Nyonindō – The Women’s Path

After I had lit my candles and offered prayers for my fellow pilgrims whose prayers I carried and asked for a safe journey, I followed the old priest into a gloomy cramped room at the back of the temple, lit by a single light bulb and the wan light coming in one small window facing into the mountain. He reverently took my Ishin Kannon and indicated for me to sit on a cushion on the worn tatami matting beside a kero heater that emitted a welcoming warm glow. He carefully placed the statue on a ledge that held a few dusty Buddhist icons and an incense brazier, which he preceded to light. After bowing to the Ishin Kannon, he pottered around the room collecting tea and teapot and cups and placed them on the little table between us, pouring water from the big kettle he kept simmering on the kerosene heater.

Over a steaming cup of green tea we introduced ourselves and exchanged pleasantries and the perfunctory chit-chat about how cold it was and how unusually severe the spring was. Yamada-san then began to tell me about the Nyonindō temple and the mountain pathway that the women used to take as they circumambulated the sacred township of Koyasan.

I couldn’t help remarking to him how unfair it seemed to me that these women were deprived of the opportunity of studying within the temples of Koyasan and instead had to be content with just walking around the mountains with the town always below them, always out of reach. Yamada-san looked into my earnest face and smiled a knowing smile as he refilled my cup. “Ah,” he said, “Let me explain.”

Kobo Daishi, the founder of Koyasan and the Shingon sect of Buddhism, had spent many years as wandering monk, travelling through these mountains practicing ritual austerities and developing a profound awareness of the nature of Truth and Reality. When, much later in his life, he was granted permission by the emperor to found a monastic community far from the political intrigues of the capital of Kyoto, he chose this location because the eight peaks surrounding this high flat plain formed the perfect shape of a lotus blossom. The lotus blossom represents our innate pure nature that is the source of our wisdom; it is symbolic of enlightenment and our own potential for awakening.

There is a profound teaching in esoteric Buddhism about the “Jewel in the Lotus” which is the summation of all cosmic wisdom and which Kobo Daishi incorporated into his vision: the ‘jewel’ is the Garan (the main central temple of Koyasan) and the ‘lotus’ is the natural landscape that surrounds it. “Now, can you see,” continued Yamada-san, “The jewel in esoteric Buddhism is the masculine energy of the universe, the Yang aspect; and the lotus is the feminine energy, the Yin aspect.” He then sat back on his cushion and nodded his head with a satisfied look as if that explained everything. I, however, just looked back at him blankly.

Seeing my struggle to comprehend his meaning, he leaned forward, poured yet more tea and patiently resumed his discourse. The lotus, being represented by the mountains, was the feminine energy, and therefore the women who walked and chanted and practiced rituals along the Nyonindō, the Women’s Path, were actively reinforcing this energy; as they walked and practiced they wrapped the plain below them – the masculine jewel – with a sacred enclosure of feminine energy. This feminine energy is organic and natural and flowing; whilst the masculine energy of the temples is solid and unmoving and contained. Therefore, the women’s actions for over a thousand years actually worked symbiotically with the energy of the monks, creating a truly holistic sacred energy. “And of course,” he concluded, “The women knew that! That is why there is not a whisper in any historic documents of the nuns ever requesting that they be permitted to enter the town, because that wasn’t what they wanted. Yet thousands of nuns over the centuries have walked that pathway, and prayed at the seven Nyonindō, Women’s Temples, energizing this entire area.”

This did indeed make sense to me because I had also walked the Women’s Path many times and felt a tremendous connection to all of those women who had walked before me. I always felt a profound connection to their sacred energy which can still be felt so strongly on that mountain path.

As I got up to leave, I thanked Yamada-san for the tea and for helping me to understand the nature of the sacred landscape I was now entering. “Remember,” he said as he handed me my Ishin Kannon, “This place is a sacred mandala and so is the pilgrimage you are about to undertake – a mandala of one thousand five hundred kilometres! Always be aware that you are in the midst of a sacred landscape.”

Before I turned to enter the townsite of Koyasan, I bowed a deep and reverent bow to this old priest who surely was another incarnation of Kannon who was preparing me for the journey ahead.