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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 9 | Number 3 | Article ID 5394 | May 01, 2020
1
Japanese Religious Responses to COVID-19: A Preliminary
Report
Levi McLaughlin
Abstract: As the novel coronavirus swept
Japan, religious practitioners of all types
responded. This article provides an overview of
early-stage reactions by individuals and
organizations affiliated with Buddhism, Shinto,
New Religions, and other religious traditions in
Japan. It features interviews with Japanese
clergy and lay followers who contended with
social distancing and more dire consequences
of COVID-19, and it contextualizes their
responses within media coverage, sectarian
sources, and historical research. As it
highlights trends in religious reactions to the
coronavirus, such as a divide between policies
enacted by “new” and “traditional” groups, the
article discusses reasons for contrasting
responses and points to dilemmas that will face
Japan’s religious organizations after the
pandemic subsides.1
Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; religion;
Japanese religion; online religion; ritual;
disaster; Buddhism; Shinto; New Religions;
Shugendō; Soka Gakkai; Happy Science
Listen to the podcast by the author here
(https://share.transistor.fm/s/05dc7dbe) on
Japan on the Record.
Reverend Koike Yōnin, assistant priest at
the Shingon sect temple Sumadera in
Kobe, describes the benefits of shakyō
(sutra transcription) at home in a dharma
talk broadcast through YouTube
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCerl5qprP
tAhh3S1lSb8IIg). Source: Mainichi Shinbun
27 April 2020
(https://mainichi.jp/articles/20200427/dde/007/
040/037000c)
Introduction: Putting COVID-19 into
Perspective
Widespread concern about the devastating
effects of a novel coronavirus epidemic in
Wuhan province began spreading along with
the disease beyond China’s borders in January
2020. From February 4, 3,700 passengers
aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess were
quarantined in Yokohama harbor. Thirteen
passengers died, and 712 were confirmed in
Japan as infected with the disease, which the
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
2
World Health Organization (WHO) named
COVID-19 on February 11.2 The Japanese
government enacted basic policies on February
25 to forestall infection, which included calls
for residents to exercise “self-restraint”
(jishuku). Schools across Japan were requested
to close from March 2, and many businesses
shortened their hours or shut their doors. On
March 7, the Japanese government temporarily
halted visas for 2.7 million Chinese and 17,000
South Koreans. On March 24, the International
Olympic Committee announced that the Tokyo
2020 summer games would be delayed until
July 2021.3 Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
issued a Level 2 travel warning on March 25,
advising against non-essential travel outside
Japan. Expanded emergency measures were
announced on March 28, and passage to and
from Japan all but completely halted. The
workforce turned to the daunting task of
telecommuting, even though at-home high-
speed internet access rates in Japan remain
low.4
COVID-19 rates continue to rise in late
April
(https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.
html)
Overall, Japan lagged behind the global trend
to flatten the curve of a logarithmic rise in
infection rates. In contrast to countries that
enforced strict quarantine measures, and in
some cases threatened transgressors with legal
penalties, the Japanese government only issued
recommendations. While many residents
undertook self-restraint and worked remotely, a
significant percentage of businesses remained
open, commuters continued to crowd onto
trains, and school closings were uneven.5 On
April 7, 2020, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō
declared a state of emergency for seven of
Japan’s most populated prefectures. On April
16, the emergency order was expanded to the
whole country in response to an alarming rise
in COVID-19 patients who were straining
hospital capacity, a measure taken more than a
month after many other nations. At the end of
April, testing indicated that Japanese case
numbers crested to 13,000 and were still rising
(albeit at a reduced rate), and close to 400
people had died of the disease. Concern
surrounds the fact that only a small percentage
of the Japanese population was screened and
that recorded infection rates depended on
whether or not testing facilities were open.6
In mid-April, I began reaching out to religious
practitioners in Japan via email, Facebook,
Line, and other virtual means. I wanted to
know how they were dealing with the onset of
COVID-19 in Japan; how adjusting to the call
for self-restraint affected believers’ activities
and institutional policies; what kinds of ritual
responses individuals and institutions were
devising; how religious professionals handled
memorials, funerals, and other services for
socially distanced parishioners; and how clergy
coped with a sudden loss of income as in-
person services were canceled. One of the first
to respond was Reverend Asahikawa, a female
priest at a Shingon temple in a community in
Wakayama prefecture, an hour from Osaka by
train and a short distance from her
denomination’s headquarters on Mount Kōya.7
She began her thoughtful and wide-ranging
response by contextualizing the pandemic
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
3
within living Japanese memory of other
calamities:
Right now, most Japanese are carrying on
with their activities even though they are
afraid. We look for something that signifies
that we can overcome the limits of a
frightening situation, don’t we? We can
find portents in catch phrases many
citizens take up, sayings that emerge
naturally in the situation. During the Great
East Japan Earthquake disasters, the
phrase was “bonds” (kizuna). Before,
during the Second World War, it was “this
cannot be helped” (shikata ga nai). You are
probably going to think this is a very
negative way of expressing things, but the
Japanese people believe in a theory of
destiny (unmeiron). Even if they don’t use
the word “destiny” openly, they are part of
a culture of accepting everything that
happens to them. This manifests in the
words they use.
A traditional saying that provides many
with consolation now is:
Nodomoto to sugireba
Atsusa mo samusa mo higan made
Fukusuibon ni kaerazu
Literally “once the [drink] has passed the
throat, [memory of] its heat or cold will not
return to the vessel until [one attains]
enlightenment,” Asahikawa invoked a
kotowaza, a Japanese aphorism. It resonates to
a certain extent with the English proverb “once
on shore we pray no more, danger past and
God forgotten,” with the notable difference that
the Japanese expression offers promise that
understanding of pain and its origins will come
with awakening.8 Ultimately, what’s done is
done. We seek delivery from suffering in the
moment, but once suffering is past we do not
linger on it. This expression is apt, Asahikawa
stressed. It is a form of taking responsibility, an
indirect way people in Japan are employing to
exhort one another to overcome the impulse for
recrimination in the heat of the moment. “It is
imperative to see this as wisdom (prajñā) borne
of a long history of quarantining and avoiding
ostracism in village society (murahachibu),”
she explained.9 Dwelling on stress fosters social
discord. The pandemic requires some painful
swallowing of emotions, but this is pain to be
put aside.
Pain is put aside, but religions are repositories
of memory. Their activists retain experiences
and layer them atop one another to build a
foundation for informed responses to calamity.
Asahikawa’s wisdom was echoed in the
messages I received from other clergy and from
lay followers. My respondents hailed from
Buddhist and Shinto organizations, New
Religions, and other groups that intersect with
religion in some fashion. All of them reprised
Japanese religion’s long history of combining
ritual with pragmatic social engagement in the
face of disasters of all kinds. They expressed
hope, at times in prophetic terms, that
persevering through COVID-19 would lead into
a brighter future. At the same time, they made
realistic assessments about how the pandemic
will exacerbate difficulties that afflict their
groups, and Japan as a whole.
The Pandemic Exposes the “New
Religions” Stigma
Trends in Japanese religious reactions to the
coronavirus were apparent months before Abe
declared a nationwide state of emergency.
There was a notable divide in operational
shutdown measures taken by groups that bear
the label “New Religion”—that is, groups
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
4
founded in the last two centuries that are
institutionally and categorically distinct from
older sects—and organizations that enjoy the
“traditional” designation, such as Buddhist
denominations and Shinto shrines. New
Religions mostly suspended in-person contact
in mid-February while traditional groups
curtailed operations later and less completely.
There was also an urban and rural divide.
“Until March 16, there was a sense of danger,
but we could travel freely and attend talks and
the like,” reported Reverend Asahikawa. “From
March 19, everything changed when Osaka and
Kobe enacted calls to self-restrain movement.
