Workplace Bullying in Japan Can Easily Lead to Temple Fires

@Aichan_in_Osaka: In Imari City, Saga Prefecture, Japan, a 600-year-old temple was set on fire on the 30th of last month and more than half of it burned down.

The police investigated for a week and arrested the 28-year-old trainee monk living at the temple.

The monk admitted to setting the fire, and his reason was very direct: "I was fed up with everything in life."

He said he had been living and training at the temple for over a year. The senior monks were very harsh to him, scolding him daily over sutra chanting and lifestyle guidance, and he would also get hit with a kyosaku by the older monks.

What is a kyosaku?

A kyosaku is a flat wooden board used in Japanese Zen Buddhist practice, about one meter in length. I think it looks a lot like the laundry beaters we used at home when we were kids, used to bang on clothes on a washboard.

Wow, such a nostalgic item; probably kids born after 2010 have no idea what I'm talking about anymore.

Returning to the arson case, the trainee monk did household chores at the temple every day, had to practice and study Buddhism, and every now and then got banged on by the old fogeys with wooden sticks, until he finally had an emotional breakdown.

In the early hours of that morning, he set fire to the second floor of the dormitory, then told the monk colleague next door about the fire, and the two escaped the dorm building together.

Ten minutes later he called the police, but the wooden temple burned very quickly. The fire was not completely extinguished until 7 hours later, and the main structure of the ancient temple was almost reduced to ashes. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

This story tells us that workplace bullying in Japan can easily lead to temple fires.

(Oda Nobunaga: ?)
(Akechi Mitsuhide: !)