Angela Varga: Japanese Temples and Landscape

Over Winter Break I went to Japan with my family for my brother’s wedding. He had been in Japan for the past three years for work and met a lovely young woman there and they got married this past December. The Buddhist ceremony was beautiful and a unique experience for me. However, that is not the point of this entry. We visited many temples during our stay in Japan, but the one that stuck out must to me was the Kinkaku-ji, The Golden Temple. As the name implies the temple is a wooden frame that is gilded in gold leaf. It’s a very beautiful place. The temple is built in a pond that reflects both the building and the heaves and the landscape around it. It was amazing to see the connection the temple had with the wilderness, showcasing how important nature is. Many people were at the temple, mostly doing the tourist thing, but there were others, mostly elderly Japanese, that were there to pray. It was amazing to see the older men and women ring the bell of another temple and offer their prayers. What else was amazing was the fact that there were indeed many buildings on the grounds, but they did not seem out of place in their environment. They fit in well with nature that it seemed like the wilderness grew around the buildings.