Visiting Mount Kurama

    
By March 2002, I had completed all my Usui REIKI studies and was given the title of REIKI Master/Teacher. This means that I can teach the Usui REIKI courses and give attunements to my students, which will enable them to channel REIKI energy themselves.

Since then, I've spent a considerable amount of time studying Energy Healing in its various forms (and bought so many books on the subject that I had to re-arrange my library). I've traveled to Japan and visited Mount Kurama, the site near Kyoto  where most REIKI practitioners agree that was where Dr. Usui had his awakening many years ago.

Here are some photos from that trip and from the Kurama area.

    

There are many springs in the area of Mount Kurama. Here one has been shaped into a beautiful fountain.

On the way up the mountain, there are numerous Shinto shrines of all sizes. People stop on the way and light candles, leave prayers, etc.


If you can read Japanese, especially old Japanese, there are many inscriptions on stone monuments.


In typical tourist fashion, I had my picture taken at the train station. This also shows how to spell Mount Kurama properly, as some people have been using spelling like Koriyama (which would be an attempted combination of the Japanese words for Kurama and Yama, their word for mountain).


When one arrives at the base of Mount Kurama, the first thing one should do is wash your hands. Almost everyone entering did so, and when in Rome (or in this case, Kyoto)...


    There are lots of stairs to climb to get to the top of Mount Kurama, or even just to the main Buddhist temple on the top of the main hill area.


    More stairs...


At the top of the main walkway, something like 791 meters of uphill walking from the Yuki Shrine which itself is at least 200 meters of walking from the main entrance, one finds the Main Hall, a Buddhist temple. Here I am standing in the middle of a stone power pattern on the ground directly in front of the temple entrance. It took quite a while to get this shot, as it was a Sunday and the place was quite popular with Japanese and other visitors.


This is another shot, showing part of the entrance, with me still on the same center stone. It was a nice feeling being there.


Here you can see more of the temple entrance.


Here I am in the main entrance, lighting three incense sticks as an offering.

There is a large bell that you can ring - it is quite loud.