Tag: Travel

Sacred Trees in Japan and Korea

Sometimes when you travel in Japan, especially outside of Tokyo, you may come across like this:

A large sacred tree at Kasuga shrine in Nara, Japan. Taken by me in July 2023.

This is a large tree that has been growing for centuries within the precincts of Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara, Japan. The tree, as you can see, has a large rope tied around it with small paper streamers. If you ever saw the Studio Gibhli movie Totoro, you can see a big camphor tree with a similar rope around it.

Sometimes you also find rocks and other natural things with ropes around them too.

A “shimenawa” around an “iwakura” (sacred rock) at Meigetsuin, Buddhist temple in Kamakura, Japan, courtesy of Wikipedia.

This is a Shinto-religious custom using a special sacred, hempen rope called Shimenawa (注連縄). The little paper streamers called called Shidé (紙垂).

Shimenawa are sometimes used to section off a sacred space, but they’re also used to enshrine places thought to house a local kami, such as a tree or rock thought to be sacred. Sometimes you also see them hanging over home Shinto shrines (kamidana, 神棚). The idea is the same: the paper streamers help deliniate a sacred space (the inner sanctum of your home shrine in this case).

Interestingly, I discovered that a separate, but parallel tradition exists in Korea too. This blog shows that in Korean traditional culture, people would enshrine local guardian spirits by tying a rope (금줄, Geumjul) around them, and decorating with colored cloths (오색천, Osaekcheon) or white strips of paper. Such sacred trees (당산나무, Dangsan-namu) and sacred rocks (누석단, Nuseokdan), are collectively called Seonangdang. They are very similar in appearance to the ones in Japan, so it’s not hard to guess that there’s some common religious tradition between both cultures, though the Wikipedia article linked above also suggests a potential link to Mongol culture too.

Shinto as a religion exists only in Japan1 but it’s not hard to imagine that Shinto tradition drew from something much older that was shared across the Korean peninsula and Japan. Further, since it’s known that in early Japanese history that many Korean families migrated to Japan (the Imperial court sought their skills and technology), it’s quite possible the tradition was imported from Korea to Japan. Further, as this early Yamato court actively allied with the Korean kingdom of Baekche, it’s possible the cultural exchange went in that direction too.

Anyhow, it’s a fascinating example of how the two (or more) cultures have shared religious traditions for millenia, but few would notice.

1 Barring colonial efforts in the early 20th century to introduce it to other Asian countries, but these did not have a lasting impact culturally.

Asakusa Temple Sutra Book

This is the last in a series of Japanese-Buddhist sutra books that I wanted to share. I talked about this Soto Zen sutra book, a Rinzai Zen book and a Jodo Shu sutra book. Today, I wanted to share the sutra book I purchased at Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, Japan.

Asakusa Temple (more properly Sensoji Temple, 浅草寺)1 is super famous, and chances are if you have visited Tokyo, you probably went to Asakusa Temple. Asakusa is technically its own Buddhist-sect now, but for much of its history it was a Tendai Buddhist temple that enshrined a legendary statue of Kannon Bodhisattva that supposedly washed up on shore and enshrined in the year 645. This is called the Yanagi no Miei (柳御影, roughly translated “the [sacred] willow image”). The featured photo above shows where it is enshrined at Asakusa Temple.

Not surprisingly, the sutra book’s liturgy focuses on Kannon-related chants. This sutra book is sold in two sizes, but the contents are the same:

The illustration inside the cover depicts the legendary statue :

The liturgy to the left of the illustration is a form of Taking Refuge in the Three Treasures (san-ki-é-mon, 三帰依文) done in a more native-Japanese style, than the Sino-Japanese version I posted here. Both versions are perfectly valid and are chanted.

More examples below are chants that we’ve seen in older posts in right to left order:

  • the Sangémon (repentance) on the right,
  • Kaikyoge (verses for opening the sutra) second page from right, and
  • the Kannon Sutra itself on the left half.

