Gokokuji

This guide to Gokokuji in Okinawa opens with a question: why did a monk named Raiju plant the island's oldest Buddhist temple right at the edge of a sea cliff, facing nothing but open water. It follows the shrine already standing beside the site, built on the ancient Ryukyuan belief that gods and ancestors lived not in the sky but across the sea in a hidden realm called Nirai Kanai, and the centuries of boats that launched from the beach below toward that horizon. Look down from the cliff to Naminoue Beach and you're tracing the same line of sight the monks once used.