A glimpse of what’s to come...
Through a range of practices and expressions,
the journey through Kyoto explores evolving rituals within its mountains and sacred spaces.
Sound opens the chapter. We
arrive with openness.
The noise of elsewhere travels with us, carried from city, journey and memory. Here, it begins to soften. Sound opens the chapter: the call of the ceremonial conch, the breath of the Japanese shō and the voice of the violin gathering us into a shared moment of arrival, intention and ceremony.
What begins in quiet reflection slowly turns toward celebration, as dusk gives way to a sunset DJ performance and the first movements of the gathering unfold.
From there, the night leads us deeper into Kyoto. Gatherers slip into hidden speakeasies, where jazz moves through bodies and memory, and each drink is composed with the same attention as a ritual object. Built through balance, texture, aroma and restraint, the cocktails become small ceremonies of their own: handcrafted expressions shaped by season, place and the power of detail.
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Ryosokuin
Attunement through meditation,
craft and tea making
Founded in 1358, Ryosokuin, with deep roots in Zen scholarship, poetry, tea and the arts. Once a cultural salon for artists, writers and craftspeople, it continues to explore Zen through contemporary exhibitions, meditation and tea gatherings. For Chapters guests, Ryosokuin offers a rare encounter with Kyoto’s living traditions, where history, beauty and practice remain alive.
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Founded in 1378, Myokaku-ji is a historic Nichiren Buddhist temple set among the machiya townhouses of Kyoto’s Kamigyo district. Over the centuries, Myokaku-ji served as a residence for some of the most influential figures in Japanese history, including the 13th shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Oda Nobunaga and Date Masamune. The temple also has deep ties to Japan’s tea culture, with tea gatherings once held here by the legendary tea master Sen no Rikyu.
We begin with meditation, followed by a Japanese tea ceremony that draws attention to the gestures, aromas and tastes of tea. From the temple, the morning continues on foot through the surrounding neighborhood, tracing Kyoto’s deep-rooted tea culture and its connections to the Omotesenke and Urasenke schools.
Myokaku-ji Temple
The afternoon moves from contemplation into making, as attention shifts from inward to working with the hands. Across Kyoto, artists and craftspeople invite us into their world, sharing practices shaped by generations of knowledge and skill. Through hands-on workshops, we explore the materials, techniques and traditions behind some of Kyoto’s enduring crafts.
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Where Art Meets Kaiseki with Kinobu
Artist Pinaree Sanpitak and Chef Takuji Takahashi come together at Kinobu for a new interpretation of Breast Stupa Cookery.
Conceived by Pinaree in 2005, Breast Stupa Cookery invites chefs to interpret her signature breast and stupa forms through culinary experiences, using bespoke vessels, tableware and food forms. At Kinobu, Takahashi draws on the discipline and seasonality of Kyoto kaiseki while exploring new ingredients, techniques and pairings. Together, they consider how sacred and bodily forms can shape culinary processes and the gathering experience, bringing art and cuisine into conversation around the table.
North of Kyoto, where the mountains close in and the city falls away, lies Ohara.
This is satoyama, the threshold between the human world and the wild, where the village and the mountain have learned, over centuries, to share. Paddy fields catch the last of the autumn light. Persimmons dry on wooden racks beside farmhouses. The women of the village have carried its harvest to the city for a thousand years.
Rice Fields of Ohara Sanso
The gatherers arrive for the final harvest. Here, the day opens wide. Sound moves through the open air, frequencies ebbing through body and mind, and root folk rises from the fields.
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Rice Fields of Ohara Sanso
Being in the village, the gatherers eat. A simple and rare feast, from the knowledge of the land it came from, its craft passed down through elders' hands. The day unfolds, encounter by encounter, under the waxing gibbous moon looming above the mountains. The sōkō, the giving of thanks, belongs to everyone. Villagers and gatherers, together in the last full bloom before the earth rests for winter.
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In the guest house, join a special preview screening of The Insect Musicians, exploring Japan’s 1,000-year tradition of mushi-kiki (“listening to insects”) and the ways insect sounds have long been appreciated as music. Filmmaker and music historian Nick Dwyer traces this tradition through Japan’s countryside, revealing the relationship between sound, culture and nature.
The Garden
A stage nestled within a Japanese Garden
At the edge of the forest, a natural stage emerges between water, stone and green. Surrounded by gardens and shifting light, this open-air space holds a different atmosphere from day into night: quiet and contemplative by daylight, deeper and mystical after dusk.
Here, performances unfold in close conversation with the landscape, where sound, movement and nature meet beneath the trees.
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The Way of Returning: A Walking Meditation through Stillness, Samurai Practice and Jōmon Food Wisdom
A guided journey through stillness, movement and the earth in the moss gardens of Ōhara. Through wireless headphones, guests move from seated meditation into samurai-inspired practice with a wooden sword, before returning to the senses through ancient grains connected to Japan’s Jōmon era. Surrounded by moss, water, birdsong and wind, The Way of Returning invites a deeper connection to the body, nature and the present moment.
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The Garage
The Garage brings experimental spirits to the foreground
In a garage at the edge of the village, technological minds grow natural and virtual worlds. Ancient and future in the same kaleidoscope of visuals and sounds. There are installations to discover, performances that arrive and dissolve.
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Attunement through the arts
ACG Villa Kyoto
Attunement through the arts
At ACG Villa Kyoto, a residence whose every room was designed to breathe with the garden outside it, the gatherers enter a tea room made entirely of indigo fabric. The colour of deep water.
Translucent walls through which light shifts like weather. To stand inside it is to feel the boundary between self and space dissolve. Nearby, a sculpture that orbited the Earth rests on Tenma silk laid over reclaimed temple wood. The same question, asked from opposite ends of the universe.
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The ascent to Mt. Kurama
Mt. Kurama was formed 250 million years ago, when the Philippine Sea Plate moved north and collided with the Eurasian Plate. What did not sink was scraped off and held at the edge, preserved, compressed, charged with time. To understand this mountain, they say, is to understand how the Japanese archipelago itself was formed.
The gatherers rise above the cedar canopy by cable car, into the stillness of the peak. They arrive at the place where Mikao Usui fasted for 21 days beside a sacred tree and received the healing energy of Reiki. Where a monk named Gancho, guided by a white horse in a dream, first felt the mountain's presence and knew it was sacred. Where, for 1,250 years, voices of prayer have risen through the forest and changed the nature of the air.
Year after year, enormous torches move through the darkness of the mountain. Fire purifies the land, preparing the way for the kami to arrive.
At the summit, a closing ceremony. The full moon rises over Kurama, illuminating the cedar forest. The gatherers stand together, facing the city that was dreamed into being on the first day, now far below.
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