I’ve written about it before (here and here), but briefly:

This is the Great Buddha of Kamakura. He’s not the historic buddha, but rather the Amida Buddha, the main buddha of Pure Land Buddhism¹. Say the phrase “namu amida butsu” a bunch of times and you may be reborn in the Pure Land somewhere in the West, a place where one can achieve enlightenment without the annoying distractions of suffering here². Look closely and you can see he’s sporting a mustache. The Amida Buddha is one stylish guy.

This photo comes to you from my 3G iphone. I tone-mapped it so it is a pseudo-HDR, and I did some other photoshop trickery to clean up the photo and make it larger. I also added some grain. What’s up with that, huh? Dunno—I’m on a grain kick lately. At any rate: yeah, from the iPhone. I think sometimes photographers get too caught up in gear and forget that you can make great photos from anything. To paraphrase The Master: The camera you use doesn’t matter, what matters is about six inches behind the camera.

The above post was republished from JapanDave.com, home of the most beautiful daily photos of Japan on the Internet. See the original post: Meditation with the Buddha

The great buddha of Kamakura is a pretty impressive figure. He is Amida Buddha, the main big guy in Pure Land Buddhism, a branch of which (Jodo-shu) is the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan.

By repeating the nembutsu, his name “Namu Amida Butsu”, one can be reborn into the Pure Land, a paradise somewhere beyond our world in the West, a place free from suffering where it is easier to pursue enlightenment.

Wait—a paradise somewhere in the West beyond our world that only the select are allowed to go to live in peace? Getting a strong Lord of the Rings vibe here¹…

More of the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

The above post was republished from JapanDave.com, home of the most beautiful daily photos of Japan on the Internet. See the original post: Learning to Meditate

You’ve probably all seen this before; it’s one of the symbols of Japan.

Built around 1252, he weighs 93 tons and is 13.4 meters tall (that’s ~44 feet). At one time he was surrounded by a temple, but a tsunami in 1498 washed it away.

You can go inside, and it’s pretty impressive. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos from the inside. I don’t remember why, but it was probably too crowded and dark.

The temple is called Kōtoku-in, by the way. Here is a shot of the entrance sign.

I love this sign. No idea when it was written, but the phrasing they use is awesome. Fits the temple.

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The above post was republished from JapanDave.com, home of the most beautiful daily photos of Japan on the Internet. See the original post: The Great Buddha

Briefly, Kamakura is a small town near Tokyo. It was the location of the government over 1000 years ago and so has a number of interesting sites, including my favorite, the Great Buddha.

Nara was also the seat of the government a number of years ago, before Karakura was. It is very close to Kyoto and is similar in that it has tons of temples and shrines. The most famous of which houses the other Great Buddha statue of Japan.

Osaka is close to Nara and Kyoto. It is the second biggest city in Japan, and was historically the merchant capital of Japan. It’s a concrete jungle like Tokyo, but there are some cool spots, including the castle, which has a very rich history to it and was very important.

Himeji is small castle town, of note for having perhaps the most beautiful and best designed castle in Japan, and also for having a real castle. That is to say, it’s not a fake, built to replace one destroyed in the war. Himeji was bombed quite heavily, but amazingly the castle wasn’t hit.

Anyways, perhaps I’ll write more about these later for people who are interested, but for now pop over the my flickr page to see some pictures of Kamakura. Hopefully I’ll get the rest uploaded soon.

click here —> flickr link

The above post was republished from JapanDave.com, home of the most beautiful daily photos of Japan on the Internet. See the original post: New Years 2008-2009