Kyoto 12 - the Oldest zen temple

Today was rainy and miserable.  I bought a raincoat that was water "resistant", so the better half of the day I will be damp.

If this store is open when I come back, I'll pop in.  It looks like they sell Furoshiki cloth they use as wrapping for gifts, or knotted into a carrying tote.

This looks to be a provider of temple fittings. 

Here someone has used the stamped roof tiles as garden decoration

Now for the next temple....

Kennin-ji (Japanese: 建仁寺) is a historic Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, and head temple of its associated branch of Rinzai Buddhism. It is considered to be one of the so-called Kyoto Gozan or "five most important Zen temples of Kyoto".

Now here we are at one of the many altars of the temple.

I love the empty clutterless spaces of the temple.

It is still pounding down rain.

Some of the typical zen rock gardens.

I would love to know how they keep this weed free.

This, I wanted.  They have used a roof tile as a lamp.  I had considered buying a few and bringing them back but I only found two tiles, and then there was a question of weight, and then fashioning the lamps once I got home, so that plan has been cancelled for now unless I can find them online.

When you enter the shrines you sometimes have to take your shoes off, and here, they provided red slippers to walk around in. You can almost make out the slippers here.

We enter the main temple, and despite it being in the middle of the day, it is dark.  The ceiling is painted with dramatic twin dragons, one of the two National Treasures housed here.

It's so dark, the dragons look like they emerge from the inky blackness of the sky.

Outside another alter where you can write a prayer on a stick where the monks will pray over them during their prayer sessions.  Some temples will burn the sticks to raise the prayers to the heavens.

Kennin-ji contains notable paintings by Tamura Sōryū^{[citation needed]} and Hashimoto Kansetsu. Fujin and Raijin, a pair of two-fold screens by Tawaraya Sōtatsu. On the left is Raijin (雷神), a god of lightning, thunder, and storms in the Shinto religion and in Japanese mythology.^[3] On the right is Fūjin (風神) or Futen, the Japanese god of the wind and one of the eldest Shinto gods. He is portrayed as a terrifying wizard-like demon, resembling a red headed green-skinned humanoid wearing a leopard skin, carrying a large bag of winds on his shoulders.

I really should do something with my yard.  It's just such a dreamy space.

This was very funny.  As my cousin says, you never turn down a bathroom.  When I wandered into the bathroom in my red leather slippers, each of the stall doors were open and equipped with a pair of brown leather slippers with bells. So of course I had to show you.  In some hotels you will find two sets of slippers, one for your room, another for the bathroom. These are the first with bells, and I had wondered... why?  Maybe it's handy if you are practicing a vow of silence to let people know you are occupying a stall?  I don't know, maybe you have a better idea.