temple

Tonight, I was writing a chapter for my new book, and I thought I would share it.

On Saturday mornings, I often found myself at a nearby Buddhist temple, Fukusen-ji 福泉寺, at dawn. The temple sat on a bluff overlooking the bay on the East side of Okinawa Island. The building sat slightly away from the coastal road, with a steep stairway leading up the bluff. 

At that early hour, away from Naha, the island was still asleep. I would come before the monks opened the doors and sang their morning mantras.

I would sweep the steep stairs leading to the temple.

Sometimes I would sit on the wooden floor at the back of the temple hall, a cloth in my hands, polishing brass bells and ritual vajras.

In front of the seated monks and me stood a large statue of Fudō Myōō (<ruby>不動明王<rt>ふどうみょうおう</rt></ruby>).

My anthropology professor told me about the place and the priest. The temple abbot, Itto-san, understood me without either of us speaking the other's language. He talked, gesticulated, explained things, and laughed. I know he was explaining his religion in Chiba, where he came from, and esoteric aspects of the temple, such as the main deity.

Fudō Myōō towered over the space, sword raised, with a terrifying, macabre appearance. But I should not judge, as I come from a culture where everyone wears and kisses a crucified person around their neck. Fudō is likely equivalent to the Hindu Vedic Acala (अचल), the immovable protector and a slayer of delusion. In karate, we have fudo-dachi, an immovable stance.

Another deity depicted in stone sculpture outside the temple is Jizō 地蔵菩薩, also known in Sanskrit as Kṣitigarbha, or "Earth Store/Womb". As my professor explained, this deity was believed to protect miscarried babies, a deeply moving sight as mothers who had lost their babies prayed there. The belief was that a child who dies before birth has not accrued enough karma to cross over, so it's sent to Sai no Kawara 賽の河原, a riverbank in the afterlife, where it endlessly stacks small stone towers as penance, only for demons to keep knocking them down. Jizō is the one who intervenes, hiding these children in his robes and guiding them across. Once you know this, you will never see the stacked river stones the same way.