We were to maintain two meters between
people and limit gatherings to no more than
five.” As late as April 22, Reverend Masaki, a
Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land) priest at a
temple in rural Hyōgo prefecture, reported only
minor shifts. “Ours is a farming village. We
don’t have epidemic patients here like they do
in cities, so I’m making my regular rounds.
However, we have decided to delay our
temple’s usual rites and ceremonies. There has
been only one funeral, and we were forced to
limit attendance to close relatives because of
corona. We’re under emergency orders, so this
can’t be helped (shikata nai).”
Journalists picked up on the fact that New
Religions were among the first Japanese
organizations to shutter their offices and
strictly require that their participants
communicate remotely. “On Sunday, February
16, most districts held their monthly study
meeting (zadankai),” reported Mr. Andō, a
Tokyo-area member of the Nichiren Buddhism-
based lay association Soka Gakkai. “Then on
the next day, late in the evening, we received
an email just as we held our district planning
meeting. From February 18 until mid-March,
we were to persevere in a new direction by
completely canceling all activities—holding big
and small meetings, carrying out home visits,
operating Culture Centers.” Tabloid reports
indicated that Soka Gakkai closed its general
headquarters in Tokyo at Shinanomachi on
February 17.10 Articles in the religion’s daily
newspaper Seikyō shinbun announced that all
Shinanomachi facilities would shut from
February 22. By March 20, Soka Gakkai
announced a nationwide shutdown to April 19,
and on April 28 the Gakkai administration
extended full-scale shutdown until May 31.11
“We are practicing self-restraint (jishuku).
We’re learning [about the teachings] by
watching video-on-demand as a family. Some
are studying doctrine by reading the Seikyō
shinbun. Communication between members is
only via telephone and messaging. I’ve decided
to set 10 a.m. to noon every day as my time to
chant daimoku [the title of the Lotus Sūtra].” I
was informed of this by Mrs. Shibata, a long-
term Gakkai friend. Her response typified a
new normal that set in early for housebound
adherents.
Streets around Soka Gakkai’s Hall of the
Great Vow of Kōsen Rufu remain empty
after it closes its headquarters in
Shinanomachi, Tokyo. Photo: Ogawa
Kandai (https://president.jp/articles/-/34141)
Fears of coronavirus outbreak triggered preset
Japanese biases. Rather than simply delivering
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
5
news on how New Religions were closing their
headquarters, media investigations in fact
activated their shutdown. Soka Gakkai
members confirmed to me that their religion’s
administrators were concerned about media-
driven effects should COVID-19 infection be
linked to their group. “I heard from an
administrator at the headquarters that
numerous outlets were inquiring at Soka
Gakkai in regard to the religious group in
South Korea that became a cluster,” wrote Mr.
Nishino from Chiba prefecture. On February
18, it was confirmed that a 61-year-old
parishioner of Shincheonji Church of Jesus in
Daegu, one of the first Korean carriers, had
transmitted the disease among her
congregation. By early March, more than 60%
of thousands of confirmed Korean coronavirus
cases were traced to the church. On March 2,
the 89-year-old charismatic church founder Lee
Man-hee bowed on his knees in apology at a
press conference. The mayor of Seoul launched
a lawsuit on that day against Lee and eleven
other church leaders, accusing them of
homicide and injury through violating Korea’s
Infectious Disease and Control Act. There were
nationwide calls to dismantle the church after
it was revealed that Lee and others church
members initially refused to be tested. Police
raided the Shincheonji Church, acting on
suspicions that it was falsifying information
about government-mandated testing of its
congregants. Subsequent investigation
revealed that there were no significant
differences between infection statistics
gathered by the church and the Korean
government, and the church remained
operational in late April.12
Shincheonji leader Lee Man-hin bows in
apology at a press conference in Seoul, 2
March 2020
(http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2020
/03/119_285434.html?fbclid=IwAR13ojYn5MSp
70Z-F5e0czD7-ve0H8-TgmTFXB0GzCS8T-
Zlsm5_2TO_Iy0).
In their conversations with me, members
expressed sensitivity to the negative
repercussions they, their fellow adherents, and
their group as a whole would face should a
coronavirus outbreak be linked to a Gakkai
gathering. Soka Gakkai, like all large New
Religions, is a veteran survivor of moral panic.
Ever since “religion” was imported from
English into Japanese in the mid-nineteenth
century, groups dubbed “false sects” (jashū),
“newly-arisen” or “upstart religions” (shinkō
shūkyō), or “cults” (karuto), have served as
functional opposites for those keen on
declaring religious orthodoxies.13 “New” and
“traditional” are arbitrated by politically
motivated classification schemes that cleave
boundaries between “real” and “false,” or
“good” and “bad.” Groups that violate
convention through aggressive proselytizing,
attracting socially marginalized converts,
seeking influence in electoral politics, and by
otherwise not lining up with the status quo are
regarded routinely as “false” and “bad”
examples against which to determine “real”
and “good” religion.14 Debate persists in
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
6
religious studies about whether or not “New
Religions” is a viable analytical category, given
that distinctions between “new” and
“traditional” practices tend to fall apart under
scrutiny.15 The stigma that accompanies
COVID-19 reinforces the fact that, scholarly
concerns notwithstanding, the new / traditional
religions divide has real-world consequences.
What happened to the Shinjeonchi Church
removed all doubt about what was at stake, but
New Religions in Japan most likely did not need
the reminder. Between mid-February and early
March, numerous groups that bear the label
“New Religion,” including Risshō Kōseikai,
Shinnyo-en, Seichō no Ie, and Sekai Kyūseikyō,
like Soka Gakkai, were some of the first
Japanese organizations of any sort to close
their headquarters and cancel in-person events.
Reprising Ritual Responses through New
Media
Of all of Japan’s New Religions, Kōfuku no
Kagaku, known in English as Happy Science,
probably gained the most attention for its
COVID-19 response. Indeed, thanks to
coverage in the New York Times, Happy
Science almost certainly represents the
Japanese religious response to the pandemic
for readers outside Japan. A 16 April 2020
Times article titled “Inside the Fringe Japanese
Religion that Claims It Can Cure COVID-19”
mobilized two click-bait tropes: “nefarious
cults” and “those quirky Japanese.”16 By leaning
heavily on eyebrow-raising details, the article
gestured toward prurient fears of an exotic
“cult” and reprised the tried-and-true cliché of
Japan as wacky Other—a perennial, and
essentially racist, media standard that
encourages readers to assure themselves of
their comparative normalcy.17 To be fair “nutty
cult” and “nutty Japan” clichés fit Happy
Science like a glove. For a fee, the religion
offers “spiritual vaccines” to fight COVID-19,
made available by its spiritual leader Ōkawa
Ryūhō.18 This service caught the attention of
the Times writer when sash-wearing Happy
Science adherents began handing out
brochures in the streets of virus-stricken
Manhattan. In thousands of books that bear
Okawa’s authorship, through extravagant use
of big budget animated films and other media,
and via outreach by missionizing believers, the
religion publicizes reigen, or “spirit words,”
which Ōkawa channels from aliens and the
spirit world. These are messages from
protector deities that hover above famous
figures, living and dead, such as Donald Trump,
Xi Jinping, and John Lennon. Relying on his
authority as a reborn Buddha and the
manifestation of a creator divinity called El
Cantare, along with other beings, Ōkawa
highlighted messages he received about
coronavirus as an existential threat to Japan.19
Happy Science caught media attention for
defiantly gathering large numbers of members
just as other New Religions closed down;
Ōkawa addressed approximately 1300 followers
and guests in Kagawa prefecture on February
22 and 1200 in Miyagi prefecture on March 14.
