Golden Week - Koya-san

This past week was "Golden Week," which means all students have a week off from school. Many of the UC students traveled to Tokyo. Friends Cathryn, Rachel, and I took a different path, and traveled to a small, magical, mountain village called Koya-san. To arrive there we traveled first by JR, then chikatetsu, next train, followed by a cable car, and finally a bus! There, we spent three days and two nights in a Shingon Buddhist temple where we were served the most amazing dinners and breakfasts in our room by monks-in-training. They also laid our futons out for us at night and prepared tea for us as well. We awoke early in the morning for service from 6-7:15 am. The monks chanted the entire time and we gave symbolic offerings of tea and incense while another monk prepared a fire. Afterwards the head monk asked us back to his quarters for tea and mochi. We chatted for sometime with the other monks and I made several connections and received some recommendations for my dissertation research. Excellent!

Koya-san is such a gentle place. The people there are incredibly kind, gentle, and welcoming. This village, three thousand feet into a deep green mountain, brought such a peace and quietness to me and the busy, city life we lead in Kyoto.

We were fortunate and were able to participate and in special mandala ritual that only occurs twice a year. We were inside a large temple, in the dark, blindfolded, our hands twisted in a mudra linking body and spirit on a lotus leaf, and chanting "omsamaeosatobun" over and over again, while we dropped flowers onto a mandala. It was quite powerful I must say and supposedly we are all one step closer to becoming a monk!

As a final note, the most important aspect of the trip to me was perhaps less significant to the overall peace I felt while I was there and am attempting to keep with me now. The monks let me rake the rocks! I was overjoyed. Cathryn took several pictures and I will put them on Flickr as soon as possible. Honestly, I would be quite content in my life if I lived in a temple and was the "rock raker." So much for my PhD, I've decided to become a rock raker!

I plan to return to Koya-san again before these four months are over.