寺の宿坊に泊まる Temple lodging

イギリス人の夫に日本の伝統を体験してもらおうと、高野山では寺の宿坊に泊まりました。夫が「ベットじゃないと眠れない」と贅沢をいうので、他の全ての宿泊はベットがある部屋を予約していたのですが、宿坊だけはさすがに畳に布団。「睡眠薬を持って行く」とぼやいていたけれど一応快適に眠れたみたいです。

We stayed at shukubo -temple accommodation- for a night in Koyasan in order to let my British husband immerse in Japanese tradition. He said sleeping on the floor would be impossible. So I arranged all of our stays in a Western style room, i.e. double or twin room. But this shukubo was an exception. There, we followed the traditional Japanese sleeping way, which was sleeping in a futon (a mat and a duvet) on tatami mats. Having said he was going to bring a sleeping pill for the night, he seemed to have slept all right without it.

布団より問題は床に座ること自体だったようで、あぐらも辛いみたい。正座できないのは分かるけど・・・。食事は食膳で運ばれてきて床に座って食べる方式だったのですが、夫は椅子を持ってきて座って高い位置から食べていました。なんか見た目変だけど仕方がない。食事は精進料理で美味しかったです。

Rather than that, sitting on the floor itself was a great problem for him. I expected that seiza, a Japanese formal sitting style , would be difficult, but even sitting cross-legged was too hard for him. Our meals were delivered on an small dining tray designed for eating on the floor. So my husband brought a chair and had the dishes from the high position. It looked strange but couldn't be helped. The meal was vegetarian food originally designed for monks, which was delicate and tasty.

修行の一環として、部屋で写経をしました。手本を見ながら紙に書いていくのではなく、トレーシングペーパーになっていて筆ペンでなぞる方式だったので、文字を知らない夫もできました。お経は右から始まる縦書きなのですが、夫は「右から書いたらインクが手について紙が汚れちゃうから左から書く 」と言い出しました。えっ？確かにその通りだけど、それじゃお経の意味ないけど・・・。まあ仕方がないよね。そして夫は最後の日付から書き始めました。「『月』という文字の前に月の名前をいれるんだよ」と説明したら夫は「ＭＡＹ月」と書いてしまった！それじゃ「５月月」だよっ！正直おかしすぎてその後しばらく写経に集中できませんでした。

As a Buddhism practice, we tried 'shakyo', copying of a sutra in our room. It was possible for my husband who didn't know any letters to write the sutra because we could follow the letters on tracing paper by a calligraphy pen, rather than copying them on a paper after a model. The sutra was written from top to bottom and from right to left, which is traditional Japanese way. My husband decided to write from left to right, saying that would avoid smudging the ink. I thought it would lose the meaning of the sutra but it couldn't be helped. So he began to write from the last sentence, which was a date. I explained to him to put the name of this month before the letter '月'. We Japanese call months a number (starting from January) plus '月' (gatsu), e.g May is 5 gatsu. Then he wrote 'MAY 月'. That means 5 gatsu gatsu in Japanese. It was so amusing that I couldn't concentrate on 'shakyo' for a while.     

瞑想体験もしました。部屋に集まったお客の半分はなんと外国人。英語の説明もあり、椅子に座ることもできました。無の境地になるのは難しいので、初心者の私たちは呼吸を１０まで数えてそれを何度も繰り返すという方式を実践しました。私は正直眠くなってしまって瞑想に成功したのか謎です。夫にも聞いたら同じで椅子から転げ落ちないで良かったと言っていました。

We also experienced meditation. To my surprise, half of the people were foreigners. There was an English explanation and one was allowed to sit on a chair. We tried a method of meditating, counting each breath up to 10 and then repeating the process. That was because it would be too difficult for beginners to meditate without thinking. To tell the truth, I got sleepy so I wasn't sure I succeeded the meditation. My husband seemed to be in the similar situation as he said he was relieved that he didn't fall off the chair. 

翌朝は早く起きて朝の勤行に参加して、護摩を焚く儀式を見ました。護摩は真言宗・天台宗などの密教独特の儀式で、小さな護摩木を燃やします。 宿坊に泊まったおかげで高野山もじっくり見学でき、色々な体験ができてよかったです。

The next morning, we got up early, attended the morning service and saw the Goma fire ritual. Goma(homa) is a ceremony for Esoteric Buddhism such as Shingon or Tendai Buddhism, lighting a holy fire by burning small wooden sticks. Thanks to the temple lodging, we experienced various Buddhism customs as well as seeing more of Koyasan.