Japanese mountain practice.
I'm obsessed with systems, and nature is the OG. Which probably explains why I'm also very obsessed with nature. Alongside the business and community work I do, I spend a lot of time out in nature, training inside it: takigyō under waterfalls, long pilgrimage walks, fire walks, and extended periods of silence.
An open kō
Sagami Shugendō is becoming a kō (講): an open circle where people from any practice can learn the Shugen history of the Sagami mountains, and how the shugenja shaped the culture around them. It isn't a school, and it's not interested in conversations about who or what is real. The yamabushi of Japan were a decentralized network out on the mountain doing the work. They were at their strongest before the Tokugawa period, when they were mountain monks sharing information and focusing on the practice. This is about learning how the shugenja shaped the mountain cultures that shaped the culture of Japan. If you're more interested in institutionalization and who belongs with what than in the actual revival work and the practice itself, this kō is probably not for you. But the door is open for anybody who wants to come in and learn how to build their own practice.
Shinbutsu
- 権現gongen
- 大菩薩daibosatsu
- 大明神daimyōjin
The separation of kami and buddhas was a political hit job. For most practitioners, the mountain's deity went by a name that held kami and buddha as one: gongen (権現), daibosatsu (大菩薩) or daimyōjin (大明神). On Ōyama, it was Sekison Daigongen (石尊大権現). In 1868 the new Meiji government ordered the kami and the buddhas separated. Shrines and temples were split apart, Buddhist images were pulled out of the shrines, and in 1872 Shugendō itself was banned. Treating Shinto and Japanese Buddhism as two separate things is exactly why the conversation is broken. Shinto and Buddhism were two elements inside a larger practice. Shinto cannot exist without Japanese Buddhism, and Japanese Buddhism cannot exist without Shinto.
What the mountains teach
What nature keeps teaching me is structural. It shows the recursive systems that govern life. People pretend that business and career are different from the rest of life, which is where the problem begins, because there's no such thing as business problems, just personal problems showing up in your business. And nature shows you where your personal problems start. Cold, heat, waterfalls, high altitude, and sketchy cliffsides return feedback that can't be negotiated with. This is where I polish my understanding of the difference between understanding something theoretically and actually being able to do it. And I happily remain a student of this practice.
The Sagami Shugendō Kō website is currently under construction.
Until it opens, the field notes land on the Writing Desk and in Musubi Weekly.