The air changes first when you get off the cable car heading up the mountain. Koyasan, in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, is a basin-like valley at around 800 metres above sea level, where a village gathers with more than 100 temple sites. Before it ever became a tourist destination, it has been a place of training for more than 1,200 years. And the doors of that training ground are open to travellers too.
Kukai’s mountain sanctuary
Koyasan is the centre of Shingon Buddhism, founded by the monk Kukai (空海), known in 805 as Kobo Daishi. It was this mountain that he returned to after studying esoteric Buddhism in the Tang dynasty, and made it his training sanctuary. Since then, over the past 1,200 years, temples have been built on the mountain, and today more than 100 of them still stand.
There are three places you are sure to visit within the mountain. Okunoin, where Kukai’s mausoleum lies; Danjo Garan, the central temple hall whose construction Kukai began in 826; and Kongobu-ji, the head temple of Shingon Buddhism. In particular, the worship path leading to Okunoin passes between centuries-old cedar trees and tombstones said to number more than 200,000. The time spent walking along a path where light filters in sparsely even in the daytime feels like a form of practice in itself.
Nights spent at a temple lodgings, shukubo
What makes Koyasan special is the shukubo (宿坊). This is accommodation run directly by temples. In Koyasan, more than 50 temples take in travellers. Guests enter the spaces where monks live and stay the night there.
The lodging fee is set between 10,000 and 40,000 yen per person, including dinner and breakfast. There is a large variation depending on the temple, the room category and the season. Many places accept only cash for payment, so it is safest to prepare in advance.
For reservations, the most reliable route is through the official Koyasan Shukubo Association website (koyasan-shukubo.net). You can send reservation requests by email or fax to the association. Some temples can also be booked through accommodation booking sites such as Booking.com or Agoda.
Arrival time comes with rules. Evening services, or yoko-bu s, usually start between 5.30pm and 6pm, so you need to plan to reach the temple before 5pm. Taking the time needed to travel up from the area below the mountain into account, it is better to depart from Osaka no later than the early afternoon.
Shojin ryori: Dinner served vegetarian
Dinner at a shukubo is served as shojin ryori (精進料理). It is temple food that, in line with Buddhist precepts, does not use meat or fish and shellfish. Konjac, yuba (tofu skin), and Koyadofu are among the signature ingredients. Koyadofu is a freeze-dried tofu named after this mountain; it traces its origins to a method in which tofu was frozen and then dried during winter cold.
The dishes are modest, but the arrangement is dense. Soup and rice, pickles, simmered dishes and fried items are divided into small bowls. Because the cooking methods do not push strong flavours, you may initially find it bland, but after walking through the day, the lightness comes across differently.
Morning services and aji-kan meditation
Half the reason to stay at a shukubo is in the morning. A temple’s morning service usually starts around 6am and continues for about 30 to 45 minutes. Lodging guests take part in a ceremony where the head monk and monks recite sutras and burn incense. After the service ends, breakfast is served at around 7am.
If you want to try meditation, aji-kan (阿字観) is worth keeping an eye on. It is a meditation method in which practitioners in Shingon Buddhism contemplate becoming one with the Buddha, and it uses the Sanskrit character ‘a’ (阿) as its focus. It is often held late in the afternoon, and not all temples run it, so when you book you should check whether the temple offers aji-kan.
Shakyo (写経), copying the Heart Sutra by hand, is also a widely offered experience. You can enquire and take part via the Daishi Kyo-kai Centre. As you move the brush from character to character, your breathing naturally slows, which makes it easier to access even for those who find seated meditation difficult.
In addition, there is an initiation rite called kechien kanjo (結縁灌頂) held in spring and autumn. In spring it runs from 3 May to 5 May, and in autumn from 1 October to 3 October, and the participation fee is 3,000 yen per session. It is a rare opportunity for ordinary people to experience a traditional rite of Shingon Buddhism.
How to get there and what to pack, and what to wear
The usual route to get to Koyasan is the Nankai Electric Railway Koyasan Line departing from Osaka. Take the train from Namba Station to the terminal, Gokurakubashi Station, then transfer to the cable car to get onto Koyasan Station. From there, take a bus back into the centre of the village. A “Koyasan World Heritage Ticket”, which bundles the train, cable car and bus, is also sold.
Travel times and fares for each leg, as well as ticket prices, vary depending on the period and the type of train (limited express/rapid). It is most accurate to check the timetable and fares for the day of departure on Nankai Electric Railway’s official guidance.
Among what to pack, the easiest thing to overlook is what to wear. Koyasan is a mountainous basin, so temperatures are lower than in central Osaka. Even in summer it is chilly during the early-morning service times, and from late autumn through early spring it can be very cold. Regardless of season, it is a good idea to bring an extra outer layer.
Koyasan as a destination for a meditation trip
Koyasan’s strength as a destination for meditation travel is that the experience is not built around separate programmes. The morning services that travellers take part in are not events created for tourists; they are part of the temple’s daily routine. Dinner at the temple—shojin ryori—is also the same food the monks eat. If you shape your day around the temple’s timetable, you end up within the rhythm of the training community without any special programme.
Access is also not too bad for Korean travellers. You can travel from Osaka on the same day, making it easy to build your plan by adding a day or two to an itinerary in the Kansai region. If you have experienced a Korean temple stay before, there is also the fun of comparing the training culture of mountain temples in the two countries.
When planning your schedule, remember just one thing. Koyasan is not a place to rush through. You climb in the afternoon, walk slowly along the path to Okunoin, receive dinner, go to bed early, and wake up in the early hours amid the haze of incense smoke. What this mountain offers travellers is that one full circuit.
- Official Koyasan Shukubo reservation site — https://koyasan-shukubo.net/en/
