{Inter} Cultural Japan

A few years ago, during a visit to the Kyoto National Museum, I was struck by a hanging scroll of a monk meditating in a dense forest. It was an intriguing painting. The black-robed monk was sitting in a tree, where the trunk split into two wide branches and formed a natural seat. His rosary and incense burner (a faint wisp of smoke wafting from it) hung on a smaller branch nearby and neatly, very Japanese, his high geta clogs stood under the tree. He was sitting in zazen pose with his eyes closed. A faint beard could be seen on his ascetic face. The monk only occupied about one fifth of the whole painting, in the lower half, and the rest showed a dense forest, trees upon trees, with rocks lying at their roots. A few birds were flying among the highest branches, and on a high twig of one of the trees perched a squirrel, quietly observing the meditating monk.

This monk was Myo-e (1173-1232) and the hanging scroll, a national treasure, is called The Monk Myo-e (’Myo-e Shonin-zo’), or, an alternative title, Zazen in a Tree (’Jujo Zazen-zo’). It in fact belongs to the temple founded by Myo-e, Kozanji, which has entrusted this and other treasures to the museum for safekeeping. Myo-e used to meditate outdoors, alone in the woods. In this respect he consciously followed in the footsteps of the Buddha, who also meditated in nature, under trees, on rocks, in caves.

[Path to Kozanji]

Myo-e
After he lost his parents, at the age of eight Myo-e had been entrusted to the care of his uncle, a monk of Jingoji in Takao to the northwest of Kyoto. When he became sixteen, he received the Buddhist ordination at Todaiji Temple in Nara and subsequently led a life of rigorous religious training in the mountains of his native Wakayama. He also continued his studies at Jingoji, now with the Shingon priest Mongaku (d. 1203), and additionally became interested in the new Zen school, about which he learned from its founder Eisai (1141-1215).

But Myo-e was above all fascinated by the doctrines of the Kegon school, one of the old Nara schools of Buddhism, which is based on the Avatamsaka or Flower Garland sutra, a scripture holding that all phenomena are equal and dependent upon each other, and an expression of the highest principle, the Buddha mind. Myo-e tried to reinvigorate the Kegon school in the face of the new movements which were fermenting in his time, such as the Pure Land Buddhism of Honen. Myo-e’s fervor for Buddhism was such that he even conceived a plan to visit India (which no Japanese had ever done or would do before modern times) and make a pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy places, but as his biography tells, ‘the deities of the Kasuga Shrine in Nara advised him to stay in Japan.’

[Halls in the forest]

A Temple in the Forest
Myo-e was not only learned but also led a pure life, away from the strife of the world. He spent much of his time in Togano-o, an area in Takao not far from Jingoji, but deeper in the mountains and even more quiet. Here he eventually rebuilt an old temple, Kozanji, which he made into the center for the revival of Kegon Buddhism. The land was granted him in 1206 by the retired emperor Gotoba. The full name of the temple was ‘Mountain Temple (Kozanji) First Illuminated by the Sun.’ This refers to the main Buddha in Kegon Buddhism, the Cosmic or Sun Buddha Vairocana.

I first visited Kozanji fifteen years ago, at a time when the only thing I knew about Kozanji was that it possessed a famous scroll, the Choju Giga, of animals burlesquing the activities of humans. This scroll has been called Japan’s first manga. I knew nothing about Myo-e, and the visit, at the end of a long and hot summer day, was rather disappointing. After all, there is not much to see at Kozanji. The temple built by Myo-e was destroyed in the civil wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, and only partly restored in later ages, with rather boring halls brought from other temples. There are no statues, there is no temple museum (most of the temple treasures, including the Choju Giga scroll, are in the Kyoto National Museum). The only picture I took was of the atmospheric path of diamond-shaped flagstones (undoubtedly modern!) leading to the temple.

Now, also on a summer day, I again visit Kozanji, and how different it is this time. In the meantime I have become acquainted with the scroll in the Kyoto National Museum of Myo-e meditating in the tree and know quite a lot about him, as I have also read the study by George Tanabe, Myo-e, the Dreamkeeper (Myo-e kept a famous record of his dreams for 40 years of his life). I know I will not see any statues or a famous garden, but am looking forward to visit the Sekisui-in, the only Kamakura building still surviving in the temple, and a national treasure. So I come prepared not only in mind, but also in heart.

[Entrance of Kozanji]

The Monk in the Tree
Kozanji stands in a dense forest, the ground covered with moss and old stones. It is almost dusk under the tall trees, where a few temple halls, closed, stand scattered in the grounds. I notice several foundation stones lying around on the mossy ground, where in the past other halls must have stood. This time immediately the image of the meditating Myo-e springs to my mind. Although I do not find a tree with a split trunk, there is no lack of trees to meditate under, and I can vividly picture him in my mind’s eye. I feel the spirituality of the place and realize there is no need for statues or grandiose halls. The silent, green wood is enough.

In one corner is a garden with tea plants. This has been set up, I presume, in modern times, to commemorate the fact that the Zen monk Eisai brought the tea plant from China and first gave it to Myo-e to plant here at Kozanji. Initially, tea was drunk by monks to keep awake during long meditation sessions.

I finally enter the Sekisui-in Hall, the only building of the temple open to visitors. It is a wonder this building has survived the onslaught of the ages, as it is only a fragile hall, one of the few remaining examples of 12th c. residential architecture in Japan. It apparently was used as a residence by Myo-e. It is austere, but graceful, too, in the lines of its shingled roof.

The reception desk sells a copy of the Choju Giga, but not the painting of the meditating Myo-e. It is not known whether the Choju Giga was related to Myo-e, but I can very well imagine how it was born in his environment. Seen from this pure mountain, the mundane world must have appeared full of self-important frogs and monkeys, playing out a weird spoof.

Sekisui-in does not stand in its original location, but has in modern times been moved to a high point, which looks out over the valley of the Kiyotaki River. I sit down on the terrace and look at the landscape in front of me: green hills, the blue summer sky, a few white clouds sailing slowly by. The cicadas are crying, a loud summer chorus. I can not meditate like Myo-e did, in a tree or on a stone, but sitting there on the verandah, I lose myself in those white clouds and keep sitting until I am woken from my reverie by a couple of rare visitors.

[Tea plants in the forest]

I remember my first visit, when I did not see all these beautiful things, when my heart was closed. Indeed, you see nothing, if you don’t know what to look for.

That makes me wonder what I am still missing now.

Umegahata Togano-o-cho, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto-shi
Tel: 075-861-4204
50 min. by JR bus from Kyoto station to Togano-o bus stop, then a 5-min. walk.