24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031
Tel: 03-5456-8082 Fax: 03-5456-8388
Mail: info@japancivilization.org
http://www.japancivilization.org/

Newsletter Vol. 13 Autumn 2018

On 28th August 2018, a special lecture under the theme, “Making full use of the five senses—What is traditional Japanese scentand sound?” took place for the 13th Symposium of the Japanese Civilization Institute. Mr. Hachiya Isshiken Souhitsu, 21stsuccessor and head of Shino School of Kodo, gave a lecture on Kodo (traditional incense-smelling ceremony), describing its content
as well as its history—both its past and its future. After the lecture, crystal ball player Ms. Asami Ishizuka gave a demonstrationon the crystal ball which sound is said to be close to the sounds of the Gion Shoja bells of “The Tale of the Heike.” As always,
Naoki Inose, director of the Japanese Civilization Institute moderated the lecture. The lecture provided us with the opportunity
to learn about our modern world, while learning about the Japanese culture.
(Reprinted from “Shukan Dokushojin,” 16th November, 2018, No. 3264 & Web Dokushojin)
A Report on Our 13th Symposium

Making full use of
the five senses—What is traditional Japanese scent and sound?—Hachiya Isshiken Souhitsu

vs.

Asami Ishizuka,
Crystalist Asami

Modulator Naoki Inose

World’s culture ofincenseInose: “Meiji Taisho-shi: seso-hen”(History of Meiji and Taisho Eras:
The Phases of People’s Life) is abook written by Yanagida Kunio,
which I was fond of in my youth. In
it there is a passage that comments
on scent; hiking guides of the Japa­
nese Alps realize whether people
have already entered the mountains
or not simply by the scent in the air.

About the groupJapanese Civilization InstituteEstablished in August 2015

The book, which was written in the
Taisho Era (1912-1926), includes
detailed descriptions on scent andsound which is starting to lose its
presence amid today’s modernizedworld.
Kodo (traditional incense artistry)is something uniquely Japanese.
Scent is something that we normally“smell,” but in Kodo, we use the term
“listen.”Mori Ogai’s “Okitsu Yagoemon noisho” (The Last Testament of Okitsu
Yagoemon) is a novel based on his­

torical facts on the fight over aromat­
ic wood between the Hosokawa andDate family. Hosokawa Sansai orders
his vassals Okitsu Yagoemon and
Yokota Seibee to travel to Nagasaki
and bring him something rare that issuitable for a tea ceremony. The two
try and obtain top quality eaglewood,
but fragrant wood is very expensive.
Therefore, Yokota insists that theychoose the branch, which is inferior
compared to the trunk. But Okitsu
insists that they follow their master’sorders and he ends up killing Yokota
after a dispute. As a result, theHosokawa family obtains the trunk
while the Date family obtains thebranch. But in fact, this historicalfragrant tree was something that was
passed down generations in Mr.
Hachiya’s family.
Today, we would like to have Mr.
Hachiya explain to us what Kodo
truly is.
Hachiya: My father is the iemoto

Address: 24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031
Tel :03-5456-8082 Fax:03-5456-8388
Website: http://www.japancivilization.org/

Designed by artisancompany

Naoki Inose(the family head) of Shino School of
Kodo, and I am the eldest son,which is practically where my life
begins. I now practice every day witha strong sense of responsibility tocarry on the culture of Kodo andpass it down generations.
During the Edo Period (16031868), local feudal lords from Nanbu
regions (Aomori Prefecture today) to
Bungo-no Kuni (Oita Prefecture
today) all enjoyed Kodo. The nearest
from here would be Edo-Jo Castle,
where the servants of women of theinner castle all enjoyed Kodo of
Shino School. Japan at the timeclosed its doors to the outside world,but many fragrant kinds of woodentered Nagasaki from Dejima, andsamurai families purchased them toenjoy its odor. In order to enjoy fra­
grant wood, you need to be aware of
its intricate manners. Iemoto exists
to teach these manners and for 500
years it has passed down these man­ners without changing it.
So how do we practice Kodo…?
We listen to the scent from the bot­
tom of our hearts. Kodo is passed
down by word of mouth. There are
hardly any books written on it. I my­self learned by watching my grandfa­
ther and father listen to the scent andI simply imitated them. In the end, I
think it is a world in which the fra­
grant wood itself invites you in. You
need to pursue the “path” of Kodo
your whole life. To learn about
yourself is also an issue required inorder to understand Kodo, which is2

