Shinto, Buddhism, and Tenkara: What Japan Revealed About Fishing and the Natural World

Finding the Spirits Between the Stones

Japan never really announces its spirituality to you… It is just there. Nearly everywhere you look. But that spirituality has definitely informed the entire culture and makes Japan the special place it is.

You see it in the way money is handed carefully from one person to another, never wrinkled or folded. It is quiet at a shrine tucked between office buildings. In the small bows made by people to each other. In the arrangement of stones, smoke rising from incense, the sound of water before entering a sacred place. Even in Tokyo, one of the largest cities on earth, there is a strange sense that everything remains connected to something older and quieter beneath the surface.

You may have noticed that I haven’t written much yet this year. Since returning from Japan this past spring, I have been slowly unpacking some of the ideas, perspectives, and quiet practices that followed me home with me. My family and I arrived in Tokyo just before the cherry blossoms opened, traveled a small loop through Nagano and Takayama, then returned to Tokyo just in time to see everything in full bloom.

The trip itself was amazing, and I tried more than once to write about the experience as a whole. But every attempt sounded like a travel magazine article, and that never quite expressed my deep feelings about the trip. Japan is simply too layered a place to summarize into sightseeing and food recommendations. So instead, I have spent the past few months digesting the deeper impressions that stayed with me after returning home.

To state the obvious, Japan is a complex place. From the overwhelming scale of Tokyo to the historical sites, traditions, and subtle rituals woven into everyday life, there is far too much to fully understand during a short visit. Yet one thing kept revealing itself again and again: there seems to be a palpable connection between nearly everything in Japan. Not necessarily organized religion in the way many Westerners think about it, but a cultural awareness shaped quietly and profoundly by both Shinto and Buddhism.

My own interest in Zen Buddhism began, somewhat ironically, while I was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany during my time in the Army. I found myself in a rough place in life, committed to an enlistment while also struggling through a divorce from my wife of only a year and trying to make sense of becoming a young father but not being able to be a father. Even before that time, I had always carried a spiritual curiosity about life and how I wanted to move through the world.

Somewhere during that difficult stretch, I stumbled onto a book about Zen meditation and quietly began practicing.

After leaving the Army, that practice stayed with me. I eventually joined a Korean school of Zen and remained a student within that school for well over a decade. I attended retreats, and, after moving from Seattle to Colorado, sat weekly with the Open Circle Zen Community, the Denver chapter of the school. The retreats became regular escapes and special times to practice, meet with Zen Masters, do koans and immerse myself in simplicity of living.

Zen practice became a steady through-line in my life.

Perhaps this is also a good moment to gently clear up a few common misunderstandings about Buddhism and Zen practice in general. Buddhism is not about worshipping the Buddha in the way many Westerners imagine religion. At its core, Buddhist practice is more concerned with meditation, awareness, compassion, and understanding oneself in relationship to suffering, existence, and the world around us.

Unlike many Western religious traditions that place emphasis on a relationship with an external deity, Buddhism often points inward toward direct experience and self-understanding. That is admittedly a very simplified explanation, and I do not intend this article to become a religious discussion or an attempt to convince anyone of anything. I only mention it because understanding this distinction helped me better understand some of what I experienced while traveling through Japan.

Buddhism in Japan is very present in everyday life. But what I discovered as equally, if not even more prominent, was the practice of Shinto.

Shinto long predates the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, though exactly how far back is difficult to say. Its roots likely stretch deep into ancient village traditions and early beliefs centered around nature, ancestors, and the presence of spirits, or kami, within the natural world. Over time these beliefs evolved into what we now call Shinto.

Unlike many organized religions, Shinto is not centered around a founder, a holy book, or a strict moral code. The word “Shinto” is usually translated as “the way of the gods” or “the way of the spirits,” though “kami” is probably more nuanced than either translation fully captures. Kami can exist in mountains, rivers, forests, storms, animals, ancestors, or even places themselves. At its heart, Shinto reflects an intimate relationship between people and the living world around them.

Kami – In Japanese Shinto belief, kami are sacred presences or spirits that inhabit the natural world. They may exist in mountains, rivers, ancient trees, animals, ancestors, or even moments of profound beauty and harmony. Kami are not gods in the Western sense as much as living expressions of nature, energy, and connection woven through everyday life.

