Shopping Mall Temples

It rained more or less nonstop today, so I didn't get further than the internet café and the grocery store. Luckily, yesterday was relatively productive. Among other activities, I went to the big covered arcade mall on Teramachi. I was there to hunt for books, but I also stopped in a few temples in the mall. That's right, there are temples in the mall, more than a few, in fact. They were here long before the mall, and gave the area its name. But you have to keep your eyes peeled for them. For instance, the entrance to this little temple—named Sendenin—is barely wider than a person.



And this is the more accessible entrance: the front entrance is actually located in the back of a tea shop that faces the main street, so you have to go into the shop, pass the cash register, and walk through a hole in the rear wall to access the temple.

Sendenin belongs to the Jishu, a relatively small school of Pure Land Buddhism. People duck in here on their way through the mall to pray for various things, such as happy children or their deceased ancestors.



Further into the mall, I found another temple. Once again, the entrance is wedged between shops.



Seishinin is a Shingon temple—Japanese tantric Buddhism. Once you proceed down the low hallway, it opens suddenly into a very large open space with a big wooden temple and a graveyard.



There were a number of interesting statues here. One worth mentioning is this seated Kannon bodhisattva, the personification of compassion.



Behind her are many smaller Kannon statues. Each one is destined to be bought by a donor to serve as a monument to a deceased family-member (only a handful have been bought so far, as the statues are obviously new). Now, one reason to call attention to it is that to the untrained eye, it looks rather like the Mizuko Jizo statues I have highlighted earlier on this blog. Don't get fooled! Just because there are a lot of small, identical Buddhist statues lined up somewhere doesn't in any way make them mizuko.

Similarly, here is another Kannon, this time from Kannonji, a subtemple of Sennyuji.




Kannonji is one of the stops on the Kannon pilgrimage tour, and I saw plenty of pilgrims at this temple. This Kannon is sheltering to small figures who gave up at her trustingly. From a distance, you might think they are the babies portrayed in Mizuko Jizo or Mizuko Kannon statue motifs. But if you look closer, you'll see that these are actually two elderly people. This is the Kannon who ensures a quick and painless death with Alzheimer’s Disease or incontinence. Like mizuko, these easy-death figures have sprung up since WWII and become quite popular. The Japanese have a very long lifespan these days, and acutely wish not to be a burden on their families in their later years. So they go to these statues and pray to die swiftly and cleanly. Notice also the small statues around and beside the Kannon, which again could be mistaken for mizuko if you didn't know that they were for sudden death. It's interesting when you think about it: these two nearly identical motifs, evolving side by side at the same time, deal with persons who were prevented from being born and those who wish to die.

Kannonji sells another popular item related to the anxieties of aging. What do you think this is?



As a matter of fact, it is a pillowcase. But not just any pillowcase. This one has been specially blessed by tantric monks to prevent senility. Here's how it works: as you get older, your memory starts to fade. So you go to the temple and purchase one of these pillowcases for 1000 yen (around $9.50). Then you put it on your pillow at home rest your head on it every night when you sleep. It will prevent you from losing your memory. Best part about this Buddhist scam: if it doesn’t work, you won't remember which temple ripped you off.

Here's a random picture from Sennyuji I meant to include the other day. This tree was struck by lighting a long time ago, but its corpse remains standing like a skeleton’s finger pointing accusingly at the sky.




On my way home from Teramachi, I stopped in a convenience store to grab some food. When I came out, a middle-aged lady approached me and began asking me in Japanese if I live in Japan. Turns out she is from an evangelical form of new Buddhism and wanted to proselytize me. She gave me two tickets to a movie/lecture here in Kyoto by her group, designed to introduce people to their sect.




I thought it was an interesting experience and talked with her a little before biking back to the Center. I did not tell her that I'm already aware of her group and find them to push the boundaries of even a flexible religion like Buddhism. After all, their leader claims he is a Buddha and has received mental communications from intelligent plants on Venus. I mean, please—we all know that Venusian vegetables are nearly as dumb as all those talking marmots on Pluto. . .