why we listen to the scent every
single day.
Now, I would like to go way backin time to the primitive times when
we found a fire. In those days likeanimals, the five senses were import­
ant for humans too. In the modern
world today, it is said that our eyes
and ears are most important, but inthose days when humans lived withnature, whether you live or diedgreatly depended on the sense of
smell because you needed to distin­
guish enemies from allies and poison
from food.
In fact, the culture of scent existed
all around the world for a long timeago. For example, there are picturesof Cleopatra having slaves burnincense for her in ancient Egypt.
Similarly, the kanji “ko” ( 香 ) is
inscribed in the ancient Chinese hi­
eroglyphic characters left on bones
and tortoise carapaces, which aresaid to be the oldest kanji.
Meanwhile, in the New Testa­
ment, three kings from the Orient
bring gifts when Jesus is born. One isgold and the other two are frankin­cense and myrrh, both of which areessences. Other words, essences wereas important as gold back then.
Mummies of Ancient Egypt isreferred to as “Mira” in Japanese,
which is derived from the word
Myrrh because mummies use Myrrh
for preservation. From a long timeago, people thought that smoke thatrose up in the sky, bound humans toheaven. Even today, incense isburned when the Emperor is en­throned in order to inform the Gods.
Also, in Buddhism, when someone
dies, incense sticks are burnt
throughout the night. The incense issaid to be food for Buddha, so it
mustn’t be extinguished. By the way,in the Lotus Sutra, it is stated that
Buddha preached not with words butwith scent.
In these kinds of ways, various
cultures of scent blended in weremodified and finally developed intoa mannerism known as “hai-temae.”

It is an act of placing a charcoal-ballin an incense burner and covering it
up with ash. Then you shape the ash
into a cone and place small mica
flakes called ginyo on the summit of
the cone and add a chip of fragrantwood. It is important that the haitemae looks beautiful, but equallyimportant is the heat of the charcoalball. The scent will become different
if the cone shape is 1mm high or low.
Hai-temae requires extremely
delicate artistry.

Kodo uniquely
Japanese isfoundedHachiya: This is a great opportunity
so I would like all of you here today
to actually listen to fragrant wood.
Formally, we would avoid the front
side of the incense burner and show
gratitude to nature before we listen
to the scent. But today, we’re notgoing to worry about manners.
We’re just going to enjoy the fra­
grance. You hold the incense burner
firmly with your left hand so as tokeep it flat. Then you bring yourright hand thumb in front of theburner and surround the burnerwith your right hand as if to cover
the scent and approach it to yournose. Inhale the scent slowly threetimes and listen to the scent. Fra­
grant wood is also medicine, so if
you take it into your body slowly it
will cleanse your body and soul.
The culture of Japanese incense
beings in Awaji-shima Island wherefragrant wood drifted ashore. It issaid that it was the 3rd year of Suiko
Emperor’s reign (595 AD).
Kodo hadn’t begun during the
400 years of the Heian Era (7941185), but aristocrats valued aroma
very much. For example, in “Genji
Monogatari Emaki” (The Tale ofGenji Picture Scroll) there is a scene
in which Hikaru Genji has his
kimono penetrated with incense.
There was a fragrance recipe for each

Hachiya Isshiken Souhitsu

nobleman and they penetrated their
original scent in their kimono, hair,letter, and their living environment.
Aromatic wood was valuable backthen let alone today, so it was a status
only available to people of the class
who were able to obtain it and had
the education to understand it.
Later on in the Kamakura Era (11851333), Zen entered Japan. At thebasis of every Japanese culture, lies
the spirit of Zen. Each iemoto suc­cessor of the Shino school, place
themselves in a Zen temple. I myself
trained at a Zen temple for a year in
my mid-twenties.
For samurais during the Kama­kura Era, aromatic wood was used to
expel impurities. If you listen to
incense you’ll realize that it relaxes
your soul. I think samurais took aro­
matic wood to battles and listened to
it to sooth their exhausted souls andused it to compare their lives to theimpermanent fragrance of the wood.
If I may add another element that
constitutes Kodo that is typicallyJapanese, that would be the Japaneseclimate. Japan is an island that hascontinuously been attacked by ty­
phoons, earthquakes, and tsunami.
That sense of life and death and thechanging seasons blended in andmade the path to pursue the faintfragrance of Kodo, which was found­
ed in the Muromachi Era (13331573).
It was first founded in Gingakuji.
The first iemoto, Soushin Shino

