Welcome to the Slipper Rodeo

Hall slippers, bathroom slippers, pink slippers, blue slippers, brown slippers. Chinese slippers, Japanese slippers, don’t slip. BYOS (bring your own socks), sanitize your feet, don’t bare your feet unless you have to, little feet, big feet, on your feet...all day. Phew!

The first of the month calls for ceremony at Zen temples, I learned today. I awoke at 6:00am and walked to the Buddha hall, astride with priests in robes of assorted colors who snickered at my Western, camera-holding, sleepy-eyed self. From the mesh siding of the south gate, we gathered and watched all the important priests of Myōshinji’s assorted temples gather and pay homage to the main Śakyamuni image and two flanking ones. The morning sunlight broke through tall windows, reflecting on the gold leaf lotus designs on a sparsely adorned altar featuring a large incense bowl and one tall and slender candle. Soft shuffling of oversized Chinese-style shoes, a grand bell hanging from thick white ropes. Three low bells, then several faster in higher tones. An elderly man, ostensibly the most senior priest, took center stage and prostrated each image while an adept chanter (beautiful voice, I thought) recited sutra verses. One priest paces outside with a checklist, taking attendance.

It was a full-sensory experience: wafting smell of incense, full color spectrum of clothing (black robes with dark blue shoes, purple and beige robes with black shoes and orange ribbons, mauve robe with orange and red shoes), low voices in unison, warm morning sunlight on my back, lingering taste of sleep. Devotees occasionally walked up to where we were standing and thunked offerings of change into a wooden box, which along with the sporadic flapping of pigeon wings were the only sounds that interrupted the ritual. More bells, and it’s over. The priests head toward rows of neatly lined white sandals, hang up their large shoes on bamboo carrying racks, and shuffle back to their individual temples. When it is all over, one more elderly lady s…l…o…w…l…y ascends the platform, fumbles in her pocket for a small green change purse, and rests her brown hat on the gate while she drops a coin in and takes a long, slow bow. I follow her lead and bow once to the image. All of this before 7:00am!!! The rest of the day will be covered when I have more genki (energy).