Hunting Time. Autumn Momijigari Walks as a Lesson in Japanese Mindfulness

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

A lesson of death and a lesson of life

It is mid-November. In Japan, this is the time when on NHK’s morning news, alongside the temperature map, there appears the map of the kōyō zensen — the “autumn color front.” The presenter announces where the leaves have reached 見頃 (migoro), the moment of their most beautiful color, and where they are only at 色づき始め (irodzuki hajime) — the beginning of turning. Apps such as tenki.jp or Yahoo 天気 update the 紅葉情報 (kōyō jōhō) every day, and weekend plans are made accordingly: a thermos of genmaicha, a bento bought at an ekiben-ya at the station, a train into the mountains, and a slow walk. This is not a seasonal curiosity — it is a ritual of attentive seeing and feeling the passage of time.

Yet momijigari was not always so gentle. In the Heian period, autumn was a backdrop for poetry and melancholy, but with the rise of the samurai era — Kamakura and Muromachi — watching the leaves became a stern lesson in death. In Rinzai Zen monasteries (Kenchō-ji, Engaku-ji), young warriors were taught to sit beneath a maple tree and wait for the moment when the first leaf would fall — without moving, without speaking. It was not about beauty, but about preparing for one’s own end. In the chronicle Taiheiki, the words of Kusunoki Masashige are recorded:

「散る花の心知られぬ人こそなけれ」

“There is no person who does not know the fate of the falling leaf.”

This is not merely a lovely metaphor. It is a foundation of a culture in which life holds value not when it continues, but when it is given. The samurai cult of death. Momijigari served as training in the absence of fear toward one’s own end — a path to achieving 不動心 (fudōshin), “the unmoving heart.”

And today? Momijigari has returned to a softer light. People arrive on the first morning train, carrying small backpacks and thermoses. They walk quietly, visit shrines, collect temple seals in their shuinchō. In the evening begins the kōyō no raito appu — the illumination that draws out the beauty of the leaves by lighting the trees from below. One takes a photo only after looking for a while. Not immediately. Because people do not come here for the photograph. A child may touch a leaf, but must not take it. Because gari — “hunting” — does not mean acquiring. And what is hunted is not the leaf, but time. It is the capturing of a moment that disappears in the very second it is noticed. Momijigari is the hunting of time. Of this one “now” already fading. As once in samurai training — only now with a greater emphasis on living, and a lesser on dying. Let us look more closely at this beautiful custom.

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

The Walk

November in the Arashiyama valley is exceptionally beautiful. The air is cool, but not cold — the kind of autumn coolness that does not repel, but seems to invite one to take a deeper breath. The sun hangs low, casting long, soft shadows across the stone path leading toward the Togetsukyō Bridge. The Katsura River flows slowly, as though trying to match the contemplative pace.

A slow current of people moves across the bridge, but it is not a crowd — more a procession of footsteps, part dance, part gentle disorder. No one is in a hurry. In Japan, autumn is not a season; it is an event — something awaited like meeting a dear acquaintance. And today, that meeting is taking place.

On the side of the path, an elderly couple has stopped. The woman, small, wearing a coat the color of faded ochre, lightly holds the hand of the man — likely her husband. He carries under his arm a small folding stool, the kind once sold at craft fairs near temples. They pause every few steps. Not because they are tired — though perhaps they are — but because each tree, each cool breath of wind, each trembling of a red leaf carries something familiar. Like a conversation left unfinished the year before. Sometimes the woman whispered something softly — perhaps the name of a place, perhaps a name. The man simply nodded, like someone who remembers too.

Not far away, beneath a tree, four students sat on a bench, wrapping their hands around paper cups of hot tea. They had with them a package of roasted sweet potato, yaki-imo, bought just moments earlier from a small shop with a red lantern that smelled of sugar, old wood, and the steam of boiled beans. One of the boys tried to capture the perfect frame — he slid his finger across his phone screen, searching for the right angle, arranging the autumn branches to appear “natural,” though they already were. His girlfriend nudged him gently with a playful reproach. He lowered his hand and slipped the phone into his pocket. As though he understood that the photograph would not be proof of the experience — only its shadow. And then he simply looked. They sat like that for a long while, without words.

Nearby, on the soft carpet of yellow and red leaves, crouched a girl, perhaps seven years old. In one hand she held a thermos wrapped with a string, and attached to the string was a small plush Mayumaro — a white, round character with a surprisingly gentle expression, a local Kyoto yuru-kyara found on postcards, keychains, and autumn festival banners. The scent of genmaicha — roasted rice and green tea — surrounded her like a warm cloud. With her other hand she gathered iroha-momiji leaves — small, delicately shaped, like tiny hands. She arranged them carefully between the pages of her notebook, pressing them with the seriousness of someone who knows she is doing something important. She did not collect them because they were “pretty.” She collected them the way one gathers memories that must not be lost.