served Ashikaga Yoshimasa andfounded Kodo. Since then, it has
been passed down 20 generations
until my father, without changing its
artistry.
Ginkakuji is in Kyoto, and theroom in which the Shino school
began still remains after numerous
reconstructions. Today, there areclasses of Shino School in Ginza andHarajuku, but every artistry is done
according to the layout of Ginkakuji.
Every mannerism including thewalking stride, the number of strides,
and hand movement was decided at
Ginkakuji and it has been passed
down and polished for 500 years.
The philosophy of Yin and Yang
are included in the shape of the ashof Shino School’s incense burner.
Other words, it means space exists inthis small incense burner. At thesummit of the mountain, incense
blessed by nature is placed. We callthis “Monko” (聞香). This discourse
is not only captured by the sense of
smell which we use every day, butalso by nature, space, and the soul. In
China, the kanji “聞” means to feelwith the five senses, but if you truly
spend some time practicing Kodo,
you soon start to receive messages
from the aromatic wood and thenatural world.
So, what exactly do we do in
Kodo? In regular classes, we dokumiko—a game to pick the rightincense.
Inose: So, you’re saying there is an
essence of play included in the pro­cedure of pursuing Kodo? I heardthat the episode of samurai Mina­
moto no Yorimasa, who conquered a
Nue (fabulous animal) was madeinto a game of Kodo.
Hachiya: Yes, it’s a kumi-kodo (in­cense comparing game) called“Ayame-ko” (iris incense).
Emperor Toba was extremely
happy that Yorimasa conquered themonster Nue and insisted that he be
rewarded. Yorimasa asks to be withthe woman he loved. This woman
was Ayame Gozen (Lady Iris) a beau­
tiful woman who stood besideEmperor Toba. Although Emperor
Toba said he could have whatever hewanted, he plays with him a little byhaving 4 identical women stand side
by side and have Yorimasa pick theright woman.
Inose: At the time, the rooms weredark and men and women never met
each other in broad daylight, so it
was difficult to pick out the rightwoman.
Hachiya: Lacking confidence,
Yorimasa decides to answer the ques­tion in a form of waka (Japanesepoem): “Samidare-ni Sawabe-no
Makomono Mizu-mashite Itsure
Ayame-to Hikisowatsurau,” meaning
because of the heavy rain, water has
risen and it has become hard to pickout the iris from the plants. He im­provised the poem, blending his feel­ings with the outside view. Accom­
plishments are a friend indeed for
Toba Emperor was deeply moved by
the poem and Yorimasa was able tobe with Ayame Gozen. There aremany games rooted in episodes likethis in Kodo. You need to under­
stand spirituality and literature tounderstand Kodo, so you not only
learn its artistry but also old Japanese
literature such as “Kokinshu” (Collec­
tion of Japanese Poetry, Ancient andModern) and “Genji Monogatari”(The Tale of Genji).

Kodo—past andpresent
Hachiya: I’m sure you are all awareof the many aromas that is available
around the world. There are spicesthat you use for cooking for example
like cinnamon, clove and star anise.
Musk is a famous animal aroma. It is
obtained from a small caudal glandof the male musk deer. Its scent isextremely strong and can attract a fe­

3

(right to left) “hai-temae ” To place a charcoal-ball in an incense burner and cover it up with ash. Then to shape the ash into a coneand place small mica flakes called ginyo on the summit of the cone and add a chip of fragrant wood.

male deer a few dozens of kilometers
away. Also, ambergris, which is a cal­culus created in a whale’s intestines isvery rare. In China, these are all
Chinese medicine. There’s also
kyara. In the Shino School, we don’t
use Sandalwood. Also, there’s Aloe
wood. The highest quality of Aloe
wood is kyara.
Aromatic wood is not available inJapan. The nearest country that we
can find it is Vietnam, followed by
Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
Recently, there are some found in
Papua New Guinea. In India, there
are no Aloe wood or kyara, only
Sandalwood. There is no aromatic
wood in Africa either. Aromatic
wood traveled the land and crossed
the seas and came into Japan. The
stop in the middle was Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was the center for
aromatic wood. Maybe the nameHong Kong ( 香 港 ) — meaning“aroma port”—was named because
the port smelled so good!
There’s a classifying system called“rokkoku gomi” (six countries five
tastes) for aromatic wood. The coun­tries are kyara (Vietnam), rakoku(Thailand), manaka (Malacca,
Malaysia), manaban (unknown),sasora (India), and sumondara(Sumatra, Indonesia), while thescents are bitter, sweet, salty, hot andsour. Aromatic wood smells differ­
ently according to where it was
produced. The six countries are like4wine brands such as Bordeaux, Bur­
gundy, and Champagne. Before, clas­
sification used to be done according
to where it was produced, but recent­ly the iemoto does it by inhaling it.
He listens to the scent again andagain for about a year and classifies
kyara, rakoku…and so forth.
Other than land, aromatic wood
also has its tastes, often two to threekinds of taste per wood.
Lastly, when the countries andtastes are classified, names are applied
to each aromatic wood. A season
might be picked from the scent or alandscape that comes into mind. Or
maybe a perfect poem from “Kokinshu” or “Shin Kokinshu” might beapplied. Of course, the fragrance andname must be perfect for each other.
It is a difficult task.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was a collectorof aromatic wood. He sent directpurchase orders to countries where
they produced the wood and import­
ed them on shogunate-licensed
trading ships. Before he retired to
Sunpu (Shizuoka Prefecture today),he shared the wood to the gosanke(the big three branch families of theTokugawa house); Mito, Owari, andKii. There is an aromatic wood thatis 3,000 to 4,000 years old preservedin Owari of the Tokugawa family,
which my grandfather gave an expert
opinion on in 1934.
Aromatic wood is wrapped in abamboo sheet, placed in a wooden