In his speeches and in the religion’s
publications, the spiritual leader advanced
Happy Science’s rightwing Japanese political
agenda as it advertised his signature ritual
practice as the most effective means of
eliminating the disease.20 “This infection is
made in China,” Ōkawa announced. “To combat
a godless communist dictatorship that is
spreading sorcery across the world to oppress
human rights and exert its hegemony, I am
thinking of a divine protection. Services at our
branches and Viharas (shōja) focus primarily on
watching and listening to videos of dharma
talks and praying. We are not curtailing these
services, but we are taking sufficient
precautions by using alcohol-based disinfectant
and monitoring health conditions.”21
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
7
Happy Science founder Ōkawa Ryūhō
addresses followers in Sendai on 14 March
2020
(https://the-liberty.com/article.php?item_id=16
916).
There is no question that Happy Science is a
spectacle. However, the Times report ignored
the fact that, rather than setting itself apart as
a “fringe religion” by promising delivery from
disease via ritual, Happy Science in fact relied
on what are longstanding religious
conventions, in Japan and elsewhere. Though
they elude lurid journalistic treatment, Japan’s
mainstays of temple Buddhism, shrine-based
Shinto, the mountain asceticism tradition
Shugendō, and just about every other religious
exponent, new and old, carried out comparable
rituals to combat the pandemic. Ritual
protection is, after all, religion’s job. From the
earliest Japanese chronicles, the country’s
written record makes clear that illness was not
differentiated categorically from other
calamities, such as political disarray, economic
distress, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami,
drought, or agricultural blight. All were
attributed to cosmic imbalances caused by
people’s improper actions. Bad actions resulted
in internal medical problems, small- and large-
scale disasters in the human world, and cosmic
upheaval. These linked phenomena could be
put right through propitious actions along with
rites and edification offered by a network of
government-supported Buddhist temples called
kokubunji that were tasked with protecting the
land, and by ritual specialists who interceded
with the kami, deities understood to occupy
sacred sites across the land and throughout the
heavens. Scholars in fact suggest that the
impetus for the kokubunji system was a
smallpox (or similar) epidemic in the 730s that
killed as much as one third of the population,
including many powerful aristocrats.22 Today,
reliance on biomedical expertise encourages
people to categorize ritual responses to disease
as lingering historical artifacts. Following
classification systems that developed from the
nineteenth century as people in Japan
embraced the modern scientific episteme,
rituals and teachings about the kami and
buddhas are sorted into legal entities that now
exist separately as either Shinto or Buddhist.
But people in Japan today still live, at least
nominally, as parishioners of both. And even
though most are liable to self-describe as non-
religious, many will attend temples, shrines,
and other sites to perform rituals at set points
during the year and at other times to satisfy
personal needs. The vast majority will rely on
data-driven scientific understandings of the
coronavirus epidemic to guide their actions and
to seek treatment, but aid from the kami and
buddhas for deliverance from pestilence still
holds appeal.
This appeal is apparent in how mainstream
media outlets held up examples of temple and
shrine rituals as positive measures taken
against coronavirus. Affirming a role it has
fulfilled since it was invested by governmental
authority in the eighth century as the center of
the kokubunji system, charged with alleviating
suffering from calamities of all sorts, the
massive Kegon sect temple Tōdaiji in Nara
began daily noon expiation rituals on April 1.23
On April 3, Sagawa Fumon, the temple’s bettō
(chief administrator), sent out a message via
the Tōdaiji homepage calling on all Buddhist
temples, Shinto shrines, and Christian
churches, and for all lay people, to join in
prayer at noon every day to memorialize those
who have died of coronavirus and to usher
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
8
Japan toward rapid delivery from the disease.
In an April 24 tweet, the Tōdaiji priesthood
posted what became a widely forwarded
photograph of clergy from other major
Buddhist and Christian institutions lined up in
solidarity before their temple.24
Tweet by Tōdaiji priest Morimoto Kōjō
sending out a photo of Buddhist and
Catholic leaders united at the temple to
pray for a quick end to coronavirus and the
suffering it causes.
(https://twitter.com/kojomrmt/status/12536861
00683452417)
Prior to this, the temple uploaded a broadcast
of its expiation ritual before its famed Great
Buddha via Nikonikodōga, a popular Japanese
video site akin to YouTube.25 Tweeting on April
20, Tōdaiji priest Morimoto Kōjō sought to
eliminate misunderstanding about what
viewers were seeing. This is not you looking in
on the Buddha, he asserted; this is the Buddha
Vairocana looking out at you. “It is not as if you
are looking at an image. We want you to feel
that the Great Buddha is looking out to protect
you all.”26 The celestial and primordial Great
Sun Buddha gazes out, deftly employing the
internet to cast its benevolent and all-
encompassing compassion over a beleaguered
populace.
Worship inside Tōdaiji before the Great
Buddha is prohibited during the pandemic,
but it casts its protective gaze over all
(https://twitter.com/kojomrmt/status/12522409
88057161728).
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
9
Worshippers gather before the Great
Buddha at Tōdaiji on 31 March 2020.
(https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASN4K5VF4N4
FPOMB00Z.html)
Ritual expulsion of COVID-19 is widespread
across Japan. On April 8, Shinto priests at
Matatabisha, a branch shrine of the famed
Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto, performed a Gion
goryōe, or “assembly at Gion for angry spirits,”
specifically aimed at quelling malevolent
powers for the quick elimination of
coronavirus.27
Rites at the Shinto shrine Matatabisha in
Kyoto to quell COVID-19.
(https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/kansai/news/20
200408-
OYO1T50009/?fbclid=IwAR2hsXeVYw9p6H2Xd
ibsdgYfVJZUrw-
ZXLLFxpgPbgGsGaKynYD0HmbGjkA)
This ritual was, in a sense, business as usual for
the shrine.28 An annual spring festival at Gion
began in the year 869. The Gion Festival is a
huge event that now attracts tens of thousands
of participants from all over the world. Worship
in the district, which comprised part of the
capital Heian-kyō (now Kyoto), still centers on
reverence for “disease divinities” (ekijin),
which are understood to cause pestilence,
earthquakes, and other disasters. The
spectacular annual Gion festival—sadly, and
perhaps ironically, canceled for 2020—began
as one of many rituals to quell powerful
personages that manifested as goryō, spirits of
deceased members of the ruling class whose
anger at political events was credited as the
cause of epidemic.
Shinto priests informed me that Jinja Honchō,
the Association for Shinto Shrines that
oversees 80,000 ritual sites, has sent their
clergy newly-composed norito (prayers to the
kami) that include wording aimed at ridding
Japan of COVID-19. The priests have been
enjoined by their Association to perform these
prayers daily. Across Japan, Shinto shrines are
highlighting their historical contributions as
providers of solace and healing from epidemics.
In western Tokyo, for example, Seta Tamagawa
Shrine priest Takahashi Tomoaki has turned
public attention to the role his shrine has
played in invoking the power of Japan’s deities
to counter epidemics. In a series of guest blog
posts for a website that serves his
neighborhood, Takahashi guides readers on a
virtual pilgrimage to Kasamori Inari Jinja, one
of several branch shrines that lie within the
territory consecrated for Seta Tamagawa;
worship at the small outdoor facility does not
require the presence of a priest, and social
distancing residents can walk over there to
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
10
pray.29
The modest shrine Kasamori Inari Jinja,
disease protector in Futago Tamagawa,
western Tokyo.
(https://futakoloco.com/14459/)
This branch shrine was founded in the
Tokugawa era (1603-1867), when it was sited
near the fifty-third station of the Tōkaidō, the
highway that ran from Edo (now Tokyo) to the
historic capital Kyoto. Tradesmen, pilgrims,
and other travelers would avail themselves of
the worldly pleasures that awaited them at the
stop, thus necessitating a specific deity for the
treatment of kasa, skin lesions resulting from
syphilis. The shrine’s syphilis-relieving deity
has since been patronized during epidemics of
all sorts, and it now hosts an annual festival
every April 15—sadly, like the Gion festival,
canceled in 2020 thanks to understanding of
viral contagion.
