Greetings and salutations, to those of you who are still faithful enough to follow this blog.
As soon as I got into the habit of updating this almost weekly, I left you all high and dry without an update for almost a month.
I could once again blame it on life but...

You know? I will blame it on life. Life tends to get in the way of things we want to do, doesn't?

I'm not going to give any excuses or anything, but I will say that hopefully this month I can get at least three updates in. The first of which, being this one, is yet another photo blog! [cue unenthusiastic fanfare here]

But this isn't just any photo blog, this is a photo blog that can only happen once in seven years. This is a photo blog about Zenkouji Temple's Gokaicho festival.

Zenkouji's main branch is in Nagano City in Nagano Prefecture. I had the privilege of living within the temple "city" for three months while I was an exchange student in high school. My third host family through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program was a monk's family who owns a shukubo (visitor/pilgrim lodge), named Ryoushouin, directly west of the Niomon Gate. They're the fifth picture down on the left side of that page, and if you look at the map, they are the bottom-most one in the blue square.

The quick story behind Zenkouji is a man named Yoshimitsu Honda (本田善光) had a statue of a Buddhist triad jump onto his back from out of a river. The statue in question is supposedly the first ever Buddhist image to come to Japan, and was tossed into the river following a feud between two clans. The kanji for Yoshimitsu's first name can also be read as "Zenkou", which is why the temple is now named "Zenkouji".
As Zenkouji was built before Buddhism in Japan had split into different factions and sects, so the temple is presided over by both the Tendai and Jodo Shu sects of Buddhism. It is one of the last remaining pilgrimage sites in Japan, and historically is one of the few temples to have allowed female worshippers and pilgrims. There is also a story about how a non-believing old lady followed an ox, who had gotten some of her laundry stuck on his horns, to the temple and turned into a believer. If you walk around the temple gardens, you can see a statue of the ox.
The main temple in Nagano also has a kaidanmeguri (戒壇巡り) : a pitch black tunnel under the building where everyone is equal in the darkness, searching for the "key to enlightenment/paradise". Those who find this "key" are said to have their sins washed away and are guaranteed a place in nirvana.

Now, the weird thing about Zenkouji is the actual Buddhist statue that Yoshimitsu found is a "hidden Buddha". Literally, it must be kept out of sight from everyone, including the head priest and priestess. Supposedly it is locked up in a vault in the bowels of the Nara Museum. Every six or seven years they bring out a replica for worshippers and pilgrims to gaze upon for about two months. Then that replica is hidden away from view until the next festival, the Gokaicho.


Zenkouji has since spread around Japan, and there are well over 100 different branches. Many of the branches were started by warlords in the Sengoku Period, and the ones in Gifu were started by Oda Nobunaga, while the ones in Aichi were started by Tokugawa Ieyasu. We have a branch here in Gifu City by the large Inaba Shrine near the castle, and there is one in the nearby city of Seki.



The last Gokaicho was held in April and May of 2003, the year after I had been an exchange student. This year's Gokaicho had me really excited, as I was finally in the country for it, but due to time/money/flu panic, I was unable to head to Nagano's Zenkouji to witness the festivities. However, for the first time in Zenkouji's history, six temples across the nation held Gokaicho at the very same time, two of which were Gifu Zenkouji and Seki Zenkouji!

Gifu's Zenkouji is pretty small, only one building, so I decided that Seki's Zenkouji was were I wanted to be for this thing. Sadly, I didn't get any time to go until the last day of the festival, May 31st.

But man, did I pick a good day to go!

The weather was beautiful, and I got one of the last parking spots that was less than a 10 minute walk away. Considering the temple in Seki is much, much smaller than that of Nagano, there weren't nearly as many people as I had expected.
Seki's Zenkouji is relatively old, supposedly older than the current 300-year-old main hall in Nagano. There are five buildings: one that houses a Buddha sitting on what looks like a pineapple but is really a bunch of tiny Buddha images, two that house smaller Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, one that house a quite large statue of the Buddhist Triad, and the main hall. The main hall and the Buddhist Triad building are connected by a wooden corridor that houses a Binzuru statue (a physician that followed the Buddha and supposedly heals ailments if you touch where you hurt), and a series of statues that I guess are either the Gods of Fortune, or the Gods of Hell. I'm not sure which and no one would explain it to me. There is also a bell tower up on the mountain behind the two smaller buildings, where one may ring the bell for a donation of 100yen. The bell makes a lovely ring.

My husband and I were lucky to get there about and hour before the closing ceremony started, so we checked out their replica of the Buddhist Triad (which was tiny and hard to see), listened to a priest tell the story behind Gokaicho, and did Seki's kaidanmeguri. Seki Zenkouji is one of the few, if not the only, temples that has a kaidanmeguri tunnel in the shape of a manji, 卍. It has some really abrupt turns in the dark, and while most of the time you end up fumbling through the dark on your own, only to run your nose into the wall, they tied up a rope for people to follow, and had a small blue LED light over the "key" to make it easier. I thought it was a cop out, but then again I've done the kaidanmeguri there twice before, and at least five times in Nagano. I can tell you the differences between the two, but I won't go into that much detail. I already type too much as it is.

After getting out of the kaidanmeguri and grabbing a few pictures of the crowd and buildings, we headed up the hiking path past the bell, just to see what was up top. Not much, but it was a good hike. When we got down to the bottom again, it was time for the ending ceremony, a mochinage. I believed I talked about mochinage with the Tagata Shrine festival, but for those who missed it, a mochinage is where they pelt a crowd with lucky mochi rice cakes. Not wanting to get bulldozed by several scores of grannies and grandpas who'd rip the dentures out of their best friend over a lucky mochi cake, my husband and I took refuge on the staircase up to the bell tower. A family who was helping set up for the mochinage noticed me taking photos of the crowd, posed for a picture, and even sent their kindergarten-aged son over with a mochi cake just for us before the official mochinage started. Then the fun ensued.

I'll let the photos below speak for themselves.