# Araya: Buddhist Meditation — Learn, sit, and build a temple

> Learn, sit, and build a temple (iPhone/iPad app by Takeaki Hashimoto.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/araya-buddhist-meditation/id6802515797 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Takeaki Hashimoto](https://appshunter.io/developer/6775720582)
- Category: Health & Fitness, Education
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 19 MB
- Languages: American English, Hindi, Japanese
- Released: 2026-08-23
- Data updated: 2026-09-09
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/araya-buddhist-meditation/id6802515797/reviews.md

## What is Araya?

There are many meditation apps. But Buddhism explained why meditation works a very long time ago.

Araya is an app for learning, sitting with, and growing into the two great ideas of Mahayana Buddhism: emptiness and consciousness-only (Yogacara).

■ Sit — contemplations that meditate on the teaching itself
- Four contemplations on emptiness: Observing the Five Aggregates / Contemplating Dependent Origination / Analyzing the Absence of Own-Being / The Form-and-Emptiness Breath
- Four Yogacara contemplations: Labeling the Eight Consciousnesses / Watching the Manas / Turning the Three Natures / The Dream Contemplation
- Three minutes each, with a spoken guide. Choose the voice, its pitch and its speed.
- 4-7-8 breathing, with the longest out-breath. Follow in, hold and out by ear with one of four sounds: Zen temple (singing bowl, wooden fish, temple bell), shakuhachi, waves, or a voice.
- Keeps playing with the screen off, so you can sit with your eyes closed.

■ Garden — build a temple of your own
- Yogacara teaches that every act is sown as a seed in the depths of the mind, and sprouts in time.
- The more you meditate and study, the more a ruined chapel grows into a great temple.
- Raise the seven halls one by one: main hall, mountain gate, bell tower, garden, purification pavilion, kuri and lecture hall.
- Move buildings freely on the grid, and adorn the grounds with paving stones, stone lanterns, Jizo statues, pines and a pond.
- Pilgrims walk from the gate to the alms box, and offerings gather over time.
- Clear the wilderness to widen the grounds, all the way to a five-storied pagoda.
- Every sitting or lesson advances construction. Your practice is the temple's strength.

■ Monk — raise a monk
- Your monk climbs a real path of practice, the path to arhatship: from ordinary being, through the Three Worthies and the Four Roots of Merit, to stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arhat.
- Promotion depends on the wholesome seeds stored in the alaya-vijnana.
- Six stages of growth, from a rough novice to the face of a sage.
- Attributes are the six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, effort, meditation and wisdom.
- A broken streak is fine. Coming back counts as patience.

■ Study — a real course in Mahayana Buddhism
- From the Four Truths and dependent origination to the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddha-nature.
- Five-minute lessons with the original verse, a quiz, and Sanskrit terms alongside the Japanese.

■ Japanese, English and Hindi
- Switch any time in Settings. Every lesson, contemplation and hall description is translated.

Free, with no ads. All data stays on your device; no account needed. Optional offerings (in-app purchases) support development and do not affect the game.

Playing the game is itself a textbook of Yogacara.
One seed today, for your alaya-vijnana.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.4 — 2026-09-06

Araya is now free.
To everyone who bought it before: thank you. Your support carried it this far.

Offering book
You will find an "Offering book" in the Build sheet and in Settings.
One roof tile, one pillar, a share of the temple bell, the pagoda's foundation stone: just as temples of old were rebuilt on offerings, we welcome donations that keep this app growing.
Offerings have no effect on the game. No seeds or alms are added; they are simply recorded in the book.
Please give only what is comfortable, in the spirit of dana.

### 1.3 — 2026-09-03

Now in English and Hindi. Switch any time in Settings; every lesson, contemplation and hall description is translated.

Settings (top right of the Monk tab)
- Choose the guide voice, and adjust its pitch and speed.
- Breath cue on/off, volume and sound are all here too.

Breath cues
- Breathing is now 4-7-8, with the longest out-breath, and every sound is tuned to those lengths.
- New Shakuhachi sound: the breath runs out over the 8-second exhale, so you can hear where it ends.
- Waves: the sea goes still while you hold, so the turn from in to hold to out is clear.
- New Voice sound: says when to breathe in, hold and breathe out.

### 1.2 — 2026-08-29

庭が「自分だけの寺をつくる」箱庭になりました。

■ 七堂伽藍を建てる
本堂・山門・鐘楼・庭園に加えて、手水舎・庫裏・講堂を建立できるようになりました。
それぞれの建物には、その伽藍が何のための場所なのかという解説が付いています。
五重塔まで建てれば、寺の再興は完成です。

■ マス目の上に自由に配置
建物は長押しでつまんで、好きな場所へ動かせます。
石畳を敷いて参道をつくり、石灯籠・お地蔵さま・庭石・黒松・池・五重石塔で境内を彩れます。
荒れ地を開墾すれば、境内そのものを広げられます。

■ レベルが上がるたびに、寺の姿が変わる
建物は九段階まで育ちます。大改築で外観そのものが変わるほか、
レベルが上がるごとに赤提灯が灯り、幟旗が立ち、最上位では注連縄が掛かります。

■ 参拝者と賽銭
寺が大きく、境内が美しいほど参拝者が増え、山門から賽銭箱へと参道を歩いていきます。
賽銭（浄財）は時間とともに貯まり、それが次の普請の元手になります。

■ 修行が寺を進める
建物の工事は実時間で進みますが、坐禅や学習をするたびに30分ずつ早く進みます。
日課を勤めて得た「行（ぎょう）」は、外観が変わる大改築に使います。

■ 成長の階梯を刷新
修行の階梯が「阿羅漢（あらかん）への道」になりました。
凡夫から三賢・四善根を経て、預流・一来・不還、そして阿羅漢果へ——
阿頼耶識に蓄えた善種子の数で昇っていきます。
六波羅蜜もすべて実践できるようになりました（持戒＝日課、布施＝一句を分かち合う、
忍辱＝坐り切る・途切れても戻ってくる）。

■ 呼吸の音を三種類から
禅寺（おりん・木魚・梵鐘）／笛／波の三つから選べます。
どれも吸う・止める・吐くの長さをそのまま音で知らせ、
息を吐き切るまで音が変わり続けます。音量調整とオン／オフもできます。
画面を消してもバックグラウンドで鳴り続けるので、目を閉じたまま坐れます。

■ その他
・ガイド音声の読みを修正しました（色即是空・空即是色ほか）

### 1.0 — 2026-08-24

No release notes.

## More apps by Takeaki Hashimoto

- [NeckGuard: Text Neck Monitor](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/neckguard-text-neck-monitor/id6775720580)
- [Kuu: Ride Out the Urge](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kuu-ride-out-the-urge/id6801987654)
- [MapQ](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mapq/id6803341464)

All apps by Takeaki Hashimoto: https://appshunter.io/developer/6775720582

---

*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-09.*