Eihei Temple

Eihei Temple, or 'The Temple of Eternal Peace' is located in the bowl of a lush valley in Japan's Fukui Prefecture. The temple is widely renowned within Japan as one of the two head temples for the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism.

The temple was founded in 1244 by the monk Dogen zenji, who had himself trained in Zen (or Chan, as it was known in China) in China from the age of 24.

Eihei-ji remains to this day at the heart of the Zen world, and the strict daily practices are still scrupulously observed.

I came to Eihei-ji in May, 2003 in order to try my hand at Zen practice. Though I have studied Zen history and philosophy for some time, I still found myself at a loss as to what I should expect when I went there.

Eihei-ji accepts people into training as 'lay practitioners', allowing a unique chance to understand Zen not simply as the philosophy with which it is so commonly associated with in the West, but instead with the daily practice of the monks that actually is Zen.

Eihei-ji is a place that pulses with the routine of the monks; governed by the gonging of the great bell in the courtyard which signals meal times and prayer times, when to work and when to sit.

One of the things I found quite interesting about Eihei Temple was the mix of tradition and modernity that characterizes the place.

The heritage of Eihei-ji can be found not only in its buildings, but indeed in its very trees. It is said that the fifth abbott of Eihei-ji (who lived over 600 years ago) planted the seeds of 76 cedars throughout the grounds of the temple when he became the head monk. Now these trees soar above the temple buildings, and offer an immediate and constant reminder of those that came before.

The buildings themselves are a blend of old and new. Though the temple complex is made up overwhelmingly of old buildings in the traditional style, the visitor is now greeted first to a modern-style, multi-storeyed building. I found this, at first, somewhat off-putting. I soon came to realize, however, that the business of the temple was Zen and its practice, and that although the new buildings seemed at first to be an effront to what one might perceive to be the Zen aesthetic, the buildings served their respective purposes admirably.

And that brings me to the Zendo, or the hall in which the sitting meditation itself is practiced. In the case of lay-practitioners, zazen is practiced in the new building in a hall designed specifically for the purpose. Each person is assigned a small, square woven mat atop a raised platform on which to sit. Each mat has a small cushion to sit on.

During meditation (as this is the Soto style) the practitioner faces the wall, turning in toward the room only for mealtimes, which are also held in the same place. The wide, wooden strip you can see at the front of the platforms (below) is actually the eating surface, where the bowls are painstakingly laid out in the eating ritual...but that's another story.

These rooms really represent the 'guts' of Eihei Temple, which manages somehow to keep focused on the business of Zen practice despite the swarms of tourists that come to visit the famed pillar of Zen. But each day the crowds thin, the noise fades, and the monks are left with nothing but the sounds of the night as they sit quietly, looking at nothing but the wall in front of them.