![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm signing this Saturday in Santa Barbara at 1:00 at the Book Den booth as part of the Santa Barbara Festival of Books. Should be fun.
http://www.sbbookfestival.org/
http://www.sbbookfestival.org/
I'm signing this Saturday in Santa Barbara at 1:00 at the Book Den booth as part of the Santa Barbara Festival of Books. Should be fun.
http://www.sbbookfestival.org/
http://www.sbbookfestival.org/
A special bonus old Japan trip e-mail, this one from my second trip. Note: these are old emails. I am not, now, in Japan. Alas.
I came down with a cold a few days ago, and woke up sick as a very sick dog this morning. I did not feel like trekking to Koya-san; but the only alternative was to try to un-cancel at the New Koyo [a hotel in Tokyo], and I didn’t really feel like trekking to Tokyo either.
So at 7:00 am, I took a bus to Kyoto Station, a train to Nennaji, another train to Shin-Imamiya, a small train to the base of Koya-san, a funicular up the mountain, and a bus to the temple I’m staying at, as only temples offer rooms for the night at Koya-san. Whatever I have is going around. The last train especially sounded like a tuberculosis sanitarium on a field trip.
Koya-san is a center for Shingon “esoteric” Buddhism. I don’t know much about this— if I’d known I was going earlier I’d have read up on it— but basically it’s descended from a Chinese take on Buddhism, which holds that by certain rituals a person can achieve Buddha-hood in this lifetime, as opposed to after death or reincarnation. I think some of those rituals are also supposed to have
magical effects. From what I saw today, the visual imagery is similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the tourist information pamphlet, “Mt. Koya as the center of religious esoteric discipline was popularly known that no women were once allowed to enter for a thousand years. In 1872, the prohibition on woman was lifted up. Today many girls and ladies freely visit here and recollect the old legendary story of women.”
This reminds me of the Kyoto pamphlet which described Tomoe Gozen, a woman warrior, as having “gone into battle by wearing a man.”
I wandered a bit, but was limited by being exhausted, feeling lousy, and the high altitude. The leaves have turned at Koya-san, and the maples are blood-red (both venous and arterial), and yellow and orange and green. Fan-shaped ginkgo leaves explode against the sky in golden streamers.
I did make it to the ancient cemetery of Okunoin. It’s two thousand years old, and still in use. Polished new graves exist beside leaning mossy ones. The autumn leaves are occasional splashes of brightness against the massive trunks of old-growth cedars, which look identical to California redwoods.
The word “atmospheric” was invented for Okunoin. There were lots of people there but it was very quiet, so much so that I felt that I was trespassing. Given my state of overall decrepitude and the fact that I turned thirty yesterday, I was in the perfect location to muse on my own mortality. But I’d say about ninety percent of my thoughts were something like, “Wow this is a cool place, check out the shaft of sunlight on that redwood, maybe if I move over I can catch some
ginkgo in the background, (cough-hack-splutter-gasp-sneeze) dammit, why couldn’t I have waited to get sick after I got back? Or at least waited till Tokyo?”
I’m writing from a monk-run guest-house attached to Haryoin temple. My room (up a long flight of stairs, naturally, which are hard enough to climb in Japanese slippers even when you’re not carrying several pieces of heavy luggage at a high altitude while sick) is a small tatami mat room with French windows overlooking a piece of the mountainside. A vast chill emanates from the windows.
A paper cut-out hangs over the tokonoma. Try as I might to see it as something else, or perhaps an abstract design, I swear to God it shows some sort of animal, a sheep or a cat or something, being humped by another animal of the same species. I must be feverish.
In the tokonoma is a calligraphy scroll and ikebana, plus a book of the teachings of the Buddha and a pamphlet detailing the rules of staying at the temple. I quote from the latter:
“Article Four: Japanese Gangs and their members:
1. The temple cannot accept any reservations from members of Japanese gangs. (If a guest is found to be a member of a Japanese gang after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
2. The accommodation of radical right-wing groups and their accompanying members is also not permitted. (If a guest is found to be a member of a radical right-wing group after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
Article Nineteen: Provisions for Guest Solatium:
1. Condolence money shall be paid to the guest’s family. The amount of condolence money shall not exceed 100,000 yen for each deceased guest.
