The Role of Light in Buddhist Healing Practices and the Contemporary Japanese Chaplaincy Movement

Dr Pierce Salguero talks with Rev. Nathan Jishin Michon, a postdoctoral fellow at Ryukoku University and an ordained priest in the Shingon Buddhist tradition. Our conversation touches on diverse Buddhist healing rituals and the role of light in Shingon practice and cosmology. We discuss the playfulness and innovation in modern Japanese Buddhism, and the rise of chaplaincy after the 3.11 tsunami and nuclear disaster. We also talk about Nathan’s ethnographic work in Japan, as well as their experiences volunteering in a “listening cafe.”

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Pierce Salguero, Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (2019)
• Jivaka Project
• Nathan’s dissertation: “Awakening to Care: Formation of Japanese Buddhist Chaplaincy” (2020)
• Nathan Michon, A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community (2016)
• Nathan Michon, Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Voices in Crisis Care (2023)

Dr. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia.

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