Nara– category –

I made a promise to a maple tree in April. It was cherry blossom season on Mount Yoshino, and like everyone else on the mountain, I had come for the pink. Then I looked up. The maples were putting out their first leaves, a green so thin ...

The pond was the color of sumi ink. The lanterns lining its banks laid their light across the surface in long, trembling lines. Somewhere above the clouds, the harvest moon kept appearing and disappearing. It hadn't quite decided whether...

The smell of tatami. Cicadas. An electric fan turning its head from side to side. With my eyes closed, this was a Japanese summer and nothing more. With them open, a Jizo Bosatsu sat in front of me, and there was no one else in the hall....

I have always thought patron saints were one of Catholicism's best ideas. Every profession gets one. Every city gets one. My closest friend has Saint Ambrose, who is also the patron saint of Milan. The saint who watches over one of Europ...

I was looking for a place to sit. Nothing more noble than that. My feet were done with the Todaiji crowds, and I drifted toward a shaded corner where a few tourists were already resting on benches. Quiet. A deer. It took me a while to un...

Ishibutai Kofun is Japan's largest megalithic burial chamber — a 2,300-ton stone tomb in the ancient village of Asuka, believed to belong to a 7th-century statesman nobody liked. Today it sits exposed to open sky, framed by cherry blosso...

From the bus window on the way back, I spotted four young white men walking along the road. There is only one place at the end of this road: Tsubosaka-dera. I had just come from that mountain myself, so I could picture their next few hou...

The End of the Silk Road: Why Todaiji Temple Defines Nara Say "Nara" to any Japanese person. The answer you get back is the Great Buddha. Not the deer. Not Kasuga Taisha. The Great Buddha. The reason is simple: the school system drills i...

I did not yet know what would happen at Kasuga Taisha that morning. The Empty Approach at Dawn The real purpose of the day was the Shunie ceremony at Todai-ji, beginning at seven in the evening. I arrived at Kintetsu Nara Station at 7:50...

Witnessing Shunie: 1,270 Years of Darkness and Devotion "What kind of line is this?" The American couple looked genuinely baffled. They had wandered into Todai-ji's grounds on a Sunday afternoon and stumbled upon a scene that defied ever...