Nothing was spectacular. There was no music, no artificial lighting, no vocal exclamations of awe. And yet everything was extraordinary. Beauty unfolded in the way one looks. In how someone pauses their step, tilts their chin, allows the light to reflect in the pupil. In the silence that was not the absence of words, but the deliberate choice not to use them.

The maple leaves burned with an intense red, so pure it looked like backlit washi paper — as though the light did not fall upon them, but passed through them. When the wind moved a branch, there was no rustling — there was a sigh.

On a November walk among trees and other passersby — Japanese people — it becomes easier for me, as a European, to understand why momijigari does not mean “viewing leaves.” Indeed it should mean “viewing leaves”—for that is what it appears to be. But it does not. Momijigari is: 「紅葉狩り」 (leaf + hunting) — it means “hunting.”

But in truth, not hunting the leaf. Hunting the moment.

The one second in which you see beauty and know that in the next it will already be gone.
You do not try to hold it. You do not try to keep it. You allow it to leave.

Momijigari is the art of allowing, not possessing.

A practice of presence long before the Western world coined the word “mindfulness.”
It is looking at impermanence without fear, without desperation, without grasping.

How does one look at impermanence?

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

What does momijigari mean?

The word momijigari is written as 紅葉狩り, and its very written form leads us into the world of the Japanese way of thinking about nature. The first part, 紅葉, is read in two ways: as kōyō and as momiji. Both readings refer to autumn leaves, but they serve different functions in language and express different layers of experience. Kōyō is a more descriptive term — it refers to the phenomenon of the changing color of leaves, especially maples, ginkgo, and oaks. It is the word one encounters in seasonal forecasts, on park information boards, and in travel guides. It means “autumn foliage.”

Momiji, on the other hand, is emotionally charged — it conveys the symbolic image of the red of autumn, not the leaves themselves, but a mood, a tenderness toward impermanence. In literature and art, momiji becomes a shorthand for the melancholic beauty of autumn: a radiance that is most intense just before it disappears.

It is worth looking at the structure of the characters themselves. The first, 紅 (beni), means “red” — but not just any red. A deep, slightly muted red associated with dyes obtained from the safflower (benibana). In the Heian period, this dye was used for luxurious garments and court cosmetics. Its extraction was painstaking, requiring repeated washing, pressing, and drying of petals. The resulting color was never uniform — always slightly trembling, organic, as if it contained within itself the trace of effort, time, and fading. It is precisely this quality of red that we see in autumn leaves.

The second character, 葉 (ha / yō), means “leaf.” In Japanese, the leaf is not only part of a plant, but also a symbol of the cycle of flourishing and fading. In classical poetry, it often appears as a metaphor for the transience of human life: youth blossoms suddenly like a fresh leaf, maturity is a deep green in full sunlight, and autumn — when the leaf changes color and returns to the earth — is an image of passage, but not tragedy, rather a peaceful closing of the circle.

The second component of the word, 狩り (kari / -gari), may come as a surprise — it means “hunting.” In its oldest usage, it referred to hunting animals, but over time it also came to describe outings undertaken with the aim of seeking a particular natural phenomenon or experience. Thus, in Japanese, expressions like kinoko-gari (gathering mushrooms in the mountains) or shiohigari (gathering clams during low tide) feel completely natural. In each case, it involves searching for something that appears only at a specific moment and cannot be fully planned — because it depends on the weather, the season, the state of nature, and a bit of luck. Therefore, momijigari means setting out in search of the moment when autumn reveals its beauty. There is a delicate tension in this — a kind of mindfulness ritual: one must know when to depart, where to stop, and how to look.

The very etymology of the word momiji comes from the verbs momiizu / momidasu, meaning “to press, to draw out color.” Originally, this referred to the process of extracting dye from safflower petals, but over time it came to be applied to the phenomenon of autumn. Just as the dyer must carefully and patiently draw color from petals, so autumn “draws out” the color from leaves. It does not apply it from the outside — rather, it reveals what has been hidden inside them all year. Autumn red is therefore not something added, but the true color of the tree, invisible in summer.

In this way, the entire expression 紅葉狩り carries a simple yet profoundly Japanese reflection: beauty becomes more intense the more fleeting it is — and it is not simply given to us; we must “hunt” for it by being attentive. What comes and goes quickly demands full presence. That is why momijigari is not an ordinary walk. It is a practice of looking — slow, quiet, and mindful — at things that last only a moment.

