"Daruma Kuyo" at Nishi-Arai Daishi Temple

February 3rd--BIG DAY today!  It was a beautiful day!  We left in the morning and rode the metro about 45 minutes to the edge of Tokyo to the Nishi-Arai Daishi Temple to see two important festivals.  The first one is called "Daruma Kuyo". 

Daruma Kuyo is an important festival that is associated with the goal setting that is so common at the beginning of the year.  Daruma dolls stem from a Buddhist priest named Bodhidharma (Dharma), the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism.  Paintings of him make him seem pretty ugly and scary, and the daruma dolls--painted to look like him--seem to have the same look.  The daruma is made of paper mache and has a weight at the bottom so that it will always tilt back up if knocked over.  This is to remind the owner of the phrase "Nanakorobi Yaoki", translated to mean "seven times down, eight times up". One should never, ever give up on their goal or wish.  The dolls do not have pupils in their eyes, and this is for a reason.  Once the owner makes a goal, he/she will fill in the left pupil of the doll.  Then, he/she should set the doll in a prominent place in order to remind them of the goal.  Once the goal or wish has been fulfilled, the right pupil is filled in.
People bring their daruma dolls from the previous year to the temple to have it burned in a solemn ceremony during the festival of Daruma Kuyo.  Then they will buy a new doll for the new year and make new goals. 

When we got to the temple, there were throngs of people crowded around waiting for the big event--the burning of their daruma dolls.  The dolls were piled up in a huge pile.  There were many different sizes in the pile.  We were in the very back, so I told Logan, Tayla, and Christopher to push their way up to the front so they could see better.  The kind Japanese people noticed the kids and helped them get up to the front.   One old Japanese lady started laughing at Logan when she looked down at him, and as she helped him get closer, she pinched his cheeks.  He did not appreciate that, but she obviously loved his big cheeks.  Caitlin stayed in the back with me and had Audra on her shoulders.  I put Nathan on my shoulders so he could see over the crowd.

The ceremony began with several Buddhist priests coming out in a grand procession.  One of them recited a prayer, and then all of them began chanting. 

With a camera crew there to record the event (we saw the reporter later on giving his report for the nightly news), one priest solemnly brought a bamboo torch forward and began to light the pile of dolls on fire.  The fire is in the center of this picture, on the edge of the pile.

I couldn't get any good pictures because I was in the back of the crowd and I was also balancing Nathan on my shoulders.  I gave my camera to Tayla, and she got some great ones from her place at the front of the crowd.

The line of priests.  They chanted for about five minutes.  Wish we knew what they were saying.

 

 

After about five minutes, the priests solemnly filed out of the area and a couple of men dressed like this (monks, maybe?) cleaned everything up and put it away.

We had several men from the Tokyo Fire Dept. monitoring the fire to make sure that everyone and everything stayed safe.  They even hosed down the metal wall that had been put up behind the doll pile to protect the trees from the heat.

Considering that these dolls are hollow, there were a lot of popping sounds as the flames ripped through the huge pile of dolls.

They almost look sad or scared....kind of makes you feel bad for them.

The ink was running on this doll. 

The dolls burned, the crowd meandered over to the far side of the temple grounds to attend the festival.

On the way, we noticed these statues all dressed up.  We don't know why they were there, but they reminded us of the children's cemetery at Zojoji.

The gate to the festival.

It's interesting to look at the pictures that the kids take.  In the pictures that Tayla took today, she took several pictures of roofs.  She loves the decorative metal roofs that are common around Japan.

 We found a nice place to eat lunch, near this pond.

 We had plenty of entertainment while we ate--koi fish and pigeons.  The pigeons were not shy and really enjoyed the crumbs of bread that the kids fed them.  One landed on Audra's head.  She didn't know what to think about that.

Several Japanese people were taking pictures of Kirstina as she had her afternoon nap.  They also took pictures of Audra as she ate and played with the pigeons. 

 After we finished eating, we wandered around looking at the many booths.  Of course, there were a lot of daruma dolls for sale.

 While the most common color is red, they do come in other colors.  Each color has a different meaning:
A RED Daruma doll is for LUCK and GOOD FORTUNE. 
 A PURPLE Daruma doll is for HEALTH and LONGEVITY. 
 A YELLOW Daruma doll is for SECURITY and PROTECTION.
A GOLD Daruma doll is for WEALTH and PROSPERITY.
A WHITE Daruma doll is for LOVE and HARMONY.

Some were HUGE.  One big one that we saw had a price tag of 85000 yen ($850).

Others were so small they could almost fit in your pocket.

 We kept seeing this beautiful lady all day.  She carried herself with such grace and was dressed up so pretty in her kimono. 

 Her hair was done up with flowers, also.

Besides daruma dolls, there was a variety of food and trinkets to purchase.

