After two months of travel, and two days in massive Tokyo, I decided that my last day would be calm and include an element that has helped bring some structure to my trip.
I boarded a train for a short ride to Yokohama. Near Yokohama is the second principle temple in the Soto zen tradition. The first is Eihei-ji, the monastery I visited and stayed overnight at seven weeks ago. Has it been that long?
I had not planned this daytrip before yesterday afternoon. It occurred to me that visiting Soji-ji would help to bring my trip to a fitting conclusion.
This is the long walkup to the temple. More than anything else, the bright yellow ginkgo leaves, mostly fallen now, provided a beautiful display on this lovely Autumn day. I relished the calm of the temple grounds. There were very few visitors.
These visits to Soto temples are meaningful, being that I am relatively new to the tradition. I feel as if their history and stories are slowly becoming my own. I am enjoying a sense of something new in life, grateful for this feeling. Sort of like whatever this guy is feeling.
Well, maybe not quite like that!
These guys are significantly less exuberant in their joy, as I usually am. They are the fierce guardian zen types, regularly found at these temples. In their own way, they are dragon type personas, guardians of the treasures of the tradition.
Writing of dragons, I was sorely disappointed in Soji-ji. I searched all around for fierce and cool dragons but found only this, at the high top of the dharma hall:
I think that is a dragon figure but it’s a bit inconclusive. Soji-ji needs to up their dragon game!
Soji-ji was not originally at this place but up in the Noto peninsula and wasn’t even a zen temple. It seems this sort of thing happens frequently enough. Nevertheless, it eventually became affiliated with the Soto tradition and actively continues to this day.
This seems a fitting final image for my trip to Soji-ji. The sitting figure, in front, I believe to be Shakumuni Buddha. Behind him is probably Dogen-Zenji, wielding the keisaku, who appears ready to whack the Buddha over the shoulder due to his slumping posture or because he is falling asleep. The other standing figures are zen monks with their begging bowls, making their rounds under the hot summer sun.
Tomorrow, I fly back to Seattle. I will be greeted there by the season of Advent that began yesterday. It is my favorite Christan time of the year. It is the time of waiting, in quiet, in stillness, with watchful expectation, for what is coming, I know not what. I can’t think of a better time to be returning home. Time to get out the candles for the Advent wreath.
Autumn In Japan 