My trip to Ōtsu

皆さん, こんにちは! Minasan, konnichiwa! Hello everyone! 🌸

In fine sunshine and with a small picnic in my luggage, I went to Ōtsu this morning with Kabya. Ōtsu is a city on the southern shore of Lake Biwa in Kansai, western Japan. And that was exactly was our destination for today. 🌞

After about half an hour by train and 20 minutes on foot, we had reached the shore. Since I grew up at the Baltic Sea, I love spending time at the water. So we went for a little walk at the lake, enjoyed the tranquility of nature and ate our picnic. 😋

The highlight of our little trip: the Mangetsuji temple with its "floating temple hall", Ukimido. This temple was originally built in 995 AD and has 1,000 Buddhist Amida figures, one of the most popular Buddha figures in Japan. The original Ukimido was restored in 1924 the Muroto typhoon was destroyed and rebuilt in 1937. However, the original structure has been retained.

The tea house there also had to be rebuilt, for which the wood of the temple was reused. A 600-year-old pine has been preserved to this day. An important cultural asset can be seen in the Kannon-do on the temple site: a statue of Sho Kannon.

"Kannon is the best-known bodhisattva figure. Bodhisattvas are intermediaries who are particularly interested in helping people and all other sentient beings to become enlightened. The compassion of the bodhisattvas is not only expressed in the fact that they are depicted much more agitated than that Buddhas, but they also have various superhuman attributes, namely up to a thousand arms, several heads, various objects, and weapons and all kinds of jewelry - all signs of their supernatural ability to intervene in the course of destiny depending on what the situation requires. These various manifestations are referred to in the specialist literature as manifestations, emanations or incarnations. It is important that they are basically the same bodhisattva. Many bodhisattvas have different manifestations, but none are known as many as from Kannon. For example Shō Kannon: A simple figure, mostly standing, with a lotus flower in his hand."

This is also the form that can be seen in Kannon-do in Ōtsu. However, there is certainly a lot more to discover in this city. For example, the Miho Museum was on my original plan as well, but since it is currently temporarily closed, I have to do it another time. So stay tuned if you don't want to miss it. 😉

次回まで! Jikai made! See you next time! 💕