Unlike other examples I’ve seen, this sutra book posts the entire Kannon sutra, not just the verse section. It’s about 3 times as longer than usual.

Next, we see a classic: the Heart Sutra. This makes sense since the Heart Sutra was spoken by Kannon Bodhisattva, not Shakyamuni Buddha. So. it fits the theme.

And last but not least, after the Heart Sutra is the Ten Verse Kannon Sutra (second from right), and Dedication of Merit verse.

Finally on the far left page is a simple recitation chant of devotion to Kannon Bodhisattva: namu kanzeon bosatsu (南無観世音菩薩). I’ve often used that to sign off blog posts, and unlike more esoteric mantras, this is a very common statement of devotion, much like the nembutsu for Amida Buddha. Feel free to chant it in your Buddhist practice!

Anyhow, this sutra book is something visitors to Asakusa Temple would probably overlook without the necessary background (or religious inclination), but it’s a fascinating look at Tendai Buddhist liturgy, but in a way that’s adapted to a particular temple, and to a particular deity.

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

P.S. That covers all the sutra books I wanted to cover here in the blog. I own a few more, but they’re not interesting or unique enough to justify another blog post. If I pick up another sutra book, I’ll post again. But if you did enjoy this mini-series, thank you for reading!

1 The words “asakusa” and “senso” are literally just two different ways to read the same Chinese characters.

Letting Go Of College-Age Children

Hello readers,

This past week, I have been in Dublin, Ireland. The purpose of this trip was (among other things) to help my daughter settle in to your her new life in Trinity College Dublin.

She graduated high school this year, and it’s been a slow-moving, emotional roller coaster as we come face to face to with the fact that our firstborn is leaving the nest. Of course, logically this was always going to happen, but actually facing it is harder than expected. As a father, she has been an important part of our life for the last 18 years, and the thought of letting her go especially in a place where I cannot protect her became increasingly stressful.

Dublin itself, is a great city: very walkable, safe in a way you don’t find in US cities,1 friendly people, and lots of awesome European food you can’t really find here in the West Coast.

A view of Dublin from my daughter’s accomadation

And yet, when my daughter and I arrived in Dublin, we had only five days to get setup with things like:

  • Apartment (student housing)
  • Bank account (since it’s a different country)
  • Mobile phone (same reason)
  • Figure out food sources
  • Figure out public transportation
  • Get some basic home goods since we couldn’t possibly bring it all from the States.
  • Meet some local friends we know to help my daughter establish a local support network, etc.

Out of those five days, I had to some work in Dublin as well (I couldn’t take five full days off), so it was more like three days.

The good news is that we quickly got many of these things sorted out. We found a good mobile service, found some groceries and good restaurants nearby, and her student accommodation is very close to the Luas tram, and the Luas runs often and is easy to get tickets for. If you visit Dublin, definitely learn to use the Luas.

However, during this time my stress and depression was very intense. As soon as my daughter was out of sight, I was full of fear of something bad happening to her (being a lone, young woman), and also really depressed to let her go. I remember a couple nights alone in the hotel where I hardly slept, partly due to jetlag, and partly due to sheer emotional stress.

But I thought about it, and I realized that beyond practical concerns, I was deeply clinging to my daughter. I like to think I was a pretty involved parent, and that I did my best to be both a good father and a friend, and suddenly 18 years of this was ripped away the moment that we set foot in Ireland, and my mind couldn’t handle the abrupt change. In short, I think part of my panic was grounded in ego as a parent. Once I realized my selfish ego was driving this panic, I paused.

Me having breakfast at a local Cafe Nerro in Temple Bar, while reading about the Heart Sutra.

Thinking about this further, the only way she would prosper was to let her get on her feet, help when she needs help, but otherwise, give her space to grown and learn. In short, I had to trust her.

This was hard at first, but I kept reminding myself “trust her, trust her” and by and by I learned to let go. Instead of constantly trying to protect her, I encouraged her, provided any advice I could, and let her explore the city herself. She got lost a couple times on the Luas (got off at the wrong stop), but soon she started finding shops she liked, and could get to and from Dublin city centre without issue.