box. Its temperature and humidity
are severely controlled. By doing so,
the scent is maintained for 500 to
1,000 years. Through its scent,people are able to make discoursewith samurais, noblemen, and Em­
perors of the past.

Inose: Mr. Hachiya showed me arange of aromatic wood at his place.
Is aromatic wood a result of bacteria
entering the tree, causing a chemicalchange close to a catabolism?
Hachiya: If it were human, I guess itwould be a disease.
Inose: Chemical change is happen­
ing on one side of the tree, but noton the other side. Other words,
there are parts where the scent is fineand not fine, so the value of thetrunk and branch becomes com­pletely different. In fact, this detailwas mentioned in one of Mori Ou­
gai’s books.
Hachiya: When a branch is bent by
natural cause, the tree gathers resin
to the inside part where it’s wound,to prevent it from being eaten by
insects or bacteria, like a scab. When
the wound is surrounded by resinand hardened, the inner parts fossil­
izes and if it goes well, an aromatic
wood is made.
Inose: For example, what kind ofwords would describe the scent ofkyara?
Hachiya: In our world, we refer to it
as, “like a noble courtier” because of
its flamboyant scent. There are many
words to describe the wood likesamurai, farmer or priest dependingon the type of wood. Among them,
are expressions that are not heard sooften today. For example, the scentof the aromatic tree Manaka is said
to be “Onna-no uchi uramitaruga
gotoshi,” meaning it’s like a smell of
women’s bitterness.
Inose: It’s an expression that reflects
the human soul.
By the way, your home, which isalso the home of the iemoto of the
Shino School is in Nagoya. Why is it
not in Kyoto where Ashikaga Yoshi­masa started the artistry?
Hachiya: The house in Kyoto wasburnt in war at the end of the Edo
Period during the times of the 15th
iemoto.
Inose: You’re referring to the Hama­
guri Gomon-no Hen, right? It
destroyed 60% for Kyoto. So, thehouse of the Shino School was burnt
as well.
Hachiya: It must’ve been a lovely
smell! The Owari family of Toku­
gawa helped us out when we werelost, and the 15th iemoto moved to
Nagoya. As the 21st iemoto, I’m

making it my responsibility to moveback to Kyoto, because I think it’snatural that we place ourselves inour roots. When I mentioned that to
Mr. Tokugawa, he disciplined mewith the words, “Because of whom,
do you exist!”
The scent of aromatic wood,“Ichiboku Sanmeikou,” which Mr.
Inose mentioned in the beginning, isso good that people fought over it.
The aromatic tree is a presence on its
own, so normally it shouldn’t be
split. But once it was cut, whicheven resulted in a seppuku (harakiri) incident. The portion which
the Hosokawa family achieved is“Shiragiku,” the Date family ob­tained “Shiba Fune,” the Maeda fam­
ily or Kobori Enshu took “Hatsune”
and the part called “Fujibakama” waspresented to the Imperial court. The
four portions are also known as “Ichi­
moku Shimei.” This kind of aromatic
wood with a history still exists.
Also, there is the most famous
aromatic wood in our world called“Ranjatai,” which is a tree of 1.5
meters withheld inside Shosoin ofNara. It is a very old tree that has
been preserved preciously from thedays of Shomu Emperor. It is said
that 3 people have cut the tree
during its very long history; one per­son in the 1400s, another in the
1500s and another in the 1800s. The
first person to cut the tree was Ashi­kaga Yoshimasa who cut the rightsection. He is the shogun who waspresent at the time when Kodo wasfounded. The next person cut thetree on the beam. This person
wanted a portion of the tree himself
to show his strength to the people…
yes, it was Oda Nobunaga. The ie­
moto of the Shino School was withhim at the time and was able tosecure a section for himself too. It
seems this valuable portion has been
passed down generations at the Shino
School, but I’m not told about its
whereabouts. A part of it was pre­sented to the Tokugawa family. The

third person to cut a portion of thetree in the 1800s was the Meiji
Emperor.
Shosoin is in Todaiji. If you lookat the kanji of Ranjatai ( 蘭奢待 )carefully, you’ll be recognized that
Todaiji (東大寺) is hidden inside it.
A sense of humor is included in thisso-called “hidden characters.”

