The Land of 8000000 Dieties

After Yuki temple, the path gets very curvy. This part of the trail is referred as a Tsuzuraori Sandou (ninety and nine turns path). There are many hairpin curves and I started to get out of breath.

As you walk up the path, hidden from the view because of all the trees, is the statue titled “Life: Love, Light and Power” (picture above). Suddenly it appears before you as you come around the bend, it looks very modern and very different compared to what I have seen so far. This statue symbolizes the teaching of Kurama temple and the 3 deities that Kurama temple worships. Each ring represents one of the concepts of Love, Light and Power and the deities that go along with them.

Kwan Yin symbolizes Love and represents The Spirit of the Moon.
Bishamonten symbolizes Light and represents The Spirit of the Sun.
Mao symbolizes Power and represents The Spirit of the Earth.


Right across from the Statue of Love, Light and Power is the SouFuku (Double bliss) area. The Bridge connecting two temples is called SouFuku Bridge. One of the temples is Tamasugi Daikokuten and the other is Tamasugi Ebisuson.

Tamasugi is a cedar wood that has leaves curled up like a ball.

Ebisuson and Daijokuten are two of the Seven Deities of Good Fortune.
DaikokuTen is God of the Earth, Wealth, Prosperity, Farmers, Flood Control, Agriculture, Rice & the Kitchen.
Ebisu is God of Fishermen, Good Fortune, and Honest Labor.

I am started to notice how much Mt. Kurama is filled with different deities and spirits. I have gotten used to visiting Catholic or Christian churches who worship one God. I am starting to remember what it was like to be in a country where there are 8000000 gods (deities). There is god for everything. There is a prosperity god, a laughing god, and even a poor god and bad luck god that you want to avoid. Visiting all these small temples with different deities and spirits brought up my desire to study them when I go back to the U.S.

Yuki temple & 800 Years Old Japanese Ceder

This is the gate of Yuki Jinjya (Yuki temple). This temple is famous for their fire festival. It is also known as a temple for protecting you from fire disasters, helping have an easy childbirth, relationships, calming of disease, and getting rid of bad luck and bringing good luck in. It is also appointed as one of the national treasures.

As you can see in this picture and inside of the gate in the picture on a left is a tall Japanese cedar. This tree is worshiped as a sacred tree and also a tree that makes your wishes come true. It’s about 800 years old and 53 meters high. I really felt the energy of the tree and felt calm just standing in front of it.



This is the main temple building of the Yuki Jinjya. As we walked by, there were people inside the temple being blessed as you can see in this photo. You need to make a special arrangement to be blessed by the temple. It is 6000 yen (about $60) for once or 30,000 yen (about $300) for a whole year of blessings every morning.

They actually do have a live web cam set at four different spots at this temple. This is so neat! I feel like I am almost there without actually being there. It’s also a lot of fun to watch people pay their respects at the temple. I like to leave the site open at the corner of my computer screen while I am working and watch the people who come to visit and reminisce about my visit to the temple.
Just remember, if you live in the East Coast of the U.S, we have 13-14hrs of time difference. You get to see more people if you visit the site after our dinner time.

http://www.yukijinjya.jp/keidainew-live.html

Waterfall & Temple for the Warriors

Along the path a few minutes walk from Kushikura Inari sha Temple you see a little waterfall, “Mao No Taki” (Water fall of Mao). In a little temple on a cliff (see picture on left) is a statue of Mao. Mao is one of the 3 deities that is worshiped at Kurama temple. I will talk more about it when I get to the main temple where they keep all 3 statues.
It is a customary for people who are seeking enlightenment to sit under a waterfall for extended periods of time to meditate. Master Usui could have been there meditating almost a 100 years ago! However, the sign by the waterfall asks people not to go near the waterfall because a falling rock may hit you.


By the waterfall is the Kiichi Hougen Sha (Temple for Kiichi Hougen). Kiichi Hougen is a teacher of a famous historical warrior Yoshitune. Yoshitune grew up in Mt. Kurama and there are many spots that are dedicated to him throughout the Mountain. A year long television drama series about Yoshitune was aired from April 05-Mar 06, so there were many visitors coming to Mt. Kurama to see where Yoshitune was raised, probably a lot more than people who came to visit the place for Reiki. You would pay your respects to the temple in a same manner as before. Being that this temple is dedicated to someone who was a talented swordsmen and martial artist, many people who would like to improve their athletic/martial art skills comes to visit here.

Etiquette for paying respect at temples

This is Kushikura Inari sha (Temple for Kushikura the Fox Spirit). People come to worship at this temple to bring a good harvest.

The following is what I learned as the proper etiquette for paying respect at temples. You want to make sure you cleanse your hands before going to each temple. They normally have a water station dedicated for that right before the temple. (More detailed instruction at the bottom of Part 2)

Then, you can make an offering of money to an offertory box. I grew up being told that giving 5 yen is good luck because it is synonymous with a word that can be translated to fate, karma, relation, connection or ties. So, if you went to the temple to pray/wish for good health, you want to have that as a fate, karma etc. Some people say more the better and give 10000 yen or more, but I normally only give 5 yen, 50 yen or 500 yen (they are all in coins).

Now you want to bow twice. First one is for asking your spirit guide to be connected to God and the second one is for the God. (By the way, I used word God, but it can be anything or anybody that particular temple is worshipping. In this case the fox spirit. I am using and will be using word God loosely.)

Clap your hand twice. It’s kind of like ringing a doorbell at God’s home to let them know that you are here. It also helps cleanse the area.

Then you can have a conversation with God or most of the people make a wish here.

When you are done, bow once to show your gratitude.