So, by the end, things were looking up: my daughter was getting on her feet, and we had met a few friends who all happily wanted to help her, and we enjoyed some pub visits, and good European food.

The point of all this, I guess, is that if you are a parent, and you are dreading your children leaving the nest, ask yourself how much of this is concern for your kids, and how much of this is concern for yourself. My job, as a parent, is to provide a safe, loving environment as they grow, but I don’t own my kids. That’s just ego.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu

Update: After I wrote this post, my daughter texted us to let us know she had made some friends already. 🥰

P.S. Unrelated, but September 9th is the Day of the Chrysanthemum holiday in Japan. If you can, maybe decorate the house with a few chrysanthemums, or enjoy the weather with a friend. Happy Day of the Chrysanthemum to you all.

P.P.S. Happy Star Trek Day (September 8th)! Live long and prosper. 🖖🏼

1 It’s hard to explain: when I am in the US, there’s always a subtle feeling of tension. Not just recently, but even 15 years ago when I first came back to the US. When I am Ireland, everything feels more relaxed. The way people talk to one another, even when they tease each other, etc. Dublin city centre at night has plenty of drunks stumbling about, racial tension toward immigrants, and fist fights, but somehow everything feels less …. contentious. Since many Americans don’t travel, we don’t realize how wound up we are.

Zen Verses for Mealtime

As I write this post, I am in Dublin, Ireland on a short trip (business, not pleasure), helping my daughter get settled in for college. Thanks to timezone differences my daughter and I were awake at 11:30pm on a Friday and starving.

Taken near Trinity College and the main Bank of Ireland building (right).

Since a lot of pubs close their kitchens early, we went over to the local Supermac’s1 :

My daughter took this photo of her food. Mine is at the far end of the table (upper right corner).

It’s Friday night, so as we’re seated, people are stumbling in drunk looking for some cheap food, and there’s a steady stream of food delivery guys picking up orders. Still, even here, as I open my bag and eat my food, I try to still take a moment and appreciate the food, so I discreetly did gassho.

In Japanese culture, people will usually say itadakimasu before eating food, and gochisōsama deshita after finishing. The word itadakimasu is just the humble form of the verb “I receive”, and gochisōsama deshita means “It was a wonderful meal”.

But there’s also a set of verses that in the Zen tradition are recited before meals called the Shokuji Gokan (食事五観, “five observations at mealtime”). When I was watching a documentary recently, during mealtime, one of the Eiheiji monks walked the documentary host through the five verses. The five verses in Japanese for the Rinzai tradition are:

  1. 一つには、功の多少を計り、彼の来処を量る。
    hitotsu ni wa, kō no tashō wo hakari, kano raisho wo hakaru
  2. 二つには、己が徳行の全闕を忖って供に応ず。
    futatsu ni wa, onore ga tokugyō no zenketsu wo hakatte, ku ni ōzu
  3. 三つには、心を防ぎ、過貪等を離るるを宗とす。
    mitsu ni wa, shin wo fusegi, togatontō wo hanaruru wo shū to su
  4. 四つには、正に良薬を事とするは形枯を療ぜんが為なり。
    yotsu ni wa, masa ni ryōyaku wo koto to suru wa gyōko wo ryōzen ga tame nari
  5. 五つには、道業を成ぜんが為に、応にこの食を受くべし。
    Itsutsu ni wa, dōgyō wo jōzen ga tame ni, ō ni kono jiki wo uku beshi.

The verses in Soto Zen appear to be slightly different. I am fairly certain, these are descended from Chinese Chan Buddhism, but I wasn’t able to find much information.

There are a lot of fine English translations available, though for now I am using the one from Sotozen.net:

  1. We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.
  2. We reflect on our virtue and practice, and whether we are worthy of this offering.
  3. We regard it as essential to free ourselves of excesses such as greed.
  4. We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our life.
  5. For the sake of enlightenment, we now receive this food.

