michael lambe

I’m thinking my hordes of avid readers, would like to see something a bit more …. oh I don’t know… JAPANESE. Seeing as I’m in Japan and all. So here are some nice Japanesey pictures.

First off some nice Japanese lanterns. What could be more Japanesy?

I took these up at Yoshida Jinja on Sunday.

There’s a nice big Jizo on Imadegawa now…

Jizo is the Buddhist patron “saint” of children. This little road-side shrine is on quite a nasty little corner, the cars come whipping round, so it’s good Jizo is there looking out for the little chisellers…

Now, there’s a little alleyway between Kawaramachi
and Shinkyogoku… If you live in Kyoto, you probably know where I mean… There’s a big Loft store there and also one of the few places one can legally park a bicycle in this town. Anyway, on this alleyway, there is a little Temple….

See below:

It’s a small temple… I’m not sure how to read the kanji on the sign but I think it’s called Houzouji (寶蔵寺). Judging from the look of it, I’d say it was a family-run establishment, probably catering to the needs of the local “parishoners”… Yes, I don’t know a lot about it to be honest… There are hundreds of tiny little temples in Kyoto, and most of them don’t really stand out, but I like this one.

If you look to the left of this picture, you can see some framed calligraphy on the wall. This is changed fairly regularly and I love it. It’s always a short meditation containing some essential piece of wisdom. Buddhist thinking of course but like a lot of buddhist thinking - basically just positive thinking and good common sense advice.
Let’s take a closer look at the most recent message:

Right to left this reads:

迎春
命をみつめよう
命を活かそう
生かされている
命に
感謝しょう

geishun
inochi o mitsumeyou
inochi o ikasou
ikasareteiru
inochi ni
kansha shou

Which if my understanding of it is right, means something like this:

Approaching spring
Let’s look hard at our lives
Let’s live our lives fully
And being alive
Let ’s give thanks
For Life

I love the way the calligrapher has used the different kanji for life and living (命、活、生）…I’ll put some more of those up as and when they appear…

Cheerio!