the weekend between kochi’s yosakoi festival and super yosakoi in harajuku (tokyo), we had a “spiritual retreat” at senkoji temple in the mountains of takayama (gifu). 小倉先生, miyuki, miki, and i all went as “teachers”. . . obviously for dance and not the spiritual part. . . but none of us can recall doing any teaching. in fact, i think we learned the most (especially me, you know, not being buddhist). for three days, we ate, slept, and danced at the temple. we also had buddhist services (chanting and all) at 6a.m. followed by meditation sessions. . .fyi: the temple’s original floor, which has since become the ceiling, still has blood stains from samurai who died by seppuku -slitting their stomachs. . . kind of creepy place to meditate, right?
anyway, the whole experience was really interesting (despite the fact that i understood about 5% of what was being said). the buddhist priest was a really amazing guy as well. he joined us every night after dinner and baths for chats about dance, music, travel, and religion. when he was younger, he walked all the way from gifu to shikoku, through the 88 temple pilgrimage, and back to gifu. one night, he tried to explain a bit of the differences between christian and buddhist thinking/ philosophy to me in japanese, broken english, and drawings. . . fyi: religion is not an easy topic to discuss in a language that is not your own. . .but we did our best. . .what else? oh, he also happens to be a musician and has produced a cd of buddhist music and chants, in a sense inspired by christian hymns. . .kind of, sort of. . .during a service at a european cathedral, he found himself wondering why buddhist music couldn’t produce that same feeling of awe and emotion that christian hymns could. . . which is basically what influenced his arrangements of the buddhist chants. . .like i said, seriously amazing guy. . .
so. . . we danced and hiked through the mountains. . .
we even took a miniature piligrimage through the 88 temples of senkoji (a miniature version of shikoku's 88 temple pilgrimage). . . according to miyuki, we had a good ghost with us (she knows this because of in the bright spot in the top corner). . .
at the end of the retreat we celebrated our efforts to be pure and meditative beings in nature by strolling through the streets of takayama, shopping, taking pictures in giant chairs with the takayama sarubobo (baby monkey), and gorging ourselves on delicious yakiniku, cake, and coffee. . .oops. . .
senkoji's homepage: http://daien.senkouji.com/
