Morning mist filtering out the illusions of life
here hides truth briefly glimpsed.
There a fox, or are you crow, Buddhist priest but no cedar tall.

Rain sparkling green, smell of life,
smell of death, incense clean.
Night is day, mysterious shapes,
but then, only pilgrims honoring the Great One.
Is this my home, have I walked this path before?
Who am I to think so?
Fudo, fiery image, I know you.
But how can that be?
The fierce one, but no, the compassionate one, yes.

A bridge ahead, linking what?
My world and your world,
but are they not the same.
Do I dare to cross?
I must, I have, and there you lie
at the end of the path,
but no—it is the beginning.
JC Husfelt, D.D.

A mountain spiritscape of awe and power, Kōyasan continuously tugged at my heart from the very first moment that I set foot on its mystical sacredness. Towering cedar trees welcomed me back home once again, but this time with Sher, our daughter Jessica, Keikō san and our group of seekers—some seekers of spirit but a few, sad to say, seekers of ego. However, the ones that are true to their heart do reap the benefits sooner or later. And it was such that one of the true spirits received her gift earlier than later. When she returned to the states for a check-up, she discovered that her cancer had mysteriously disappeared. She feels that she was healed of the cancer on Kōyasan.

Kōyasan—how can I ever describe such a magical place that is so deeply intertwined within the core of my being? A temple city, really town, on the top of a mountain, so mundane, but then so true. A spiritual shoppers paradise, and I am the shopper of the family, store after store of ritualistic items; images of Fudo so grand that the value of one would finance a years worth of college education, but then, other statues of my friend, the ‘immovable one”, affordable to say the least. And yes, many an hour I spent going from shop to shop lost in a paradise of materialistic spirit.

Our stay was in the Fukuchiin, one of the working temples of Kōyasan called Shukubo that welcomes guests, but not usually ones from the USA. I had stayed here the previous May, all alone and not speaking Japanese, but still able to communicate with the monks and the shopkeepers, who were probably monks as well. There was a power and peacefulness within these temple walls so different from the sterile spiritually void environment of most Western churches where one experiences the emptiness of spirit and never the fullness of fulfillment. On the contrary, in this magical land you eat and sleep, and if you choose, study with the monks, no entrance requirements just an open heart and mind. The living atmosphere of these temples and this sacred land is permeated with the mystical legacy of Kūkai, also known as Kōbō-Daishi, a title posthumously granted meaning ‘Propagator of Dharma'.

Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, is probably the most influential person in the history of Japanese religious thought. Dissatisfied with the state of religious and spiritual practice in Japan, Kūkai in 804 C.E. traveled to China seeking something purer, uncorrupted by the politics and dogma of his time. His seeking outside the established lines of authority was due to his experiences with direct intuitive awakening. It was these experiences that helped shape his approach to the spirit and to Buddhism. And there was one primary event that is credited with his awakening:

In Indications of the Goals of the Three Teachings, Kūkai tells of his own experience. "Believing what the Buddha says to be true, I recited the mantra incessantly, as if I were rubbing one piece of wood against another to make fire, all the while earnestly hoping to achieve this result. I climbed up Mount Tairyu in Awa Province and meditated at Cape Muroto in Tosa. The valley reverberated to the sound of my voice as I recited, and the planet Venus appeared in the sky." (Hakeda, pg. 102) In a moment of dramatic achievement, Kūkai experienced a vision of the planet Venus with him as the Bodhisattva Akasagarbha who became his guardian saint. (R.S. Green, University of Wisconsin Buddhist Studies Ph.D. program student, 1999.)

Two years later, 806 C.E., Kūkai returned from his journeys through China as lineage holder of an esoteric Buddhist tradition. This new religion based on his vision, experiences and studies, he deemed, “True Word” or Shingon. This Mikkyo, “secret teaching”, form of Buddhism was dependent, in Kūkai’s mind, on the power inherent when one transcends language and discovers the word spirit of the divine, what might be termed the nuclear seed-sounds of creation.

In 816 C.E. Kūkai petitioned the government for permission to locate his new religion on the sacred mountain of Kōya. “Two years later, Kūkai climbed Kōya-san himself, at which time he is said to have met the local god of the mountain in the person of a hunter accompanied by two dogs, black and white. Several such legends exist, and native deities associated with Shingon are enshrined at various places on and around the sacred mountain. Kūkai did in fact invoke the protection of local deities when he performed an esoteric ritual to establish a sacred realm of practice on the mountaintop. This consecrated area was named Kongobu-ji.” (Shingon, pg. 30)

OKUNOIN
(City of Dead)