Reverend Takahashi is an experienced disaster
responder. He oversees Seta Tamagawa in
Tokyo, but his birth family’s shrine is in a
region of coastal Iwate prefecture that was
devastated by the 11 March 2011 tsunami.
Takahashi’s family shrine and home housed
hundreds of refugees for months after the
disaster, an experience that inspired him to
found dynamic reconstruction efforts, including
an NGO that combines reverence for the kami
of land and sea with expertise from
participating scientists to encourage large-
scale replacement of old growth forests in the
devastated region.30 For Takahashi, responding
to COVID-19 is contiguous with other
revitalization efforts. The current crisis calls for
pragmatic use of the most effective means to
generate care for people and tradition. It
demands cutting-edge scientific research in
concert with cultivating public reverence for
the kami.
Ritual Crises, Online Adaptations, and
Technical Difficulties
Innovation in the face of emergency is nothing
new for Japanese religions. However, online
access now allows practitioners unprecedented
chances to innovate across physical divides.
Striking examples of this can be found in
Shugendō, a combinatory mountain asceticism
tradition that maintains institutional bonds with
Shingon Buddhism and includes kami worship,
challenging bodily austerities, secret teachings
and initiations, and other distinctive elements
for worship at remote mountain sites. Major
Shugendō affiliate temples have been
responding to the pandemic in ancient ways.
For example, the Shingon temple Daigoji in
Kyoto on April 15 dedicated the centerpiece of
its three-week-long sakurae (cherry blossom
assembly), a goma kuyō (fire pūjā) and
performance of kyōgen (comic ritual plays), to
eliminating the disease.31 Another goma kuyō
was performed at noon daily at the Shugendō-
affiliate temple Kinpusenji in Nara’s Yoshino
district to drive away the virus. On March 6,
fifty shugenja (Shugendō renunciants) gathered
at a daikitōe, a “great prayer assembly,” a
goma kuyō put on jointly by Kinpusenji and the
temple Ōminesanji. This was the first ritual
collaboration between these sites since they
APJ | JF 18 | 9 | 3
11
were separated in the Meiji era (1868-1912).32
The event was broadcast over social media and
received hundreds of supportive messages.33
Shugendō ascetics gather on 6 March 2020
at the daikitōe (great prayer assembly) at
the temple Kinpusenji to ritually expunge
COVID-19.
(https://this.kiji.is/608594319445574753)
Shugendō followers who have been going
online are confronting a particular COVID-19
challenge: how can a pilgrimage tradition
persist if practitioners must stay home? Caleb
Carter, Assistant Professor of Japanese
Religions at Kyushu University who is a
Shugendō expert, kindly shared a write-up of
his engagement with a ritual led online in early
April by a pilgrimage leader:
The service was organized by a Shugendō
priest (ordained through the Yoshino
lineage) who leads a confraternity (kō) he
established some years ago. He’s very
charismatic and personable. He and most
of the members are based in the Tokyo
area. Their main activity is to meet
monthly in the city and play the horagai
(conch shell trumpet) together in a
ritual/prayer/training atmosphere. They
also regularly go to mountains together on
trips he organizes and charges a fee for,
where they circuit the temples and
shrines, pray to the deities, and play the
horagai. He communicates with the group
through a Facebook group he set up
(about 100 members). Under the current
circumstances, he decided to begin 90-
minute services over Zoom with members
in their homes. There were eight of us,
including him and me. In front of an altar
of Tibetan thangka (paintings of sacred
images) and other Buddhist objects in his
friend’s home, he led prayers to end the
virus, chanted the Heart Sutra, performed
mudra (esoteric hand gestures), chanted a
number of mantra devoted to various
Shugendō and Buddhist divinities, and
played the horagai. He then led us in some
light self-massage techniques and an
Indian-based chakra dhyāna (meditation
focused on the seven chakras). We finished
with responses from each member.
Despite a few technical hiccups, I thought
it went smoothly and successfully.
Everyone’s reactions were very positive. I
think it was effective in bringing the group
together for a sense of community, sharing
how everyone is coping and advice on how
to stay well, mentally and physically. He
plans to continue with these services,
twice a month. I think he also hopes
attendance will pick up over time.
The service Carter described is in keeping with
rituals individuals across Japan took upon
themselves to move online. It is primarily local-
level activists that employed online means of
seeing to their parishioners. Sect headquarters,
by contrast, focused on measures their priests
should follow for in-person services. In some
instances, sect guidelines lay out stark
reminders of how important it is to curtail
activities to halt the pandemic. The Sōtō Zen
Headquarters page, for example, reported on
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coronavirus contagions traced to their events.
In mid-March, four COVID-19 cases were
confirmed among twenty-one attendees at a
Sōtō Zen wake (tsūya) and funeral ceremonies
in Matsuyama, Ehime prefecture.
Investigations revealed that at least one
infected person visiting from Tochigi prefecture
came into close contact with other attendees.
Sōtō Zen also uploaded a highly detailed
flowchart with four scenarios for priests to
follow in cases of funerals for COVID-19 deaths
and other circumstances.34 It warned that the
virus could spread beyond Matsuyama
throughout Japan, just as it was spreading
across Spain and other countries. The sect
issued a directive calling for funerals to be
delayed, if possible, and prohibited gatherings
of more than three people at cremations and its
other services until the end of Japan’s state of
emergency. It is worth remarking that the Zen
message, unlike communications from New
Religions practitioners, did not dwell on
concern about what would befall their
organization should it be linked to contagion.
The Tendai sect announced that its head
temple Enryakuji and all of its facilities would
remain closed from April 15 until May 31, and
it provided a long list of canceled events that
ran well into the summer.35 On April 17, Jōdo
Shinshū’s Ōtani sect headquarters at the
temple Higashihonganji in Kyoto uploaded an
eight-point checklist for in-person ritual
protocols.
(http://www.higashihonganji.or.jp/news/info/35
854/)This included applying sanitizer, requiring
that priests and parishioners wear masks, and
reducing risk by avoiding the “three closes”:
enclosed spaces with poor ventilation, close
physical proximity, and physical contact.
Offering incense and other acts that require
touching were to be curtailed. The Nichiren
sect headquarters issued more modest
directives on April 8,
(https://temple.nichiren.or.jp/0041039-yodenji/e
vent/p485/) urging its followers to stay in line
with government mandated self-restraint
measures and to otherwise seek to perform
duties as usual; the headquarters would
announce decisions on major events such as
ceremonies for the spring equinox and obon in
the summer one month in advance. A short
announcement from February 26 by the
Association of Shinto Shrines regarding
coronavirus remained at the top of their
homepage news feed in late April. It assured
visitors that its shrines had been advised to
carefully clean all of their facilities and carry
out rituals using disinfectant while wearing
masks. (https://www.jinjahoncho.or.jp/3908) In
all cases, Japan’s sectarian headquarters are
limiting visitor access, and priests informed me
that employees are carrying out much of the
headquarters’ business remotely via email and
video meetings.
Even Buddhist and Shinto denominations that
oversee millions of parishioners lack the
technological and human resources to provide
online services to their temples and shrines.
They rely instead on local clergy to organize
internet-based solutions. Examples of
grassroots-level online outreach abound. The
Facebook-based “Online Rosary Linked Sutra
Reading” (Onrain Juzu Tsunagi Dokkyō)
connects the Gifu Prefecture-based Jōdo
Shinshū priest Gotō Hiromi with worshippers,
regardless of their sectarian affiliations. He
began the group after he was forced to cancel
this year’s higan (spring equinox) services and
home visits to his parishioners.36
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Reverend Gotō Hiromi broadcasts
ecumenical sutra recitations via Facebook.