In either case, the meaning is the same: before we take in the food, we should first reflect where it came from (and the countless people who made it possible),2 and whether we are living up to the practice or not. Finally, the verses remind us that food is essentially medicine (hence don’t be a pig), and that it helps us along the path toward Enlightenment. Even some chips (fries) at Supermac’s is something to be grateful for.

So, hello from Ireland, and will post more soon! 🇮🇪🖖🏼

1 The local version of McDonald’s, but ten times better.

2 The Jodo Shinshu tradition focuses on the concept of “gratitude“, so there’s a lot of overlap here.

Bad Tourists at Buddhist Temples

I found this video on Youtube recently by a native Laotian tour guide:

I’ve seen bad behavior in Japan too, not toward Buddhist monks, but toward local Geisha. I remember at Asakusa Temple, a trio of geisha were walking, and a horde of male photographers (Japanese and foreign) ran after them. It was… weird.

I also remember one time at Zojo-ji Temple seeing a foreign couple (European maybe), who were doing yoga poses in front of the mausoleum of the Tokugawa shoguns. I don’t think they understood what they were standing in front of, but it looked really stupid, and Buddhist temples have nothing to do with Yoga anyway.

I doubt readers here are the kind of people to get in monks’ faces for a camera shot, or harass geisha, or make stupid photos at temples, but hopefully readers can help raise awareness about such awful behavior. Tourists might act normal at home because they are bound by social conventions, but some people forget that they are guests in other people’s countries and flaunt common courtesy. Tour companies will gloss over this in the name of profit. In the end, it’s the locals who suffer.

If you are traveling, think of yourself as a guest in someone else’s house. In other words, don’t be a dick.

Zen for Everyone

Myoshinji Temple (English homepage) in Kyoto is one of the central temples of the Rinzai Zen tradition, especially after the reforms by Hakuin in the 18th century. Although I’ve never been there, it is a very scenic and seems like a worthwhile place to visit.

The website in Japanese lists a number of activities that one can partake in for experience Zen:

  • Learning zazen meditation
  • Sutra copying
  • Listening to a sermon
  • Singing Rinzai-Zen hymns1
  • Monastic training

What struck me is that Myoshinji Temple provides a variety of activities to suit different people. Not everyone is ready for Zen training or meditation, yet they can still get something wholesome out of the experience. I like this kind of inclusive Zen Buddhism.

In my limited experiences with western Zen temples, the focus is solely on meditation and practicing as monks do. This approach only works for certain lifestyles and certain temperaments. It’s not wrong, but through my experiences in Pure Land Buddhism, especially through immigrant communities, I feel that a more inclusive, more approachable Buddhism is really beneficial.

Just sitting around enjoying donuts and coffee with congregants after service, and talk about stuff, is really nice. This only works when new people don’t feel intimidated, and people aren’t trying to one-up each other.

So to me, Buddhism works best when it accommodates people as they are now, with a variety of practices and options, rather than being written off as “cultural accretions“. Just let people be people, come as they are, and soak in the Dharma at their own pace.

Someone who only listens to sermons today, prays to Kannon, or copy a sutra, may be inspired to pick up deeper practices later at the right time. You never know.

P.S. Happy Tanabata to readers!

1 Similar to Jodo Shinshu sect Buddhism, Rinzai Zen, at least at Myoshinji temple, has a lot of hymns. I don’t know much about these, and there is no information in English.

Healthy Living: Eating Like A Monk

McCoy: “It might eventually cure the common cold, but lengthen lives? Poppycock. I can do more for you if you just eat right and exercise regularly”

Star Trek, “The Omega Glory” (s2ep23), Stardate unknown

Healthy eating is not difficult, at least in theory.

Of course if it were that easy, how come many of us are overweight? Myself included.

I talked about this recently, but I do not have very good self-control. I work a desk job, so I don’t move around much, and I snack a lot. I don’t eat particularly unhealthy: no alcohol, no soft drinks, etc., and I eat minimal red meat. But I tend to just eat too much junk food, or too many portions.