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

The history of “hunting autumn leaves”

If the philosophy of transient beauty is written into the word momijigari, its history allows us to see how this sensitivity took shape in the lived practices of people — in their way of looking and experiencing autumn. Its origins lie in the world of Heian-period aristocracy (794–1185), when the imperial court in Kyoto was the center of culture, literature, and subtle forms of emotional expression.

The Heian Period

The Heian court formed a society that seemed to live in order to look — to look at the changing light of the day, at the shades of silk garments, at the way the wind moved the branches of plum or maple trees. At least, this is how we know them from their poetry. The aristocrats of this period were people deeply embedded in the world of rituals and aesthetic gestures. Their lives were expressed not so much in political action as in writing poetry and reading the landscape. They walked to gardens and pavilions designed specifically for observing seasonal change — plum blossoms in early spring, autumn leaves in the fall.

It is in this context that momijigari appears as a practice of contemplation. It was not about hiking or recreation, but about encountering autumn as a moment of profound emotional resonance with the world. The leaf became an event. When an aristocratic lady picked up a red maple star from the ground, she might describe it in a single verse of waka, and that poem would become part of an exchange of feelings — a subtle dialogue with other courtiers. Full of sentiment and philosophical reflection, but also — of course — sly allusions, gentle teasing, critique, humor, and spite. Nevertheless, a particular kind of melancholy was clearly dominant.

Traces of such moments can be found in the most important literary works of the era. In “Genji Monogatari” by Murasaki Shikibu, autumn scenes appear as moments of deepest tenderness. Autumn there is the time when memory, longing, and the awareness of time passing intermingle without words. Meanwhile, in the anthology “Kokinshū”, images of red leaves and morning mist are captured in short, precise fragments — so condensed that a single detail (such as a leaf caught on the ripples of the Kamo River) could carry the weight of an entire emotion.

嵐山や
もみじの錦
水くぐる
鴨の河瀬の
秋の夕暮

Arashiyama —
the brocade of maples
sinks into the stream,
in the shallows of the Kamo
drifting away in autumn dusk.

It is here that the notion of mono no aware takes full shape — a Japanese aesthetic category difficult to translate, often described as a tenderness toward transience. It is not grief or despair, but rather a gentle stirring of the heart, an awareness that beauty is inseparable from impermanence. When a leaf turns red, it is closest to its fall. When a moment is most perfect, it is already ending.

Thus, momijigari in the Heian period was not merely the custom of strolling through gardens. It was training in perception — attentive seeing in which the outer and inner worlds overlap. It was then that autumn in Japan became a season of introspection, pause, and quiet acceptance of the passage of time. This way of thinking did not disappear — it is precisely what made momijigari far more than a seasonal attraction. It made it a spiritual gesture.

Kamakura and Muromachi — momijigari as a samurai practice

If in the Heian period autumn was a stirring of the heart, then with the advent of warrior rule in Kamakura (1185–1333) and its full maturation in Muromachi (1336–1573), it became a stern lesson. Aristocrats wrote poetry about leaves that fall like memories — samurai looked at those same leaves to learn indifference toward their own fate.

This was no longer melancholy. This was a hard pedagogy of impermanence.

In monasteries affiliated with the Rinzai Zen current, where military elites were trained (Kenchō-ji, Engaku-ji in Kamakura, Nanzen-ji in Kyoto), autumn was treated like a dōjō. Zen masters led warriors into the mountains not to sing of the beauty of maples, but to observe their dying in silence.

Records from the “Kamakura Gongoroku” describe an exercise in which a young samurai was to sit beneath an iroha-momiji maple and watch the leaves until the first one fell. He was not allowed to adjust his posture, wipe away sweat, or avert his gaze. The entire lesson could last for hours.

It was not about poetry. It was about preparing for the moment when one’s own life would begin to fall like a leaf. The samurai was to accept his death as calmly as the maple sheds its leaves — without resistance, naturally, without a word.

Momijigari was psychological training. The ability to look at dissolution without inner trembling lay at the core of the samurai stance — readiness to die at any moment. But for training in observing the beauty of a fading leaf to make sense, one must first be able to appreciate the aesthetics of that phenomenon. This is why samurai culture can seem paradoxical to us — it teaches an extraordinary sensitivity to delicate beauty, only then to train one, upon perceiving it, to remain unmoved. The aim was to attain the state of fudōshin (不動心) — “the unmoving heart.”

It is noteworthy that momijigari also appears in the ethos of death on the battlefield. In the chronicles “Taiheiki,” which describe the conflicts of the Nanboku-chō period (14th century), we find this record about the warrior Kusunoki Masashige:

「散る花の心知られぬ人こそなけれ」

“There is no person who does not know the fate of the falling leaf.”

