Daily Yamabushi

“If you’re down, all that it means is that you can jump back higher than before.”

For interview practice I asked a student of mine someone they admire and why. His answer was his grandmother, simply because she said this to him when he was disappointed in himself and feeling down. This was a great lesson for him, and I think it can be a lesson for all of us too.

The lower you go, the more you have to gain. And the more you have to grow.

At the same time I’m a Kiwi, a Yamabushi, a mountaineer, a university teacher, a swimmer, a runner, a cyclist, a triathlete, a photographer, a videographer, a youtuber, a website designer, a translator, an interpreter, a writer, a blogger, a localiser, an SNS manager, a communications manager, a coffee enthusiast, a baker, a musician, a radio DJ, a consultant, a liaison, a bridge between two very distinct cultures, a husband, son, and brother of course, and I can draw on all these experiences and perspectives to share with the world.

Obviously I have too much on my plate, but I like to think it works. And I think it is this unique combination of things that gives me a unique perspective that I hope others can benefit from. If I were to do nothing with this experience, to not attempt to share it with the world, I feel it would be wasted. And I think others should do the same.

You have a unique viewpoint of the world and we want to hear it. It is intriguing to learn about other people, how they got to where they are, and where they think they themselves or the world as a whole is going, and what they’re doing to impact that. If we can better communicate with one another, we can better help each other. One great way to do that is to produce content in some way or another that shows your uniqueness to the world 🙂

There is a stark difference between knowing something well, and being confident in it. You can be knowledgeable about investing. But without confidence, you won’t be able to put that knowledge to the test, and you won’t be able to gain from that knowledge. You can be knowledgable about language. But without confidence, you won’t be able to make use of that knowledge and use the language for the reason it is there, to be used as a tool for communication.

Knowledge is only ever useful if you have the confidence to use it. Otherwise it’s just knowledge.

Full disclosure: This blog post was heavily inspired by a conversation with my colleague Mirzosaid Sultonov.

Ten years ago, I was just over half a year into my life in Japan. I felt the earthquake, and remember it being very long. However, being on the opposite coast of the Tsunami, besides the lack of resources for a few weeks we were fine. Others not so much.

I volunteered and spent some time clearing rubble in Minamisanrikumachi in Miyagi. Out of respect we were asked not to take photos, so I don’t have any to share, but I remember the building we were in charge of clearing being a doctor’s office, and I specifically remember finding what looked to have been an expensive watch. It made me wonder how it got there, had it recently been on the arm of someone who was now not with us?

I’m not sure how common this is in Japan these days, but Japan is known for ancestor worship, and especially in the Shonai region where I live this is very important.

I’ve written about this before here, but there exists a belief called Kannabi Shinko in Japan. Kannabi Shinko must be a Shugendo belief because it combines elements of Shintoism and Buddhism, but it’s believed that when we pass, our souls spend time in the mountains doing their own version of what I guess is Yamabushi training.

Guided by 13 Buddha, our souls spend 33 years starting from the lower mountains and slowly making their way to the top of the higher mountains, in the case of Shonai, that is Mt. Gassan. Once they reach the summit, they turn into Kami gods that look over all of us here on earth.

It is believed that the souls of the ancestors that are prayed to turn into gods that bring good, but at the same time those who aren’t prayed to bring evil. So when a large natural disaster like 3.11 happens, and whole families are wiped out, naturally there is no one to pray for them, and the cycle of evil continues.

That is why when we do Yamabushi training, we pray for the souls of those who have no one left to pray for them. So to say they are not with us is incorrect. They are with us, we just have to remember them.

So you’re starting out something new; a new language, a new art, a new social media even, but you’re worried that everyone is so far ahead of you and that you’d never be able to catch up. Besides the obvious ‘they’ve been in your shoes, now it’s your turn to put in the work’, there’s another piece of advice that is just as valuable.

When you’re starting out, or even if you are quite advanced, there’s always going to be someone better than you at something (if not, you probably don’t need to read this). And the thing is, that person is starting further on down the road, which means that there’s only so much they can learn. But you on the other hand, you have the chance to gain so much more than them. Plus, you have the benefit of their experience to draw upon.

So, don’t be dejected by people better than you, and instead think of them as a resource to provide both motivation and advice on what to /what not to do. Just remember that you can never be them, but you can be your own version of them, and be ok with trying different things to get to where you want to go.

