By HIROKO TABUCHI
Associated Press
TOKYO, Japan -- The Kamiyacho Open Terrace cafe in central Tokyo
has all the trappings of a trendy establishment - good coffee,
homemade dessert, an airy terrace.
But what makes the cafe truly interesting is its setting: inside
the Buddhist Komyoji temple, one of many across Japan offering new
services - concerts, discos, yoga classes - in a struggle to stay
relevant despite an increasingly secular society.
"For Japanese, temples were once a part of daily life," said
24-year-old owner, and monk, Keisuke Matsumoto. "I want Kamiyacho
Open Terrace to be a place people can drop in casually ... and
perhaps become a little curious about Buddhism."
The young priest will need patience and optimism. More than a
millennium after it first arrived from mainland Asia in the sixth
century, Buddhism is in crisis.
About 94 million Japanese were registered as Buddhist in 2005,
almost three-quarters of the country's population. But for many,
the only time they enter a temple is to attend a funeral - driving
many of the country's 75,000 temples to the verge of
bankruptcy.
"Some priests can't even put food on the table from their
temple-related work," said Takanobu Nakajima, an economics
professor at Tokyo's Keio University. "Their congregations are so
small the priests take second jobs and still barely manage to
scrape by."
So young Buddhists like Matsumoto are trying to turn that around by
reaching out to new groups - and employing some clever
entrepreneurship.
At Matsumoto's cafe, which overlooks a garden dotted with
gravestones, visitors don't pay with money, but with prayer. All
the coffee, tea and sweets served by robe-clad monks in the open
terrace are free. Instead, the monks - all volunteers from nearby
temples - suggest patrons put their hands together in prayer at the
temple's grand altar before they leave.
Some temples are branching out in other ways.
The Tsukiji Honganji temple in central Tokyo, for instance, offers
theological seminars in English for foreigners, and has fitted its
main hall with a pipe organ and conducts Western-style weddings to
attract young couples who prefer a white dress and tuxedo to a
traditional Buddhist ceremony.
Zenshoan temple in central Tokyo streams Buddhist sermons on the
Internet, while Higashi Honganji temple aired games from the World
Cup in Germany to attract local soccer fans.
In addition to his cafe, Matsumoto's Komyoji temple offers weekly
yoga classes. He also spearheads higan.net, a Web-based movement of
young monks who organize festivals, discos and meditation sessions,
and write daily blog entries on everything from Buddhist cuisine to
music.
For priests who are stumped for ideas, help is increasingly at
hand.
Hideo Usui, an editor at Gekkan Butsuji, a Buddhist monthly
journal, has launched a Web site offering advice for priests trying
to modernize their practices. Recent entries include "Buddhist
rites for the modern lifestyle" and "Using the Internet to take
funeral orders."
"Priests got so used to easy money, so they didn't make an effort
to innovate or to recruit new parish members," Usui said. "Now,
that's changing."
Indeed, the money troubles are a major comedown for a Buddhist
clergy that in the 1980s was known for its flashy lifestyle.
Awash with cash as Japan's postwar economy boomed, temples once
extracted huge donations from their congregations and charged
exorbitant sums for lavish funerals - often over 2 million yen,
more than $17,000 at today's exchange rate.
But the good times ended when Japan's economic bubble burst in the
early 1990s, making elaborate funerals and other extravagances a
thing of the past. And while Japan's aging population has meant
more funerals, the departed now typically have fewer descendants to
share the bill, putting a premium on discount services.
Buddhist leaders also face some cultural roadblocks.
Few Japanese strictly stick to one religion, instead picking and
choosing as they please from many. A family might celebrate births
at a shrine of the native Shinto religion and weddings at a
Christian church, for example. Buddhists have specialized in
funerals - which hasn't helped their image.
And Matsumoto's cafe, which opened in 2004, hasn't led to many
recruits so far. An office worker who often eats her packed lunch
at the cafe said while she was now more interested in the religion,
she didn't have immediate plans to join the temple's
congregation.
"I hadn't even thought of it," said Sayaka Miura, a marketing
assistant at a broadcasting company.
Matsumoto is undaunted. He recently put on a free rock concert at
Tsukiji Honganji temple for 1,000 twenty- and thirty-somethings who
went wild to the beats of the Zazen Boys before settling down for a
Buddhist sermon.
"I want temples to become a part of everyday life again," Matsumoto
said. "There's a lot Buddhism can offer modern society. ... It's
just a matter of what temples are going to do about it."
