August 14-16, Nara and the temples.

         Legend tells that one of Buddha's incarnations (there are quite a few in the Buddhist pantheon) appeared in the Nara area riding a large white deer. Descendants of that deer all the deer that roam the area around the temple are protected and respected. Descendants from that large deer, all deer in the area are fat and heavy.
The crowd of tourists surrounded by high pagodas, Shjinto altars with sounding gongs, by Buddha statues all different but always the same, mix with deer. Deer surrounded by sturdy trees, shadows stretching out over the heat, with hands stretching out to give cookies or to touch, hands always the same and different mix with the crowd of tourists.

        I choose a free guide service offered by the tourist office.
I am welcomed at the small and folding banquet by an old lady in her 70s. A small ban says 'free guide in English'.
        I show my interest, she answers. I don't understand. She speaks English, an English with too many Japanese words.
        After a while I translate: I have to wait in case other tourists arrive.
15 minutes passed and she calls me. She tells me that there's another tourist. 5 minutes after we start our tour.
The other tourist never came. The other tourist was me.

        Her name is Ayako. I tell her that I'm Italian.
  She replies bemusedly:
'Hora, Hora'
We pass through the center of Nara. and I keep on tell her what I do in my life.
She keep on answering with 'hora, hora'. She adds  that she was in Norway with a group and she liked it a lot.

        I see a series of Buddha statues that appear to have a red bib around their necks. She explains that is the image of Jizo, a Buddha protector of children. In the past, orphaned children who died on the street were buried like this. 

        I ask her:

        'But for children who die in the family? Are they also buried in similar way or are they using a different image?

She thinks a little.

'Yes, yes, yes,' She replies. 'On the 16th of August the souls of all children will return on the earth for a short time.'

She indicates a bowl in front of every gravestone. There's water inside. 

'It's for the kids when they will come back.'

Then she talks to me about the 'O-bon' the feast of the dead, in which between 13-16 August all the souls of the deceased return on earth for a short time. And how all families prepare feasts and big grills, soaked in sakes of various kinds, so as not to leave the dead starving. From the way she tells it, it seems that she and her family had not spared themselves in that ritual.
   

        First temple: Kofuku-ji.

We approach another version of Buddha, Pignola; a statue made of wood, polished in some parts, surrounded by a grate. Corresponding to the two sides of his shoulders there are two openings. She sticks her arm in the left opening and touches the knee of the statue.

'So if you're sick here on your knees, if you touch Pignola, he heals you there. If you are student and have more memory touch your head and you have memory. Got it?'

I nod. And I think, but if one is impotent, what does he do? Touch the Buddha's balls? Instead I ask.

'Yes, but this is not the incarnation of the Buddha who was once a prince, and who abandoned everything?'

        'No, that is another one. He found the truth, enlightenment and not like Pignola who almost had enlightenment. He's here to help us.

'Interesting, you have several images of Buddha.' I say.   'But then this Buddha is the most important compared to the others, or are all version at the same level?

Ayako thinks about it again.

'Yes, yes, yes.' And she begins to tell me about how for Buddha three senses are very important: smell, hearing, sight.

In Buddhist temples there is always the scent of incense (smell), or there is a gong that must vibrate slightly (hearing) and also that there are so many lamps or windows to let in the light (view).

Second temple, Kasuga Taisha.

It is accessible through many stairs. All around the path, there are more than thousand lanterns that accompany to the temple, which in reality is a set of altars of the Shinto religion. Here Ayako starts out bravely to explain to me the difference between Shinto and Buddhism, how for Japanese there is no difference between them and how during the period of Japanese expansion Shintoism was the national religion, while all that was Buddhist fell apart. And I don't understand anything. I catch that Shintoism is a kind of animism. The gods are mountains, valleys, trees, waterfalls, pools of water, slush, any element of nature. Shinto means 'direction or way to the gods'.

Ayako seeing the perplexity on my face goes from words to facts. I'm involved in a rite in front of the gods of snow or cold, or something like that. She says about 'god of the refrigerator', but I'm not sure if I understood correctly.  

First she tells me the story that in the past when there was still abundant snow in Nara winter, people, to preserve it and to give it as a offer to such gods in the summer, buried it in the ground. In return, they could make a wish. 

        Now, instead, you enter the same temple, take a cup of ice clean and shredded by a small door, place it in front of the altar, offer 300 yen, standard offer, clap your hands and bow twice, make a wish, clap your hands again, bow last time and put the sweet syrup on the ice so you can eat it. A kind of primitive Italian 'granita'.

I diligently perform the first 4 actions then at the moment of the wish, while I am formulating it in my mind, Ayako puts me in a hurry, the ice starts already melting, makes me bow, I do not clap my hands and we begin to eat the primitive 'granita', without having expressed my wish. I am puzzled by this way to the gods but Ayako does not care much, she slurps all the ice in a minute and a half . 'Slup' is the typical Japanese sound when they eat noodles or drink soups.

Third temple, Todaiji.

Enter the temple of Japan's largest Bronze Buddha, 16 meters high, 3 years to fuse all that metal, an imposing and majestic image. Let's talk about the Dainichi Buddha, the cosmic Buddha that with its light reaches from the center of the universe all space possible and impossible.
       Kanon, the embodiment of the Buddha with a thousand arms, who is on earth to help mortals to reach nirvana. Then out of nowhere Ayako asks me about the fjords

I explain what fjords are.

'Hora, hora, ' she replies.

Let's discuss nirvana. And then comes the question

'And those ugly people? What are they?'

'What?'

'Yes, in Norway. There's always everywhere you go. In every shops.

'Ah, but you're talking about the trolls. 

'Hora, hora'. she replies happily.

So I begin to explain to her what the trolls are in the pantheon of Viking religion.

'Ah' she answer in surprise.

       And I in front of the most important Buddha in Japan I begin to tell her some legends about trolls.

She no longer continues to contain her 'hora, hora', who run free without stop. 

At the end of my guiding tour of Norway in Japan we leave to have a picnic, but before we pass in front of another statue of Pingola. Ayako does not miss the occasion to touch his knee again.

       Honestly her knee was half gone, but I struggled to keep up with her pace. 

We conclude our tour by eating sushi on a platform in middle of a lake. Really romantic. But Ayako had something in mind. She starts telling me a little about her family, her travels, her daughter's wedding in Kasuga Taisha temple. Explaining me about the procession to get her to the altar, of the sake drunk and obviously offered not only to the guests and the priest but also to the gods. I listen and try to thank her by giving her a tip for the tour made. So I hope to finish the tour. She refuses almost offended. It was a free tour. And then I'm there by listening for almost another hour