December 2, 2023
The one thing you can get overwhelmed with and then exhausted from is the vast amount of temples in Kyoto.
Over 1600 Buddhist temples are scattered throughout the Kyoto Prefecture, as well as 400 Shinto shrines. Those are the ones big enough to count. There are countless other small ones.
How do I approach writing about them without boring even myself? We shall see.
Kennin-ji
Kenninji was founded by Eisai, the Buddhist monk who introduced both Zen Buddhism and tea cultivation to Japan upon returning from study trips to China. The temple was constructed in 1202 and is considered to be the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto.
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Zenkyo-an is a small temple inside the Kennin-ji complex. It dates from 1327 and was founded by the monk Seisetsu. Zenkyo-an is noted for its female deity, Marishiten.
Marishiten-do enshrines the Indian Goddess of Light, Marici, known as Marishiten in Japanese. She is often depicted as either riding on a boar or in a chariot being pulled by boars.
Hallway in Kyushu-in Temple, a part of the Kenyan-ji complex
Sho-ren-in
Shōrenin is one of the city’s monzeki temples, which are temples whose head priests were traditionally members of the imperial family.
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It was nice to get away from the crowds running from “must do” to “must do” on the tourist lists and visit some temples the way they were intended, with quiet and the ability to reflect.