New sensation of religious practice: Taki-gyo training

 “Taki-gyo”, which is waterfall training in English, is an ascetic training and a type of performance of cold water ablutions among tantric buddhism, Shugen-do, and Shinto. There are several places where people can experience waterfall training with Shinto priest following the certain processes. One of the closest place from Tokyo called Kuzuryu waterfall in Hinohara Village and the training is held by Mr. Nishizawa, a priest of Kuzuryu shrine.

 The last challenge for plunge is Taki-gyo because I was interested in buddhism and I wanted to make a clean start for the new year. According to my mother, my family is traditionally a believer of Jodo Shinshu, also known as Shin Buddhism, but we are not strict believers therefore I have never experience any buddhism practice. The funny fact is that all of my family member except my father went to the same Christian school, so we were used to participate the church service everyday at school. Taki-gyo is not restricted by religions, so it was the best way to purify my spirit of evil thought. In addition to that, it is quite physically challenging that doing it in winter, especially January due to coldness.

 There were four steps to do Taki-gyo: visit to Kuzuryu Shrine, accustomization to the cold water, taki-gyo for cleansing sins, and taki-gyo for rogation. From the second step, we had to change the clothes to loincloth for men or filmy kimono for women. The waterfall partly freezed, and there were some icicles around it. In order to be accustomed to the water, I chanted two phrases such as “Harae tamae” and “Kiyome Tamae” for three times. Later, I stood under the waterfall twice about 2 or 3 minutes during Mr.Nishizawa’s chanting. It was really painful, but at the same time it was effective. During Taki-gyo I technically could not think about anything but this training and inside of my head was completely cleaned up for the first time in this year due to the coldness of the water. The best thing was hot springs after Taki-gyo. This opposite experience, which could be said “carrot and stick”, gave me new sensation and a feeling of accomplishment.

 In my conclusion, Taki-gyo is one of the most effective training for cleaning up inside of the head and making a fresh start for the new year. As I expected it was hard, but I sort of understand why many people do an ascetic training. What I have found was that the strength of the minds is greatly connected with the physical limitation.