(https://www.facebook.com/readingsutras.onlin
e/)
Chūgai nippō, a venerable paper that covers
temple Buddhist and Shinto news, has turned
its attention to how religious professionals
across Japan took up this challenge. On April
24, the paper reported on the Pure Land
(Jōdoshū) temple Kanchi’in in Tokyo, whose
priest Tsuchiya Shōdō has been broadcasting
an online twenty-four-hour nenbutsu
(invocation of the Buddha Amitābha) chanting
service for the last fifteen years. “The internet
is absolutely our entryway,” Tsuchiya stated.
“Meeting face to face is important, but now we
can’t meet, so we must go online.”37 A Chūgai
nippō report the previous day featured news of
the Nichiren sect priest Kusumi Kenshō, whose
online broadcast of higan services from his
temple Myōhōji in Yokohama served as the
example for a Zoom tutorial run for fifteen
priests of different denominations.38
Other religions in Japan are also devising
online solutions. In mid-March, the Catholic
Diocese of Tokyo suspended in-person
attendance and began livestreaming its Sunday
mass, and the Catholic Tamatsukuri Church, a
cathedral in Osaka, limited its masses to
YouTube from March 9.39 In Kobe, the
Protestant Nishinomiya Evangelical Church
began YouTubing its services from March 12,
and the Tokyo-based United Church of Christ in
Japan set up a website in March called
“Christian COVID-19” that provided
instructions for streaming services, prayer
services for the housebound, and where to send
monetary donations.40 Tokyo Camii and Turkish
Culture Center, a mosque and Muslim
education center, moved all of its
congregational prayers, classes, and Ramadan
events into Zoom sessions.
(https://tokyocamii.org/notice/3233/) The
synagogue Chabad Lubavich of Japan in Tokyo
put out an online appeal for volunteers to
deliver food to those in need during the
COVID-19 shutdown.
(https://www.chabad.jp/templates/section_cdo/a
id/4684844/jewish/COVID-19-Support-
Efforts.htm)
Moving examples of COVID-19’s harsh
consequences and online solutions devised by
clergy attracted attention from major Japanese
media outlets. On April 14, the newspaper
Asahi shinbun reported on a lonely service in
late March for a woman in her sixties who died
after she contracted coronavirus while
traveling overseas. Her cremation could only
be attended by her son and two funeral
company employees, and no funeral oratory
was performed. Even funerals for those who
died of causes other than coronavirus were
made wrenching by preventative measures; a
gesture as simple as passing a handkerchief to
a weeping mourner sitting two meters away
had to be curtailed. Across Japan, Buddhist
priests, the most familiar facilitators of death
rituals in Japan, did their best to overcome
painful divides created by anti-contamination
measures. Priests from fifteen temples
affiliated with eight different denominations
who performed services for a Nagoya funeral
company called Shūraku, for example, provided
video links to their sutra recitations for the
bereaved via their smartphones.41
Priests who connected with me confirmed that
they had embarked on a wide range of web-
based outreach efforts. “I’m a stubborn and
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tenacious person,” asserted Reverend
Asahikawa. “COVID-19 will not put a stop to my
activities. No matter what it takes, I must
transmit the teachings of the Buddha! I have
begun broadcasting my thoughts via YouTube
because I can’t meet with people directly. From
last year, I started an internet radio broadcast,
and I’ve been putting my efforts into that as
well.” Reverend Ōmori, a Jōdo Shinshū priest
who lives in Tokyo as a salaried employee while
he still serves his family’s temple in rural
Yamaguchi prefecture, discussed his online
connections with parishioners:
To get close with those who are suffering
because of coronavirus, we are
broadcasting sermons via YouTube and
Zoom. Even when I am not performing
duties at my temple, I am able to stream
services from my home. All of this for no
charge, of course. In terms of my own
activities, all of my lectures and sermons
between March and June are canceled.
However, I have received many invitations
to write books, columns, and essays, and
to stream dharma talks.
Up to now, there were many opportunities
to meet directly with people to spread the
dharma. Now, we are distanced as we
continue with our mission—this is a big
difference. We have not yet completely
adjusted to this style, and it still feels
inconvenient, but we’re figuring out how
to reach out to those who are experiencing
dukkha (suffering). The result is new
challenges.
Groups of every sort are relying on local-level
participants to stream regular activities. Mrs.
Takeda, an enthusiastic participant in the
ethics training organization Rinri Kenkyūjo,
reported to me that she is keeping her local
members active by connecting with them daily
via Line. At 5:00 a.m. 364 days a year, Rinri
Kenkyūjo members assemble at hundreds of
locations across Japan in “Good Morning Ethics
Academies” (ohayō rinrijuku), at which they
share testimonials and recite writings of the
group’s founder Maruyama Toshio (1892-1951)
on filial piety, gratitude, reverence for Japan
and the Emperor, and other values.42 In my
ethnographic engagements at Rinri Kenkyūjo
meetings in Tokyo between 2018 and 2020, I
observed that almost all regular Academy
participants were women in their seventies and
eighties. Mrs. Takeda, a gregarious person in
her fifties, has been tasked by the group to
recruit new members. She ensures that her
housebound charges overcome any technical
difficulties by connecting to them every day at
5:00 a.m. through a Line stream.
But not every group is able to connect virtually.
When I asked my Soka Gakkai friends if they
were conducing zadankai or other meetings
online, they laughed. “I feel that Soka Gakkai’s
internet skills are a bit behind,” chuckled Mr.
Watanabe. “Think of it this way: there is an
assistant regional headquarters leader near me
who to this day remains one of those who
steadfastly refuses to own a mobile phone.
There are probably examples of districts where
young leaders with exemplary skills are
running meetings online, but here we’re
basically encouraging one another other via
telephone and letters. We make contact to
decide on a time to chant daimoku together.”
Mr. Nishino, a Chapter (shibu) leader, confirms
that communication is mostly limited to letters
(by post or fax), phone messages, and calls. He
supplements older communication methods by
uploading short video encouragements
(gekirei) to YouTube. “Encouragements” are
staple features of regular Gakkai meetings in
which leaders urge their members toward
success by overcoming this-worldly troubles,
frequently by quoting speeches and writings of
Soka Gakkai’s Honorary President Ikeda
Daisaku (1928- ). In a video dispatch on March
9, Nishino read aloud from a recent Seikyō
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shinbun article that reprinted an
encouragement Ikeda had delivered in 2003 at
a satellite broadcast held during the SARS
epidemic. “Hardship necessarily transforms
into treasure,” Ikeda declared. “For the public,
for people, for society, fight through this!”
Harsh Financial Realities
A major motivator for religious professionals to
move their duties online is fear of losing
income. Clerics like Reverend Ōmori who rely
on a salary can offer their Buddhist services
free of charge, but most full-time priests need
donations to support their families and
maintain their temples. Reverend Asahikawa
laid out the economic realities she and other
priests faced: “Buddhist practitioners live as
temple priests (jūshoku) and as tonsured
monastics (sōryo). Priests are legal
representatives of religious juridical persons
who manage temple operations and finances.
Their activities gather earnings. Because of
COVID-19, community-related activities, such
as funerals, sermons, and festivals, have been
reduced or canceled. Economic security that
depends on voluntary donations, alms, and
support payments for these services has
suffered a blow, and priests have no choice but
to endure a loss of income.” Lost income does
not mean lost commitment, the Reverend
confirmed. “We still lead the life of the
monastic. Though we cannot expect to see
results revealed before our eyes, we perform
daily rites (gongyō), praying to protect the
nation (chingo kokka) and for a bountiful
harvest (gogoku hōjō).”
