KIWI YAMABUSHI
Kia ora Koutou, I'm Tim Bunting, The Kiwi Yamabushi. I am a practicing Dewa Sanzan Yamabushi Japanese mountain ascetic (What's a Yamabushi?). I have been living in Yamagata, Tohoku, north Japan, since 2010. Since 2016, I have trained as a yamabushi under Master Fumihiro Hoshino through Daishobo pilgrim's lodge on Haguro-san, and through Dewa Sanzan Jinja. If you want to find out more about how you too can train in the ways of Shugendo, check out Yamabushido.jp (tell them I sent you).
In my spare time I write stories about the overlooked side of Japan, namely up here in the Tohoku region. I write a daily blog, have a newsletter with over 1,000 subscribers, have a YouTube channel also with over 1,000 subscribers, and am on most socials as @kiwiyamabushi.
I am currently on a mission to summit and document all 100 Famous Mountains of Yamagata.
I am available for online consultation, public speaking in both English and Japanese, and I am able to guide you on The Dewa Sanzan mountains by working through Yamabushido.jp or DewaSanzan.com. As a Master Yamabushi and the creator of Dewasanzan.com, I believe I am the most knowledgable native English speaker on these three mountains.
POPULAR ARTICLES
My newsletter articles are free to read on Substack for a week, but you can just get them sent to your email for free if you subscribe. After that, they are only available to paid subscribers. However, articles that get more than 1,000 reads I put here so everyone can enjoy them. All of the articles can be found here.
DAILY YAMABUSHI
Here are some of my Daily Yamabushi posts. Get more here.
Create, meditate, move. These would be my top steps to living well. Create means you use your brain to get your ideas in the world. This could be anything. A blog. An artwork. A new program. A class even. When it comes to creation, we often try to talk ourselves out of doing things, usually …
Mr. Kato is a 72-year-old dude who I always see at the pool. His catch phrase is ‘Koe-‘ which is Shonai dialect for ‘this is really tiring’. Well, I have a lot of respect for this man. He comes at least five times a week, and swims half of Mt. Chokai, so about 1100m. That …
As a teacher, I learned quickly that when you don’t know something, it’s best to say you don’t know, rather than trying to fake your way to an answer. Students are curious beings, well at least they should be, and they will always question the things they want to learn. If they find out that …
KIWI YAMABUSHI
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Sakata City, Yamagata, Japan
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All photos my own unless otherwise stated. Contact for more.