Recently, I dug out an old book of mine from many, many years ago,1 titled What Is Zen? 禅ってなんだろう. It’s a bilingual book I bought in Japan that explores Rinzai Zen life as a monk, but also includes some general thoughts about the tradition for lay followers. My copy has been covered in stickers when my daughter was a little girl, so I kept it both for nostalgia, and because such down-to-earth books on Zen are hard to find in the West.

This is what happens when little girls get a hold of daddy’s books… 😅

Anyhow, this book shows things like daily routines for monks, how they eat and so on. I wish I could repost the photographs because they’re really neat, but obviously that’s inappropriate. Instead, let me shiw you a different example:

An example of shōjin-ryōri (monastic food) at Tenryuji temple in Kyoto, Japan. Photo by 663highland, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This photo, shows a meal served at Tenryuji Temple, which I coincidentally visited last year. This kind of monastic food is called shōjin-ryōri (精進料理, “ascetic food”) in Japanese, but is a common part of Buddhist cuisine across East Asia. It’s not limited to monks and nuns only, devout lay followers can eat such a lifestyle if they wish. The photos from my book show that the monastic version of this meal is somewhat simpler in presentation (they are monks after all), but essentially the same.

Similarly, when we visited Ryoanji Temple (another Rinzai temple) waaay back in 2005, we enjoyed their version of tofu stew:

Taken by me in 2005, at Ryoanji Temple. This is a vegetarian tofu stew, with turnips artfully sculpted to look like lotus flowers.

This kind of diet is similar to a vegan diet in that it contains no animal products, even the dashi broth is vegetarian. Certain flavors like curry and onions are not used either.

But as with any diet changes, this is not something that should be done hastily or without consulting a physician. The key I wanted to convey here is that (partly as a reminder to myself when I read this six months later….) is that a healthy diet consists of the following:

  • More vegetables than protein
  • Minimal processed starches
  • Little or no animal protein
  • Small portions per meal2
  • Little or no snacking.

But I’ve been inspired by these examples of good Buddhist eating, and so I have been gradually trying to “eat like a monk” lately: smaller portions, avoiding or minimizing animal protein, limit starches, and eating more veggies.

Will it work for a Western desk-jockey like myself? We’ll see.

1 I mentioned this book on my old blog, that’s how long I’ve owned it.

2 My doctor had previous suggested intermittent fasting as a potential solution, or alternatively eating four small meals per day, instead of three big ones. Say, portions the size of two-three fists. The issue hasn’t been the diet, but my lack of diligence especially during the holidays. So, that may be the bigger issue.

Happy Golden Week 2025

Happy Golden Week to readers!

The first week of May in Japan has an interesting phenomenon in the modern calendar called Golden Week (gōruden uīku, ゴールデンウィーク): a series of national holidays that line up very closely. Thus, people often take vacations at this time (a rarity in Japanese business culture), and enjoy the fine weather before the monsoon comes. I wrote about Golden Week in more detail here.

You can see on our home calendar how the holidays (in red) line up:

My sister-in-law in Japan often takes this time off, as do many other Japanese business and white-collar workers. It may be the longest vacation they take in the year, apart from Japanese New Year.

As part of Golden Week, Childrens Day, or Kodomo no Hi (子供の日) also takes place every May 5th. I’ve written about that as well. We have taken out our usual yoroi armor display:

The Pokemon toys and dragons are just my son’s toys (he should clean up more 😋).

I am not sure if we can get kashiwa-mochi this year, as Japanese goods are getting harder and harder to obtain lately, and our schedule is chaotic this week anyway, so I am not sure exactly how we will celebrate. I do know that we will go see the Minecraft movie for a third time in theaters, though. My son and I really enjoy it, and it’s nice to see all the kids yelling certain parts of the dialogue in unison.

