announcement | a new book on shugendō

Following some delays due to the pandemic, the new book is currently in the final stages of editing and translation by yours truly. This is all very DIY and so the aim is to have it ready by spring.

As part of this process, earlier in the year I once again had the privilege of being hosted by Dr Gaynor (Jikun) Sekimori  - a fellow practitioner of the Haguro Shugen sect (Kotakuji-Shozenin) and world-renowned scholar on Shugendo - this time in Cambridge, England rather than Japan. Hailing from the same region as me in Australia, she has been a monumental inspiration over the years, first turning me to the world of Shugen and acting as my introduction, and the yarns I've had with her have been a great privilege. Dr Sekimori from has provided some oversight and a foreword to the book, as well as kindly offering to clean up my amateur translations, oversights and editing. If interested, please see the foreword here. 

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I regularly respond to inquiries containing comments or questions stemming from misconceptions about Shugen and Buddhism more broadly. For example, this week I received the following:

"I find it very circumspect that you a have section for donations but on your history page, the term ninja or ninjutsu appears not once. As a practitioner of this art and Vajrayana Buddhism for over 40 years, combined with your homosexual flags on this page, I'm going to have to say you've either evolved into spiritually bankrupt frauds or you've simply sold your souls. So, which is it? I truly look forward to your calculated and 'spiritual' response. Regards."

Unfortunately, these misconceptions are repeated and reinforced through new-age/now-age/spiritual influencers/wellness and martial-arts related organisations (mostly US based) which utilise aspects of Shugendo/esoteric Buddhism and other traditions to add to their branding, far removed from the realm of practice. Head-temples regularly encounter this quality of approach, inevitably leading to embarrassment, disappointment and ex-communication.  Seniors frequently warn not to feed in to the many mika-bozu (three-day monks) and nanchatte gyoja (muckaround ascetics). As John O'Donohue puts it, what we encounter, recognise or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of approach.

"We receive many messages from people who have some kind of interest in martial arts or ninja. There may be people promoting Shugendo in the West as a way to connect with the origin of some kind of lone-warrior. I want to make it clear that Shugendo is not this kind of thing. Nor is Shugendo a vehicle for certification to add to your martial arts, new-age or spiritual organisation. There are many whose participation in various events is more akin to an influencer than a priest. Those with fantasist (cosplay) motivations based on these kinds of ideas do not last and create many problems. The benefit of prayer and faith are not for ourselves. If your approach is not based on bodhicitta and respect for the three jewels you will be left greatly disappointed."

This book will replace a previous version which was marked by these kinds of issues. Among other things, this relates to a certain famous martial artist with a long track record of this kind of behaviour across various traditions. In this climate of misinformation and misappropriation, it is always recommended to check in with the head temple of the denomination in question so as to verify any claims. 

Those outside the East-Asian Buddhist tradition may be surprised to learn that in contrast to other traditions, ordination takes place as the first-step in East-Asian Buddhism and is no reflection of any capacity in regards to teaching, understanding or practice-experience. As with any tradition, the relatively new idea of courting the West comes with its issues. There are many people out there advertising their involvement with Shugendo in the West who are unqualified, have minimal doctrinal/practice experience, have been ex-communicated or lack formal connection to a denomination. In this climate of misinformation and misappropriation, it is always recommended to check in with the head temple of the denomination in question so as to verify any claims.

The importance of material which presents Shugen in its own terms, written by actual practitioners, is also vital in the context of the anthropological gaze, where most information available in English on Shugen's theory, ritual-practice, mountain-entry and so on is written from the perspective of academia and scholars who keep the Shugen Dharma at an arms length. The ethics of the anthropological study of esoteric traditions aside, I have spoken to many priests and lay-practitioners over the years about the impact and poor approach of would-be-scholars in their rampant search for thesis material. There are academics who have built their careers around this kind of non-reciprocal extractavism who have very poor reputations inside the tradition. Some examples of this include the innapropriate mining of information during participation in religious ceremonies, lack of protocol around seeking permission when quoting practitioners, defining a tradition by the perspectives of lay and casual participation, and unknowingly exarcerbating tensions in a tradition defined by its restructuring in the Meiji Period (particularly at Haguro), with the implicit assumption that the Western/Anthropological gaze is one that is neutral, right, authoritative and objective. With this in mind, there are rare examples who do engage critically around the lack of historical, financial, and intellectual accountability across academia/anthropology more broadly.

At the same time, we see a growing trend where non-academic sentiments which do make it to the English speaking world, more often than not, are framed by modern self-help/power-spot/pop-psychology/ Wellness discourses which market aspects of Shugen as a kind of 'eco-tourism with a spiritual twist', while simultaneously reducing and emptying it of any depth as a Dharma stream; "picking its flowers while disregarding the deep (Buddhist) roots", with the superficial trappings of Shugen contorted into an easy-to-digest form of feel-good praxis or psycho-spiritual therapeutic modality. 

With that said, I hope that this book will prove faithful to the original manuscript and serve as a useful introduction for those interested in genuine Shugen doctrine and practice.