Mt. Kurama: March 29: Part 4

Keep going up the stairs and you will see a Dougyou Rokutai Jizo Son(6 guardian deity of children in childrean form) by the Kurama Kindergarten. These are 6 figures of Jizo (guardian deity of children) in a child form and even have bib on them as you can see. This is to represent that kids are children of the Budda (God) and a gift from heaven and reflections of the parents. I fantasized about having a child one day and sending them here and visiting this kindergarten everyday.




Next comes the Hou Jyou Ike , which according to the sign, this is the pond where people used to do good deeds like letting a fish or turtle go free here to save their lives (upper picture). Also they would go under the waterfall and meditate (bottom picture). I saw some red coy in a pond. Some of them seem to have the same color red/orange as the lanterns throughout the temples, very scenic and calming spot.




As I was going up the stairs, I noticed that each of the stones that are used as the fence were engraved with a person’s name who has donated money to Mt. Kurama a long time ago, and the donation amount of a 100 Yen (which is about a dollar now, but could be worth a few thousand or few hundred thousand dollars depending on when it was donated). Each lantern has a name of a person who donated money as well. This made me think of all the people who have come here before me and cherished this place and made Mt. Kurama the way it is today.

Close up of the stone with engraving.

Close up of the lantern with name of the donor.

Mt. Kurama: March 29: Part 3

You pay 200 yen at the gate for the entrance fee and they will give you a cute pamphlet of Mt. Kurama. (right picture) If you pay extra 300 yen, you get a little booklet of Mt. Kurama. (left picture) They do have pamphlet in English as well. This will come very handy because most of the signage in Mt. Kurama is in Japanese and if you don’t read Japanese, you need to refer to this little English pamphlet. (Pictures above are in Japanese.)

Those money you spend here at the gate or at the temple’s gift shop, it is used for the upkeep and the improvement of the Mt. Kurama. Temples and the road of Mt. Kurama is actually very well kept compare to other temples I went to in Kyoto. As you can see on a picture above, the lanterns have a very vivid orange color. It requires a lot of maintenance to keep it this way. My guide has been coming to Mt. Kurama for past 7-8 years and has seen a major improvement of this place. He thinks it’s because they are getting more and more Reiki visitors each year spending money here.

Another impressive thing about the Mt. Kurama is that there is no trash anywhere visible. They have a signage throughout asking people to respect the nature and not pick flowers or plants and to take any garbage home. I don’t recall seeing that signage in English, so I am letting you know now. If you do go visit Mt. Kurama please follow the rule I mentioned above. More rules and etiquette is on a pamphlet. I went to Mt. Kurama 3 times and did not see a single trash on a road.

For those of you who smoke, cigarettes ashes and butts also need to be taken home. They do sell a portable personal ashtray at many stores in Japan. If you know you have to smoke there, please bring your ashtray with you. (picture above is the portable personal ashtray in case you did not figure that out yourself)


One of the sad things I heard from my tour guide is that the some of the local people who goes to the Kurama temples for religious reason are not necessary too happy with the Reiki visitors. From what he said, sometimes when there is an event at the Mt. Kurama, people split up into two groups, religious and Reiki people. One of the reason they are not too happy with Reiki group is because some of the Reiki people does not respect some of the rules they have at Mt. Kurama. Some people don’t know the rules and not doing them on purpose, but I can see how it could be annoying for people who is following the rules and paying respect. I think it’s kind of like as a New Yorker sometimes we get annoyed by some tourists who are walking slow and blocking the whole sidewalk. (Even if you are not New Yorker, I am sure your town has some unknown rules that tourist does not know and annoy you.) So, I have decided to include a little tips here and there on my blog so you will be better prepared when you go there one day and make friends with local people.

Mt. Kurama: March 29: Part 2

Well, back to the Mt. Kurama. We took a train from Demachiyanagi station to Kurama station. It’s a very scenic ride. There were plum trees and cherry blossom trees blooming by the train tracks. At the train station, they do have a coin locker there as well if you want to leave some extra stuff you don’t want to carry up the mountain. I was lucky enough to have my guide warn me about wearing sneakers and wearing comfortable clothes. I did see some girls (that were not part of our group) wearing high heels and having a hard time walking. You could take a cable car up to the Kurama temple, but if you really want to get to the part where Master Usui meditated, be prepared to do a serious hike.

Kurama Train Station

Statue of “Tengu” (The Legendary Mountain Goblins of Japan) in a parking lot of Kurama Station. Mt. Kurama is known for stories with Tengu for Japanese people, not for Reiki. In fact, Reiki is lesser known in Japan than the U.S.

There are many steps just to get to the main gate of the temple and it’s just a beginning.

You want to make sure that you cleanse your mouth and your hands every time you come across water spots like this. This is to physically and mentally cleanse you to present yourself in front of God. The process normally calms you down and prepares yourself. Following is the proper etiquette for cleansing your hands and mouth.

1. Pick up a ladle with your right hand and fill it up. You only fill it up once and you will be using this water for the rest of the process.
2. Cleanse left hand by poring some water from the ladle.
3. Transfer the ladle to the left and cleanse right hand by poring some water.
4. Hold the ladle with right hand now and make a cup with left hand. Pour some water into your left hand and bring it to your mouth. (Please do not place ladle directly to your mouth.)
5. Rinse your mouth while you are covering it with your left hand
6. Hold the ladle with both hands and let the rest of the waterfall out by standing it up vertically.
7. Put the ladle back to where you got it.

By the way, I recommend carrying handkerchiefs in Japan. That’s what the most of the Japanese do. They use their own handkerchief instead of a paper towel to wipe their hands. Most of the bathrooms are not equipped with paper towel either. I completely forgot about it and had run out to get one the next day. I needed to air dry my hand every time I cleansed my hands at these water spots that day.