Gratitude to natureand issues of Kodo
Hachiya: There is a woman iemoto
who existed in the past. Normally,
the artistry is handed down from thefather to his son, but the 17th iemoto
is a woman named Momoe.
Customarily, it is the role of the ie­
moto to burn incense in temples andshrines for God and Buddha. The
artistry is different for God andBuddha.
On the occasion of burning in­cense at Kamigamo Shrine and othershrines, a sheet of paper is placed
between the lips, so as not to breath
air to towards God. Iemoto burnincense wearing special clothes called
dobuku, and they use special tools
and manners. This manner is asecret, which only my father knows.
I will be taught when the timecomes.
When you become a pupil of the
Shino School, the iemoto initiates
you. You go up the ranks while re­ceiving certificates called “kyojo.”
There are 8 teachings in the Shino
School, which leads to a full master­5

ship at the very end. You cannot
acquire a full mastership until you
reach the age of 70.
The artistry of the Shino School isvery intricate. You cannot alter
anything, not even a single inch. We
have spent 500 years developing abeautiful, single artistry. The pupils
practice every day in order to acquirethat perfect artistry. It’s wrong tomove like a robot. You have to put
your heart in it, or else the aromatic
wood will notice. Aroma produced
without feelings does not smell good.
The artistry is important, but at theend of the day, Kodo is not about
technique. People communicate by
the soul. That vibration is also cap­
tured by aromatic wood.
There are also several games in
Kodo. For example, there’s “Sho Chi­
ku Bai ko” (pine, bamboo, and plum
incense), a game where you memo­
rize 3 aromas and guess its order. You
gain points by how well you do, like

6

0 points, or 1 points. You are award­
ed a “kanae” (叶) –meaning dreams
fulfilled—if you get all 3 correct. In
order to understand Kodo, you haveto have knowledge in calligraphy, as
well as literature and Chinese poem.
It takes time, but practice is fun.
There is also “Genji ko,” a kumi-ko(matching incense) contest that uses
52 out of the 54 scrolls of The Taleof Genji. The ones we do not use is“Kiritsubo” and “Yumeno ukihashi.”
The rule is to guess the difference of
the incense burner that is brought toyou five times in a row. For example,
after listening to five different
burners and you think the first andthe second incense are the same but
others are different, the answer is“Karasemi.” Whereas, if you think it’s
all different it’s “Hahakigi” or the
first burner different but the rest thesame it’s “Suetsumuhana.” Like this,
52 different types of incense guessing
are formed with five burners. It is

one kumi-ko (matching incense) we
do at the Shino School.
There are also various types oftools for appreciating Kodo. For
example, fusego is a basket overwhich clothes are put and placed
over an incense burner. There is also
ko-dansu, an incense box to put all
your precious aromatic wood insideand ko-makura, a pillow in which
you can place incense inside—a
crucial item to lure present dreams.
Meanwhile, jushu kobako is anelaborately crafted container that canhold all your Kodo tools. It is said
that if someone who is new to thecontainer takes something out, they
will never be able to place it backagain. Also, there is something close
to a board game like sugoroku,
which is used for Kodo games. A
horse proceeds if you guess the rightscent but is thrown off a horse if you
make a near miss. There are manners
you have to follow for each Kodo

