Category: Japan
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The friendly army
The friendly army What an impressive army of identical little figures! That was my first reaction when I came across them on the grounds of the Buddhist Hase-dera Temple in Kamakura. On closer inspection, however, some of the faces do display slightly different features. So there must have been a few different moulds used to…
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Wishful thinking
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…
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The Pachinko temple
The Pachinko temple During my walks through various neighbourhoods of Kyoto, as I made my way from one beautiful temple, garden or palace to the next, I would occasionally come across buildings like the one in the photo, and I wondered what sort of place this was and what went on inside. One afternoon, I…
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The art of tea
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’…
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Tranquillity
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…
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Purity
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…
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Respect
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…
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Harmony
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,…
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The face of beauty
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 heading home. Everyone is lost in thought, listening to music or quietly exchanging messages with friends or family. And amidst all these commuters, the strikingly beautiful face of a…
καιρός remembered 