What fascinated me most was that Shinto and Buddhism in Japan do not seem to compete with one another. Instead, they exist in a kind of cultural harmony, each informing different aspects of life. Shinto tends to emphasize connection to nature, community, purity, and the rhythms of daily life, while Buddhism often focuses more deeply on suffering, impermanence, self-understanding, compassion, and enlightenment.

According to a guide we hired during the trip, there is a saying in Japan that goes something like, “Japanese people are born Shinto and die Buddhist.”

That simple statement says a lot.

Shinto practices often surround birth, blessings, festivals, and marriage, while Buddhist traditions are commonly connected to funerals, memorials, and reflection on mortality and the nature of suffering. Rather than existing as opposing systems, the two traditions have intertwined within Japanese culture for centuries in ways that feels seamless.

It is interesting to note that while many Japanese people regularly visit shrines and temples, attend seasonal festivals, observe rituals, and participate in traditions rooted in both Shinto and Buddhism, many would still hesitate to describe themselves as “religious” in the way Western cultures often define the term. These practices are generally not evangelical, dogmatic, or loudly proclaimed. Instead, they seem quietly woven into daily life and cultural identity, existing less as declarations of belief and more as an ongoing relationship with community, nature, ancestors, mindfulness, and the world around them. In many ways, it feels less like religion being practiced and more like a way of seeing and moving through life. I really appreciated the lack of overtness but still acknowledging the wonder of spiritual practice.

Shinto and Buddhism coexist in Japan – While Shinto is rooted in connection to nature, spirits (kami), purity, and everyday life, Buddhism focuses more on suffering, impermanence, compassion, and the path toward inner peace and enlightenment. Many Japanese people participate in both traditions naturally, visiting Shinto shrines for celebrations and life events, while turning to Buddhist temples for reflection, memorials, and funerary practices.

If you have made it this far into the article, you might reasonably be asking, “What does any of this have to do with tenkara, fishing, or your life?”

For me, learning more about Shinto and Buddhism in Japan gave deeper context to the cultural landscape from which tenkara emerged. It helped me imagine those early mountain fishermen not simply as people catching fish for survival, but as people living in close relationship with the mountains, streams, weather, animals, and unseen rhythms of the natural world around them. A world where rivers, stones, trees, birds, and fish themselves could all be understood as carrying the presence of kami.

Whether taken literally, spiritually, or simply as a symbolic way of seeing the world, that perspective resonates deeply with me.

It reinforces my own sense that nature is something sacred, not in an evangelical or mystical sense, but in the way quiet attention can transform how we move through the world. Tenkara already taught me to slow down, carry less, observe more carefully, and become more present to small moments. My exposure to these cultural traditions in Japan only deepened that feeling. It reminded me that there is value in approaching the water with humility, gratitude, mindfulness, and clean intention.

Sometimes the greatest thing we catch while fishing is not the fish at all, but a brief reconnection to something older, quieter, and more essential within ourselves.

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P.S. I would never pretend to be an expert on Japan after only two weeks of traveling there. The trip was intense, layered, and full of different experiences for each of us. We spent time together as a family, but also intentionally gave ourselves space to explore parts of Japan alone and in our own ways. I suspect this journey will continue finding its way into my writing for quite some time.

After all, I have barely scratched the surface here.

I have not even talked about the single day of fishing I managed to squeeze in, the incredible food we ate, the quiet neighborhoods we wandered through, the landscapes rolling past the windows of the bullet train, or the three unforgettable days I spent learning to make sake from the sixteenth-generation owner of a brewery. There is still so much left to tell, and perhaps more importantly, so much I am still trying to understand and thoughtfully carry back into my own life now that we are home.

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Dennis Vander Houwen is an early adopter of tenkara, he lives and fishes all over Colorado.  For more information on living simply or approaching a richer life with fewer things check out his blog, Tenkara Path, where you can also support his tenkara lifestyle by purchasing one of his amazing, handmade tenkara line spool, fly keepers. Learn more about Tenkara Lifestyles here.

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