Three Temples

The house we stayed in during our time in Kyoto is located very close to three temples, each only a stone's throw away in three different directions. The most famous is Ginkakuji -- the Silver Temple -- which is on the itinerary of almost every visitor to the city:

The second is Honen-in, a more secluded temple tucked into the woods just below the eastern hills, on whose grounds we had our only (wild) monkey sighting:

The third -- and smallest -- is Miroku-in, right on the Philosopher's Path. (The photo below was taken from the Path, and the road behind Chloe leads back to our neighborhood and house.)

Over the months, I came to associate a different sense with each temple. The edge of the Silver Temple grounds was visible from our back balcony, in particular the grove of bamboo at its southwest corner:

Honen-in was not visible from our house, but at 4:00pm every day the giant bell in the temple grounds would be struck at intervals for about half-an-hour, with the sound resonating throughout the neighborhood:

In the case of Miroku-in, my primary association with it is smell. Almost every day, incense would be burnt in the main temple building, the front of which was open to the outside, and its evocative scent would waft up the nearby streets.

Temples and senses makes me think in turn of the famous 'three monkeys' [Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil], the original depiction of which traces to a shrine near Nikko in Northern Japan:

It turns out that there is also a more local depiction of these same monkeys, at Yasaka Koshin-do shrine in the Gion district of Kyoto. We got the chance to visit this shrine in May.

The three monkeys are depicted supporting a 'singing bowl' in the main courtyard of the shrine:

In the background of the photo below, a wooden statue of the three monkeys is also visible. It turns out that the thousands of multi-colored balls are also monkeys! Each ball is a curled up monkey made of cloth. These can be purchased and then prayers written on the outside of the ball before they are hung up around the temple:

The shrine is a popular place for people to go for photo shoots in their traditional dress (and in the example below, re-enacting the poses of the three monkeys as well ...!):