tool.
Inose: I often see the image of peo­
ple in the Heian Era having incense
penetrated in their kimono sleeves.
How does that work?
Hachiya: There are tools calledsodekoro (sleeves incense burner) andmarikoro (ball incense burner). It is
about the size of a baseball and is agyroscope that stays flat no matter
how much you roll it around. If you
put coal and incense inside, it pro­duces aroma every time the windblows. The scent is completely dif­ferent from that of perfume. Tech­niques such as these were passed
down from the Silk Road. Apparent­
ly, Kodo picked it up and made it its
own.
Do you know Chidori-no-koro (anincense burner shaped like a plover)?
It is a legendary incense burner thatwas passed down to shoguns of thetime from Yoshimasa. When it was in
the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi,
Ishikawa Goemon (semi-legendary
outlaw hero) tries to steal it fromhim. But the plover cried and
Goemon was caught. Such a tale ispassed down through generations
and this incense burner still exists.
There’s also the Shino-bukuro(Shino bag), an original tool of the
Shino School. During the practice of
Kodo, we don’t decorate flowers
because its fragrance will get in theway. Instead, we use strings attachedto the bags and tie it into shapes offlowers of the season to add color.
There are 12 ways to tie the strings
according to the month of the year
and season; plum, cherry blossom,
wisteria, hollyhock, iris, lotus,
morning glory, Chinese bellflower,
chrysanthemum, autumn leaves,
narcissus, snow-covered bamboo leaf.
The method of tying these string
designs has been passed by word of
mouth for 500 years. There are nobooks that illustrate the instructions.
It’s top secret, but there are also
reverse designs of the months too.

When you level up, you learn to tie
cranes and tortoises not to mention
dragonflies when you reach the stageof a master.
There are multiple schools forsado (Japanese tea). It is said that
there are about 100,000 members ineach school. There are even more
people practicing kado (Japanese
flower arrangement). If you compare
Kodo with sado and kado, you’llrealize that Kodo has limits to its
materials. Both flowers and tea are
available in Japan. You can growthem, cultivate them and harvest
them every year. But with Kodo, you
can do none of these. The materials
are not available in Japan, andbasically, you cannot grow it inJapan. Moreover, it also takes about
100 years to grow. There are only
two schools for Kodo and our school
has members of roughly 2,000 to
3,000. The number is larger if you
add the people who are yet tobecome pupils, but I don’t think itreaches 100,000. However, the goal
does not lie in increasing the numberof people who practice Kodo.
Inose: How do you become a pupil
if you want to start Kodo?
Hachiya: There are about 30 classes
in Tokyo, approximately 200 aroundthe country not to mention a couple
abroad like Paris and Beijing. Those
who are interested should pay a visit.
But becoming a pupil is a lifetime
engagement so you cannot become apupil after just coming to the class acouple of times. If you ask to be­come a pupil and are accepted, youhave to dedicate your life to pursue
the path of Kodo with the iemoto.
You cannot quit halfway through.
Aromatic wood is becoming rare
today, for people have exhausted it
and even people of China and Arabic
countries are after it today. If aromat­
ic trees are gone altogether, Kodo will
not last so my father planted trees inVietnam, the first to do so as an
iemoto. Of course, even if you plant

1,000 trees, not all of them will
become aromatic trees. The rest is up
to nature. My children or my grand­children might use them long after
my father and myself have gone. I
mentioned earlier on that it was im­
possible to grow aromatic wood, but
recently there are people who aretrying. Human technology is show­
ing rapid progress. Chinese business­men are trying to produce aromatic
wood in 10 years, while it normallytakes 100 years. It won’t become abusiness if it took 100 years, see?
Aromatic wood is cultivated at
Hainan Island and Guangdong
Province and sold in Beijing. I took
part in a competitive exhibition theother day, but an artificial fist-sizedaromatic wood was sold at approxi­
mately 300 million yen. Basically,
there is no culture for China to listen
to scents. Instead, it is used for burn­ing, making rosaries and for brewing
as a drink for Chinese medicine.
I think it is our job to pass down
incense not only in Japan, but also
around the world. I hope to connect
people and countries using incense.
For example, I wanted to find out
how they handled aromatic wood in
the Arabic country Bahrain, so I
went. They place the aromatic wood
directly on the coal, so it just createdsmoke though it was an extremely
expensive aromatic wood. Today, we
use tiny pieces of aromatic wood.
Also, in Kodo, we must begin byappreciating nature. I would like tovisit Bahrain again someday, in order
to inform them about this.
Recently, I’ve started visiting kin­dergartens too. The scent of the city
is mechanical and lifeless. There are
too many chemical substances. The
smell of fabric softeners has become
strong, don’t you think? Natural
fragrance is very expensive, so it is
impossible to use only natural
fragrance, but I hope children expe­
rience natural fragrances as much as
possible, so that they remember thesmell.
I talked about a lot of things7today, but rather than listening to mywords, it is better to listen to thescent, for the aromatic tree will teachyou various things. The most im­
portant thing in Kodo is to listen tonature. I hope to dedicate my life tolistening to scents, and pass down
the tradition of Kodo, which myfather, grandfather, and iemotos be­fore me, passed along.

