Shōrin-ji Temple — Attraction in Kyoto

I went here with a guide (Magical Trip company in Kyoto) to do a meditation session. I’m not religious or spiritual but it was worth it to experience something of the Buddhist teachings. I imagine it’d be lovely in autumn when the leaves change colour. Worth a visit if you have a few spare hours in Kyoto and want to do something a bit off the path. Suggest going with a guide as the monk does not speak in English at all during the sessions. From there we walked to the famous Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine (the one with all the orange poles) so if you want to make a day of it and you’re fit enough to walk a fair way it’s a good day out if the...

The temple and it's territory itself is beautiful and zen, the meditation session was a bit underwhelming: 10 min focus, 5 min break, 15 min focus. No singing bowls, mantras, or anything like that. Just sitting in silence among other people. The cool element: you can get into a 🙏 pose and the monk observing the crowd will smash you with a paddle-looking bat on your back to get you back to focus. Some people overused it like a free massage and got over 5 hits:) No translation of monk speech but they gave me a printout which delivered the gist in English. Bathroom available...

I visited that quiet place to try an activity called "写仏", or Buddhist image copying. Put a thin paper for calligraphy on a favorite Buddhist image, just trace it with a brush fountain pen. Anyone who can stay there quietly can do it. The receptionist said that it would be easy if I started from the bottom of the image. It seemed very difficult for me, actually the pen was shaking at the first time however, during concentrated on drawing lines of the basement, I became used to handle the brush pen well soon. I felt confident drawing winding lines of flames, I was able to draw any lines as l liked. As I needed to write my wish down on the paper in the end, I did soul-searching while I did it, to know what my true wish is. When I reached to the face, I felt like as I were a professional artist. Amazingly very rapid progress in such a short time made me feel great and unwind...