By: Millie Linville, JETAA Southeast President, JET 2001-2003, Ibaraki-ken

“Arranging our shoes neatly, we bring harmony to our minds, when our minds are harmonious, we arrange shoes neatly. If we arrange shoes neatly when we take them off, our minds won’t be disturbed when we put them on. If someone leaves shoes in disarray, let us silently set them to order. Such an act surely will bring harmony to the minds of people around the world.”

Early on as JETs, we learn the simple Japanese custom of removing shoes at the “genkan” when entering someone’s home. Our first experience removing shoes at a Japanese restaurant, public bath, or home can be a somewhat mundane event. We see shoes neatly arranged below the raised floor and follow suit. Some of us have noticed the art of shoe removal and turned our shoes outward in preparation for our departure. If we did not do this for ourselves, we noticed that our host rearranged our shoes for us as we said our good-byes.

There’s more to the order of shoes than merely for the sake of neatness. The quote above called “Illumination from Our Feet” is by Dogen Zenji, the Zen master who founded Eihei-ji in 13th century Japan. Throughout all my travels in Japan, Eihei-ji was the most poignant of experiences, and I recommend a temple stay at Eihei-ji to anyone interested in learning more about the influencing factors on Japanese culture, more about Zen Buddhism, or more about themselves.

Our itinerary asked us to arrive at Eihei-ji, or Temple of Eternal Peace, between 2pm and 3pm on the day we were scheduled to arrive. It was a short bus trip from Fukui Station, passing hectares of rice fields on narrow and winding Japanese roads. As we approached Eihei-ji, our bus climbed a steep hill lined on either side with souvenir shops selling Eihei-ji kintsuba, soba, and various Buddhist knickknacks, religious paraphernalia, and the sort. When we reached the top of the hill, we were told that return bus trips were caught at the bottom of the hill, cleverly designed to have you pass the shops. At the entrance to the temple grounds was an enormous vertical granite sign, carved with the kanji for “eternal” “peace” and “temple”.

We got there at noon, just enough time to eat a bite, send some postcards, and meander around the temple grounds, complete with 400-year old cedars, a babbling brook, moss covered stones and carved statues. Compared to the damp August heat, it was refreshingly cool. We mostly sat in quiet contemplation, humbled at the chance to learn more about such a historic and influential place. (I’m sure we were also nervous about never having been inside a Buddhist temple, never having done zazen, and never eaten food fit for a Buddhist priest.)


At 2pm we were ready to begin an experience that we would later realize was the most interesting and inspirational during our three-week journey across Japan.

As we climbed the stairs to the main gate of the temple, they knew who we were immediately. The volunteer showed us to the side-entrance of the temple where we left our shoes in a locker, (we placed them neatly.) We were hurried along to the reception area, and sat at a desk for “registration.” We filled-out forms in Japanese, signed them, paid our 8,000 yen each, and waited for our guide. It turned out that we were the only non-Japanese guests participating in a temple stay that evening, and because we did not speak Japanese, we were provided an English-speaking guide named “Domyo”.

Domyo showed us to our room, on the fourth floor of the educational building, used specifically for lay followers. Our accommodations were the best that we had in Japan. Our room had a large tatami room, with a smaller bedroom off to one side. We had a veranda with sliding glass doors that opened to an outer corridor. We had a view of the ancient cedars and the rooftops of the temples adjacent to our more modern building. At night, we let the brook lull us to sleep.

The food served was not the same food that priests-in-training ate – they ate gruel with a dash of salt and black sesame seeds for every meal of the day. In my opinion, it was the best Japanese food I have ever had in my entire life. Before each meal, we knelt on the zabuton in our tatami room and Domyo set our meal in front of us on raised lacquered trays. At each meal, he led us in a meal blessing while we followed along reading roomaji aloud; the prayer similar to the deep, guttural chants that you may associate with Buddhist priests. We ate in silence, as practiced by the priests-in-training.

During zazen, we followed strict ritual, as practiced by the priests-in-training: approaching the meditation ledge, bowing towards the cushion and away, turning clockwise only, not allowing our body to touch any wooden part of the ledge as we sat on the cushion and turned clockwise to face a wall, situating our legs in full-lotus position on one length of tatami, keeping our eyes half-open with our gaze at 45-degrees, and our back straight. Fortunately, we did not experience any flogging for inappropriate posture.

During a meeting with Domyo’s head priest we were allowed to ask questions. Mostly, we listened to the wisdom gained through years of mindful meditation, life experience and suffering. I remember the head priest telling us a story about being the spoon in a coffee cup. As the spoon, we stir things up. We help to put things in motion – both good and bad. But, if you leave the spoon in the cup it interrupts the spin. Looking back on our actions in hopes of catching a glimpse of their results can interfere with the natural course of what we helped set in motion. It’s best to remove the spoon after stirring things up, moving on with our lives and not dwelling on anything in the past. He gave us little gifts like this story, something we will carry with us for a very long time.

The rules prohibited us from walking around the temple without our guide. We didn’t mind, as they had us on a tight schedule: Orientation of correct body posture and tour of educational building at 4pm, dinner at 5pm, short video of Soto Zen Buddhism and meeting with head priest at 6pm, bath at 7:30pm, followed by zazen for 40 minutes, and lights out by 9pm. The next day we were awakened at 4am, at zazen by 4:30am, had breakfast at 5 am, and off to the Dharma Hall at 6 am for morning sutras where we sat on our knees as long as we could bear. After a tour of the temple buildings, we completed our temple stay at 9am, and were very sad to leave.

It’s difficult to truly capture with words everything one experiences in a one-night stay at Eihei-ji. It’s truly remarkable and I’m sure each person responds differently to this type of experience. Remember to bring an open heart and mind. Add this visit to the list of places you will visit in your lifetime. You can visit http://www.sotozen-net.or.jp/kokusai/list/eiheiji.htm for complete details on how to apply for permission to stay at Eihei-ji (it has been updated since our visit in August 2006.)