JERUSALEM: Japanese Buddhist association Agon Shu honours Israel's 60th anniversary with colourful ceremony

Record ID: 462393

  • Title: JERUSALEM: Japanese Buddhist association Agon Shu honours Israel's 60th anniversary with colourful ceremony
  • Date: 12th September 2008
  • Summary: CLOSE OF JAPANESE CHILD AND FATHER IN AUDIENCE AHEAD OF BEGINNING OF CEREMONY
  • Embargoed: 27th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVADPIKVIZ579OCVGUUHKB3UP8GE
  • Story Text: Jerusalem, accustomed to visitors from all cultures, welcomed hundreds of members of the Agon Shu association, who arrived from Japan on Wednesday (September 10).
    Members of the Buddhist organisation, who try to promote world peace, held a "Fire Ceremony" on a promenade overlooking Jerusalem's old city, honouring the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, celebrated this year.
    Before the ceremony, the faithful and some of the participating officials including Israeli Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham Balila, submitted their prayers and wishes on hundreds of "gomagi" wooden sticks, which later fuelled a large pyre.
    The ceremony also consisted of traditional singing by priests, and the shooting of a bow and arrow.
    The Agon Shu organisation was established in 1979 by Seiyu Kiriyama, known to his followers as Kiriyama Kancho.
    Kiriyama, today 87-years-old, started with a single disciple following World War Two after he served a prison term for operating an illegal liquor operation. He slowly built up a following, then in 1979 founded the Agon-Shu sect, a religious group he said combines ancient Buddhist principles with modern meditation and self-help techniques, drawing on yoga, Taoism, and physical fitness programmes such as jogging. He is the first Buddhist leader in Japan to use television to spread his message, and the author of tens of books.
    The organisation has approximately 600,000 followers in Japan, many of them Tokyo executives who say the approach helps their careers.
    The group believes peace and harmony can not be attained without the repose of departed souls, and the organisation holds ceremonies in various locations around the world. In 2006 a "Fire Rites" ceremony was held near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, in dedication to world peace and commemoration of Holocaust victims. Other prayers ceremonies for the dead were held in Hiroshima, Japan, Mongolia and in China.
    Earlier this week, Agon Shu members presented the local voluntary organisation of "Yad Sara" with 1,000 wheelchairs, to assist their humanitarian work, according to local media.
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