Pictures from Ryuanji Temple

Posted: December 6, 2008 | Author: Doug | Filed under: Buddhism, Japan, Religion, Travel, Zen | 3 Comments »

Recently I found a really old post I wrote promising to post some pictures, then Barbara’s About.com Buddhism section reminded me about those pictures as well. So, let me post some pictures of Ryūanji Temple from my trip in 2005. It’s a bit dated, but some of the pictures turned out pretty well.

For background, Ryuanji Temple is in Kyoto Japan, and belongs to the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. Rinzai Zen has typically been a more “urban” style of Zen compared to its cousin, Soto Zen, which gained popularity more in the country side. Ryūanji sits in the heart of Kyoto city, which itself was the Imperial and cultural capitol for a long time in Japanese history.

We happened to arrive in January, when there was a brief snow fall. By “brief” I mean it was almost gone by the afternoon. When you pass the first gate, you come to a staircase, we photographed here:

Up the stairs is the temple/monastery proper. After you step into the temple, and to your left is the famous Zen garden. During our visit, the garden was covered in snow, but still pretty cool to see. Here’s me pretending to be “elite Zen” guy:

Here’s a picture without my ugly visage in it :

From the Zen garden, you will walk down the hall, turn right, and then right again to the other side of the building. There you can see another famous site at Ryūanji:

This is a tsubukai (蹲踞), which is like a little faucet for washing hands and face. In pre-Buddhist Japanese culture, Shinto religion emphasized a lot of ritual cleansing, so even now if you visit Shinto shrines, you are encouraged to at least wash your hands at a tsubukai before you enter. Usually they’re very easy to spot, and to use. Just watch the locals. Buddhist temples in Japan adopted the tsubukai as well. This particular tsubukai is engraved with Japanese that according to About.com, mean “I only know I am complete and sufficient as I am,” and are attributed to Dōgen who founded the Soto Zen sect.

Lastly, is the tea house. You can enjoy both excellent Buddhist cuisine (really, it’s amazing what people can do with food these days) and wonderful views like this:

The snow was falling at the time silently (not obvious in the picture), so it was really, really serene. This really was a highlight in that whole trip to Japan.

Lastly, as you leave the tea house, there you pass the other side of the small lake at Ryūanji:

Even if you are not a Rinzai Zen Buddhist, this is a wonderful temple to visit, and certainly worth the trip. Enjoy!

Namuamidabu

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