2. Depending on circumstances, an official or employee of the temple shall attend the funeral of the deceased guest.
3. Depending on circumstances, the temple shall provide a floral tribute at the funeral of the deceased guest.”
It adds that condolence money will not be given if the guest dies of suicide, radiation sickness, or food poisoning. Uh-oh…
A bell rings periodically, and a monk makes announcements over a loudspeaker, mostly in Japanese, but occasionally in English and, I think, French. It all sounds like “Wah-wah-wah.” I’m sure the guy’s been doing this many times daily for years, and he still hasn’t figured out that you should turn off the mike before you put it down.
Food poisoning provision or no, I hope I can understand him when he says “Dinner is served.”
I came down with a cold a few days ago, and woke up sick as a very sick dog this morning. I did not feel like trekking to Koya-san; but the only alternative was to try to un-cancel at the New Koyo [a hotel in Tokyo], and I didn’t really feel like trekking to Tokyo either.
So at 7:00 am, I took a bus to Kyoto Station, a train to Nennaji, another train to Shin-Imamiya, a small train to the base of Koya-san, a funicular up the mountain, and a bus to the temple I’m staying at, as only temples offer rooms for the night at Koya-san. Whatever I have is going around. The last train especially sounded like a tuberculosis sanitarium on a field trip.
Koya-san is a center for Shingon “esoteric” Buddhism. I don’t know much about this— if I’d known I was going earlier I’d have read up on it— but basically it’s descended from a Chinese take on Buddhism, which holds that by certain rituals a person can achieve Buddha-hood in this lifetime, as opposed to after death or reincarnation. I think some of those rituals are also supposed to have
magical effects. From what I saw today, the visual imagery is similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the tourist information pamphlet, “Mt. Koya as the center of religious esoteric discipline was popularly known that no women were once allowed to enter for a thousand years. In 1872, the prohibition on woman was lifted up. Today many girls and ladies freely visit here and recollect the old legendary story of women.”
This reminds me of the Kyoto pamphlet which described Tomoe Gozen, a woman warrior, as having “gone into battle by wearing a man.”
I wandered a bit, but was limited by being exhausted, feeling lousy, and the high altitude. The leaves have turned at Koya-san, and the maples are blood-red (both venous and arterial), and yellow and orange and green. Fan-shaped ginkgo leaves explode against the sky in golden streamers.
I did make it to the ancient cemetery of Okunoin. It’s two thousand years old, and still in use. Polished new graves exist beside leaning mossy ones. The autumn leaves are occasional splashes of brightness against the massive trunks of old-growth cedars, which look identical to California redwoods.
The word “atmospheric” was invented for Okunoin. There were lots of people there but it was very quiet, so much so that I felt that I was trespassing. Given my state of overall decrepitude and the fact that I turned thirty yesterday, I was in the perfect location to muse on my own mortality. But I’d say about ninety percent of my thoughts were something like, “Wow this is a cool place, check out the shaft of sunlight on that redwood, maybe if I move over I can catch some
ginkgo in the background, (cough-hack-splutter-gasp-sneeze) dammit, why couldn’t I have waited to get sick after I got back? Or at least waited till Tokyo?”
I’m writing from a monk-run guest-house attached to Haryoin temple. My room (up a long flight of stairs, naturally, which are hard enough to climb in Japanese slippers even when you’re not carrying several pieces of heavy luggage at a high altitude while sick) is a small tatami mat room with French windows overlooking a piece of the mountainside. A vast chill emanates from the windows.
A paper cut-out hangs over the tokonoma. Try as I might to see it as something else, or perhaps an abstract design, I swear to God it shows some sort of animal, a sheep or a cat or something, being humped by another animal of the same species. I must be feverish.
In the tokonoma is a calligraphy scroll and ikebana, plus a book of the teachings of the Buddha and a pamphlet detailing the rules of staying at the temple. I quote from the latter:
“Article Four: Japanese Gangs and their members:
1. The temple cannot accept any reservations from members of Japanese gangs. (If a guest is found to be a member of a Japanese gang after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
2. The accommodation of radical right-wing groups and their accompanying members is also not permitted. (If a guest is found to be a member of a radical right-wing group after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
Article Nineteen: Provisions for Guest Solatium:
1. Condolence money shall be paid to the guest’s family. The amount of condolence money shall not exceed 100,000 yen for each deceased guest.
2. Depending on circumstances, an official or employee of the temple shall attend the funeral of the deceased guest.
3. Depending on circumstances, the temple shall provide a floral tribute at the funeral of the deceased guest.”
It adds that condolence money will not be given if the guest dies of suicide, radiation sickness, or food poisoning. Uh-oh…
A bell rings periodically, and a monk makes announcements over a loudspeaker, mostly in Japanese, but occasionally in English and, I think, French. It all sounds like “Wah-wah-wah.” I’m sure the guy’s been doing this many times daily for years, and he still hasn’t figured out that you should turn off the mike before you put it down.
