Buddhist temples brighten up their image

The kanji character “katsu,” meaning activity, is prolific of hybrids. Regular readers of this column will know “shukatsu” (job-hunting activity) and “konkatsu” (marriage-partner-hunting activity). “Tera-katsu” is trickier. “Tera” means temple. Temple activity? What might that be?

“Many people associate temples exclusively with funerals, graves, prayer services,” says Josei Jishin (June 16). Of course they do – what else?

Quite a lot else, lately. In a society whose materialism, speed and fierce competition seem worlds removed from core Buddhist values, temples are reaching out to ordinary people – and finding a surprisingly eager response, the magazine reports.

Symbolic is TV Asahi’s “Priest Variety Show Bucchiaketera.” That a “priest variety show” exists at all is something of a wonder. That it’s popular enough to rate a prime time slot is… what’s going on here?

Two things in particular. One: a return to core values characteristic of times of rapid change. Two: the temples themselves, liberated from sectarian exclusiveness by mutual contact online, are lightening up their dour image. Buddhism, a new generation of young priests is stressing, is not only grim, solemn and otherworldly. In fact, it’s rather fun at times.

Some temples offer temple cafes, temple cuisine. What is temple cuisine? Vegetarian, naturally, since Buddhism bans meat-eating. But the point, explains priest-chef Koyu Iinuma of the Tendai Fukushoji Temple in Kawasaki, “is not vegetarianism for vegetarianism’s sake but to remind us that a Buddha resides in all natural things and that we are to take our food in the spirit of reverence.”

A glance at his menu suggests the range of his culinary tastes – from Japanese to Italian. Thus, “bamboo shoot udon pasta,” or “mountain-plant seaweed salad with lemon dressing.”

A temple cafe is as likely as not to double as a culture center. Such is the Tera Cafe in Tokyo’s Shibuya, operated by the Pure Land Shinshu Hongan Temple in Kawasaki. Drop in and copy a sutra, or take in a Buddhist lecture – in English, if that’s your pleasure. At certain times priests who are qualified counselors are on hand. “A lot of people are troubled,” explains cafe manager and priest Terumichi Ishibashi – “by love, jobs, social relations, SNS fatigue, what have you. Feel free to come in and talk to a priest.”

Buddhism may not be only grim, solemn and otherworldly, but it wouldn’t be true to life if it were never that, just as it wouldn’t be true to life if it didn’t address death. This it always has done in the form of funeral services and prayers for the dead. A modern touch is provided by a peculiar adventure known as a “death experience journey.”

“It’s surprisingly popular with young people,” says Yokohama-based priest Tetsuya Uragami, who conducts a “workshop” at the Kingoji Temple in Tokyo. The workshops, he says, always draw a capacity crowd.

The idea is not Buddhist, originally – rather, a Buddhist adaptation of a concept that evolved in American hospices out of the effort to ease the passage of terminal patients into death. The journey starts, fittingly enough, with a deep breath. Then Uragami sets the scene: you went for a routine medical check and were told that your end is near. As he speaks, you are to write down your thoughts. What’s important to you? What have you taken to be important but now realize isn’t?

Some weep. But the overall mood is not despair or sorrow; rather it’s a kind of awe, as of seeing clearly for the first time once a veil has been removed.

Among the responses Josei Jishin records: “Preparing the heart for death has given me a feeling of happiness”; “It’s good to realize finally that I was mistaken about what really matters in life.”

© Japan Today