Reigando Cave

This cave on the grounds of Unganzenji Temple in Kumamoto is where swordsman Miyamoto Musashi spent his final two years and wrote The Book of Five Rings. A large rock inside the cave is said to be where he sat and meditated. On the path leading up, you pass rows of stone rakan figures, many missing their heads from vandalism during the early Meiji period when the government turned against Buddhism. A mossy spring near the temple still bubbles up from the same source Musashi would have used. The setting is quiet and wooded, with the kind of stillness that makes it easy to understand why he chose this place.