2013 Travel Dispatch #5 (Empuku-ji, Kyoto)

And we're back! Well, back into a part of the world where we have internet access again. We have just had the most amazing experience at a most amazing place. I can't relate it nearly as well as Fran could, since it's really her story, but I will try to give a sense of my spin on the past couple of days. Sit back, this may be a lengthy one.

This is the entrance to where we have just come back from. It is a Buddhist monastery that has it's origins in the 12th or 13th century. It is a training ground for monks. Fran's grandmother studied Zen Buddhism there exactly 80 years ago, nearly to the day actually, from when we arrived. The monastery is a very private place and not generally open to the public, I was indeed privileged to be able to take the pictures I took in and around the entire compound. Because of Fran's connection through her grandmother and the papers and photos she brought to share with the monks, we were very warmly received. In fact, we were treated as very special guest and afforded every courtesy and consideration. Very impressive considering that the primary focus of the monastery is the difficult and rigorous training of the monks.

The abbot of the monastery, Tokumon Roshi, was a most gracious, engaging host and honored us with an inordinate amount of his time. And, we really liked him. The above is the entrance of the main building.

The interior of the main building. The entire place was immaculate and extremely well kept. There were very old parts and some very new parts. It was difficult at times to know which was which.

This is a view, across a little pond and garden area, of the building we stayed in. Actually, we had pretty much the entire ground floor.

The interior of our room, with sleeping palettes in-place. We were guests there for two nights and two full days plus.

The grounds were littered, hardly an appropriate verb, with artfully arranged and beautiful objects. It was a heavenly place for a photographer to wander around. And again I felt very honored to be allowed to do so. I could append a unseemly number of examples, but will spare you that.

But ultimately, a monastery is not really about the place, beautiful and special as it is, it is about the monks being trained there. They were a wonderful group of devoted young men, though a couple were into their 40s most of them were in their 20s. They treated us wonderfully and tolerated our intrusion into their monastic lives with grace. Their days start at 3:30am with an exercise session and then proceeds to prayer and meditation. Fran joined them one morning, I did not. They have two breaks, at 9 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. The above is during one of those breaks. It is the only time I observed them to act somewhat unmonk-like.

Both Fran and the Roshi had copies of a picture of Fran's grandmother with the Roshi and monks of her time. The above is a present day, as of today actually, recreation of that photo taken in exactly the same place. The only things different are that the trees are bigger and the group of monks is smaller. The picture Fran is holding is of her grandmother. (A show of hands if you want to see the original pic from 1933.)

And now for a closing bonus for the foodies in the crowd, we know you're out there.

We had lunch at the monastery and dinner on the 11th floor of Kyoto Station after we got back. The lunch was with the Roshi and dinner was with a lovely young lady who served as translator the whole time we were at the monastery. (Maybe more about her later.) But the food....  Below are the foodie pics.

A most excellent monastery lunch. . .

. . . and our decidedly un-monastic dinner. But both were delicious. The Japanese do do food well, in both taste and appearance.

Photography by Burdette