Cystal Bowl—thebells of Gion Shoja
Inose: I’m sure everybody knowsthat The Tale of the Heike starts
with the words, “Gion Shoja-no
Kane-no Oto. Shogomujo-no Hibi­
kiari” (The sound of the Gion Shoja
echoes the impermanence of allthings). But what exactly are thebells of Gion Shoja like?
It is said that there was a person in
the early Edo Period, who went all
the way to South East Asia andlanded in Angkor War to find Gion
Shoya, only to realize that it was a
mistake later on. It is estimated that
Gion Shoja was most likely in India,
where Buddhism was handed down.
Gion Shoja is a place where monks
spent their last days of their lives.
The bells are said to be not like theones you see in temples but weremade with crystal and were likeshapes of wind chimes. It is said thatthe bells could hit each other in all
directions and monks could leave

Asami Ishizuka

8

this world listening to the sound,feeling as if they were blending into
nature. That kind of place truly
existed.
If we were to recreate that sound,
it would be this crystal bowl. There
are different colors and sizes, but allof them are crystal. It is said thatalpha waves are produced in thebrain if you listen to the sound. We
will have crystal bowl player Ms.
Ishizuka perform it for us today.
Ishizuka: Like Mr. Inose’s introduc­tion, the crystal bowl is a bowlshaped instrument made fromcrushed pieces of crystal. When you
hear its sound, alpha waves areproduced in your brain. Alpha
brains are brain waves created when
you are in a relaxed state, like when
you are receiving a massage or enjoy­
ing a hot spring. For some people,
alpha waves will be produced as early
as a few tens of seconds after you
hear its sound. It’s an instrumentwith which you can relax in a matterof minutes, so it is suitable for busy
modern people who need good sleep
or need to relieve brain fatigue.
There are a variety of colors be­cause minerals other than crystal isblended in or sprayed. The soundwill include frequencies of otherminerals too. I’m sure you are allaware of power stones, but eachstone has different effects. The wave
energy of each stone is added to thesound of the crystal bowl.
The frequency is different for eachbowl and it responds delicately to thefrequencies exposed from each of ourbody parts, including around ourcoccyx, our navel, and our stomach.
The stick we use to generate thesound is called a Mallet. It is tannedwith goat’s skin.
Peoples’ hearing range is between
16 Hz to 16,000 Hz, but the crystal
bowl produces 50,000 Hz. The small
frequencies we cannot hear, is effec­
tive towards relaxation and raising
our self-healing powers.
About 40 years ago, people tried
to revive the instrument that ancientpeople of Egypt drew on wall
paintings. This is the most likely
theory as to why crystal bowl was
created in the first place. I normally
have people lie down while listening
to the sound. But today, unfortu­
nately, we have to sit on chairs, butplease close your eyes and relax while
you listen. Please feel free to fallasleep if you wish.
Inose: Today’s symposium revolved
around the theme of “polishing our
five senses.” Living in a society
today, which influence from modern
Europe is extremely strong, I think
we have come to lose a lot of things.
If we continue to think just based on
the standards of modernization,
maybe we will lose many things. As
humans, can’t we discover otherways to live? Maybe we are close to
the state of amnesia, having dis­
tanced ourselves from Japanese cul­
ture and way of thinking? In orderto reconsider these matters, we had
Mr. Hachiya talk about Kodo, which
we should know about and Ms.
Ishizuka to perform the bells ofGion Shoja of “The Tale of the
Heike.” Sometimes we need to stir
Japanese culture, which has sunk

into the seas of modern society.
( Reprinted from “Shukan
Dokushojin,” 16th November,
2018, No. 3264 & Web Doku­
shojin)The panelists
Hachiya Isshiken Souhitsu
21st Successor of Shino-ryu, Head of Shino School of Incense
Born in 1975. He is the eldest son of Sougen Hachiya, the 20th generations master of Shino-ryu (The Shino
School of Incense “Kodo”), the style of Kodo that has been passed down for over 500 years since the Muromachi
Era. In 2002, he served under the 530th great monk Gyokudo Izumida at Daitoku-ji. In 2004, he received the name“Isshiken” and the Buddhist name “Souhitsu” from Master Gyokudo and was appointed the 21st successor of
Shino-ryu.
He is currently teaching at all Shino schools in Japan, schools abroad, as well as giving lectures fromkindergartens to universities in order to spread awareness and share his insight. He is keen to communicate andconnect with various countries through the Japanese culture of Kodo. He hopes that Kodo will be listed as one
of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage in the near future. In addition, he is actively working on a tree-planting
program in Vietnam to preserve the now scarce “fragrant trees” for later generations. He holds lectures about
these kinds of environmental programs under the title of “Kankyo-do” (Way of the Environment). He acted inbehalf of the Japan Cultural Envoy of the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2009. He is also a guest lecturer at
Ikenobo College and the honorary member of the Societe Francaise des Parfumeurs.

