Author of the Hiro Hattori (Shinobi) mysteries
The New Year holidays are a particularly important time in Japan. We observe a three-day New Year celebration, which officially starts on January 1.
Preparation for the holidays often starts well in advance; we give the house a thorough, deep cleaning, to ensure everything starts the new year fresh and clean. For me, that starts about a week before December 31. When I finish cleaning, I hang the New Year decorations.
Read more
While walking in my neighborhood a few years ago, I came up a little temple with a lovely grove of ume trees inside the outer gate. As it happens, this temple–called En’yū-ji–is 1,200 years old, and home to the oldest wooden building in Tokyo.
Read more
In 794, Kyoto (then renamed Heian-kyo) became the capital of Japan. At that time, the official entrance to the city was in the south (the direction visitors came when approaching from the former capital of Nara). A pair of guardian temples stood on either side of the entrance, at the start of an enormous, broad, flat road that led from the official city entrance all the way to the Imperial Palace in the northern part of the city.
Read moreKōbō Daishi (774-835 – also known as Kūkai), the priest who brought Shingon Buddhism to Japan, sought the goddess’ protection for Kōyasan shortly after establishing his center for Shingon worship and study on the sacred mountaintop plateau in the early ninth century. In fact, Kōbō Daishi himself established the shrine on top of Bentendake. Although the site is small, the relationship between Benten/Benzaiten and Kōyasan continues to this day.
Read more
In February 2020, I made my third trip to Hieizan Enryaku-ji, a Buddhist temple on the slopes of Mt. Hiei (Hieizan) in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.
Read moreMany Buddhist temples in Japan offer overnight lodging and meals for visitors. In most cases, these meals follow the standards of shōjin ryōri (literally “devotional cuisine”), a vegetarian style of cooking that involves no meat — and in some cases, no “vegetables that excite the senses” like spicy peppers and garlic. Some people think that meals without meat or heavy spice sound “boring” – but shōjin ryōri is one of my favorite styles of eating in Japan, and every temple meal I’ve eaten ranks among the most delicious food I’ve sampled in Japan. Here’s what travelers can expect from a typical shōjin ryōri breakfast in Japan: –
Read moreDuring my research trip to Japan last summer I visited Kyoto Seika University, an art college in the northern part of Kyoto (most of us would consider it “just north of Kyoto” but given Japanese city lines, it’s technically within the boundaries of Kyoto-shi). When I arrived in Japan, my son had just completed a 15-week study abroad program at Kyoto Seika, and wanted to show me both the school and some of his favorite nearby sites. The temple measures about the size of a small city block, and has no English-language signage. The entrance identifies it as “Myotzan
Read moreKyoto’s Nishi Honganji is one of Japan’s most important Buddhist temples. The Jōdo Shinshū, or “True essence of pure land,” school of Buddhism was founded by a monk named Shinran Shonin (1173–1263), whose teachings focused on a return to a more pure form of Buddhist understanding and enlightenment through verse. Originally known simply as “Honganji,” the temple now called Nishi (“Western”) Honganji was constructed in 1602 on land granted to the sect by Tokugawa Ieyasu. A second temple, known as Higashi (“Eastern”) Honganji sits several blocks away (not surprisingly, to the east). Nishi Honganji remains an active Buddhist temple (with services open
Read more