There used to be Yamabushi who lived on Mt. Haguro, and they spent their whole lives there. When the Dewa Sanzan forcibly switched to all Shintoism during the Meiji Period (1868 onwards), when Buddhism and eventually Shugendo were banned, these Yamabushi effectively disappeared. They were all forced to switch to Shintoism, or return to secular life. Can you imagine that? You’ve spent your whole life living in a mountain monastery, and then they force you to switch religions, or stop being religious altogether. Anyway, there were upwards of 30 temples on Mt. Haguro before then, but all but three were destroyed (Kezoin become Saikan, and Shozen’in Koganedo and Kotakuji survived as Buddhists, and technically Jakkoji became Dewa Sanzan shrine).

In contrast to the Yamabushi that lived on the mountain, there were Yamabushi who lived at the base of Mt. Haguro in the Shukubogai, the pilgrim lodge village. To run a Shukubo pilgrim lodge you have to be a Yamabushi, and to keep their businesses running through the same family, these Yamabushi were allowed to have wives. The name for these Yamabushi is literally ‘the Yamabushi allowed to have wives’. In the Edo period, the Dewa Sanzan had more than 2 million visitors annually, and to accommodate them, there were 360 Shukubo pilgrim lodges. Shukubo are like hotels purpose built for pilgrimages. Up until about the 1930s or 40s (I’m guessing here), it was possible to run a Shukubo as a full-time job. Shukubo all have a Shinden, or an altar for ceremonies, and they all provide Shojin Ryori (the ascetic cuisine of the Dewa Sanzan), and things like amulets and other items used on pilgrimages. However, Shukubo must be run by the same family, they have to get blessings from the Shrine (in the past it would have been the temple), and demographics have meant that over time the popularity of the Dewa Sanzan has fallen dramatically. So much so that these days the number has dwindled down to 28 remaining Shukubo.

Lastly, we have the Satoyama Yamabushi. That’s what I am. A Satoyama Yamabushi is someone who doesn’t live on Mt. Haguro or on the Dewa Sanzan, but does train there at least once a year, specifically during the weeklong Akinomine Autumn Peak ritual from the 26th of August. The Yamabushi that run the Shukubo, and we Satoyama Yamabushi, all have normal lives outside of our Yamabushi lives. We just happen to also be Yamabushi and do training every once in a while. In what is known as Hansei Hanzoku, half-sacred, half-secular, we believe that having a normal life is the best way to connect nature and the lives of ordinary everyday people.

So, besides those who run Shukubo and have retired, or technically those who run the shrines and temples, there are no full-time Dewa Sanzan Yamabushi, or at least Yamabushi who can make a comfortable living just from doing Yamabushi things 🙂

I’ve taken on a few projects and have no idea how they will transpire. The 100 mountains of Yamagata project, the dewasanzan website, this blog, among others. These projects are unpredictable. I have no idea how they will turn out, but I have a secret weapon.

If you care enough and do things for the sake of generosity, then see a project through, you can make the unpredictable a reality. If you care enough and keep pushing a generous idea onwards, the unpredictable becomes the realistic. If you care enough and are generous, you will be pleasantly surprised at what the unpredictable is.

I’m going to use today’s blog post to collect my thoughts, I hope you don’t mind.

The Dewa Sanzan, the three mountains of Dewa in Yamagata Prefecture, have been home to Yamabushi (mountain monks or ascetics) training since Prince Hachiko founded them in 592. I believe that the theory of mountains of rebirth comes from people who have done the training trying to explain the experience to those who haven’t. This is an impossible task, but this way we can have some way of expressing the sensation. As with basically everything in life, seeing, or in this case doing, is believing. So, to truly understand the answer to this question, I highly recommend you to try and do the training yourself (see yamabushido.jp).

Over the years, thousands and thousands of Yamabushi ventured into the three mystical peaks in the search of answers to life’s deepest secrets. When they came out, they were overcome with a feeling of euphoria that they likened to being reborn. At its purest sense, I believe this feeling is exactly where the mountains of rebirth originated. Then, to further give meaning to the place, each of the mountains was given a moniker, or a cosmic realm to represent; Mt. Haguro the present, where the troubles of the current world are overcome; Mt. Gassan represents the past or the afterlife, where we come face to face with our ancestors (if you actually go up there on a foggy day when you have to walk on snow, it really does feel like walking through the version of heaven that is depicted in movies); and Mt. Yudono, which is known as the location we are reborn. The reason for this is obvious if you go there as there is a sacred object that literally represents where we are born/ reborn.

