said I had a friend here which confused me until the envelope was handed up to me and I saw the return address and familiar writing. What a kind thing to do, sending me a note to welcome me here on this beautiful mountain. You must have known that I was saddened to leave you all, even knowing the adventures ahead of me. I will tell you of some of my decisions as I finish telling you what an extraordinary experience coming to this place for a second time is. The last time was almost ten years ago and I was a tourist, moving from place to place seeing as many different things as I could in one day. This one place, even this one Temple, was the quiet of that trip, the place where I found that my body was experiencing the mountain and I was no longer viewing Japan in the manner of an old Kodak camera snapping away without thought. Over the years, I have drawn of the experience of Koyasan when I felt overwhelmed, either by grief or just day to day living.
I am not sure now what to think. I arrived, traveling on the cable car with excitement and anticipation of being able to re-connect with the original responses I had ten years ago. The trees almost create a tunnel around the cable car so it is darkened or perhaps dappled by the light and the jolting keeps a tension in your body but it is so very green and rich brown out the window I imagined myself in an embrace with nature. I think I truly miss trees when away from them as I miss seeing water. Anyway, I made my way from this cable car to the bus and from there to Shojoshin-in, the Temple I am staying at next to the Cemetery. The place is beautiful and the monks caring and welcoming. I think I spent the first two day never leaving the building property. I watched a small lizard flitting here and there by the pool in the courtyard and somehow that seemed like a good use of my time, just sitting. The morning ceremony is early and I have managed to go to each day’s beginning.
Let me tell you a little of the history here. The story has magic and mystery and demonstrates a little as to how sacred space can be constructed or possibly how a teaching can be moved using sacred items from one location to another. It is a good story so take time to make a tea before reading on. This is the story of a young man, born to a well off family and encouraged to study Daoism and Confucianism with an expectation of find a place working within the government of Japan at the time and the time was 774.(Gardiner) Deciding that he was more interested in Buddhism, this young man, at the age of eighteen, took the name Kukai and entered into the Nara monastery to study. (Krummel) There was a gap between the two studies and this is a little unclear but the young man wandered. Dropping out of state university studies offered time for this young man to experience aesthetic practices. He met a monk, who taught him an esoteric meditation mantra that when repeated a million times would give the practitioner great powers of hearing (understanding) and retaining (memory) (Krummel). This may have been what initially drew him toward Nara and taking the vows of a monk. Whatever the reason, we know that Kukai studied here but became a little dissatisfied with the teaching so ended up on a ship. Do you remember that wonderful story we read together in the winter of monks traveling to China and having treacherous waters, illness and other hardships all to bring the teachings home from Tang China to Japan? The hardships to bring not only texts but sacred art and even monks. The book I refer to is Roof Tile of Tempyo and Kukai could have been anyone of those monks, perhaps a few years later but the stories and hardships were the same. (Inoue) Kukai travelled to China where he studied as a government sponsored student. He studied Esoteric Buddhism under one of the great tantric teachers. Like the meditation mantra he learned earlier, Kokûzôgumonji no ho, he found and studied other rituals and practices and today some of which are practiced still here on Mount Koya. This was the path of enlightenment that Kukai was seeking. What Kukai collects and developed was to eventually become the Japanese Tantric Shingon Buddhism which is still found throughout Japan. Kukai, the monk who travelled to China with a fleet of four boats, only two arriving safely, founded Esoteric Shingon Buddhism in Japan. I am committed to re-read the book we read together as a way to understand some of the story of Kukai better and of course it will remind me of the time we spent together.
Now to the fabulous story of how this mountain became a sacred location. There are versions of course but my favourite is the one where Kukai, while in China, throws a vajra, you know the sacred tool we used in rituals with the prongs? He throws this into the air and where it is found is where the temple will be built. It is told by some that Kukai made a promise to the deities while sailing through stormy water to or from China that if he survived he would build a temple to teach here in Japan (Gardiner). This vajra is a key to the construct of Koyasan as the sacred space as it was found in a tree on the mountain. Although the tree is now gone, third generation of the seeds from that tree have continually produced a new tree in this spot. Perhaps it is a way to transport sacred space. By bringing a known sacred item from one country into a new country, one can move the mystery of the sacred with it. Kukai brought back from China, two mandalas to Japan, many texts and altar or shrine pieces of art. The mandalas are an integral part of Shingon practices. One mandala is of the womb realm, the second is of the diamond realm. The mandalas either hang on the east and west walls or perhaps are on a table during rituals, the womb realm presents Dainchi Nyori Buddha or Great Cosmic Buddha (Sun Buddha) in the centre with all the other buddhas around it. It is a way of thinking that everything as an offshoot of the Great Buddha and thereby has the same goodness within. The coexistence of all is the idea I think. The Diamond mandala is the conditioned realm while the womb Mandala is the unconditioned and there is a story of Kukai, while he was in China studying was taken blindfolded as his first initiation into a place where the womb mandala was on a low table and given a small sprig or flower to toss toward which would guide him as to which of the enlightened ones he should focus his life on (Krummel). It is said that his sprig landed in the middle on the Great Cosmic Buddha himself.
