Your deep dive adventure today, if you elect to take it, is to find a Shinto Shrine or Buddhist temple near you and buy a Japanese Temple Book ($5-$8). See the three examples above. Akiko will take you if you’re in Nara, though if you do this on your own, you will likely experience a deeper richer meaning. You will experience it, as did I, with new eyes.
On Google Maps, enter: Shinto Shrine or Buddhist Temple near me.
If you’re in Tokyo, Patricia and I will do the introduction. Carry your folding book with you each day in Japan and trust that this will bring a happy serenity into each day that you have it stamped. Through this experience, you will see a part of Japanese cultural history, and a part of our human history, that you never knew existed. Eager am I to see your favorite entry in your book and listen while you share your story. This beautiful book will become part of your life's book! See you soon.
You will notice in my Temple Book, I’ve noted the location and the name of the temple or shrine visited. Close watch as temple priests brush Kanji into your book, notice their complete focus. Take their photo, on it you will have a digital GPS tag that will pin your location on your new World Map,. Consider it a record of your life’s pilgrimage. Come by Here for additional details.
Native Americans, as do the Japanese and other ancient cultures speak of the spirits that animate their world, the wind, the water, trees, animals, talking leaves, even glinting stones in mountain streams or pink Sakura petals as they float to earth. They write of the spirit in everything around us, in the air we breathe, and this is how I’ve come to frame Shinto as a philosophy.
Thousands take their temple books while traveling Japan. I collect the temple stamps and kanji as a new way of seeing the world ... through a pilgrims eyes, an artist’s eyes, new eyes.