Collectively, by venturing through these three cosmic realms, we take our souls on a symbolic travel through all time, similar to the time when we are in the womb. Likewise, as there is this concept of rebirth, the mountains where we train are the mother, and they represent the womb where we develop and grow, before we are ready to in this case return to the real world, or our real bodies. In the training, we metaphorically die (we have a ceremony called the Buchushiki which acts as our funeral, our Tsue sticks are representative of our gravestones), and our souls embark on a journey into the mountains (AKA the womb). We wear white Hokan like a turban, on our heads and this has a few representations, one of them being the umbilical cord. All these things are designed to best connect us to nature, the mother, for us to have realisations while there that we can take back to our everyday lives when we are reborn.

And so, by training as Yamabushi, we are able to get back to our original selves, back to a simpler time, or I would say mental state, that gives us clarity as we go on this journey of life. For me it has been amazingly helpful to be able to call upon my experience in the mountains when things get tough, and similarly to stay grounded when I need to stay humble. This is why I think everyone should do the training at least once. And this is what I think it means to be reborn on the Dewa Sanzan.

If you could reach anybody in the world, influential or otherwise, who would it be, and what would you tell them? Well, you know, this isn’t a thought experiment, it’s actually possible.

One of the scariest and at the same time encouraging things about any public content online is that you have no idea who is looking at it. If you think about it this way, that alone could be a motivating factor in producing good content time and time again.

Think of anyone in the world, and create something for them. Do it enough, and you never know, it might just reach them. If the content is good, they might even pass it on, and that to me is as good a reason as any to constantly try and create good content.

I think anxiety is quite a normal thing, it happens to me every once in a while. Anxiety I define as worry about the future, often unwarranted in my case, which by definition means that you are not focusing on the now.

If you are able to take comfort in the fact that you are not living in the now, so you need to try and become more present, then that’s great. You can get over the anxiety quite quickly. But if you can’t, you’re going to need to do something that forces you into the moment. That will stop your focus on the future.

That’s where things like Yamabushi training, getting out into nature, meditation, or creative endeavours come into the equation. As I’ve experienced it, these things are able to remind us that the future is yet to come, i.e. it doesn’t exist, and worrying about it will not help.

For me, I think there’s a sort of reassuring nature in these activities. While this may sound paradoxical, Yamabushi training reassures me that I can always do Yamabushi training, and I think the same can be said for the other activities.

Being able to reassure yourself is a life skill. But as with all skills, it’s learnable. You just have to get out and do something about it, no living in your head.

When we make decisions, we weigh up the struggle against the potential benefit. At times, however, it is precisely that struggle that begets the potential benefit.

We can give ourselves challenges as a kind of contained struggle; a struggle without the real risk, so to speak. This is because we believe that by getting through this struggle, or by seeing how we react in trying to get through the struggle, we learn about ourselves, and we benefit.

Of course most of the struggle we have is not optional. But by giving ourselves challenges and seeing how we do deal with struggle, we can see that we have a choice about how we deal with real struggle when it arises. Which is to say, there are real benefits in challenging ourselves and getting through struggle, real or otherwise.

Mountains are where we are reborn.

Mountains are where our troubles go.

Mountains are unforgiving.

Mountains are forgiving.

Mountains are where we live.

Mountains are where we die.

Mountains are our respite.

Mountains are our reassurance.

Mountains are our peace.

Mountains are our salvation.

Wherever we go in life, whatever we do, whatever happens, the mountains are there. It is the mountains that give us reason. It is the mountains that give us purpose. It is the mountains that give us life.

Ichigoichie. Each moment is fleeting. This is a huge learning from Zen and is especially popular with tea ceremony in Japan. Ichigoichie is about treating each moment with the respect it deserves. Our situation also deserves the same respect.

What’s exciting for you? What gets you up in the morning? And if you can’t think of anything off hand, what would be something that would do that? Another way to think of it is, who is doing something that you admire and is someone you aspire to be like? While you may not be able to replicate their success, you can at least work towards creating your own form of success.

Respect the situation. Someone is better than you at doing something you want to do. What can you do about it? If you do nothing, nothing will happen. If you work towards changing the situation to be in your favour, the moments expand exponentially to be in your favour.

Treat every moment with the respect it deserves. Treat yourself with the respect you deserve.

Sometimes we work really hard on something only to see it flop. Similarly, we don’t spend much time on something and it goes really well. In both situations, we should feel proud of ourselves, but at the same time we need to detach ourselves from the work.

