Travel to Kyoto and find your spiritual side at a Buddhist meditation guesthouse

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Kyoto, Japan -- Reverend Takafumi Kawakami is a very modern priest. When I arrive at Shunkoin Zen Buddhist temple, hidden deep in Kyoto’s serene Myoshinji temple complex, we don’t discuss Buddhism; we talk about Twitter, specifically his recent tweet about the first signs of spring.

<< Reverend Takafumi Kawakami offers a very modern approach to spiritualism (Picture: Alamy)

He tells me it is one of the best times of year to visit the old city, famous for its palaces, wooden merchant houses and geishas. The cold bite of winter releases its grip, the cherry blossom crowds come and go, and the city takes on an emerald hue.

Tonight I am staying in Rev Kawakami’s new eight-room guesthouse, The Cave Of Enlightened Dragon, which sits next to the main building, parts of which were built a mind-boggling five centuries ago.

As I check in, he offers me an espresso and tells me about the temple’s free wi-fi and bicycle rental.

I wasn’t expecting this, I tell him. Most don’t, he replies.

I am given a few rules: keep a respectful silence after 10.30pm and be prompt for tomorrow’s meditation session. Then he leaves me standing in the deafening silence of his temple, feeling a little like an intruder.

Temple lodging, or shukubo, is a very special way to see Japan’s simple, spiritual side. Most stays include vegetarian food and compulsory participation in morning Buddhist services.

Shunkoin offers something in-between. It is the only temple in Kyoto that offers classes in English and, although it doesn’t serve food, guests are given full access to a modern kitchen and a map pinpointing nearby supermarkets.

The meditation sessions here begin at 9am (others can start at an eye-drying 3am) and at just £43 a night, it is also something of a bargain.

So after a late-night wander around the complex grounds, with only a monk on a bike in my sights, I retreat to my small room, containing a mattress, desk and a bathroom, and sleep soundly for a long time.

The next morning, after a breakfast of rice balls, I meet my meditation companions. A young woman from Toronto tells me she has dipped a toe in these Zen waters but the two American students, who hilariously boast of food poisoning (‘I ate so much weird food I was sick!’), are clearly first-timers.

We sit cross-legged on cushions and listen wide-eyed as Rev Kawakami tells us how Buddhism and Shinto, Japan’s native religion, live harmoniously side by side, and how meditation helps in the 21st century.

‘Meditation provides time for your brain to digest the overload of information it constantly receives, which helps us keep an inner peace,’
he tells us. ‘It reorganises thoughts and helps us to be more objective and mindful.’

After our first 15-minute session, we all admit we didn’t have much luck clearing our minds. ‘It’s normal to have random thoughts and to see images, so focus on your breath and the rest will follow,’ he advises.

I do as I am told and the next 15-minute session passes in what feels like a minute. I bask in an incredible calmness and, judging by everyone else’s faces, so do they.

Rev Kawakami then leads us on a short tour and we hear his story. He studied psychology and economics at Arizona State University and started thinking about the role of religion in modern society after 9/11 so changed his degree to major in religious studies. He then committed to one year’s training at Zuiganji Monastery in Miyagi prefecture.

He is a staunch supporter of Japan’s LGBT community, a sector of Japanese society that silently struggles. He is also, I quickly discover, a clever businessman.

There are 70,000 temples in Japan but economists have calculated that by 2050 there will be just 10,000 left because of expensive running costs.

Rev Kawakami needs funds to keep Shunkoin running so he came up with this overnight meditation package. Do the other 45 temples in the complex disapprove? ‘Not at all – they think it is a fascinating way to reinvent the temple,’ he says.

I couldn’t agree more.

£43 per night for accommodation and meditation. www.shunkoin.com

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Kyoto rejects ceremonial wood over radiation fears

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TOKYO, Japan -- Japan's former imperial capital of Kyoto apologised Saturday after rejecting wood from the tsunami-ravaged Pacific coast for a traditional bonfire festival over fears of radioactive contamination.

<< A Buddhist monk chants sutras at prayers in Okuma last month for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami (AFP, Str)

For centuries, Kyoto has marked the end of a Buddhist holiday season, during which ancestors' souls are believed to return home, by setting giant bonfires on mountains.

In modern times the event has been held every August 16, and Rikuzen Takata, a city in Japan's northeast devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, last month offered Kyoto wood from pine trees uprooted by the waves.

The double disaster left 2,140 people dead or missing in Rikuzen Takata -- about 10 percent of those who perished overall -- and left only one of the 70,000 pine trees that once lined its scenic coastline standing.

A total of 333 pieces of pine wood were packed for Kyoto, inscribed with messages to the newly dead such as "Big sister, you were a great cook," and "I want to see you," according to local media.

But the catastrophe also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Rikuzen Takata, which has since leaked radiation into the environment from its crippled reactors.

The Kyoto bonfire organisers turned the offer down last week over worries about radioactive pollution, even though a test detected no radioactive substances in a sample of the wood.

Instead, the 333 pieces were ceremonially incinerated in Rikuzen Takata under the scrutiny of national media on Monday, in ritual blazes to welcome home the spirits of the dead at the start of the holiday period.

Kyoto's city office said it had received about 2,000 telephone calls and e-mails criticising the bonfire organisers for their action and accusing them of helping spread "harmful rumours" about radiation from the Fukushima plant.

Fears over radiation have damaged sales of farm and fishery produce from regions around the power station, while the government has banned beef from cattle which had been fed with rice straw exposed to nuclear contamination.

Kyoto city mayor Daisaku Kadokawa called on the organisers to accept a new batch of wood from Rikuzen Takata, but when 500 pieces of pine wood arrived minimal amounts of radioactive caesium were detected, leaving the city "no choice but to give it up," he said.

"We've made a heart-rending decision," he told a news conference Saturday. "I apologise to the disaster areas from the bottom of my heart."

Earlier, Japanese media carried comments from experts playing down the impact of the radiation, which had been recorded at 1,130 becquerels per kilogram in samples of bark, and none in samples of trunks.

"If you eat one kilogram of the bark and absorb it all into your system, it is still negligble," Ootsura Niwa, honorary professor of radiation biology at Kyoto University, told the Mainichi Shimbun.

Niwa, a member of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, added: "The decision, which demanded meaningless cleanness, has trampled on the feelings of people in disaster areas."

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