I wish I could post more, but as alluded to earlier, I will be away for about a week, and haven’t been able to write more due to work and other competing priorities. However, I hope you all have a terrific Golden Week, and can enjoy the weather in some way. I have other great content coming up, both historical and Buddhist, so please stay tuned, and take care!

P.S. Golden Week also serves as a reminder that what many modern workers need isn’t just equitable pay, but also time off. Happy May Day! ✊🏼

Visiting Kenninji Temple

I wrote about visiting a couple major Zen temples in Kyoto last summer: Tenryuji and Kenninji, but I realized that I totally forgot to post photos from Kenninji Temple. Of the two, we liked Kenninji more, and I am excited to share some of the history and art of this temple.

Both temples belonged to the Five Mountains temple network of the Muromachi Period of Japanese history, so they were very elite temples of the Rinzai Zen sect. However, Kenninji, like many famous Buddhist temples, has burned down a number of time over the centuries, including the disastrous Onin War, and reconstructed again. Many of the structures today are relatively new, or were granted from nearby temples to help consolidate.

While Tenryuji is on the western outskirts of Kyoto, near the iconic Arashiyama district, Kenninji is in eastern Higashiyama district of Kyoto. The official website of Kenninji is here, but I don’t think there is an English version. There is a nice overhead visual tour of the temple from the official tourism channel here (close captioning does work):

Another aerial tour here:

In terms of size, Kennin-ji feels smaller than Tenryuji which had a large park around it. Kennin-ji is firmly inside a busy neighborhood in Kyoto, and thus tends to feel a bit more cramped at first. There is a soba shop next to Kenninji I highly recommend by the way, to the right of the abbot’s quarters near the back exit.

If you go through the main entrance, you’ll see this gate, which is normally closed, so you are supposed to walk around it toward the main building.

The same gate, but as seen from its left as you walk around…

The pathway takes you to a scenic building called the Hojo Teien (方丈庭園, “10-foot garden”?) which is apparently the former Abbot’s quarters,1 but now includes many scenic sites. The website includes a nice gallery of the different rooms, including some I forgot to photograph here.

Within the abbot’s quarters are a series of rooms where you can find galleries of famous works stored at Kennin-ji. One of the most famous of all are the Raijin and Fujin screens shown below (gold screens on the left) painted by the famous Tawaraya Sōtatsu (c. 1570 – c. 1640):

As well as various ink paintings called shōheki-ga (障壁画):

I know I’ve seen these paintings before in college, when I was taking a course on Japanese art, but unfortunately, I don’t have any information about them now. From what I can figure out, this painting was called the Chikurin-shichiken-zu (竹林七賢図), or the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest“. It was painted by Kaiho Yusho (海北友松, 1533–1615) in his 60’s. The painting depicts seven sages famous of the Western Jin Dynasty of China, who retreated to a bamboo forest and engaged in a mixture of refined conversation, heavy drinking, and lively music. These bohemian Seven Sages are apparently subjects of other works of art at the time.

Also, as I was writing this, I also realized that the calligraphy in the back (second image) is a another work of art: it’s a highly stylized calligraphy of the words 風神 (fūjin, the wind god), and 雷神 (raijin, the thunder god) by Kanazawa Shoko (金澤翔子, 1985 – present) an artist with Down’s Syndrome. Pretty amazing.

Facing out from the abbot’s quarters, you can see a nice sand garden called the Dai-on-en (大雄苑):

The abbot’s quarters also surrounds another sculpted garden called the Cho-on-tei (潮音庭):

We also saw lotus paintings like these:

Finally, the quarters connects to an altar room which contains a gorgeous ceiling mural of two dragons overlooking an altar:

The mural was painted in 2002 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the temple, by one Koizumi Junsaku (1924–2012), and the altar itself (shown at the bottom) depicts Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism, flanked by his disciples.