I don’t want to veer too far from Kukai establishing Mount Koya as his site for meditation. He believed that meditation was best done away from the cities and distractions. Mount Koya was a long way from roads and Kukai finally got permission to build his school there on a flat piece of ground with mountains all around (Gardiner). Mountains have been associated with the sacred in many religions and it might be associated with the distance between the celestial and earth appears closer. Kukai built his famed temple, Konjobu-ji, and managed to perform rituals to ordain some monks. Kukai never saw the finished temple but he is very much associated with the whole area. Kukai died or rather he is said to have entered into an eternal meditative state in the year 835 and was entombed here, on the mountain in the Okuno-in where a shrine is located dedicated to, not Kukai but Kobo Daishi which is the name that is now given to the monk. What an amazing story really and again, the sacredness of Mount Koya for the Shingon practitioner is established or constructed by the entombed monk himself.Kobo Daishi is now considered a Saint of sorts and pilgrimages to his shrine are very common. It appears the movement of relics and sacred items is enough to establish new locations as sacred.
All these legends are magical and I found myself one night walking into cemetery after dinner with thoughts spinning in my head. I do wish you were here with me but you will enjoy this short story of my walk. The lanterns were all on and the mossy shadows from the trees and tombstones gave a bit of an eerie effect so even I, at almost six feet, began to question my decision to walk the paths on my own. All of a sudden I came across a woman, not much different in age and we are, and her teenage child. They were giggling and it was a nervous sort of giggle. The woman called out to me to ask if I had ever put my ear to the particular stone pillar marking the grave of a nun. I was puzzled but she jumped in with a reading from a guide book which said that if you put your ear to the stone at night you can hear screaming from hell. What a story but these legends abound on this mountain and after I was sure the two left, I found myself putting my ear against the cold stone but unfortunately all I heard was a pounding heart which I believe was my own. I am sure you knew I would have to try for myself and yes, dear friend, I chuckled at myself for doing it.
I have told you many anecdotal stories but you asked me to try and discover a Fire Ritual if possible. They are held quite regularly and you were correct in saying that the vajra plays an important part of the ritual. My understanding is that Shingon Buddhists believe that they can become enlightened in this body they have and in this life. It is said that Kukai spoke of the coexistence within the universe of all for: “the mutual benefit for all living beings,” and the Shingon Foundation in The United States puts a goal forward for practitioners to aspire to bring about a caring society that gives life to the world of all living beings (Shingnon Foundation Website). Anyway, the sect uses tantric rituals, like the fire ritual to express the idea that through one’s body practicing meditation on the two mandalas, using mudras and repeating mantras it is possible to gain the wisdom of the buddhas. (Shingon Foundation Website) The Fire Ritual, which was a purification ritual and the monk who performs it is often holding a vajra in one hand and in the other a bell with a carving of a vajra on the top, I believe these represent a strong method of practice and wisdom (Mitchell p167).
This ritual was chanted and the altar was so full of things reflecting the mandala but it was difficult to see it all from where I was sitting(Payne). The monk was very specific in his movements regarding building the fire, it appeared to always be three sticks put on each time and the wood was alternated with grain being put in and I think a liquid of some kind (Payne). The fire became very large really at one point and gave off quite a lot of heat. The Homa Ritual, or fire ritual, was brought to Japan by Kukai as a tantric practice but many sects have similar type rituals. The middle part of the ritual is directed toward Manjusri the Bodhisattva of wisdom. You told me so much of him while I was in the village so this caught my imagination. One of the four major Boddhisattva I think. The monk uses his whole self to meditate on the deities, actually inviting the diety to enter into himself so there is a joining of selves. It is a very intense ritual and while those there, like myself are purified as well, it is a very personal one for the practitioner. At the end, the monk asks the diety to accept the humble offering of the Homa and replaces the cups, the vajra and other items while he holds the beads (Payne). I forgot to mention that I noticed one other thing. The gong that is used throughout the ritual is as melodic as the one I pointed out in the monastery in your village.
You are probably asking yourself if I ever got to the Jizo statue to make an offering for my child or as I have discovered for all those who are dead and caught between the bardo. Yes I have completed the promise I made. Just yesterday I went to the entrance of the cemetery and washed my hands ritually as I was crossing the bridge to enter. It was suggested by the monk in the the temple I am living to walk a certain path and slowly since he knew I would not be walking as a Buddhist pilgrim but as a father. It was a quiet walk even though there were many others wandering as well. Before I even got to the shrine I was holding as my destination these past months, I discovered a small shrine within a rotted out old tree trunk. I have to say that this is where I stopped. I cried for my sadness of not having my child to grow up with me and left my offering there in the tree shrine along with a candle. I use the phrase “good enough” too often you tell me but this was much better than good enough, it was what I will take home with me as a memory.
I have decided to return to your village in the next year or two in the hopes of helping to build the school and perhaps help with growing some herbs. Perhaps I will try to write you once I am back home but we talked of how things change always and we do not know what might come next. I wish you a healthy year and am grateful for all those who made my stay in the village one that was safe but challenging.
References used:
Foundation for Shingon Buddhism Website, Japanese Esoteric Buddhism: Koyasan Shingon School. http://www.shingonbuddhism.org/contact.html
Gardiner, David, The Consecration of the Monastic Compound at Mount Koya by Kukai. ed. White, David Gordon, Blackboard RLG206Y, 2015
Inoue, Yasushi, translated by Araki, James T. The Roof Tile of Tempyo University of Toyko Press, Tokyo, 1981
Krummel, John, “Kûkai”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/kukai/>.
Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, Oxford University Press New York 2002
Payne, Richard. Ritual Manual for the Protective Fire Offering Devoted to Manjusri Chuin Lineage, White, David Gordon. 2000. Tantra in practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