Japan’s religious juridical persons (shūkyō
hōjin) are included among organizations that
may apply for special financial assistance
included in a 108 trillion yen (US$997 billion)
stimulus package negotiated by Japan’s
governing coalition in early April.43 Part of the
package provided aid to businesses that
suffered losses occasioned by COVID-19. On
March 31, the Ministry of Health, Labour and
Welfare laid out parameters on applications for
“employment adjustment grants for businesses
affected by the COVID-19 pandemic” that
would be covered; the measures received Diet
approval on April 7.44 These grants supported
businesses that were forced, either by
voluntarily complying with self-restraint
guidelines or by government directive, to shut
down operations, and for those that suffered
drops in customers or orders during the period
of voluntary quarantine. The Diet bill
essentially enhanced measures already in place
that guaranteed salary payout by employers in
the event of voluntary business shutdown and
clarified that the national emergency initially
declared on April 7 constituted a necessary
condition for businesses to receive special
government aid. For a “special response
period” between 1 April and 30 June 2020, the
amount the Ministry ordinarily supplied for
business relief increased for employee leave
allowance, up to 8,330 yen per employee per
day.
Financial aid would certainly be welcomed by
religious professionals devastated by income
lost to coronavirus shutdown. However, while
large organizations with salaried employees
may suit the relief grant parameters, it is less
clear how small-scale, family-based temples,
shrines, churches, and other religious
institutions might fit the application.
Additionally, religious groups applying for
government assistance will almost certainly
invite public skepticism. Critics are liable to
point out that Japan’s 1947 Constitution
assures a division between religion and
government, and that government aid to
religions may violate constitutional intent.
Criticism may also be inspired by the fact that
Japan’s 1951 Religious Juridical Persons Law,
amended in 1996, ensures that “religious
activities” are not taxed. This means that a
large proportion of religions’ income-
generating undertakings are not subject to
taxation, and that many religious activities
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elude state scrutiny. Religious juridical persons
also enjoy significant breaks on property taxes.
Recent decades have seen a rise of public
debate over the status of religions as kōeki
hōjin, or “public interest juridical persons,” a
legal designation that requires that they
conduct activities intended for the public good
in exchange for tax relief.45 Critics accuse
religions, particularly large ones, of being
elaborate tax evasion schemes. Religious
groups have been forced to defend their
activities as contributions to social welfare
initiatives and to Japan’s national wellbeing.
They also point out that the vast majority of
religious juridical persons are modest financial
entities that rely on parishioner donations for
their survival.46 In short, it should not be
surprising if applications by religious groups
for emergency governmental COVID-19
financial assistance revive debates over the use
of taxpayer money.
Conclusion: Pandemic Isolation and
Beyond
For the clerics and lay practitioners profiled
here, the compound earthquake, tsunami, and
nuclear meltdown disasters of March 11,
2011—best known now as 3.11—loom large as
their most recent reference point for Japanese
calamity. When the earthquake struck that day
at 2:46 p.m., adherents immediately put aside
regular activities to travel to northeast Japan.
They waded into the wreckage to rescue
survivors and pull out corpses. They put in
thousands of man hours, brought thousands of
tons of emergency supplies to help survivors,
and gathered millions of yen in donations. They
opened their temples, shrines, and other
facilities as refugee centers, sometimes for
months at a time. Religions were frequently on
the scene before government agencies and
NGOs arrived, and religion-affiliated activism
comprised a major percentage of the funding
and volunteer hours dedicated to the disasters’
aftermath. Long after the Japanese government
declared recovery efforts a completed success,
religious aid providers remain active in what is
now mostly designated a former disaster zone,
caring for the bereaved and the dead. They
perpetuate memory of the 3.11 disasters while
most of the country leaves these calamities in
the past.47
COVID-19 raises difficult questions for religious
individuals and groups on how best to mobilize,
and if activists can turn to their 3.11
experiences for cues on how to proceed. How
can volunteers attend to those in need when
they are supposed to remain quarantined? How
should religions respond when the crisis is not
in one afflicted zone but is everywhere people
are to be found? How should religions
coordinate with a chaotic Japanese government
response that has seen waffling at the national
level and inconsistent leadership by prefectural
and municipal politicians?
Religion in Japan, as it is elsewhere, tends to be
intensely social. For the devout, life consists of
frequent in-person meetings. In religious
gatherings of all types, believers depend on
inspiration from one another. Their sense of
self relies on group activities, and the survival
of religious groups relies on solidarity their
participants cultivate through interpersonal
bonds. Prolonged social distancing may exact a
toll on Japan’s religions. It remains to be seen
how isolation will exacerbate differences
between internal constituencies and how it will
affect parishioners’ desire to return to regular
participation.
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Members of the Rengekai (Lotus
Association), the monthly women’s
meeting at the Jōdo Shinshū temple
Tenshinji in Chiba prefecture, practice the
obon dance for the summer festival in
2015. Countless local-level gatherings like
this are on hold during the coronavirus
crisis. (http://tenshin.or.jp/archives/5996)
It is likely that, as the pandemic continues to
unfold, Japanese religious reactions will mirror
the variegated responses COVID-19 has
triggered worldwide. Coronavirus has seen
indeterminate responses by the same activists
who bridged sectarian divides to create bold
ecumenical aid provisions after 3.11.
Participants in the Interfaith Chaplaincy
Training Program, a dynamic initiative based at
Tohoku University in Sendai that grew out of
post-3.11 religious aid to train clergy and lay
practitioners as clinical caregivers, have been
urged to pray at 6:00 a.m. daily to memorialize
those who have died of coronavirus and for the
quick elimination of the disease; they are
otherwise still working out how best to
mobilize.48 Open questions remain about how,
and if, chaplains who work in Japan’s hospitals
and other care facilities will be allowed to offer
their services. Timothy Benedict, an authority
on chaplaincy who is an Assistant Professor at
Kwansei Gakuin University, reported that
chaplains at a Christian hospital in Osaka have
basically stopped visiting new patients and can
only attend patients on wards if they
specifically request a visit. Visiting chaplains
must wear protective gear, which has become
notoriously difficult to acquire. Attendance at
the hospital’s chapel services is restricted, and
the hospital is asking overwhelmed staff to
watch streamed services remotely. In other
words, the COVID-19 crisis has called into
question whether and how clinical chaplaincy
can secure its place in Japan during a medical
crisis.
Nonetheless, religious aid workers will
continue to operate on the front lines of
Japanese social welfare provision. The Buddhist
priests who connected with me detailed their
efforts. “We are gathering supplies from
volunteers at the temple, from parishioners and
their families, to help those who are afflicted by
difficulties that result from the call to self-
restraint,” Reverend Ōmori told me. Reverend
Asahikawa laid out comprehensive aid plans
that will address those who are suffering. She
looked beyond the current crisis to plan how
best to help as Japan’s socioeconomic
tribulations deepen:
The virus will necessarily disappear. All
things are in a state of continual change
(shogyō mujō), so the virus will cease its
movement. I’m thinking about what to do
once it’s gone.
In Japan, working from home is rare, and
there is a custom of needing to commute
to the office. Because of COVID-19, the
overall working from home percentage
across Japan has gone up 35%. If it is
possible to work from home and not travel,
it’s possible for workplaces to shift from
being concentrated in cities to residential
zones in local areas. Also, personal income
has diminished since 1997. Particularly for
those under forty—they are making half of
what people over fifty make. And this year
half of women in Japan are over the age of
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fifty. To help women with a low income of
a lower age (because I’m a woman), I think
I want to build a shared house.49
The city where I live in Wakayama is one
hour by train to central Osaka. Houses
here were built about thirty-five to forty
years ago without any concern for
accessible facilities for the disabled. The
number of elderly residents is going up.
They are moving to care facilities and
apartments, and the number of empty
houses is increasing. I want to contribute
to activity in the region by providing
housing and meals (I’m vegetarian, you
see) for women in my community.
We’ve been forced to remain home, but
this has given me time to plan.
Reverend Asahikawa provides an exemplary
model of how Japan’s religious activists fuse
commitment to enlightenment and well-
informed assessments of this-worldly
challenges to devise meaningful contributions.
