This will be published as I am in flight back to the States. Japan Standard Time is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. One of the oddities of traveling from Japan to the East coast of the States is that I’m leaving Japan at 4 PM on June 14 and arriving in . . . → Read More: Reflections on Leaving Japan: Part 2
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As I write this (11th of June) it is the three month anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. For those of us not in the tsunami and nuclear disaster area life goes on pretty normally. Concurrently there is always an undercurrent of awareness about the devastation which occurred . . . → Read More: Reflections on Leaving Japan: Part 1 Living in a 300 year old building in an 820 year old temple is like being in a time warp. Driving from Chiba New Town Chuo train station to the Matsuzaki village and Tamonin Temple is like traveling back 60 or more years in 15 minutes. The taxi ride cost about $20, pretty . . . → Read More: Japan 9 – Living in a 300 year old building. In the previous blog I wrote about the Bishamonten-do. Today I’ll discuss the Amidha-do. Amidha-do is the Kengyo (exoteric) hall and larger of the two buildings. The honzon in this hall is Amidha Nyorai, as the name implies, and it also houses, the lecture hall and the living quarters. It is about . . . → Read More: Japan 8th Part 2 Tamonin Amidha-do Tamonin Part 1 – Bishamonten-do One of the readers asked if I could write more about Tamonin. It is a good day to do so, danka (sangha members) started showing up yesterday morning about 7:30 for a clean-up / work day. It’s funny that sangha members at Tendai Buddhist Institute are doing the . . . → Read More: Japan 7th – Tamonin Part 1 – Bishamonten-do A preface – This morning I received a brief message from Ryushin and Shingaku. The tornado that wreaked havoc through central Massachusetts was nearby, but they are uninjured. They are without electricity and the roads are still mostly impassable, but they are otherwise OK. Thanks for letting me know Ryushin. The blog The . . . → Read More: Japan 6th – Religious Observance Japan is a bathing culture. Other bathing cultures include Korea, Turkey, Hungary and Finland, though I’ve not seen any literature about it, I would also include Iceland. The Romans, and Greeks were famous (or infamous) for their baths. Especially captivating of Japanese use of o-furo (bath) is the onsen, or hot spring. These . . . → Read More: Japan is a bathing culture. Why am I in Japan? I mentioned in the first blog that I’m in Japan to work on translations of esoteric texts assisting Ichishima Shoshin. A little background might help in understanding why this is important. Tendai Buddhism is composed of both exoteric (Jpn. kengyo) and esoteric (Jpn. Mikkyo) practices . . . → Read More: Japan 4th Why am I here? I did a small laundry last week the morning that the typhoon rains began and had to bring the clothes in from the clothesline and hang them inside. This morning when I put on a fleece that had been washed that day it smelled like spoiled milk, and realized that it . . . → Read More: Japan 3rd Living at Tamonin Temple reminds me of the ambivalent attitudes that the Japanese have toward their local Buddhist temple and Shinto shrines. To the Japanese Buddhism is not so much a religion as part of their culture and a worldview that informs their daily life. Japan being a postmodern society, people . . . → Read More: Japan 2nd |
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