Spiritual Journeys to Japan

You can practise Shingon Reiki anywhere in the world. But there are places where the practice takes on another depth — places where the tradition does not come from books, but from the stones, the trees, the air. Places where monks have recited for over a thousand years the same mantras you use in your own practice. Places where you feel it: here is where this is at home.

Mark spent three years researching and practising in Japan — in the temples of Kōyasan, in the monasteries of Kyoto, on the Shikoku Pilgrimage. He walked the full 88-temple path on foot, alone, over weeks. He meditated in Shingon, Tendai, and Zen temples, studied Japanese and Chinese calligraphy with a Zen monk, and deepened the connection across countless further stays. From this experience the spiritual journeys to Japan have grown that Mark and Eileen now lead together.

Kōyasan — the heart of Shingon 高野山

高野山 Kōyasan — the "High Wild Mountain" — is the place Kūkai founded in the year 816 as the centre of the Shingon tradition. Over a thousand metres high, surrounded by eight peaks that together form the shape of a lotus. Here stands Kongōbu-ji, the head temple of Shingon. Here lies Kūkai's mausoleum in Oku-no-in, the largest cemetery in Japan — an avenue of cedars through which one seems to walk in another time.

Spending the night on Kōyasan is an experience that cannot be simulated. The temple lodgings — Shukubō — offer not tourism but participation. You rise at five in the morning, sit through the monks' morning service, eat the vegetarian temple cuisine Shōjin Ryōri, and walk in the evening down the still cedar avenue to Oku-no-in, where tens of thousands of lanterns light the path.

What does this have to do with Shingon Reiki? Everything. Because on Kōyasan the Sanmitsu practice — mantra, mudra, visualisation — is no abstract concept. It is daily life. You hear the mantras. You see the mudras. You feel the power of rituals that have continued here without break for 1,200 years. The symbols you use in your practice have their origin here. And here they are alive.

Shikoku — the 88-temple pilgrimage 四国遍路

The island of Shikoku is home to the most famous pilgrimage in Japan: 四国遍路 Shikoku Henro — 88 temples, over 1,200 kilometres, joined by a path that circles the whole island. Each temple is dedicated to a specific Buddha or bodhisattva. Each section stands for a phase of spiritual development: awakening, discipline, enlightenment, nirvana.

Mark walked this path on foot — the full distance, alone, over several weeks. It is an experience that cannot be put into words, but the effect is unmistakable: the body becomes the practice space, the path itself becomes meditation, and the encounters along the way — with monks, with other pilgrims, with your own exhaustion — become initiations that no ritual can replace.

The pilgrimage stands under the protection of Kūkai. Pilgrims wear white clothing and a conical straw hat that reads: 同行二人 Dōgyō Ninin — "Two walk together." Meaning: you and Kūkai. No matter whether you walk alone — you never walk alone. Kūkai accompanies every pilgrim. And after more than a thousand years of pilgrim tradition, there is a power in this path that you feel from the first step.

Kyoto — the temple city 京都

Kyoto was the capital of Japan for over a thousand years — and it remains to this day the spiritual centre of the country. Over 2,000 temples and shrines, plus Zen gardens, tea-ceremony houses, and a living tradition that is not staged in museums but woven into the daily life of the city.

Mark spent three years researching and practising in Kyoto. He knows not only the great temples in every guidebook — he knows the quiet places you only find if someone shows you. The small Shingon temples in side streets, where a single monk keeps the practice alive. The Tendai monasteries at the edge of the city where Ajikan meditation has been practised for centuries. The Zen gardens you can enter at seven in the morning, before the tourist buses arrive.

In Kyoto, Japanese culture becomes tangible — not as folklore, but as living practice. The calligraphy Mark studied with a Zen monk is no decoration here. It is ritual: through meditative, contemplative writing, forces are transmitted into calligraphy and talismans. This is the foundation of the Reiki symbols — and in Kyoto you can see this tradition with your own eyes and feel it with your own hands.

What sets a spiritual journey apart from a holiday 修行

A holiday in Japan can be wonderful — but a spiritual journey is something else. The difference is not in the programme. It is in the stance. A spiritual journey is 修行 Shugyō — practice in the broadest sense. Everything becomes the practice space: the temple visits, the walks, the food, the stillness, the exhaustion, the encounters.

Mark and Eileen guide these journeys personally. That means: a Japanologist with decades of experience who speaks the language, knows the culture from inside, and can open the doors that remain closed to ordinary tourists. It means access to rituals that are not in any guidebook. It means encounters with monks and priests Mark knows from his own practice. And it means a spiritual accompaniment that reaches far beyond the organisational.

Who are these journeys for? 参加

You do not need any prior experience in Shingon Reiki to come along. The journeys are open to everyone who wants not only to see Japan but to experience it — with the depth that only arises when someone opens the gates from within. Whether you already practise or are coming into contact with Japanese spirituality for the first time: the places speak for themselves. You only have to be ready to meet them.

For experienced practitioners the journeys offer a special dimension: the chance to receive initiations at places connected with the tradition. An initiation on Kōyasan is not the same as an initiation in a practice room in Germany — not because the energy is different, but because the place itself speaks. Because over a thousand years of practice live in the stones. Because the body understands what the mind alone cannot grasp.

What Mark experienced in Japan 体験

The journeys to Japan are no abstract offer. They grow out of a personal story. Mark came to Japan as a young Japanology student — fascinated by the characters, the rituals, the finger seals he had seen as a child on screen. He knew in his heart: there must be something real here. And he set out to find it.

What he found exceeded everything he had expected. In the temples of Kōyasan he practised the rituals of esoteric Buddhism. On the Shikoku pilgrimage he went to the edge of his physical endurance — and beyond. In Kyoto he studied calligraphy as it is applied ritually: through meditative writing, forces are transmitted into characters and talismans. He won a special prize at a Japanese speech contest. And in his doctoral dissertation he researched the origins of Reiki, Kuji Kiri, and the Siddham script in Japanese art.

This experience he passes on. Not as a tourist showing Japan. As someone who is at home there — and who knows the gates that open only when you know how to knock.