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So after dinner, our faces smug with full bellies, we venture into the darkness of Okunoin, which is an enormous buddhist graveyard right by our temple. We found ourselves gripping eachothers hand tightly as we walked along the lamp-lit path deeper into the forest of enormous cedar trees, statues with eyes that followed us and crumbling gravstones hundreds of years old. We kept jumping nervously (those pesky foxes) each time this particular type of bird released its echoing, creepy crow, the spooky atmosphere governing our minds far beyond logic! It was all very beautiful, in a sad, ghostly way, centuries of deaths winding ntheir way up the hills. The smell of incense still lingered from that days offerings. It astounds me how devoutly, how readily and how wholly so many of the japanese people accept the belief that the spirits of the dead not only exist but that they must be worshipped and appeased. They even hoave the "White Ant Memorial" here, established by a buddhist pest control company for aLL THE tiny lives they exterminate!
We woke early this morning for the Morning Prayer Service, and I just lost myself listening t0o the reverberating chants. When I opened my eyes, the shaved heads of the monks were pressed low to their knees and I couldnt help but stare at their total devotion. The hum of the gong vuibrated in the air along with their voices - it was such an amazing experience and the perfect way to end our much too short visit to koyasan!
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