COVID-19 is a daunting reality, but it is a
temporary stage in a longer struggle with
profound difficulties. Buddhist sects like
Reverend Asahikawa’s Shingon, like all
Japanese religious institutions, face a grim
future because of population decline and
changes in attitudes among younger
generations. Yet religious activists, clergy and
lay alike, greet catastrophe with age-old rituals
as they initiate new means of meeting present-
day needs. Their steady perseverance in the
face of calamity deserves more attention than it
receives.
Russian-language summary of this article by Aliise Eishō Donnere, a scholar based in Sendai,
Japan, is available. (https://youtu.be/rbkZrqCfMJE)
Levi McLaughlin is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious
Studies at North Carolina State University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University
after previous study at the University of Tokyo, and he holds a B.A. and M.A. in East Asian
Studies from the University of Toronto. Levi is co-author and co-editor of Kōmeitō: Politics
and Religion in Japan (IEAS Berkeley, 2014) and co-editor of the special issue “Salvage and
Salvation: Religion and Disaster Relief in Asia” (Asian Ethnology, June 2016). He is author of
Soka Gakkai’s Human Revolution: The Rise of a Mimetic Nation in Modern Japan
(https://www.amazon.com/Soka-Gakkais-Human-Revolution-Contemporary/dp/0824884280/?ta
g=theasipacjo0b-20) (University of Hawai`i Press, 2019).
Notes
1 I am indebted to Micah Auerback, Erica Baffelli, Timothy Benedict, Caleb Carter, Bryan
Lowe, Lauren Markley, Mark Rowe, Mark Selden, Shirahase Tatsuya, Jessica Starling,
Takahashi Tomoaki, and Brian Victoria for their invaluable feedback. I am particularly
grateful to the clergy and lay practitioners who appear here under pseudonyms who so kindly
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19
offered insights that appear in this article.
2 See the World Health Organization’s novel coronavirus updates here
(https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019). Japan’s Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare maintained a running update in English
(https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/newpage_00032.html)on the government’s
anti-coronavirus measures, patient caseloads, and related data. The newspaper Asahi shinbun
posted running updates
(https://www.asahi.com/topics/word/%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AD%E3%83%8A%E3%82%A6%E
3%82%A4%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B9.html?iref=com_rnavi_r1) on COVID-19 broken down by
prefecture, The Japan Times updated a daily news roundup
(https://www.japantimes.co.jp/liveblogs/news/coronavirus-outbreak-updates/)on coronavirus,
as did the Kyodo News Service
(https://www.47news.jp/national/new_type_pneumonia/4529976.html) and numerous other
outlets. See also Toyo Keizai Online for statistical breakdowns of case numbers, testing rates,
and other data. (https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html)
3 The IOC announcement relieved pressure on the Abe administration and Tokyo Governor
Koike Yuriko, who had been criticized for delaying anti-COVID-19 measures in the hopes that
the 2020 games would proceed. See Kingston, Jeff, “Abe Prioritized Olympics, Slowing
Japan’s Pandemic Response.” (https://apjjf.org/2020/7/Kingston.html) Asia-Pacific Journal:
Japan Focus Vol. 18 Issue 7 No. 5 (1 April 2020).
4 Dilemmas Japan’s low-tech status poses for a quarantining population have attracted media
attention (The Mainichi 26 April 2020
(https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200426/p2g/00m/0na/040000c)). One third of homes in
Japan, and most offices, still have fax machines, and numerous homes lack late-model
computers that are linked to high-speed internet.
5 See Kyodo News 6 April 2020
(https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/04/95a68588ba74-many-schools-in-japan-reopen-aft
er-monthlong-coronavirus-shutdown.html)); Reuters 8 April 2020
(https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-japan/trains-full-on-first-day-of-japans-cor
onavirus-emergency-but-some-shops-shut-idUSL4N2BW123).
6 The Japan Times 23 April 2020; The Asahi Shinbun 27 April 2020.
7 Except in cases where they publish under their own names, or where they appear under
their own names in published accounts, the clergy and lay activists featured in this article
appear under pseudonyms. I communicated with my interviewees in Japanese. Here, I provide
translated portions of their responses.
8 Fukusuibon ni kaerazu functions independently as a rough equivalent of “there’s no use
crying over spilt milk.” Higan, “the other shore,” is a Japanese rendering of the Sanskrit
paryavasāna. It denotes persevering through karmic causality to awakening from conditioned
existence.
9 In a Buddhist context, wisdom (Jp. chie, Skt. prajñā) is discriminating knowledge of
impermanence and the causes of suffering, commonly understood as one of the requirements
for attaining enlightenment. Murahachibu remains a common expression in Japan today used
to describe social rejection of community members. For studies of ostracism and its
nomenclatures in Japanese history, see Ehlers, Maren Annika, Give and Take: Poverty and the
Status Order in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018; Ooms,
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20
Herman, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1996.
10 President Online 4 April 2020 (https://president.jp/articles/-/34141).
11 Seikyō shinbun 19 February, 20 March, 4 April, 28 April 2020.
12 BBC News 2 March 2020 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51701039); New York
Times 10 March 2020; The Korea Herald 17 March 2020
(http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200317000667)
13 For analysis of how “religion” was imported as Japan transformed into an imperial nation-
state, see Isomae Jun’ichi, Kindai Nihon ni okeru shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu: shūkyō,
kokka, shintō. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004; Josephson, Jason Ānanda, The Invention of
Religion in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012; Maxey, Trent Elliot, The
“Greatest Problem”: Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2014; Sawada, Janine Tasca, Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics, and
Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press,
2004.
14 For discussion of how these categories have been applied to Soka Gakkai, and to New
Religions generally, see McLaughlin, Levi. Soka Gakkai’s Human Revolution: The Rise of a
Mimetic Nation in Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2019. For analyses
of how moral panic over New Religions has mobilized media, politics, and populism in modern
and contemporary Japan, see Baffelli, Erica, “Contested Positioning: ‘New Religions’ and
Secular Spheres.” Japan Review Vol. 30 (2017), 129-152; Dorman, Benjamin, Celebrity Gods:
New Religions, Media, and Authority in Occupied Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i
Press, 2012; Garon, Sheldon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997; Klein, Axel, “Twice Bitten, Once Shy: Religious
Organizations and Politics after the Aum Attack.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 39:1
(2012), 77-98; McLaughlin, Levi, “Did Aum Change Everything? What Soka Gakkai Before,
During, and After the Aum Shinrikyō Affair Tells Us about the Persistent ‘Otherness’ of New
Religions in Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 39:1 (2012), 51-75; Stalker, Nancy
Kinue, Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in
Imperial Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2007; and Tsukada Hotaka, Shūkyō to
seiji no tentetsuten: hoshu gōdō to seikyō itchi no shūkyō shakaigaku. Tokyo: Kadensha,
2015.
15 For considerations of the “New Religions” genealogy in its Japanese and American contexts,
see Thomas, Jolyon Baraka, Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. For examples of debates over how to apply the
“New Religions” category, see Melton, J. Gordon, “Perspective: Toward a Definition of ‘New
Religion.’” Nova Religio Vol. 8, Issue 1 (2004), 73-87; Urban, Hugh. New Age, Neopagan, and
New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2015.
16 New York Times 16 April 2020.
17 See Wagenaar, Wester, “Wacky Japan: A New Face of Orientalism.” Asia in Focus No. 3
(2016), 46-54. A Google search for “quirky Japan” or a similar term confirms the media
stereotype.
18 Happy Science provided information on the service in English
(https://info.happy-science.org/2020/1275/?fbclid=IwAR1d-p9hFzu2PzleDk3A5TlAHc89I3oWV
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21
SCiJqXDEdJeoS-Jv3fQIRFenEY). By 18 February 2020, the religion had already published a
book in Japanese of mediated spirit messages regarding the disease titled “Spiritual
Investigations of the Novel Coronavirus Infection that Began in China”
(https://www.irhpress.co.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=2320).
19 For studies of Kōfuku no Kagaku (Happy Science) in Japan, see Astley, Trevor, “The
Transformation of a Recent Japanese New Religion: Ōkawa Ryūhō and Kōfuku no Kagaku.”