This is not a literary ornament. This is the skeleton of a culture of death, in which:

- love is irrelevant,

- the individual is a speck of dust before the clan and the lord,

- life has value only if it is given in the proper way.

Momijigari in this context is not contemplation, but conditioning — preparation for one’s own fall, as natural as the falling of leaves.

In Muromachi, this custom underwent another transformation: it also became an element of the tea ritual. Murata Jukō, the forerunner of chanoyu, noted that the best time for tea is “when the last leaves still cling to the branches.” It was the art of dwelling at the edge of disappearance.

The samurai was to look at the leaf, accept that it would soon fall, and not so much as flinch.

Momijigari in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods was not sentiment, but the tempering of the soul.

It was the learning of dying in advance — so that in the moment of trial one would accept the mortal blow without a trace of fear or regret.

Edo — momijigari in the world of townspeople and the birth of autumn as the city’s festival

Old Japan was not only warriors, Zen monasteries, and the grim silence over the battlefield. When the Edo period began in the 17th century, the country entered a time of prolonged peace that changed both the rhythm of life and the way the world was felt. The need for constant readiness for death disappeared, and in its place arose the possibility of attentive everyday living. It was precisely then that momijigari moved beyond imperial gardens and samurai hermitages, becoming an experience of the entire society — from kabuki actors to merchants to ordinary townsfolk.

The city of Edo, later Tokyo, was one of the largest urban centers in the world. People traveled, though generally within their own provinces, visiting temples, hot springs, and famous scenic spots. Roads such as the Tōkaidō and Nakasendō became not only trade routes but also spaces of cultural wandering (more on the Tōkaidō through Hiroshige’s eyes here: "The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō" by Hiroshige – The Journey Is Not the Destination, but What We Pass Along the Way). Along them sprang up small teahouses, inns, and chapels, each with its own “best view of autumn” — a maple that flared into red, a bridge reflecting the colors of leaves in the water, a forested slope changing hue like an unrolling painted scroll.

It was precisely this image of autumn that Utagawa Hiroshige immortalized in his series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,” where momijigari is both a great event and a quiet pause in everyday life. Autumn in Edo was not solemn — it was intimate, urban, reflective.

During this period, the motif of maple leaves began to permeate nearly every aspect of material culture. Momiji patterns appeared on kimono worn by townswomen and by the women of the Yoshiwara district. In Kiyomizu-yaki and Kutani-yaki ceramics, glazes in shades of deep red were introduced to reproduce the color beni — the dye obtained from safflower. In lacquer workshops, maki-e masters sprinkled fine gold flakes in the form of scattered leaves across the black, gleaming surfaces of incense boxes, fans, and powder cases.

Autumn became not only a sensory experience but also a style — a way of dressing, celebrating, eating. In teahouses around Ueno and Meguro, they served rice with chestnuts, grilled autumn mackerel, and sweet potatoes baked in clay ovens, whose aroma drifted over the markets like a symbol of the arrival of cool days.

Momijigari in the Edo period can be summed up in one sentence: it is the art of living attentively enough to notice beauty before it departs. And noticing is already a form of gratitude.

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

Momijigari Today

Contemporary momijigari is not a reconstruction of past customs, but their natural continuation in a different rhythm. There is no pathos here, no staged tradition; there is everyday life, in which a simple walk becomes a form of mindfulness. In autumn, from late September in Hokkaidō to December in Kyūshū, Japan begins to “slowly burn” — and the whole country knows it is worth stepping outside at least once to see that fire.

The leaves change earliest in Hokkaidō, especially in Daisetsuzan, where broad spruce valleys are crossed by wide zones of maples. Then the wave of color descends toward Honshū: Nikkō, Hakone, Kamakura, Nagano, down to Arashiyama and Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, where autumn reaches an almost theatrical intensity (this is the source of the most famous photographs of Japanese autumn). In Tokyo, momijigari takes place not in the mountains, but in everyday spaces: Shinjuku Gyoen, Koishikawa Kōrakuen, Rikugien, along the Kanda River, and even in neighborhood playgrounds where children gather leaves for their nature notebooks.

The most important thing: there is no rush. Momijigari can almost be defined by its slow pace.

People arrive early in the morning, often by the first train. Temporary maps appear in train stations marking the “peak of color” (kōyō no pīku), estimated based on temperature and rainfall. Some check special forecasts of the kōyō zensen — the “autumn color front,” shown on television in almost the same way as the sakura blossom line in spring.

