Across the lake,
around the neck
of Sleeping Buddha Island
the houses gleam
like a necklace
in the last of the sun

LITTLE BUDDHA

In Sanzen-in Temple garden, Ohara, outside Kyoto

WHAT TO DO ON REALLY, REALLY RAINY DAYS

There's not all that much to love about really really rainy days unless you're a droughty farmer or rainmaker, but we're neither, yet we love rainy days, get lots of them and we're not ducks. One of the things we love about double-r rainy days is that they afford the ideal opportunity to visit one of the big temples around here that are at their very best in the wetness and light of rainfall, not least because there are far fewer rainy day visitors to venues that generally can be more of a massive sardine experience.

That's what we did on Saturday, when it was raining so hard that walking down the street was like spalshing through water, pants wet up to the knees. I'd just planted winter spinach on Wednesday, so I was happy on that account too (gardening gives you a lot of extra things to be happy about, which fact can also come in handy on double-r rainy days).

So we went over the mountain to visit historic Sanzen-in, the anciently renowned and moss-gardened temple in Ohara, just outside Kyoto. The fact that it was on a Saturday and the visitor count was about 20% of usual made the whole experience even more of a miracle.

Walking up to the temple in the rain that brings out all the green in the leaves and the many colors in the stone walls - with all the pathside shops and their wares glowing into the outer dimness - climbing the stone steps and entering the incense fragrance of the temple building where golden Buddhas glow in dim recesses, while out on the long veranda, where all the shutters are lifted, gleam the many shades of emerald that are the garden beyond the pond, the moss, pines and maples, the stones and stone lanterns, all hissing softly in the rain like a faraway chanting, all you can do is fall silent, be seated on the straw mats and meditate on living the link between beauty and sanctity.

The little Buddha I photographed in his secret place in the greater garden knows this too; his face says so.

THE SLEEPING BUDDHA

Out there on the Lake, directly west across from us at the edge of evening lies Okijima, the Lake's largest island. Okijima is known locally as The Sleeping Buddha for its very close resemblance to the stretched out form of the Sleeping Buddha when viewed, for example, from our deck. There's Buddha's head to the right, then the neck, shoulder, waist, elbow, hip-- then the gown, tapering off into the lakebed.

There's a small village on the island, that bands the Buddha's neck and turns into a diamond necklace at night; there's another bright light just about where Buddha's third eye would be: a dock light that stays on well into the night in summer, to direct those still on the water in the dark when most of the necklace has gone out. People go to sleep early on the Sleeping Buddha. There's another notable light at Buddha's navel that is sometimes on all night. I like to think it's a temple, and not some forgetful person's garage light.

On clear Summer and Autumn evenings I sit and watch the sapphire phases of the Lake as the setting sun's light slides out across the water on the edge of the mountain shadow reaching toward the always sleeping figure, when the island seems to glow all the more as the darkness darkens around it until for the last few moments of the day, as the only bright object on the darkling horizon the island takes on a deep emerald light of its own; backed by the pearl gray vistas of the further and further mountains it glows with such eminence, almost from within, it's no wonder that so many centuries of lakeside eyes have seen there the radiant Buddha, deep in dreams of what we know as time.