Bamboo grove: Hokoku-ji

When I step into the bamboo grove that vigorously absorbs the bright sunlight and continues to grow, I always feel like I am inside the body of a giant creature and sense that the towering bamboo trees around me are silently emitting their intensive life force and strong desire for growth. 

A bamboo grove as a whole is a single living organism in itself, with the green tall trunks interconnected by a huge network of underground stems. A bamboo grove originates as a single bamboo sprout, that grows one underground stem after another to form a single extensive grove collectively.

A bamboo tree is evergreen and never loses its leaves in the winter. This allows bamboo trees to continue storing energy through photosynthesis in the sunlight coming from the cloudy winter sky and to have tough growing force year-round. 

Bamboo trees keep sharing the nutrients for growth through underground stems interconnected with each other. At its peak of growth, especially in summer, bamboo trees grow 80 to 100 centimeters per day, reaching a height of almost 20 meters in less than two months.

Bamboo grove: Hokoku-ji

Hokoku-ji Temple is a Zen temple of the Kencho-ji school of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, that is located in the northeast area of Kamakura-city, and is known for its beautiful bamboo garden with approximately 2000 Moso-dake bamboo trees. 

This dense green bamboo grove attenuates sunlight and sounds with its thick green foliage, and presents the quiet and ethereal space which makes us deeply feel the peaceful and profound beauty of Zen philosophy.

This peaceful green garden must suggest the “Wabi” (the taste for the simplicity and quietness) worldview, which is traditionally inherited in Japanese culture based on Zen Buddhism. Wabi is the essential sense of beauty in Japanese art centered on the acceptance of the transience and imperfection of earthly beings.

In the precincts of the Zen temples of the Rinzai school in Kyoto and Kamakura, there are always thick bamboo groves that produce a essential atmosphere of austere and ascetic serenity.

Bamboo trees are straight, knotty, evergreen and hollow. These virtues are deeply associated with the Zen teachings such as humility, discipline, flexibility, non-attachment and transitoriness. 

The sounds of bamboo trees slowly swaying in breezes may suddenly awaken us to the final spiritual enlightenment during harsh and deep meditation.

Sekibutsu (stone buddhist images): Hokoku-ji

 

Bamboo grove: Hokoku-ji

 

Bamboo grove: Hokoku-ji

The bamboo grove of Hokoku-ji

A moss-covered stone image of Kannon is standing still in the thick bamboo grove.

In this quiet place, the passage of time suddenly disappears and the foreverness comes in gently.

The bamboo grove of Hokoku-ji

In the height of summer, these young bamboo trees are eager to reach the glaring sun.

The bamboo grove of Hokoku-ji

The sunshine filtering through the leaves of bamboo are flickering softly in the lazy wind of summer.

A bamboo grove in Hokoku-ji