There is not much in their backpacks: a thermos of genmaicha or hōjicha, a small bento with something simple — roasted sweet potato yaki-imo, a few pieces of tamagoyaki, perhaps onigiri wrapped in foil fragrant with nori. Older couples often carry small folding stools (there are entire lines of ultra-light “garden” stools in Daiso and Muji-style shops, designed specifically for autumn walks).

In the forests one sometimes sees shuinchō — notebooks for temple stamps. During autumn walks, people often visit nearby shrines. Priests brush leaves from the torii gates, but do not remove them all — they know the autumn carpet has its sacred dimension.

Momijigari is also sensory: the scent of damp moss in which leaves are still warm from the day; the sound of footsteps on the dry riverbanks; the thin mist that appears between 3 and 4 pm, when the sun withdraws behind the mountains.

And then evening falls. And in many places, kōyō no raito appu — autumn illumination — begins. This is not a carnival glow, but a soft, warm light placed low, often directed from below so that it highlights the “veins” of the leaves. At Eikan-dō in Kyoto, one sees the trees reflected in the pond, lit in such a way that they appear unreal — like a landscape from a sutra painted on silk. At Rikugien in Tokyo, only selected parts of the canopy are lit, creating a composition of light like in nō theater.

Some people take photos — but only after looking for a while. This is very characteristic: first the gaze, then the screen. Often someone takes two, perhaps three pictures, then puts the phone away. Parents lift children onto their shoulders so that they can touch a leaf, but “not pick it” — what matters here is not possession, but looking.

In souvenir shops (especially the old shrine-side ones), bookmarks with real dried leaves embedded in a thin layer of resin are sold. In teahouses during autumn, wagashi shaped like maple leaves appear: nerikiri colored with natural safflower dye, or momiji manju in Hiroshima — a warm, soft leaf-shaped cake filled with sweet red bean paste.

Momijigari today is not a festival. It is not a tourist “highlight.” It is something surprisingly simple — it is going out into the world just to see it before it changes. One goes out to hunt for a moment that is already beginning to leave.

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

The “Autumn Color Front”

Modern momijigari is not improvisation. In Japan, autumn has its rhythm. Just as spring follows the blooming of sakura, autumn follows the kōyō zensen (紅葉前線) — the “autumn color front.” This concept appears in weather forecasts, newspapers, apps, and television.

On NHK morning weather reports, there is a special segment dedicated to autumn leaves. A map of Japan appears on the screen, on which the regions gradually turn shades of yellow, orange, crimson, and deep burgundy. The weather announcer speaks not only of temperature, but of “the progress of leaf coloring” in individual temples, parks, and mountains. This is not decoration — for many people it is the basis for planning their week.

In weather apps such as tenki.jp, Yahoo! 天気, and official JR (Japan Railways) apps, there are daily updated maps labeled 紅葉情報 (kōyō jōhō — “autumn color information”). They show the state of the leaves not in general terms, but in specific places: e.g., the Kiyotaki River in Arashiyama, the path to Takao Temple, Rikugien Garden, the pilgrimage road to Ise, Miyajima Bay, Aizuwakamatsu, Lake Towada.

The word 見頃 (migoro) signals to many Japanese: “This is the day.” Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today. Because if you wait even a little too long, the wind will strip the color from the trees, and the landscape will move from fire to silence. Thus, momijigari is not only a walk, but the search for the precise moment in time — as if one wished to synchronize one’s breathing with the movement of the seasons.

In souvenir shops and bookstores, printed momijigari maps appear — A6 size, made to be tucked into a wallet. On them, each temple has a leaf icon with a number indicating the stage of color. At JR Kyoto, Arashiyama, Nikko, and Miyajima stations, posters with the forecast for the coming week hang. Some even include photographs from that very day: the Shisen-dō garden in light mist, reflections of maples in the pond at Tōfuku-ji, red tunnels of leaves on Mount Takao.

These maps — digital and paper — say one thing:

“Autumn is here only for a moment. If you want to see it, you must be attentive.”

And that is the essence of modern momijigari: it is not about seeing leaves. It is about catching the moment in which the world is exactly what it can be only now.

Autumn in Japan is not a color. It is a time. A time that must be noticed and accepted.
This requires attentiveness — the same attentiveness practiced a thousand years ago in the imperial gardens of Heian, and later on the battlefields of the samurai.

Momijigari continues, but today — supported by maps on a smartphone.

Technology does not always harm.

The Japanese have a peculiar ability to use new inventions for the things that are truly important in life.

Momijigari is the autumn practice of walking among colorful maples, combining tradition, mindfulness, and an awareness of impermanence. A Japanese “hunt for time.”

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