Sugimoto-dera's moss-covered stairs are quaint but unattainable to climb

Sugimoto-dera's moss-covered stone steps

For a long time, when I visited Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Kamakura, I wondered why I felt that I had come to Kamakura. Although I have visited shrines and temples in other towns, I only feel this way when I visit shrines and temples in Kamakura. Even if I visit Senso-ji temple, I do not feel that I have come to Asakusa, and even if I visit Yasukuni Shrine, I do not feel that I have come to Kudan, but when I visit shrines and temples in Kamakura, I feel that I have come to Kamakura.

On this day, when I visited Zuisen-ji Temple in Kamakura and looked at the garden behind the main hall, I suddenly understood the cause of this feeling that I had been wondering for a long time. The garden here was created by a sculptural method by chipping away at the tuff bedrock. I thought that the feeling of the rock being dug up reminded me of Kamakura.

In Kamakura, which is surrounded by mountains on three sides, shrines and temples are often built between mountains or on the surface of mountains, and the surface of the mountains is often chipped away when the grounds are cleared. As a result, one can see the chipped bedrock here and there in the precincts of shrines and temples. The tasteful rock surfaces that were chipped away by hand in the old days, when there were no heavy machines, were the very essence of Kamakura's uniqueness in my mind. Having had my long-held doubts answered, I lightly walked down the stone stairs of Zuisen-ji Temple's approach.

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