Food poisoning provision or no, I hope I can understand him when he says “Dinner is served.”
A special bonus old Japan trip e-mail, this one from my second trip. Note: these are old emails. I am not, now, in Japan. Alas.
I came down with a cold a few days ago, and woke up sick as a very sick dog this morning. I did not feel like trekking to Koya-san; but the only alternative was to try to un-cancel at the New Koyo [a hotel in Tokyo], and I didn’t really feel like trekking to Tokyo either.
So at 7:00 am, I took a bus to Kyoto Station, a train to Nennaji, another train to Shin-Imamiya, a small train to the base of Koya-san, a funicular up the mountain, and a bus to the temple I’m staying at, as only temples offer rooms for the night at Koya-san. Whatever I have is going around. The last train especially sounded like a tuberculosis sanitarium on a field trip.
Koya-san is a center for Shingon “esoteric” Buddhism. I don’t know much about this— if I’d known I was going earlier I’d have read up on it— but basically it’s descended from a Chinese take on Buddhism, which holds that by certain rituals a person can achieve Buddha-hood in this lifetime, as opposed to after death or reincarnation. I think some of those rituals are also supposed to have
magical effects. From what I saw today, the visual imagery is similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the tourist information pamphlet, “Mt. Koya as the center of religious esoteric discipline was popularly known that no women were once allowed to enter for a thousand years. In 1872, the prohibition on woman was lifted up. Today many girls and ladies freely visit here and recollect the old legendary story of women.”
This reminds me of the Kyoto pamphlet which described Tomoe Gozen, a woman warrior, as having “gone into battle by wearing a man.”
I wandered a bit, but was limited by being exhausted, feeling lousy, and the high altitude. The leaves have turned at Koya-san, and the maples are blood-red (both venous and arterial), and yellow and orange and green. Fan-shaped ginkgo leaves explode against the sky in golden streamers.
I did make it to the ancient cemetery of Okunoin. It’s two thousand years old, and still in use. Polished new graves exist beside leaning mossy ones. The autumn leaves are occasional splashes of brightness against the massive trunks of old-growth cedars, which look identical to California redwoods.
The word “atmospheric” was invented for Okunoin. There were lots of people there but it was very quiet, so much so that I felt that I was trespassing. Given my state of overall decrepitude and the fact that I turned thirty yesterday, I was in the perfect location to muse on my own mortality. But I’d say about ninety percent of my thoughts were something like, “Wow this is a cool place, check out the shaft of sunlight on that redwood, maybe if I move over I can catch some
ginkgo in the background, (cough-hack-splutter-gasp-sneeze) dammit, why couldn’t I have waited to get sick after I got back? Or at least waited till Tokyo?”
I’m writing from a monk-run guest-house attached to Haryoin temple. My room (up a long flight of stairs, naturally, which are hard enough to climb in Japanese slippers even when you’re not carrying several pieces of heavy luggage at a high altitude while sick) is a small tatami mat room with French windows overlooking a piece of the mountainside. A vast chill emanates from the windows.
A paper cut-out hangs over the tokonoma. Try as I might to see it as something else, or perhaps an abstract design, I swear to God it shows some sort of animal, a sheep or a cat or something, being humped by another animal of the same species. I must be feverish.
In the tokonoma is a calligraphy scroll and ikebana, plus a book of the teachings of the Buddha and a pamphlet detailing the rules of staying at the temple. I quote from the latter:
“Article Four: Japanese Gangs and their members:
1. The temple cannot accept any reservations from members of Japanese gangs. (If a guest is found to be a member of a Japanese gang after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
2. The accommodation of radical right-wing groups and their accompanying members is also not permitted. (If a guest is found to be a member of a radical right-wing group after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
Article Nineteen: Provisions for Guest Solatium:
1. Condolence money shall be paid to the guest’s family. The amount of condolence money shall not exceed 100,000 yen for each deceased guest.
2. Depending on circumstances, an official or employee of the temple shall attend the funeral of the deceased guest.
3. Depending on circumstances, the temple shall provide a floral tribute at the funeral of the deceased guest.”
It adds that condolence money will not be given if the guest dies of suicide, radiation sickness, or food poisoning. Uh-oh…
A bell rings periodically, and a monk makes announcements over a loudspeaker, mostly in Japanese, but occasionally in English and, I think, French. It all sounds like “Wah-wah-wah.” I’m sure the guy’s been doing this many times daily for years, and he still hasn’t figured out that you should turn off the mike before you put it down.
