{"id":292591,"date":"2010-02-08T10:02:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T15:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/?p=11700"},"modified":"2010-02-08T10:02:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T15:02:14","slug":"japanese-monk-gets-down-with-the-beat-for-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/292591","title":{"rendered":"Japanese monk gets down with the beat for Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11702\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 361px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11702\" title=\"gold buddha\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/files\/2010\/02\/gold-buddha-351x239-custom.jpg\" alt=\"gold buddha\" width=\"351\" height=\"239\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A gold statue of Buddha in Tokyo, 26 Nov 2009\/Yuriko Nakao<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>He raps. He chants. And this month, Japan&#8217;s famed hip-hop loving monk, better known as MC Happiness, will tap dance on stage, in the name of Buddhism.<\/p>\n<p>Kansho Tagai heads the 400-year-old Kyoouji Temple in central Tokyo, offering softly chanted prayers throughout the day amid traditional bell chimes and wafts of incense.<\/p>\n<p>But once in a while, he raises the volume, and the tempo, of these prayers, going before an audience to rap Buddhist sutra, or teachings, to hip hop beats and in modern Japanese.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I listened to rap music for the first time, it was in English so I couldn&#8217;t understand a word,&#8221; Tagai told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I realised that the same can be said for Buddhist sutras because most people can&#8217;t understand a word. And the thing is, listening to rap music makes you feel good even though it may be incomprehensible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/in.reuters.com\/article\/entertainmentNews\/idINIndia-45986420100208\">Read the whole story here. <\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/RTRFaithWorld\">Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld<\/a><\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A gold statue of Buddha in Tokyo, 26 Nov 2009\/Yuriko Nakao He raps. He chants. And this month, Japan&#8217;s famed hip-hop loving monk, better known as MC Happiness, will tap dance on stage, in the name of Buddhism. Kansho Tagai heads the 400-year-old Kyoouji Temple in central Tokyo, offering softly chanted prayers throughout the day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4076,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}