We picked up a lot of goods at Kenninji: my son liked the twin dragons, and got a pilgrimage book with that image on the cover, and my wife got an incense holder with the image of Raijin and Fujin (based on the gold screen above). I picked up a miniature copy of the Kannon Sutra which I think was meant as an omamori charm.2

As temples go, Kenninji was something we knew nothing about, but it was quite a treat to visit. Foreigners who visit famous temples in Japan often remark that Buddhism feels like a museum piece, and while it is true that the Five Mountains temple system in Japan (including Kenninji and Tenryuji) is somewhat defunct now, it was clear that people really still cared about these temples, but it’s not always in ways obvious to Westerners.2 That said, Kenninji looks like a well-loved temple, and a credit to the Rinzai Zen tradition and it’s flowering culture of the era.

1 Apparently, 方丈庭園 was a common, poetic term used for major temples that had a scenic abbot’s quarters like the one showed above. Chion-in was another such example.

2 Language barrier is a big part of this, plus various unrealistic expectations that Western Buddhists have of what they expect temples to be like in Asia, compared to how people who grew up Buddhist practice. But that’s a story for another rant…

Who is Vairocana Buddha: the Buddha of the Sun ?

Now, I, Vairocana Buddha am sitting atop a lotus pedestal;

On a thousand flowers surrounding me are a thousand Sakyamuni Buddhas.

Each flower supports a hundred million worlds; in each world a Sakyamuni Buddha appears.

All are seated beneath a Bodhi-tree, all simultaneously attain Buddhahood.

All these innumerable Buddhas have Vairocana as their original body.

The Mahayana version of the “Brahma Net Sutra”, translation by Young Men’s Buddhist Association

If you ever visit the famous Todaiji temple in Nara, Japan, you will see a truly colossal structure like so:

Taken by me on April 2010.

Inside as you approach is a colossal Buddha statue:

A massive temple interior showing an immense, seated bronze Buddha statue with a similarly massive halo behind it. There are small buddhas in the halo. The buddha holds its palm straight out at the viewer.
A side profile of the Great Buddha (daibutsu) of Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan. This Buddha is Vairocana Buddha, the “Buddha of the Sun”. Taken in 2023.

This picture does not convey the size very well. It’s truly massive. But what is this Buddha?

This Buddha is a somewhat obscure figure named Vairocana (pronounced Wai-ro-chana) in Sanskrit, which means something like “of the Sun”. So, Vairocana is the Buddha of the Sun.

Vairocana features in a few Buddhist texts in the Mahayana canon: the Brahma Net Sutra quoted above and the voluminous Flower Garland Sutra, for example. It is also very prominent in esoteric traditions in Japan (Shingon and Tendai sects) as Maha-Vairocana (“Great Buddha of the Sun”).

The Brahma Net Sutra introduced Vairocana and explains that all Buddhas that appear in such-and-such time and place are embodiments of Vairocana. Thus Vairocana isn’t just another buddha, but is their source. Vairocana, in other words, embodies the Dharma.

That is why in the Great Buddha statue above at Todaiji Temple, you see rays of light emanating outward with “mini Buddhas” among them. Each of these Buddhas is thought to have the same basic origin story as the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. Hence in the text they are all just called “Shakymunis”. All these Buddhas have the same basic qualities ( Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra teaches the same thing, by he way), one is the same as all the others.

This is primarily a Mahayana-Buddhist concept, but has precedence in pre-Mahayana sources. Consider the Vakkali Sutta from the Pali Canon:

“Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma.”

Translation by Maurice O’Connell Walshe

So the historical Buddha, founder of the Buddhist religion, Shakyamuni, is telling his disciples that his personage is less important than the Dharma. Mahayana Buddhism simply applies this same teaching towards all the Buddhas.

Also, some Buddhist texts assign different Buddhas to this role: the “cosmic” Shakyamuni Buddha of the Lotus Sutra or Amida Buddha in interpretations.

But it doesn’t really matter what you call this embodiment of the Dharma.

What matters, I think, is that the source of Buddhist wisdom is the Dharma, not a specific teacher, and that the Dharma pervades everywhere, regardless of the particular community, or lack thereof….