The Pagoda Of Toji Temple

Japan is described as a country of wood, and the reverence of natural materials. The depths of the love and admiration that the Japanese people have for wood are famous, which is similar to the Greek love of pristine marble and its smooth surfaces. This can be seen in an old Japanese expression "plants and trees all have something to say", Japanese believe that trees have a soul and say they can sense spirits, or "kami", within them. It is trees that form the core which nurtures the sensibilities about nature held by the Japanese people. It is thus natural for architecture in Japan to be based on wood. Many structures are made of wood, ranging from shrines and temples to palaces and homes, and in doing so grand structures have been created (Stokstad).

I went to Grand Island, Nebraska, on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 to the Buddha Matta Phaaphayaram Lao Buddhist Temple. The temple used to be an old Faith United Methodist Church until purchased on November 28, 2013 by local Buddhists in Grand Island. I was not the only one from my class that went. My teacher and four other students were there too.

In the article “Ritual and Presentation in Early Buddhist Religious Architecture” by Lars Fogelin, the readers are introduced to Buddhism and ritual which include the stupas. Stupas were build according to Buddha’s dying wish, his reason for doing so was “indented for the laity who, with their poorer grasp of Buddhism principles, required the aid of direct worship to ease them toward the path to enlightenment” (Forgelin, pg. 3). The argument that Forgelin brings up is that the designers had to accommodate the needs of Buddhist worshipers “while attempting to provide mechanisms to foster group cohesion”(Forgelin, pg.1), which is shown in the open-air and rock-cut stupas. Forgelin’s thesis stated he will address the main topic by first presenting Buddhist’s goal and how to attain this goal referred to as nirvana, then who are the three principal groups who practice their rituals at a stupid, and how the designers had to incorporate the different styles of practice into the design of the stupas.

Totem poles are monuments created by First Nations of the Pacific Northwest to represent and commemorate ancestry, histories, people, or events. Totem poles are typically created out of red cedar, a malleable wood relatively abundant in the Pacific Northwest, and would be erected to be visible within a community.

The temple experience varied dramatically from person to person. It even drove one among us to leave early. Unfortunately, I identify with those who were disquieted with the experience within the Hsi Lai Temple. This isn’t to say that it was a negative experience or that there was nothing to learn from it, but there are multiple versions of simplicity and this is only one of them. It just happens that this is not the example that I perceive as true, nitty-gritty simplicity. The definition of simplicity is this: the quality or condition of being easy to understand or do…the quality or condition of being plain or natural…a thing that is plain, natural, or easy to understand.” For starters, there were many requirements at the temple that I didn’t

The Hsi Lai Temple was a very gorgeous outstanding place. With very exotic colors of different kind of orange. You felt the serenity upon entering the temple. There was Buddhist statues or figure on every corner of the temple and any location you walked through. Even in entering of every room there was tigers on both sides of the entrance. In each entering of the temple entrances there was some one greeting in different language. Every person at the temple was very helpful as much as they could. Everyone there spoke Taiwan even the visitors. There was rarely anyone who new perfect English. So there was a lot of pamphlets given to me in English. There social class seem middle and high class, it seemed like there was no poverty. Most ethnic backgrounds were usually Taiwan or Vietnamese. Most genders that I saw who usually females besides the monks were males. The average age that I saw was older than twenty. The number of people I saw were over thirty during my whole visit. Most of the architecture was made out of jade wood and walnut. They even had prayers carved inside or on the walnut.

Shrines are sacred places because of there connection to religious event, a saint, a holy relic, or the presence of a god (Bellows,201). They can be temples or caves, in cities or in the wilderness. Shrines are considered ancient landmarks for places where religions may have lived or died. A place where a miracle is said to have occurred or some divine manifestations. Shrines are sacred for a variety of reasons, but all have a sacred connection.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks. The Samurai’s Garden is a book that encompasses the beauty and importance of the natural world through many individuals’ experiences. Tsukiyama expresses the belief that humans need help from an outside force, so that they can be relieved from their grief and misery. In the novel, The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama conveys the theme that in order to heal, people need nature; she accomplishes this through her use of Sachi, Matsu, and Stephen.

When I first pulled up to the Won Buddhist Temple, it was sort of what I had expected. Being that the original Buddha was a human, I did not expect an elaborate building, such as the Hindu temple. I did not have a clear picture in my mind about what the temple would look like, but I did picture a smaller and simpler-looking building. One of the most pleasantly surprising aspects I noticed at the beginning of the visit was how those at the temple were of all different ages, races, and genders. Seeing this made me more excited for the service because it showed that the teachings were something that appealed to a wide range of people.

This is a wooden statue of Kongorikishi, one of a pair of statues found originally in Buddhist temples of Japan in the early 14th century. It stood at approximately eight feet tall and stood as a guard to the temple of Ebaradera located in Sakai, Japan. Unlike most statues of European decent that were made out of materials such as bronze, or various kinds of stone, this Asian piece was made out of wood. When looking closely at the piece, every single cut that was put into the statue is visible What is immediately noticed when looking at this piece is the intimidation that it puts on the viewer. Everything from the body to face is meant to strike fear into anyone that looks at it. With its dynamic pose, the Kongorikishi demands the attention of all that stand before it as well as show that it may be able to strike at any moment, which it does with overwhelming success. Every carving, curve, and detail in the Kongorikishi statue is strategically put together in order to convey this idealistic inhuman being.

First, let’s talk about Ise Jingu situated in Japan. It is the largest Shinto shrine located in the city of Ise. Millions of people make their pilgrimage to this shrine for either tourism or religious purposes. It holds a lot of both spiritual and historical value of Japan. Spiritually as the shrine was made in light of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami, and the traditional progenitor of the imperial Japanese family, later another God Toyaku Okami being another sacred being, being worshipped. (Pletcher) The architectural design of the shrine consists of many rows of buildings but the most distinct are two large huts, being the inner (Naiku) and outer shrine (Geku). (Pletcher) Naiku was first constructed, which had the Goddess of Amaterasu, later Geku with the intention of worshipping Toyaku Okami, the god of food and benevolence. (Pletcher) The shrine is surrounded by a thick forest, which the buildings were made from. Using the essence of nature, or “ke”, the priests and priestesses used the surrounding trees as the buildings blocks of the shrine, as the trees had much devotion and spirituality of the Japanese people.

This week I picked Topic 2. The building I decided to do is The Temple of the Inscriptions.

The three ways in which authority is expressed in the Ise Jingu Shinto shrine. One of the main ways that authority is expressed at Ise Jingu is in its construction as it is not a permanent building but in fact rebuilt every twenty-five years in a cycle of birth and renewal. Because of this it requires a huge monetary and laborious process that has to be organized and the ability to construct this temple shows that a leader not only has a skilled workforce but also the funds to embark on such a task.

Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto, Noguchi veered from tradition in many aspects of his design and created a perfect blend of

They evolved from the wooden fortress of earlier centuries to their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard significant or strategic sites, such as ports, river crossings, or crossroads. They almost always incorporated the landscape into their defenses as well.