Nanzenji

After visiting Ginkakuji, I decided to walk down the Philosopher's Path towards Nanzenji. I'm not sure why I decided on this temple--perhaps it was simply the enormous entrance gate (not pictured here), or perhaps it was the Lonely Planet entry, which claimed it was a nice quiet place. Nonetheless, it was an interesting temple.

As you can see, the leaves were just starting to turn yellow and red at this point--apparently, the momiji (red leaves) were late that autumn. It was a pretty standard temple, but the grounds were absolutely huge--a large variety of different buildings and mysterious walls. Back behind the temple, paths stretched up into the mountains and off into the countryside for what seemed to be a very long ways indeed.

Here's what appears to be a gate of some sort--although not the colossal entrance gated that lured me in.

After wandering around the temple and checking out any interesting artifacts, I headed up into the forest. According to Lonely Planet, there was some kind of cool shrine/temple behind the main area, and it was usually pretty deserted. I still don't know if I found it or not, but what I did find was really lovely. I walked past a small cometary, another temple, and various different cars, and up into the hills. It was unbelievably lush up there--never let anyone tell you that Japan is some kind of bleak industrial wasteland--and so green. It really reminds me of Oregon in a lot of ways. This could easily be Silver Falls Park or something, if not the cute little red bridge. I climbed up into the hills, crossing bridges and checking out little statues and shrines along the way. I passed a few people, but LP was right--there was hardly anyone up there.

I'm not sure why I took this picture, but it turned out rather beautifully. The area further up was relatively undeveloped, but someone had installed handrails and a lovely stone path here.

Admittedly, you don't really get trees like this in Oregon. It was really fantastic scenery.

I chose one particular path up into the hills, and it eventually ran into a rather awesome little shrine. Unfortunately, all my pictures turned out blurry, but it was really beautiful. It was built into a cave, with water dripping down over it--not a waterfall by any means, just a small little cave and a tiny little stream. It was that peculiar mix of ancient and modern, with carved sculptures and a big blue bucket right next to each other. Like a lot of things in Japan, it was dirty and not particularly well cared for, but it was so real, so immediate, so obviously used--not just a showcase, not kept up for the tourists... For once, I felt a kind of genuine awe, the thought that at one point in time, someone had been walking through this forest and felt something. That person felt a kami in that little cave and so he or she built a shrine. And then the people who came after him left offerings, and they, in turn, built up that little shrine behind the huge sprawling temple of Nanzenji--and then one day, I arrived with my big gaijin feet and my guidebook and my camera, and felt a little of that awe all over again.

Back in the days of early Shintoism, people built shrines in places of extraordinary natural beauty. It was (and still is) a religion of nature--in ancient Greece, they had a term which reminds me very much of this philosophy, and it has been passed down into our modern, every day language: the genius of the place, the genius loci, a guardian spirit which dwelt in various different locales. This place had a genius.

After I climbed back down out of the hills, I walked in the opposite direction, following the old aqueduct that runs from Lake Biwa into Kyoto. This isn't the aqueduct itself, but rather what the aqueduct turns into--a kind of canal, which has an interesting beauty all of its own. There was a path running besides the canal, out into the countryside, which I was, of course, unable to resist. It led to a semi-open clearing and some strange machinery, along with a house--inexplicably thatched in the old style, and a lake, which contained a beautiful white heron. Strange, but interesting.

After that, I decided to move on. I walked along the Philosopher's Path a bit (half exploring, half just trying to find my way back to the bus stop), and I ran into a few random shrines--I was sick of the big places. Here was one of them, where a kindly old man gave me a pamphlet in English and smiled encouragingly.

Behind the shrine was a beautiful residential neighborhood, including a house no doubt belonging to the shrine's priest. There was also a stunning bamboo grove, and I got a picture just when the sun was shining the brightest. Quite amazing.

I lacked the guts to investigate further, fearing it might be private property, and ended up just wandering through a bunch of streets and houses (and the occasional temple) until I finally made it to a bus stop.