Food poisoning provision or no, I hope I can understand him when he says “Dinner is served.”
I came down with a cold a few days ago, and woke up sick as a very sick dog this morning. I did not feel like trekking to Koya-san; but the only alternative was to try to un-cancel at the New Koyo [a hotel in Tokyo], and I didn’t really feel like trekking to Tokyo either.
So at 7:00 am, I took a bus to Kyoto Station, a train to Nennaji, another train to Shin-Imamiya, a small train to the base of Koya-san, a funicular up the mountain, and a bus to the temple I’m staying at, as only temples offer rooms for the night at Koya-san. Whatever I have is going around. The last train especially sounded like a tuberculosis sanitarium on a field trip.
Koya-san is a center for Shingon “esoteric” Buddhism. I don’t know much about this— if I’d known I was going earlier I’d have read up on it— but basically it’s descended from a Chinese take on Buddhism, which holds that by certain rituals a person can achieve Buddha-hood in this lifetime, as opposed to after death or reincarnation. I think some of those rituals are also supposed to have
magical effects. From what I saw today, the visual imagery is similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the tourist information pamphlet, “Mt. Koya as the center of religious esoteric discipline was popularly known that no women were once allowed to enter for a thousand years. In 1872, the prohibition on woman was lifted up. Today many girls and ladies freely visit here and recollect the old legendary story of women.”
This reminds me of the Kyoto pamphlet which described Tomoe Gozen, a woman warrior, as having “gone into battle by wearing a man.”
I wandered a bit, but was limited by being exhausted, feeling lousy, and the high altitude. The leaves have turned at Koya-san, and the maples are blood-red (both venous and arterial), and yellow and orange and green. Fan-shaped ginkgo leaves explode against the sky in golden streamers.
I did make it to the ancient cemetery of Okunoin. It’s two thousand years old, and still in use. Polished new graves exist beside leaning mossy ones. The autumn leaves are occasional splashes of brightness against the massive trunks of old-growth cedars, which look identical to California redwoods.
The word “atmospheric” was invented for Okunoin. There were lots of people there but it was very quiet, so much so that I felt that I was trespassing. Given my state of overall decrepitude and the fact that I turned thirty yesterday, I was in the perfect location to muse on my own mortality. But I’d say about ninety percent of my thoughts were something like, “Wow this is a cool place, check out the shaft of sunlight on that redwood, maybe if I move over I can catch some
ginkgo in the background, (cough-hack-splutter-gasp-sneeze) dammit, why couldn’t I have waited to get sick after I got back? Or at least waited till Tokyo?”
I’m writing from a monk-run guest-house attached to Haryoin temple. My room (up a long flight of stairs, naturally, which are hard enough to climb in Japanese slippers even when you’re not carrying several pieces of heavy luggage at a high altitude while sick) is a small tatami mat room with French windows overlooking a piece of the mountainside. A vast chill emanates from the windows.
A paper cut-out hangs over the tokonoma. Try as I might to see it as something else, or perhaps an abstract design, I swear to God it shows some sort of animal, a sheep or a cat or something, being humped by another animal of the same species. I must be feverish.
In the tokonoma is a calligraphy scroll and ikebana, plus a book of the teachings of the Buddha and a pamphlet detailing the rules of staying at the temple. I quote from the latter:
“Article Four: Japanese Gangs and their members:
1. The temple cannot accept any reservations from members of Japanese gangs. (If a guest is found to be a member of a Japanese gang after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
2. The accommodation of radical right-wing groups and their accompanying members is also not permitted. (If a guest is found to be a member of a radical right-wing group after a reservation is taken or during accommodation, the guest will be asked to leave immediately.)
Article Nineteen: Provisions for Guest Solatium:
1. Condolence money shall be paid to the guest’s family. The amount of condolence money shall not exceed 100,000 yen for each deceased guest.
2. Depending on circumstances, an official or employee of the temple shall attend the funeral of the deceased guest.
3. Depending on circumstances, the temple shall provide a floral tribute at the funeral of the deceased guest.”
It adds that condolence money will not be given if the guest dies of suicide, radiation sickness, or food poisoning. Uh-oh…
A bell rings periodically, and a monk makes announcements over a loudspeaker, mostly in Japanese, but occasionally in English and, I think, French. It all sounds like “Wah-wah-wah.” I’m sure the guy’s been doing this many times daily for years, and he still hasn’t figured out that you should turn off the mike before you put it down.