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22:3-4 (1995), 343-380; Baffelli 2017; Tsukada, Hotaka,
“Cultural Nationalism in Japanese Neo-New Religions: A Comparative Study of Mahikari and
Kōfuku no Kagaku.” Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 67 No. 1 (2012), 133-157; and Winter, Franz,
“Kōfuku no Kagaku.” In Pokorny, Lukas and Franz Winter, eds., Handbook of East Asian New
Religious Movements. Leiden: Brill, 2018, 211-229. See also Japan Times 4 August 2009
(https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/08/04/issues/party-offers-a-third-way-happines
s/#.XqmtthNKhQI).
20 Tabloids reported on meetings the group held as Japan went into quarantine; examples
include the magazine Shūkan jitsuwa 20 March 2020
(https://news.nifty.com/article/domestic/society/12151-602750/). Happy Science responded on
7 April 2020 with a defamation lawsuit against the weekly Shūkan shinchō, demanding 22
million yen (~US$200,000) in damages for an article the magazine published on 2 April 2020.
(https://happy-science.jp/news/public/11465/11682/)
21 Shūkan jitsuwa 20 March 2020. Happy Science’s periodical The Liberty covered Ōkawa’s 14
March 2020 address in Sendai (https://the-liberty.com/article.php?item_id=16916)at which he
expressed suspicion that the novel coronavirus had been developed in Wuhan laboratories
and urged an investigation by the WHO.
22 For links between epidemic and premodern Japanese epistemes, see Como, Michael,
“Horses, Dragons, and Disease in Nara Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34/2
(2007), 393-415; Farris, Wayne, Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985; Rambelli, Fabio, “Gods, Dragons, Catfish, and Godzilla:
Fragments for a History of Religious Views on Natural Disasters in Japan.” In Starrs, Roy, ed.
When the Tsunami Came to Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2014, 50-69;
Wakabayashi, Haruko, “Disaster in the Making: Taira no Kiyomori’s Move of the Capital to
Fukuhara.” Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 70 No. 1 (2015), 1-38. For details on the kokubunji
system and its founding as a means of combatting epidemics and accompanying calamities,
see Yoshida Kazuhiko, “Kokubunji kokubun amadera no shisō.” In Suda Tsutomu and Satō
Makoto, eds., Kokubunji no sōken. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kyōbunkan, 2011, 2-28.
23 Mainichi shinbun 6 April 2020.
24 A tweet by @kojomrmt on Twitter 24 April 2020
(https://twitter.com/kojomrmt/status/1253893442809131009); NHK News Web 24 April 2020
(https://www3.nhk.or.jp/kansai-news/20200424/2000028850.html).
25 Asahi shinbun 18 April 2020.
26 A tweet by (https://twitter.com/kojomrmt/status/1252240988057161728)@kojomrmt
(https://twitter.com/kojomrmt) on Twitter 20 April 2020.
(https://twitter.com/kojomrmt/status/1252240988057161728)
27 Yomiuri shinbun 8 April 2020.
(https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/kansai/news/20200408-OYO1T50009/?fbclid=IwAR2hsXeVYw
9p6H2XdibsdgYfVJZUrw-ZXLLFxpgPbgGsGaKynYD0HmbGjkA)
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22
28 See McMullin, Neil, “On Placating the Gods and Pacifying the Populace: The Case of the
Gion ‘Goryō’ Cult.” History of Religions Vol. 27 No. 3 (1988), 270-293.
29 See Takahashi’s blog posts for the Futago Tamagawa neighborhood site.
(https://futakoloco.com/14459/)
30 For information on Takahashi’s Sacred Forest Project (Chinju no Mori no Purojekuto), see
here (https://morinoproject.com/about). For discussions of ways the “sacred forest” is
promoted within contemporary Shinto, see Rots, Aike P., Shinto, Nature and Ideology in
Contemporary Japan: Making Sacred Forests. London: Bloomsbury, 2017.
31 Mainichi shinbun 15 April 2020.
32 Asahi shinbun 18 April 2020.
33 Kyōdo News 6 March 2020.
34 Detailed explanations of proper funeral procedures, flow charts for procedures in the event
of contagion, and histories of Sōtō Zen practices during disaster appear in documents
uploaded by the Sōtō sect’s Tokyo Yūdōkai
(https://www.sotozen-net.or.jp/wp2/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200422guideline-1.pdf), or
Tokyo Bhavana Path Society
(https://www.sotozen-net.or.jp/wp2/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200422flow.pdf).
35 Enryakuji updates available here (https://www.hieizan.or.jp/news/covid19) and here
(http://syukubo.jp/).
36 Asahi shinbun 18 April 2020; Also see facebook posts.
(https://www.facebook.com/readingsutras.online/?modal=admin_todo_tour)
37 Chūgai nippō 24 April 2020.
38 Chūgai nippō 23 April 2020.
39 Kyodo News 16 March 2020; Yomiuri shinbun (Osaka edition) 13 April 2020.
40 Yomiuri shinbun (Osaka edition) 13 April 2020; See updates from the United Church of
Christ in Japan (http://uccj.org/news/36449.html) and https://covid19jc.com/.
41 Asahi shinbun 14 April 2020.
42 Information on Rinri Kenkyūjō’s Good Morning Ethics Academies (Ohayō Rinri Juku) is
available here (https://www.rinri-jpn.or.jp/katei/morning/).
43 Agreement on the stimulus package was reached after a tense standoff within the national
governing coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito, the
party founded by Soka Gakkai. Komeito’s success in forcing the LDP to adopt its payout policy
accompanied a drop in public approval of Prime Minister Abe’s handling of the coronavirus
crisis. See Kyodo News 18 April 2020.
(https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/04/36b515737250-focus-coronavirus-putting-abes-t
eflon-image-to-the-test.html)
44 Details on application procedures for entities suffering from income lost because of the
COVID-19 shutdown and the benefits available to each entity type were updated by the
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. See here.
(https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/koyou_roudou/koyou/kyufukin/pageL07.ht
ml?fbclid=IwAR2QXNtwsdcsuE1zVHa89ggeB0cCLB5ul2mAuBu2jvnHURI586c9QXr7-h8)
45 Discussion of suspicions raised by tabloid journalists and defense of religious practices
promoted by temple-based practitioners appears in Shūkan asahi 4 June 2010; Nelson, John,
Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan. Honolulu:
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23
University of Hawai`i Press, 2013.
46 For discussions of the on-the-ground realities traditional practitioners face, including
financial and legal challenges, see Covell, Stephen G,. Japanese Temple Buddhism:
Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2005; Rowe,
Mark M., Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary
Japanese Buddhism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Starling, Jessica, Guardians of the
Buddha’s Home: Domestic Religion in Contemporary Jōdo Shinshū. Honolulu: University of
Hawai`i Press, 2019.
47 For overviews of religious responses to 3.11, see Berman, Michael, “Religion Overcoming
Religion: Suffering, Secularism, and the Training of Interfaith Chaplains in Japan.” American
Ethnologist Vol. 34 No. 2 (2018), 228-240; McLaughlin, Levi, “Hard Lessons Learned:
Tracking Changes in Media Presentations of Religion and Religious Aid Mobilization after the
1995 and 2011 Disasters in Japan.” Asian Ethnology Vol. 75 No. 1 (2016), 105-137.
48 Details on Interfaith Chaplaincy training at Tohoku University’s Department of Practical
Religious Studies are available here.
(http://www2.sal.tohoku.ac.jp/p-religion/2017/cn8/pg27.html) See also Fujiyama Midori,
Rinshō shūkyōshi. Tokyo: Kōbunken, 2020.
49 For insight into the lives of women Buddhist priests in Japan, see Rowe, Mark, “Charting
Known Territory: Female Buddhist Priests.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 44/1
(2017), 75-101.
