Dharma a capella

Japanese Buddhism keeps meandering, looking for a way to enter contemporary Japanese culture. At times, it gets entertaining. Quite literally, but not really.

"In the beginning, some people thought there was a funeral wake going on inside and just left," said Kyoko Sakamoto, who runs the establishment. "But now, people come for the comfort that the sounds of sutra offer." The monks perform three or four pieces each time and later sit among the audience, sometimes offering advice on life's problems to those who seek it. (...)

"Suffering in society cannot be addressed if monks just stay cooped up inside their temples," said Noriyuki Ueda, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Tokyo Institute of Technology. "Buddhism in Japan will surely become more relevant if the number of younger generation monks with ambition to spread the word increases." Ueda, who serves as an adviser to the monks' meetings at Seishoji, says the only way to revitalize Buddhism is for monks to have greater contact with the world at large.

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