Chion-in: Ringing Out the Year

In the Higashiyama section of Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, there are many temples. The most famous is Kiyomizu temple (Kiyomizudera), with its high platform dramatically perched over a gorge. It's the chosen location for the announcement of the kanji of the year. LINK Kodaiji temple was built in memory of great samurai leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi LINK by his wife Nene. The Yasaka Pagoda is all that remains of Hokanji temple, built by Prince Shotoku Taishi. Ginkakuji was built by Ashikaga Shogun Yoshimasa, and he retired to there as forces aligned with his younger brother Yoshimi fought a war with forces aligned with his infant son Yoshihisa over succession and Kyoto literally burned around him.

But one temple has a unique claim to fame which makes the temple a minor celebrity every December 31st. Chion-in has a dramatic establishment story. Originally it was just a grassy hill where the monk Honen had begun proselytizing the Pure Land sect of Buddhism. Other sects persecuted him and he was exiled to Sanuki (present day Kagawa prefecture) but eventually returned five years later and constructed a small hermitage on the same spot. He died there while meditating, but his followers constructed a mausoleum for his remains on the site of the hermitage. Honen took a page from Obi Wan Kenobi, an in death, he became more powerful than the other Buddhist sects could have possibly imagined. So in 1227, warrior-monks from Mt. Hiei, Enryaku-ji of the Tendai Sect, came down from the mountain and destroyed the mausoleum of Honen. But even this desecration was ultimately unsuccessful when in 1234, Honen's disciple Genchi constructed multiple temple buildings on the site and declared Honen the founder of the temple.

The temple remained mostly undisturbed from then until 1517 when the temple burned down. All key relics associated with Honen were spared, and over the next two decades the temple was rebuilt with Imperial support. In 1573 Oda Nobunaga quartered soldiers on the temple grounds, in 1585, Toyotomi Hideyoshi allocated an estate to provide the temple with regular income, and in 1603, basking in his ultimate victory at Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu declared Chion-in to be the eternal family temple for his clan and allocates a much larger estate to guarantee the temple funding for as long as the Tokugawa clan reigned (which turned out to be about two and a half centuries.)

In 1633, a bonsho, or temple bell, was commissioned. When finished, it would be the largest temple bell in Japan, weighing 74 tons. The bell is only rung two times a year. Once in April to commemorate Honen, the founder of the temple, and on New Year's Eve.

Buddhism holds that there are 108 earthly desires. It is because of these earthly desires that human experience suffering. At many temples they ring the bonsho 108 times to rid humanity of these desires so that we may begin the year anew. At Chion-in, the ringing begins such that 107 rings occur before midnight, and the last occurs just at the stroke of midnight, maximizing the effectiveness and allowing us to begin the year with a clean slate. The bell is so large that the experience is not easy for standard recording systems to capture. It is as much felt, as heard. This story is timed to publish a few hours before the bonsho is rung. If you are in Japan and can't get to Kyoto, you can turn on NHK who broadcast the ringing of Chion-in's bonsho every year after the conclusion of the Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Song contest). Wishing all readers a year free from suffering.