Food poisoning provision or no, I hope I can understand him when he says “Dinner is served.”
A special bonus old Japan trip e-mail, this one from my second trip. Note: these are old emails. I am not, now, in Japan. Alas.
Because I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath to find out how the Koya-san food was, I'll report. It was Shujin-ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) which is strictly vegetarian and also made without onions and garlic, as such spicy foods inflame the base passions.
I believe this is a concept from India, where some Brahmins use asafoetida, an onion-tasting herb, instead. The Indian theory divides foods into sattvic (pure, like fruits, grains, and vegetables, associated with the priestly Brahmin caste), rajasic (passion-inflaming, like meats and garlic, associated with the warrior Kshatriya caste) and tamasic (base and bad, like smoked and pickled things and funguses, associated with lower castes.) (This is the very simplified version, obviously.)
I was interested to note that only the no-garlic, no-onions other than scallions part got through, for the meal was mushroom city. The guests were formally served by a monk and a teenage apprentice monk in a tatami room. There were three fifty to sixty-something Japanese couples and me, and they were all very friendly. The lady sitting next to me kindly included me in all the things she was doing for her husband, like pouring his tea and ladling out his rice, and also told me what everything was. They were from Kumamoto in Kyushu, a city which I only knew of because it's near a famouly tacky hot spring resort called Beppu, and was the original target for the bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki instead, because the sky was too cloudy over Kumamoto.
Our trays each had a chafing dish with a lit flame. "Yikes!" I thought. "It's the Blob all over again." (I had a scary encounter with a chafing dish last trip.) But no, it was a delicious vegetable stew, with leeks cooked to a soft sweetness and three slices each of the rare, prized, and expensive matsutake mushrooms. The monk brought them over for us to reverently inhale their woody, earthy scent before adding them to the pot. The stew also included two other kinds of very organic-looking mushrooms (one looked like a small clumpy forest), carrots, herbs, and a mushy gray blob. The gentleman from Kumamoto poked at the blob, then scooped it out of his bowl and hid it under a dish. I followed suit.
We also had very firm tofu in soy sauce and wasabi (doesn't that count as spicy?), miso soup with green onions (ditto) and mushrooms, pink and yellow pickles, sweet sticky beans, rice, green tea, and sliced persimmon.
It was great. But it did inflame my passion-- for mushrooms.
Because I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath to find out how the Koya-san food was, I'll report. It was Shujin-ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) which is strictly vegetarian and also made without onions and garlic, as such spicy foods inflame the base passions.
I believe this is a concept from India, where some Brahmins use asafoetida, an onion-tasting herb, instead. The Indian theory divides foods into sattvic (pure, like fruits, grains, and vegetables, associated with the priestly Brahmin caste), rajasic (passion-inflaming, like meats and garlic, associated with the warrior Kshatriya caste) and tamasic (base and bad, like smoked and pickled things and funguses, associated with lower castes.) (This is the very simplified version, obviously.)
I was interested to note that only the no-garlic, no-onions other than scallions part got through, for the meal was mushroom city. The guests were formally served by a monk and a teenage apprentice monk in a tatami room. There were three fifty to sixty-something Japanese couples and me, and they were all very friendly. The lady sitting next to me kindly included me in all the things she was doing for her husband, like pouring his tea and ladling out his rice, and also told me what everything was. They were from Kumamoto in Kyushu, a city which I only knew of because it's near a famouly tacky hot spring resort called Beppu, and was the original target for the bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki instead, because the sky was too cloudy over Kumamoto.
Our trays each had a chafing dish with a lit flame. "Yikes!" I thought. "It's the Blob all over again." (I had a scary encounter with a chafing dish last trip.) But no, it was a delicious vegetable stew, with leeks cooked to a soft sweetness and three slices each of the rare, prized, and expensive matsutake mushrooms. The monk brought them over for us to reverently inhale their woody, earthy scent before adding them to the pot. The stew also included two other kinds of very organic-looking mushrooms (one looked like a small clumpy forest), carrots, herbs, and a mushy gray blob. The gentleman from Kumamoto poked at the blob, then scooped it out of his bowl and hid it under a dish. I followed suit.
We also had very firm tofu in soy sauce and wasabi (doesn't that count as spicy?), miso soup with green onions (ditto) and mushrooms, pink and yellow pickles, sweet sticky beans, rice, green tea, and sliced persimmon.
