{"id":7532,"date":"2009-03-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/03\/06\/buddhist-temples-target-smoking\/"},"modified":"2009-03-06T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T12:00:00","slug":"buddhist-temples-target-smoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/03\/06\/buddhist-temples-target-smoking\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddhist Temples Target Smoking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.yomiuri.co.jp\/dy\/national\/20090306TDY04301.htm\">www.yomiuri.co.jp<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">TOKYO, JAPAN, March 6, 2009:  An increasing number of famous temples that attract large numbers of visitors have banned smoking throughout their premises, echoing antismoking measures adopted by public facilities in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Some temples have merely restricted smoking to designated areas inside their grounds; but at the Sotoshu sect&#8217;s Koganji temple in central Tokyo&#8211;popularly known as Toge-nuki Jizo-son&#8211;a total ban has been in place for two years. Everyone, including worshippers, priests and stallkeepers, must comply with the rule.<\/p>\n<p>Meiki Kuruma, the temple&#8217;s chief priest since 2005, explains, &#8220;Zen&#8217;s benefits are ruined if you smoke.&#8221; When Kuruma first arrived at the temple, ashtrays were a common feature everywhere except in the building housing the main hall. The temple&#8217;s 8 million annual visitors could smoke freely almost everywhere, and some of them would casually discard their cigarette stubs within the temple grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Kuruma, who used to work as a cardiologist, said he could not allow smoking within the temple. He removed all the ashtrays and declared a total ban within the temple&#8217;s grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Some people welcome the bans, but others insist they are not in keeping with Buddha&#8217;s teachings, pointing out that Buddha never banned the practice. But Kuruma explains, &#8220;Buddha lived in an age without tobacco. This is the reason why Buddhism doesn&#8217;t prohibit smoking. As a doctor and priest, I&#8217;ll continue to urge people to stop smoking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This temple&#8217;s main Buddhist deity is Jizo Bosatsu, to whom we pray for long life. Actions that shorten a person&#8217;s life span aren&#8217;t acceptable here,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.yomiuri.co.jp TOKYO, JAPAN, March 6, 2009: An increasing number of famous temples that attract large numbers of visitors have banned,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}