ENRYAKUJI TEMPLE (MT. HIEIZAN)

One of Japan’s most important monasteries, opened in 788 by Saicho, the founder of Japanese Tendai Buddhism. Overlooking Biwa-ko (Japan’s largest lake) to the east and the city of Kyoto (then the capital of Japan) to the west, the temple was situated to protect the capital city from an inauspicious direction known as kimon. Enryakuji is a complex of some hundred temples scattered in Hieizan, which is revered as the mother mountain of Japanese Buddhism because of the great number of high priests from each sect who gathered on the mountain for training. With its 1,200 years of history and tradition, Hieizan was recorded as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main area of the temple houses the Kompon Chudo building, where an oil lamp known as Fumetsu no Hoto (Ever-Burning Dharma Light) has been burning non-stop for the last 1,200 years. The monks have been replenishing the oil diligently so that the light will not go out. The expression “Carelessness is the greatest enemy (油断大敵Yudan taiteki, literally meaning ‘Don’t cut off the oil’)” comes from this. That’s right, I’d better not relax too much; I need to stay vigilant on my way driving home.