 We went up the temple steps to throw in our coin and bow.  Near the coin box, there was a small band playing.  While we were throwing in our coins, a priest came up to us and told us that we could enter the temple if we liked.  We hadn't had that opportunity yet, so we eagerly obliged.

 Before entering, we had to take our shoes off.

 There were several people meditating, and we were careful not to disturb them.  The floor was made of tatami mats--rice straw tightly woven together to make a mat. 

 In the corner, we noticed a large daruma doll.

 After spending some time in the temple, we quietly left and put our shoes back on.  We had some time to kill before the next festival took place, so we planned to wander around some more.  From the temple balcony, we noticed this garden, complete with a bridge over the pond.

 A small shrine.

 Standing on the bridge.

 The view of the temple from the bridge.

 Audra.

 On either side of this monument were colorful strings.

 Upon closer inspection, we noticed that they were hundreds of little origami cranes strung together.  They were beautiful.

 We found a vendor selling little dough balls with a sauce on them.  They are supposed to be a sweet.  Logan and I had already tried these a few weeks ago, but the others wanted to see what they were like.

 They were o.k.  They were good if you were not expecting them to be a sweet treat, because they are not sweet.

 Another vendor was selling candy covered bananas.  Audra just HAD to have one.

 There were tables of dried fish, green tea mochi with red bean paste on top, dried fruits and vegetables of all kinds, and seaweed that were for sale.  Many of the vendors were giving away samples.  Everyone was yelling at the crowd to come and buy their goods.

Whole fish roasting over hot coals.

The washing area.

This booth caught our interest.  We stopped and watched him.  He had some really sticky dough in a bowl.  He would scoop out some dough and form a bowl, which he filled full of a chicken and green onion mixture.  Then, he would work the dough with his hands to make a ball.  The filling would be in the middle.  He plopped it onto a hot griddle and smashed it down with his spatula.  Cooking it on both sides, they were almost the size of a dinner plate and looked yummy.  I bartered with him a little bit, and got two for 500 yen.

They were amazing!!  So good!  I emailed a picture to Raymond (he had to work) so he could ask the receptionists at work what these were called.  If I knew the name, I could find the recipe.  They told him that they are a specialty for this area of Tokyo, most people don't know how to make them and there really isn't a recipe.  Darn. 

Each of the kids got a daruma doll when we got home (I had purchased them the day before).  They each took some time to make a goal, and then filled in the left pupil of their doll.  When they complete their goal, they can fill in their right pupil.

The next day in home school, we discussed this solemn ritual of Daruma Kuyo for Buddhist believers.  We couldn't help but see a similarity to the Old Testament practice of animal sacrifice.  The Buddhist worshipper brings the daruma doll to the temple with the intent to burn it.  The doll is a symbol of putting off old habits/negative things in their life and the bringing forth of the new, improved life that the worshipper desires to have.  The practice of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament is basically the same thing.  A person would bring (or buy) an animal to the temple and--just like the daruma doll--would burn it as a means to repent of their sins.  It's another solemn ceremony of putting off negative things in our life (sin) and bringing forth a new, improved life.  Maybe we are stretching things, but it seemed to be similar in our mind.

Here's what the kids thought of the day:

Caitlin:  I thought it was funny that I had, like, five people with professional cameras, come up to me and ask if they could take pictures of Kirstin.  Mom didn't include the pictures in this post that I wanted her to.   The plum blossoms were really pretty. 
Tayla:  The fire got really, really hot and it burned my face a lot.  My favorite part was when the daruma dolls exploded.  I liked seeing all the different shops.  The temple was really pretty inside.  I liked the tatami mats.  I also liked the samples they had at the booths.  When I first saw the daruma dolls, I thought they were really, really ugly.  Now that I know more about them, I like them.  I thought it was weird that people took pictures of us.
Christopher:  The fire was really hot and the daruma dolls looked kind of sad when they were on fire.  I enjoyed listening to them pop.  I liked the shops, they had fish roasting on sticks.  When we got to where we would eat, I enjoyed feeding the pigeons.  I also thought it was funny that a pigeon landed on Audra's head.  She laughed.  The pigeons ate out of my hand.  The samples of dried food were really good.  The people there were really nice. 
Logan:  The daruma dolls, at first, were kind of creepy and ugly.  But, the more I saw them, the better they looked and now they don't look as scary and ugly.  The fire was hot and the way that they lit the daruma dolls on fire was kind of dangerous.  They got bamboo sticks with cloth at the end and then they lit the end on fire.  The first time a daruma doll popped, it scared me. 
Nathan:  Good!  Super awesome!  My favorite part was the food.  I loved the banana things that we ate.  The fire was hot.  I like my daruma doll, but I didn't do a good job filling in the eye. 
Audra:  The doll has eyes.  My name, Audra Mae, is right here (on the bottom).  It's mine.  It's beautiful.  I love it.