Lost in Thought :: Beautiful Japan #31

Or maybe I should say not lost in thought. At any rate, he's a pretty peaceful guy.

This is from a tiny temple near my son's preschool. There is not much to the temple beyond the cemetery, but there are some beautiful statues there, like this one. There is also a small but lovely bamboo patch behind the statue. I've always loved bamboo trees.

One unfortunate truth of Japan today is that Buddhism is mainly more or less just a funeral business these days. Buddhism itself is on life support. Sure, many Japanese claim to be Buddhist if asked by foreigners, but that is only so they can say something and close the topic of religion. If probed, they wouldn't have any idea of what Buddhism actually is. As I briefly mentioned before in this post, Buddhism and Shinto were more or less the same thing for much of Japanese history, but in the Meiji period (1868–1912) the government forcefully separated the two faiths and greatly repressed Buddhism, destroying many temples and many artifacts. Unfortunately the religion never really recovered from that great blow. You can still find serious Buddhists in the country and serious temples, but they are not as common as you might think.

At any rate, the temples themselves are still quite nice to look at, and are usually well maintained, so I enjoy wandering in their grounds when I come upon them.

(BTW, click on the photo for a larger view, and feel free to save it and use it for your desktop wallpaper. All my photos are (c) David LaSpina, but I release them all for non-commercial usage under a pretty liberal creative commons license. Enjoy!)

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Don't miss the other great photos in the Beautiful Japan photo series!

#1–10 Beautiful Japan, Collection #1
#11–20 Beautiful Japan, Collection #2
#21 — Traditional Japanese Gate and Garden
#22 — Daruma-san Korokoro
#23 — Weeping Temple
#24 — Ready for Liftoff
#25 — Pounding the Taiko Drum
#26 — Good Luck Cranes
#27 — Red Leaves at Castle
#28 — Reflections
#29 — In the Heat of the Night

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I post one photo everyday, as well as a haiku and as time allows, videos, more Japanese history, and so on. Let me know if there is anything about Japan you would like to know more about or would like to see.

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	David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time.