IBCC has been running training workshops with a number of innovative and varying formats: from our on-line Bodhisattva Path of Care (BPOC) course for those getting started or seeking to deepen their Buddhist counseling skills; localized workshops for general audiences; specialized workshops for monastics; and our own in house workshops to share and develop Buddhist counseling and chaplaincy skils for our teachers and resource persons. In the first week of June 2026, we held one of these latter in house workshops for our own team of counselors and chaplains. The format was a new one, in which a very small team travelled and studied together in Japan through three different regions to immerse themselves in the work of Buddhist-based suicide prevention. The three sites all visited chaplains who have been involved in our network since our first international conference in 2017. More recently, the latter two listed below have held workshops abroad with IBCC in Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
Site #1 was in the area of historic Kamakura, the capital of Japan in the 13th century and one of the centers of Kamakura Buddhist reformation movement. Here we met Rev. Soin Fujio of the Kencho-ji denomination of the Rinzai Zen sect, based in Kamakura. We spent one day at his temple, Doku-on-ji in nearby Yokosuka, and one day at Kencho-ji, learning from Rev. Fujio’s highly developed skills in attunement and applying Tai-chi to Zen meditation for helping not only the suicidal but many types of people facing suffering and death.
Site #2 was in Gifu precture, about an hour north of Nagoya city, at Daizen-ji, the temple of Rev. Ittetsu Nemoto of the Myoshin-ji denomination of the Rinzai Zen sect. Rev. Nemoto is renowned for his creative and unique methods of connecting with the suicidal, from establishing chat rooms in the early 2000s to hosting reflective encounters at sites where people often commit suicide. His death workshop called The Departure (旅だち tabidachi) is perhaps his most creative and far reaching encounter that has proved therapeutic for any person wishing to reflect more deeply on their lives.
Site #3 was in Kyoto with Sotto, the Kyoto Self-Death & Suicide Counseling Center. Founded in 2010 by a group of Jodo Shin Pure Land Hongan-ji denomination priests, Sotto is a pioneering initiative as non-profit public benefit organization without a specific religious agenda, which enables it to cooperate and receive support from the Kyoto City government. In 2018, one of Sotto’s founders, Rev. Ryogo Takemoto, co-founded with three other Hongan-ji priests, Tera Energy, a Buddhist based electric power company to support Sotto and a wide range of public benefit activities to rebuild a fractured Japanese society. During our visit, we learned first hand of Sotto’s unique Pure Land apraoch to attunement and supporting those who wish to die.
Below are the reflections from each of the five IBCC resource persons who participated in the one week trip.
- Ven. Zinai (Taiwan)
- Ven. Jenguang (Taiwan)
- Ven. Youmin (Malaysia)
- Rev. Gustav Ericsson (Sweden)
- Jinji Willingham (USA)
