Mudo-in Temple 68 Kyushu pilgrimage

Mudo-in, temple number 68 on the Kyushu 108 pilgrimage is a small rural temple to the southeast of Mount Kurokami near Takeo in Saga.

It claims some connection with the Shugendo center that was active on that mountain.

The temple was established in 1487.

The honzon is a standing Fudo. In the grounds are another small Fudo, and a Kurokami Eye Fudo, said to cure eye diseases.

It is also temple 26 on the Kyushu Fudo pilgrimage.

Unusually, for this pilgrimage, it was an inhabited temple with someone home.

The old priest showed me a photo of his brother, also a Buddhist priest, taken meeting the pope. According to my recent research, he is no longer the head priest at this temple but has been replaced by a much younger one. I strongly suspect he may be a son of the family.

Though it was late March, a single plum tree was sporting new blossoms. Another thing I noticed were the extremely worn small komainu.

The previous post in this series on day 71 of my Kyushu pilgrimage was the Ono Tenmangu Shrine just across the valley.

Fukura Tenmangu

Fukura is a district of Usuki, and as I walked into town I stopped in at Fukura Tenmangu. Like quite a few shrines it was actually a temple until the Meiji Period when many temples were converted to shrines by the government.

Being a Tenmangu it features a statue of an ox as well as the usual komainu etc. There are several sub shrines within the grounds.

It seems to be a very popular shrine offering a full range of ceremonies and amulets etc as well as a shrine to a red cat. Red Cat was the nickname of a successful local merchant and petitioners at the shrine pray for business success.

I was there at the end of February and the plum blossoms were in bloom. Tebmangu shrines often have plum trees because of poems Sugawara Michizane wrote about them, in the time before plum blossoms were supplanted by cherry blossoms in the Japanese imagination....

Yuzukosho (yuzu pepper) is a signature product from Usuki & Hita

Plum blossom viewing

Woke up to a few centimeters of of snow this morning so took the opportunity to go for a short one hour walk......

Tomorrow I will post more of the walk, but for today here are the plum blossoms.

I prefer the plum blossoms to the cherry blossoms..... as do the Chinese apparently.

The harbinger of spring...............

Umeboshi,... an acquired taste

Umeboshi, pickled plums, can most often be found in bentos, where a single plum is placed in the center of the rice to look like the Japanese flag.

After picking when ripe in June, the plums are mixed with salt and shiso leaves (to give the color) and packed with a weight on top.

Later the pickled plums are sun dried, like these of my neighbors in the photo above.

Actually Ume are not true plums, being closer to apricots.

Not fond of umeboshi myself, though umeboshi-flavored candy is OK.

Spring has sprung!

Though the official start of spring, Setsubun, was a few weeks ago, for me the sign that spring is here is the arrival of the plum blossoms.

Like the Chinese, I find the plum blossom more enchanting and exciting than the cherry blossom.

We have quite a few plum trees in the area...and at least they grow fruit, which is more than can be said for the cherry blossom.