Temple Lodging Help
 

In Japan next month and looking for any recommendations or advice for temple lodging in Kyoto or Nara. Just looking to stay one night and would like to participate in their morning services. Some interaction with monks would be great. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mount Koya, hands down. A distant second would be the Myoshin-ji subtemples. Don't bother with Enryaku-ji, it's not worth it despite the World Heritage status of the temple itself.

I know that the Kyoto tourist information center has a handout with a list of shukubo (temple stays) in Kyoto City, but I don't have a digital copy handy. There are a couple in Kyoto that I heard good things about besides Myoshin-ji, but I have forgotten their names.

I second the recommendation on Koyasan. It's been many years since I visited Koyasan but I still have fond memories of the experience.

You can find several threads here on Flyertalk by searching on Koyasan or Koya (Mt. Koya). Here are some other sites you can check out:

http://www.shukubo.jp/eng/index.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4900.html
http://wikitravel.org/en/Mount_Koya

Definitely Koya-san.

It takes a while to get there, but the scenery is an added bonus.