Category: Japan
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The amiable army
The amiable army What an impressive army of look-alike little figures! That was my first reaction when I bumped into them on the grounds of the Buddhist Hase-dera temple in Kamakura. On closer examination some of their faces show slightly different features. There must be a few different moulds from which the statues are made,…
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Wishful thinking
I wonder if I should reconsider my stand on religion somewhat. In earlier posts of this blog I have spoken – illustrating my point with pictures – of the ‘folklore of faith’, implying that apart from its popular forms, there is also a more serious and fundamental side to religion. The latter would be of…
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The Pachinko temple
During my walks through different neighbourhoods of Kyoto, going from one beautiful temple, garden, or palace to another, I now and then passed buildings like the one in the photo and I’d wonder what kind of place this was and what went on inside. One afternoon I decided to enter a Pachinko parlour as I had…
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The art of tea
Looking at the photos in each of the last four posts, I highlighted a concept that is central to Zen or – in broader terms – to traditional Japanese culture. With the photo of the display in the Tokonoma I brought the word ‘harmony’ into focus, but ‘respect’, ‘purity’, or ‘tranquillity’ would not have been…
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Tranquillity
Zen rock gardens are oases of tranquillity. They are not intended as places we set foot in, but places we quietly contemplate from the outside. They are places for meditation, created in the precincts of Zen Buddhist temples. Ryoan-ji, the rock garden in the picture, dates from the end of the 15th century. With its…
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Purity
“The path is no more than a way out of this floating world – Why not wash off upon entering it the dust of impurity from our heart.” Stone wash basins like the one in the picture, containing crystal clear water, are invariably placed near the entrance of a Japanese tea room. Before participating in…
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Respect
Respect is an important aspect of Japanese culture. The emperor, ancient traditions, monuments, art, craftsmanship, they all deserve our deepest respect. As does the Japanese garden; this artistic creation of a highly idealized natural environment …. let’s call it paradise. A paradise that has never existed in real nature – the opposite of the garden…
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Harmony
If we describe the interior space of a traditional Japanese house using the word ‘harmonious’, then we may regard the display in the tokonoma as the height of harmony. The tokonoma is the alcove-like space found in a traditional house, reserved for the exhibition of a work of art, or a work of nature, or…
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The face of beauty
or the beauty of a face A train in Kyoto. It’s the end of the day; work is over and people are going home. Everyone is immersed in their own thoughts, listening to music, or silently exchanging messages with friends or family. And in the midst of all these commuters, the strikingly beautiful face…
καιρός remembered 