In February 2016, when my mother died, the dawn revealed a deep blue sky, and a faint dusting of snow remained from the previous night. Fifteen years before that, when I first opened the photo exhibition ""Naritasan"" in Narita, I remembered that the snow was piled up under the same clear sky, and I photographed ""Spring Snow Peace Tower."" I feel grateful to my mother for waking me from a drunken slumber after the photo exhibition party. Then, on the dawn of her seventh-day memorial, it snowed again, and the next morning I was able to take a picture of the Peace Tower in the light snow and the blue sky.

The following year, during the opening of the photo exhibition ""My Mother- Inspired Peace Pagoda,"" photos of the construction of Shakado and the mysterious Peace Pagoda were added to my homepage ""Furusato Koji Junrei."" Since then, I've also decided to post photos of the floats in Saiwai-cho on the day before they were destroyed by fire, as well as a day in the hall of Dainichi Nyorai. Then, I began to think about how to deepen my appreciation for the opportunities I had received.

So, I thought I would like to put everything together into the big theme of ""What is the Buddhism of Enlightenment and Kobo Daishi, the master of Koji prayer and Fudo Myo."" However, as I thought about it, the theme ""What is god?"" took over, and before I knew it, it became a manuscript longer than I had ever written before.

While I wondered how to deal with this lucky chance, the question of what is a god, what is prayer, what is a holy place began to arise, and I found myself stepping into a world that I couldn't even have imagined when I started to write. In this way, I discovered an idea that I had long held, that there should be a history of the development of the abstract concepts that lead to a belief in invisible gods. This is a world seen by an amateur from the perspective of a small amount of reading and media.

I hope you enjoy the free ideas of an amateur.







Author Biography



Osamu Shiina

1952: Born in Narita.

Dropped out of Chiba Prefectural Sakura High School and graduated from Narashino Municipal Narashino High School on a part-time basis.

1969: Vice President of the student organization. Formed an anti-war high school student committee with volunteers in the school. In September of the same year, ""The barricade strike to stop Sato's visit to the U.S."" was rejected because it was considered to be ""inconsistent with the return of Okinawa"" and ""not the right to strike by all students."" 1980: Upon request, went into union activities. 1988: Director of the Labor Union Education Department. Worked on recognizing death from overwork of union members who died in the same year in connection with Karoshi No. 110. Chairman of the Industrial Accident Countermeasures Committee. 1991: Workers ' compensation certification

1994: Decided to shoot his hometown with a large camera. 1997: The first ""Furusato Koji Junrei"" photo exhibition was held. Since then, he has held many photo exhibitions on the same theme.

1999: Self-published a collection of columns ""8 Years of Multi-Eye"" from Ronshobou when he was the union mission director. 2001: Published ""Mystery of Naritasan and Ancient Inba"" (booklet).

2012: The homepage ""Furusato Koji Junrei"" (古寺巡礼.jp) launched.

2017: ""I went to Naritasan, the garden of Fudo Myoo, and got a photo and a connection"" was released. 2018: ""古寺巡礼.jp"" becomes mobile compatible.

Gather and connect!! Tohoku / Narita Kozunomori Reconstruction Support Week 2017, 2018, 2019 Executive Committee Chairman.

2018: Published ""The history of thinking about God from the birth of mankind"" (Bungeisha).