It was great. But it did inflame my passion-- for mushrooms.
A special bonus old Japan trip e-mail, this one from my second trip. Note: these are old emails. I am not, now, in Japan. Alas.
Because I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath to find out how the Koya-san food was, I'll report. It was Shujin-ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) which is strictly vegetarian and also made without onions and garlic, as such spicy foods inflame the base passions.
I believe this is a concept from India, where some Brahmins use asafoetida, an onion-tasting herb, instead. The Indian theory divides foods into sattvic (pure, like fruits, grains, and vegetables, associated with the priestly Brahmin caste), rajasic (passion-inflaming, like meats and garlic, associated with the warrior Kshatriya caste) and tamasic (base and bad, like smoked and pickled things and funguses, associated with lower castes.) (This is the very simplified version, obviously.)
I was interested to note that only the no-garlic, no-onions other than scallions part got through, for the meal was mushroom city. The guests were formally served by a monk and a teenage apprentice monk in a tatami room. There were three fifty to sixty-something Japanese couples and me, and they were all very friendly. The lady sitting next to me kindly included me in all the things she was doing for her husband, like pouring his tea and ladling out his rice, and also told me what everything was. They were from Kumamoto in Kyushu, a city which I only knew of because it's near a famouly tacky hot spring resort called Beppu, and was the original target for the bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki instead, because the sky was too cloudy over Kumamoto.
Our trays each had a chafing dish with a lit flame. "Yikes!" I thought. "It's the Blob all over again." (I had a scary encounter with a chafing dish last trip.) But no, it was a delicious vegetable stew, with leeks cooked to a soft sweetness and three slices each of the rare, prized, and expensive matsutake mushrooms. The monk brought them over for us to reverently inhale their woody, earthy scent before adding them to the pot. The stew also included two other kinds of very organic-looking mushrooms (one looked like a small clumpy forest), carrots, herbs, and a mushy gray blob. The gentleman from Kumamoto poked at the blob, then scooped it out of his bowl and hid it under a dish. I followed suit.
We also had very firm tofu in soy sauce and wasabi (doesn't that count as spicy?), miso soup with green onions (ditto) and mushrooms, pink and yellow pickles, sweet sticky beans, rice, green tea, and sliced persimmon.
It was great. But it did inflame my passion-- for mushrooms.
Because I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath to find out how the Koya-san food was, I'll report. It was Shujin-ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) which is strictly vegetarian and also made without onions and garlic, as such spicy foods inflame the base passions.
I believe this is a concept from India, where some Brahmins use asafoetida, an onion-tasting herb, instead. The Indian theory divides foods into sattvic (pure, like fruits, grains, and vegetables, associated with the priestly Brahmin caste), rajasic (passion-inflaming, like meats and garlic, associated with the warrior Kshatriya caste) and tamasic (base and bad, like smoked and pickled things and funguses, associated with lower castes.) (This is the very simplified version, obviously.)
I was interested to note that only the no-garlic, no-onions other than scallions part got through, for the meal was mushroom city. The guests were formally served by a monk and a teenage apprentice monk in a tatami room. There were three fifty to sixty-something Japanese couples and me, and they were all very friendly. The lady sitting next to me kindly included me in all the things she was doing for her husband, like pouring his tea and ladling out his rice, and also told me what everything was. They were from Kumamoto in Kyushu, a city which I only knew of because it's near a famouly tacky hot spring resort called Beppu, and was the original target for the bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki instead, because the sky was too cloudy over Kumamoto.
Our trays each had a chafing dish with a lit flame. "Yikes!" I thought. "It's the Blob all over again." (I had a scary encounter with a chafing dish last trip.) But no, it was a delicious vegetable stew, with leeks cooked to a soft sweetness and three slices each of the rare, prized, and expensive matsutake mushrooms. The monk brought them over for us to reverently inhale their woody, earthy scent before adding them to the pot. The stew also included two other kinds of very organic-looking mushrooms (one looked like a small clumpy forest), carrots, herbs, and a mushy gray blob. The gentleman from Kumamoto poked at the blob, then scooped it out of his bowl and hid it under a dish. I followed suit.
We also had very firm tofu in soy sauce and wasabi (doesn't that count as spicy?), miso soup with green onions (ditto) and mushrooms, pink and yellow pickles, sweet sticky beans, rice, green tea, and sliced persimmon.
It was great. But it did inflame my passion-- for mushrooms.
.