The Momiji Diaries – Part 5 – Kyoto, Hogon-in
by Jade Pavilions on 11/06/09 at 11:02 pm
11th November, Visit to Arashiyama district North West Kyoto
We caught the local train to Saga Arashiyama by the river Hozu, just after it emerges from the Hozu gorge. 
Our first visit was to the Hogon-in temple a sub temple of Tenryu-ji. Hogon-in has a pleasant stroll garden with many grumpy looking statues of monks by the entrance (clearly having had the same difficulty of finding the entrance as we did!). The main garden is known as the Garden of the Lions Roar, taken from the teachings of Buddha – hearing the bird song and wind blowing it is possible to experience the truth of life and the true path and as a result, the healing of the heart. The garden contains the huge lion stone (some 20 tons of it).
From there we entered the main temple of Tenryu-ji – the temple of heaven and an important temple of the Rinzai sect. The main garden is that of Sogenchi and one of the oldest in Japan. It depicts a copy of a silk screen painting within the landscape cleverly incorporating the Ogura hills as part of the garden view. It includes a large pond with islands and a windswept pine tree together with a dry waterfall giving the impression of water dashing down the hill behind. The path takes you around the pond and various routes on the hillside to emerge at the north exit.
Turning left we proceeded through the bamboo forest to the hillside garden of Okochi-sanso, the home of the silent movie actor Okochi Denjiro. After taking refreshments of green tea and sweet we travelled the winding paths up the hillside to the upper tea house and then beyond to the top of the ridge with it’s magnificent views of the the Hozu gorge and in the other direction towards the city with the hills behind.
At this point we split the group and took taxis to Saiho-ji the moss temple, while I remained with a few to visit Nison-in, known for it’s grand entranceway lined with colourful maples. After a short stay we returned to the town and crossed the Togetsukyo bridge to the other station and after lunching by the river took the train to Matsuo and visited the Matsunoo shrine with its’ massive torii entrance gate, racks of sake barrels and temples. The rice gods were important and many shrines are dedicated to them. There are three modern gardens built by Shigemori Mirei representing a wild mountain top where the gods ascend to earth, a Heian period stream garden with rocks and azaleas and a Kamakura period paradise garden with pond and islands with a fountain of eternal youth - clearly we are in cloud cuckoo land!
We strolled along the back streets to Saiho-ji (the moss) temple of the Zen sect, where the main group had spent some two hours, firstly attending prayers and copying a sutra before being allowed to stroll around this most serene and yin of gardens. The temple boasts of over 100 different types of moss and has ponds, tea houses and a turtle rock arrangement all set under large tree canopy providing dappled light playing on the moss.
The group now re-joined, continued along the back streets to a small temple known as the poor man’s moss temple of Jizo-in. A quiet, pleasant temple with few visitors, known for its’ bamboos and hence also known as the bamboo temple. The highlight of the day being the visit to Tenryu-ji and for those who went to Saiho-ji it was a spiritual experience.
We packed our bags for a few days side trip to Matsue on the north coast of Honshu.
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