What is the purpose of Shugendo? - Buddhism 101

To learn more about the documentary film "Carving the Divine - Buddhist Sculptors of Japan" : https://www.carvingthedivine.com/

Hosted by filmmaker Yujiro Seki, Carving the Divine TV is a series of Q&A sessions with Buddhist scholars and practitioners. These Q&A sessions explore the basic concepts of Buddhism, the history of Buddhism and of course Buddhist sculptures/sculptors (bustuzo/busshi) so that when viewers finally watch the documentary Carving the Divine - Buddhist sculptors of Japan, they will get the maximum value of the documentary.

It has been a while since our last interview on Shugendo. We learned so much from that episode! Since then I have received numerous requests for another episode of Shugendo. People are especially interested in seeing actual practices of Shugendo and the deep teaching behind it. So, we have decided to conduct another interview of Shugendo. We will even go deeper this time! We have a rare opportunity to talk to a legendary Japanese Shugendo master Rev. Shokai Koshikidake. We will have an incredible interview but this episode will be more than just an interview! Rev. Koshikidake is generous enough to share the photos and videos of practices that go with the interview. So I promise this will be one hell of an episode! You want to discover the secret of the wisdom tradition of Japan? You want to discover the secret of deep teaching of Shugendo? Yes, you are in the right place! We will blow your mind so come and see!

Shokai Koshikidake was born in Hokkaido, Japan. He left his parents’ home for Yamagata to inherit his family temple when he was 10 years old. He learned the basic ritual of Shugendo from his grandparents, studied mountain training in Three Mountains of Dewa, and became an ordained Tendai priest. He opened the mountain training field at Mt. Koshikidake and revived the old ritual from hereditary documents. He accomplished all these reconstruction works while working for a TV station. Now he teaches Japanese and Western practitioners and develops training fields in the world.