Yoshiyuki Yoneda had a problem. As chief priest of a temple in Kyoto, he ministered to the spiritual and ritual needs of his local community. But like many other clerics in Japan's ancient capital, he also wanted to attract fee-paying tourists to his temple.
As far as his strictly religious duties were concerned, Yoneda was a model priest, although hardly a paragon of ascetic virtue — his love of food and drink showed in his roly-poly frame, chubby cheeks and plural chins. But his faith in the Buddha's teachings had never wavered. He felt it was important to spread the Enlightened One's word in today's materialistic society, and not merely officiate at funerals and collect offerings.
When it came to pulling in the punters, though, Yoneda was an abject failure. He had a very un-Buddhist feeling of envy when he passed the city's big-name temples and shrines and saw the fleets of buses disgorging masses of tourists who dutifully lined up at the ticket gates.