Asami Ishizuka, Crystalist Asami
Representative director of the Crystal Bowl Academy Japan Foundation and CEO of Crystal Bowl Academy Japan.
Born in Tokyo. Worked in a major corporation for 13 years, working as a personnel management officer and asecretary to the executive. She founded a house cleaning business before becoming a Crystal Bowl performer.
In 2013, she made her CD debut from King Records, which marked her as the first Crystal Bowl performer torelease a CD. In 2014, she released her second album. She has dedicated her performance at temples andshrines around the country, including Ise Jingu and Izumo Taisha. She has dedicated her performance at Araya
Yama Shrine in Fuji Yoshida nine times in a row. Other performances include, Yahiko Shrine in Niigata, Enoshima
Shrine in Shonan, Kanagawa, Togakushi Shrine in Nagano, Okino-gu Shrine in Okinawa and others. In addition,
she is also active as a woman entrepreneur, attending various business seminars and company establishment
parties. She is the author of “Kikudakede No-no Tsukarega Toreru CD bukku” (A CD book that relieves brain
fatigue just by listening to it), out from Diamond-sha.

Naoki Inose
Author. Born in 1946. In 1986, he received the Souichi Ooya Nonfiction Award for his book “Mikado no Shozo”(Portrait of the Emperor).” In 1996, he received the Bungeishunju Readers’ Award for his book “Nipponkoku no
Kenkyu” (A Report on Japan).” In June 2002, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed him to the Promotion
Committee for the Privatization of the Four Highway-Related Public Corporations. He served as Tokyo Governor
from December 2012 to December 2013. In December 2015, he became Special Advisor to Osaka City. His books
include “Show 16-nen no Haisen” (The Defeat in Showa 16), “Persona—Mishima Yukio Den” (Persona: The Storyof Mishima Yukio) and “Picaresque—Dazai Osamu Den.” (Picaresque: The Story of Dazai Osamu). Upcoming books
include “Kyushutsu” (Rescue), “Senso, Tenno, Kokka” (War, Emperor, State), “Seigi ni tsuite Kangaeyo” (Let’s Think
about Justice), “Minkei” (Posse Man), “Tokyo no Teki” (Tokyo’s Enemy) and in collaboration with Lully Miura,“Kokumin Kokka no Riarizumu” (Realism and the Nation-state).

Translation: Ayako Karino
9Japanese Civilization Institute 2018 14th Symposium
We have a goal in 2020 with the Olympics and the Paralympics, but what will come after that? Let us talk about
our visions on the new coming era, after Heisei. Media artist Yoichi Ochiai and our director of Japanese Civilization
Institute, Naoki Inose will discuss this theme thoroughly.
▶ Panel discussion:

Thinking about Japanafter 2021
Yoichi Ochiai

Naoki Inose

Media Artist, Pixie Dust Technologies Inc. CEO
Associate Professor and Advisor to the President at University of Tsukuba

Author, director of the Japanese
Civilization Institute

Masato Kato

Date: 5 th December (Wednesday), 2018, 7 p.m.-9 p.m. (doors
scheduled to open at 6:30 p.m.)
Venue: J apan University of Economics, Tokyo Shibuya Campus
Hall (the hall seats approximately 100 people)
Address: 25-17, Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 151-0031

Traditional Crafts
Online Site

Admission: 2
 ,000 yen (please pay at the door on the day)How to attend: a pply through the site below:
http://www.japancivilization.org/
Contact: J apanese Civilization Institute03-5456-8082

Worldwide：https://shops.japancivilization.org
Japanese：http://japancivil.shop9.makeshop.jp

Messages from Director
Japanese Civilization Institute has been introducing and selling traditional crafts of Japan. Although
it is said that there is approximately 1,200 types of traditional crafts in Japan, its production is
declining. As part of our activities, we hope to discover valuable traditional crafts spread across thenation, enjoy Japanese craftsmanship and its beauty inherited over the centuries, and develop itwith you.

Tsumami Kanzashi(Crepe)Folding Screen(half size)

Folding Screen(full size)

KYO-YAKI
Earthenware

Japanese Bamboo
Basket Tokyotrad

Odoshi Samurai Armor

Contact：Japanese Civilization Institute 24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031 Phone : 03-5456-8082 Mail : info@japancivilization.org