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And thousands of infinite eons are the same as a single instant.”

—Kegon-kyo (“The Sutra of Flowered Splendor”)

From its outward appearances, this temple-monastery was little different from others of the Buddhist faith throughout 17th-century Japan. It contained a main dojo, or votive room, with a great wooden effigy of the Buddhist patriarch Tojun in the center of its altar. There were spacious abbot’s quarters, and other buildings for the monks, retired abbots, and those who frequented such temples in their travels. Spaced throughout the grounds were the customary gardens, their perfectly placed stones and cultivated trees intermingled with more prosaic varieties of growing things useful to a monastery of hungry holy men: daikon radishes, scallions, beans, and other vegetables.

There were some characteristics distinguishing this temple. It was one dedicated to the Kegon sect of Buddhism, which accounted for the statue of Tojun, known in China as To-shun, one of the religion’s primogenitors. It was favorably located on the crest of steep Abura Hill, in the shady middle of a grove of evergreen cryptomeria that funneled the coolest breezes of summer over its walls and sheltered the temple too, from the harshest gusts of winter. Looking out in one direction from the temple walls, one could spy the tiled roof of a public bathhouse in the forest below, one that had been commissioned in the 14th century by the Empress Komyo. From another vantage point, the towering outline of Mt. Kasuga loomed. Then too, this particular temple had a certain “air” about it. The sharp scent of pepper to be exact. The temple was famous for the spicy pickled vegetables its monks fermented in wooden vats in their kitchen. Yet what really set this temple apart from others was the long bladed poles that were stored under the eaves of the monk’s quarters, their oaken shafts polished with use, their steel edges kept razored with care. For this temple was the Hozoin, and its monks were the feared and respected spearmen of the Hozoin ryu, one of ancient Japan’s most feared schools of spearmanship.