I’ve heard of cases of people being so successful in say writing a book or making music, so successful that they feel they could never do something better, and so they get the attitude of ‘why even try?’

Likewise I’ve been on the receiving end of dedicating a whole lot of time to something only to see it flop. We can’t be dejected, as that won’t help anyone. The only thing we can do is accept the situation, and move on.

I find that by detaching ourselves from our work as much as possible, it is much easier to accept the situation. We have to see our work as a separate entity from us, which it is, and have faith in knowing that what really matters is putting pencil to paper, the creativity. As long as we get back on our horse, and get creating, we will be fine. Just don’t take it personally.

As a translator, google translate is the bane of my existence. Not that you shouldn’t use it, it’s great for isolated words and short phrases, but websites? Give me a break.

Which is why I’m glad the new Yamagata website used humans for the main translations. I actually complained directly to the prefectural governor just over a year ago, and I am glad she took my words seriously.

Looking at the translations though, you really do see a need for not just translation, but localisation. The translators did a great job, but the source material they were working with isn’t exactly easy to use. So, ultimately you need someone with an ability in both languages who also understands the culture behind both. That is never easy to come across, but they do exist, and I’m one of them when it comes to the Dewa Sanzan 🙂 or at least I try to be.

I understand that it’s not easy to find people with an experience like mine, but you have to think of the purpose of the website in the first place. If you’re wanting to get people to visit the prefecture, which is usually the aim of such websites, google translate can have the opposite effect.

It can be off putting to see a website that doesn’t care enough to provide information in proper English or the language you speak, but thankfully the opposite is true. Caring enough to put in the time to create content that resonates with the people you wish to serve, that is the real determiner.

I always say that ideas are never enough. Without acting on ideas, they are entirely useless. But if your idea requires the changing of the culture, then it is much more important that you act on it.

Which is to say I support those who share their thoughts and but also live by their values. My philosophy is to live and let live, so as long as you aren’t harming anybody, live your life and live your values. Perhaps even create something that is representative of those values: Making things better by making better things -Seth Godin.

Simply speaking up about a problem is never enough. It takes leadership, courage, and action to show what is viable. Only by acting on our ideas can we show others the possibility of a better future.

When you learn a second language, or even analyze your own mother tongue, sometimes it’s hard to say whether something is language, or whether it is culture. For example, we always say how are you, but often it is just a way to begin a conversation. In Japanese, most of the time it’s strange to say this, and we tend to talk about the weather to get the ball rolling. Is this language? Or is it culture?

To me, language and culture are the same thing. Language is how you express your culture. But culture is also how you express your language.

Cultural exchange is one of the best ways to develop innovative ideas. If we all learned how to better express ourselves and our culture, we could better work together and help each other to form new ideas that advance the human race. That is why I am all for second language learning in any context.

I’ve been using clubhouse a bit more in the past few days, and there’s a real difference between the people who go out of their way to set up rooms and conversations with people, and those who don’t, and the ones who do seem to be really making the most of the app.

Which is to say, I’ve been in a lot of language learning rooms, and the people who make the effort to speak up, they are the ones who will make ground. The app is so well suited to bilinguals, I’ve never seen anything like it, and frankly am really glad it exists (just waiting for a video version).

I spent way too long this afternoon trying to get a template to work on my blog. I still can’t get it to work, and I think I’ll just modify an old one I made that works. WordPress is great in that you can do a lot, but it’s extremely unintuitive, and you have to add a whole lot of plugins just to do the most simple things.

The reason I use it is because it’s easy to write a blog post on and have it show up looking at least decent. But that was after a lot of trial and error. I’ve already invested a few hundred into plugins, buying the lifetime versions. I don’t want to put to these to waste, but I’m beginning to think of another service, which might just be cheaper anyway.

These are sunk costs that I might just have to suck up. If I think about it in terms of how much use I got out of these plugins in the past few years, well I guess it’s not too bad after all. I’m going to be spending money anyway, may as well do it on something I can at least use easily.

There are times in our lives where things are simply overwhelming, when it feels like things are coming at you from all directions and you don’t have the energy or ability to stay on top of them.

At times like this, it helps to take a step back, breathe, and just let it all sink in. When you have a mountain of things to deal with, take them on one by one. By doing so, it makes it easier to focus on the now, on the task at hand, rather than all the stuff in the background that just distracts you.

