Cluster Thirteen:
A View of the Fuji

From Tokyo, I make a day-trip to Shimizu (now part of Shizuoka City) to see the garden of Ryugeji temple and find a kuhi in neighboring Tesshuji, with a haiku about the Fuji by Basho. A cluster of only one stone, but with the bonus of a nice garden and - hopefully - a view of Mt. Fuji.

First I visit the garden. Ryugeji was founded in 1670 by Nisshin, a Nichiren priest, who was enamored of the view of the Fuji across the bay from this spot. The garden is called Kanfuen, or 'Fuji View Garden' and consists of a stroll garden around a pond, and a hill at the back. It has been laid out next to the thatched roof main hall. Densely clad with shrubs such as azaleas, the hill at the back can be climbed by three different paths. It represents Mt. Sumeru, the world axis in Buddhism, an interpretation that has been accentuated by the large stones lying on its flanks.

The gourd-shaped pond is crossed by a stone slab bridge, which has been closed off for ordinary humans as emperor Higashiyama once used it. Irises grow in the pond. In front of the main hall is what looks like a dense clump of exotic cycads, said to be many hundreds of years old. In fact, they grow from one huge stem, hidden in the middle. Such natural rarities do not impress me: they lack in beauty what they boast in strangeness.

I try to catch a glimpse of the Fuji from the top of the hill where a small dilapidated hall stands, next to the grave monument of a Meiji author (Takayama Chogyu, 1871-1902), who died tragically young. He was buried here because he loved this spot so much. So did the Taisho Emperor, whose visit is commemorated in old photographs on view in the temple museum. Incongruously, a straight Western chair and table had been carried to the hill top so that his majesty could enjoy the scenery as if sitting down in a drawing room. I am not as lucky as the monarch: today, the Fuji is hidden in dense clouds.

Wondering what Basho saw here, I walk to the temple next door, Tesshuji.

Tesshuji is a temple with a convoluted history. Originally founded in the 7th c., it stood at the top of Mt. Kuno, to the south of Shizuoka, where now the Tokugawa mausoleum sits. Its name then was Kunoji and it possessed many treasures, such as a copy of the Kunokyo, a beautifully decorated votive sutra from the 12th century. In the 16th c., however, Takeda Shingen needed the site for a castle and the temple was moved to its present position at the foot of Nihondaira. I presume it kept its connection with Mt. Kuno and the new mausoleum to Ieyasu that arose there in the early 17th century. Then came the Meiji restoration when it was decided that Japan was a country of gods and not of Buddhas and all connections between temples and shrines were severed. Many temples fell on hard times (in those days much Buddhist art was sold to Western collectors because the priests needed income to survive) and our Kunoji stopped functioning.

It was an Edo sword master who in the new Meiji era became politician, Yamaoka Tesshu (1836-1888), who collected money to restore the temple, that people now called after him: Tesshuji. In the temple hall, which contains memorabilia of Tesshu and a statue of him as a kind of Shinto deity, I also find Buddhist statues so old that all the paint has worn off and only the bare wooden outline is left. A copy of the Kunokyo lies before the altar. A Yakushi Buddha white from age looks down upon the visitor.

I climb the hill behind the temple to find the haiku stone. If one is lucky, the view of Mt. Fuji is great from here, seen across the waters of the port of Shimizu, but the clouds show no sign of lifting. I am sure Basho never visited this very spot, but he must have seen the mountain from this wider area when he traveled down the Tokaido, as he did several times on his trips from Edo to Iga-Ueno and Kyoto.

In the haiku, Basho describes a situation that matches my own. The mountain is not visible; clouds and fog hide its appearance. But clouds and mists are shifting all the time and therefore, although the mountain can not be seen, every instant the scenery is a different one. Basho is not only perfectly resigned to the fact that he can not see Mt. Fuji, he even derives pleasure from the clouds that hide its peak. That is a good lesson.

Or, to say it in the words of Yamaoka Tesshu, whose Zen-like poem on the Fuji I found in the temple:

clear weather is good
clouds are good, too
Mt. Fuji's original shape
is always the same