The Yokosuka Line to Kita-Kamakura drops you off more or less directly in front of Engakuji’s Somon gate, and in fact on the platform an exasperated little man in a uniform — energetically waiving a paddle with an arrow sign —  was shouting, “No no no! This way! Temple! No! This way!” at everyone who stepped off the train. There was a transparent plastic rain protector stretched over his official hat. (It was not raining at all.)

I was expecting to find samurai-founded Rinzai Zen complexes to be a bit distinct from the non-Zen monasteries I had previously toured. Surely at least this one would be infused with some sort of military ethos-austerity, given its Hojo regent patronage. The clan of the shikken would have wanted to to distinguish “their” sect from the foppish aesthetics and overwrought rituals of the pedigreed and powerless aristocrats of the old capital. 

Did I see a few more Kannon, a few less Jizo? Did Sakyamuni in the Butsuden and Daihojo seem more stern than he is typically portrayed? Perhaps. But even in the 1699 Senbutsudo meditation hall — empty this morning, no one obviously interested in self-illumination today — the only incontrovertible instance of style-less utility I could truly discover were unfortunately the fluorescent lighting strips running across the “dropped” ceiling above the tatami-covered platforms awaiting their zazen practitioners.