To be focused means to be in the moment. Make that moment an important one.

There’s a shop near here that is (was) famous for their pumpkin pies. The pies were small, like those fruit mince pies you get at Christmas, and they were very good indeed. The shop was really cool too, it had a Kura or old school storehouse, right next to it and the shop was always busy. Until it wasn’t.

Sometime last year, the oven that bakes the pumpkin pies broke. So you’d think they’d fix it, or get a new one, right? Apparently not. Apparently there’s no one in the direct family, so instead they’re just going to finish up the business.

I’m not sure how long this business has been running, I’m sure it’s a long time because the buildings were at least somewhat old (I’m not sure whether the Kura was there at the start or not), and they certainly had a loyal following, but I can’t believe they’d be so selfish as to close for such a petty reason.

A lot of the time Japanese Omotenashi (Japanese term for hospitality) is self-serving. I love Japan and think people should be able to do what they want, but things like this really make me think about whether they are doing things for the people (so-called Omotenashi) , or for their own pride or selfish reasons. Of course this isn’t always the case, but sometimes it is.

He who knows no foreign language does not truly know his own -Vygotsky

On the surface it may sound surprising but learning a second language actually teaches you more about your own language.

If you really want to understand yourself, try to understand others. The more different the other, the more there is to understand.

Japanese people are very proud of their seasons. Or, you should probably say the stark differences between each season. But without experiencing it, it’s hard to see what the fuss is about. Today, I felt it though.

I walked to the five story pagoda of Mt. Haguro. I went there a few weeks ago when there was about a foot of snow, but today there was more than a metre. I don’t mean on the sides of the path, I mean the path was literally below a metre of snow.

What was interesting about that though, was that a new path had been formed on top of all that snow that takes you on a slightly different route than you would usually go. I’m talking a difference of maybe 50cm max, but also I could get right up to the Jijisugi, the grandfather cedar, and got a completely different view than normal.

When the Japanese talk about seasons, I think they’re talking about the different ways we can experience nature through the seasons.

Every day you go out is different, which means every day you go out has a different way of delighting you. And that is where I believe the attraction lies.

We humans have a fear of silence when in conversation, so clubhouse is an interesting proposition as we are trying to keep the conversation going as well as we can. For me, I like the occasional pause and think it’s a good thing, it shows you are comfortable with the people you are around. But on clubhouse or in similar situations, the silence ironically really stands out.

I hosted a talk on clubhouse last night for the first time. It was great, I got to talk to a good friend about living in Tohoku, and another friend joined who I hadn’t talked to in a while. I have now done a panel discussion and a small group chat and I must say, unless you are extremely charismatic and have planned plenty of things to talk about in advance, panel chats are probably the way to go.

Our chat last night was good, but with a bit more preparation it could be much better and more interesting for the listeners. As with everything, a bit of marketing wouldn’t hurt either, meaning actually having a target audience in mind, and speaking to their needs.

On a personal level, I need to be more energetic, I always feel that when I’m doing my radio show and in my YouTube videos. I’m going to have to find some way to switch it on because it’s a bit unnatural for me, maybe have some coffee right beforehand?

Videography and photography is an interesting one because while you’re out in the field, you have to know what footage to get with your camera, and at the same time be cognizant of what you can do with your computer.

This is rather different than writing blogs, at least in my experience, as there is so much information available online you can use to help you. When it comes to videography and photography, you have to do the data collection yourself. That makes it that much more challenging, but also that much more rewarding when you can pull it off (which I am yet to do).

One advantage of working on new projects is that at the beginning stages you can see a lot of area for improvement. In fact, if you’re really new, improvements are all you can make.

I’ve been working on a video, but there are a lot of areas in the filming part that I can make improvements on. For starters, I was using a narrow lens, and all you see are closeups of my face and not much background, which is what I want to focus on. There are some things that I should have filmed but forgot, so I need to remind myself to get those shots, and I can think more about the story in doing so too. Not to mention, I should probably be more upbeat!

These are the sorts of things we need to make sure to do every single time we go out and work on something creative. And that’s just the starting point. Once you have that down, other areas where you can improve show their ugly face. Which is to say, improvements are all you can make.

Every day, do something towards your goal, no matter how small. Some days you won’t be feeling it, and that’s ok. Just do what you consider to be the bare minimum. On days when you do feel it, you’ll have the advantage of the prior day’s effort, and that is a million times better than having to start over from scratch.