Kazura Island in the Sea of Japan is attracting interest from people looking for an alternative to ash interment, as the uninhabited islet has become a dedicated site for ash scattering. An affiliate of a funeral service company in Tokyo started to offer ash ...

A unique weekend session combining meditation and the music of Bach was held last month at a Catholic church in Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture. As some 20 participants listened to the German composer’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor during the first session of the ...

A new generation of Buddhist priests is working closely with ordinary people to regenerate communities as population shrinkage threatens the future of their temples. On a Saturday night in May, a group of five men, mostly in their 30s, sat down at Saikoji Temple ...

A Christian academy in the countryside is seeking to improve the quality of life in poor farming villages in Asia and Africa by giving new generations of community leaders the latest agricultural skills and knowledge. Established in 1973, the Asian Rural Institute operates agricultural ...

A growing number of Buddhist temples have been capitalizing on the nation’s recent matchmaking boom. In the middle of last month, 12 men and women, mostly in their late 30s and early 40s, gathered at Anrakuji, a Nichiren-sect temple in the city of Wakayama, ...

On a morning in January, female volunteers went to Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park to feed and attend to the needs of the homeless. The women, who belong to the Japan branch of the Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese humanitarian group established in 1966 by Buddhist ...

One morning last fall, a group of around a dozen people of various nationalities and religious faiths visited Kanda Myojin Shrine in central Tokyo. The diplomats and their families from various countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa, including Luxembourg, Romania and Costa Rica, ...

Masashi Nagano is an unlikely believer in Islam. He is a 28-year-old Japanese, born and brought up in a society with predominantly Shinto and Buddhist undertones, who hated religion as a child. Nagano became a Muslim in 2008, when he was in graduate school. ...

At a bustling Tokyo flea market in late September, booths were filled with manga, self-published magazines, books, accessories and other goods. The crowds that gathered included women in “cosplay” outfits and men in animal costumes, while the poster promoting the event featured a manga-style ...