In the dog days of August, as the cicadas pass the baton to dragonflies darting above rice fields, families throughout Kansai prepare their homes to welcome special guests: their departed ancestors. From August 14 to 16, people in the Kansai region celebrate the Buddhist practice of Obon, a three‑day homecoming in which those inhabiting the spiritual world return—metaphorically speaking—to the world of the living.
Obon is one of Western Japan’s most cherished observances. So much so that many companies close their offices to allow employees time to travel back to their hometowns for reunions that span not only generations, but also the physical and spiritual worlds.
Ceremonial lanterns are lit, and offerings are placed before the family butsudan (Buddhist altar). Outside, Japanese folk music carries across the neighborhood from makeshift festival towers built for bon odori. Singers and musicians standing atop the tower beckon residents of every generation—from small children to their grandparents—to slip into a yukata or jinbei and join the circle of dancers moving around the raised stage.
To a Western observer, Obon may seem a bit ghoulish, if not a little morbid, but holidays honoring ancestors returning from the netherworld are common throughout Asia, where ancestral worship often predates organized religion. Newly introduced faiths such as Buddhism, seeking acceptance in these cultures, adapted their teachings to align with longstanding traditions.
To understand the significance behind this ethereal exodus from the underworld, it’s important to understand the role that Buddhist rituals and cosmology play in helping Japanese cope with the loss of a loved one.
Preparing the Path Home
In Japan, nearly ninety percent of funerals are carried out within the Buddhist tradition. Shinto’s discomfort with death and Christianity’s preference for ground burials left Buddhist temples to guide families through loss for more than a millennium. From the wake and funeral to cremation, the conferring of a posthumous Buddhist name, and the memorial services that follow, Buddhist burial rites carefully orchestrate a large swell of grief into something that unfolds gradually over weeks, months, and years.
Upon their passing, the deceased rests in a quiet room prepared for the wake—whether in the family home, a temple hall, or a funeral facility. Dressed in white and surrounded by flowers, the body lies in a simple casket as friends, neighbors, and coworkers stop by to pay their respects. They offer incense, speak softly with the family, and linger for a few moments before continuing on their way, while relatives take turns keeping vigil beside the body through the night.
On the day following the wake, mourners arrive in black suits and formal kimono, giving their names and condolence money at the reception desk—whether beneath a tent outside a home or in the lobby of a funeral hall. One by one, they enter the ceremonial space. They bow before the flower‑lined casket, then to the family seated nearby, before offering a pinch of incense and a whispered prayer.
As people wait in a single-file line to bow and offer incense, you might see someone—maybe an elderly neighbor—pause at the altar longer than most. For a moment, she remains motionless, as though sharing a final, unspoken thought with the deceased before bowing once more and stepping aside for the next mourner. No one thinks it strange: we all say goodbye in our own way.
Once the funeral has ended and a member of the family expresses gratitude to those who attended, a hearse arrives to carry the departed to the crematorium. Hours later, the family gathers around the cremated remains laid out on a metal tray. Using long chopsticks, they carefully select several bones, passing them from one family member to the next before placing them in an urn. The room is quiet except for the gentle instructions of the attendant.
For the next forty-nine days, the family observes a series of memorial services and a mourning period as the deceased is believed to make the passage to the next realm. While Buddhist tradition focuses upon the soul’s transition, the rites serve an equally important purpose for those left dealing with their grief.
After forty-nine days, the formal ceremonies begin to recede, but the deceased remains present within the household. Many Japanese families maintain a butsudan, where incense is offered and prayers are quietly recited before memorial tablets bearing the names of departed relatives.
Fresh flowers appear beside bowls of seasonal fruit. A daughter pauses at her father’s photograph before leaving for work. A student shares the results of an entrance examination with his grandfather. The responses are felt rather than heard.
Over time, the relationship undergoes a subtle transformation. The father who once occupied his place at the dinner table, the grandmother whose voice once filled the house, or the child whose toys once scattered the living room are no longer physically present. Yet their spirit remains part of family life through memory, ritual, and reflection—remembrance not marked by a day on the calendar, but rather through a daily observance woven into the ordinary rhythms of everyday living.
Calling the Spirits Home
Several days before Obon officially begins, many Kansai families make their way to Rokudō Chin’nō‑ji Temple. As dusk settles over Kyoto, lanterns cast a soft glow across the temple grounds, and the air carries the heavy scent of incense. Calling one’s ancestors back home here follows a precise yet profoundly simple ritual. It begins along the temple approach, where families purchase a Koyama‑maki—a sacred pine branch believed to serve as the physical vessel for returning spirits.
Next, they wait patiently in line for a priest to brush the loved one’s Kaimyō, or posthumous Buddhist name, onto a slender wooden Mizu‑toba tablet. Gently holding both sacred pine and tablet, the family steps before the hidden Mukae-gane, the Welcoming Bell. As they pull the thick rope extending through the wall of its small wooden bell housing, the bell—resting safely out of sight above an ancient opening to the underworld—sends a deep, resonant toll into the earth, inviting the spirits home.
From the bell housing, they walk quietly toward the Sai no Kawara Jizō altar to complete the rite. At this symbolic riverbed boundary of the underworld, the atmosphere deepens into something both solemn and tender. Some have come to welcome a parent. Others a spouse, a sibling, a grandparent, and others still a young child. A few may be observing Hatsubon, the first Obon following a recent death. Within their prayers, they carry their own private memories, regrets, gratitude, and longing. No eulogies are spoken, and no overt displays of emotion disturb the stillness of the temple grounds.
To foreign travelers visiting at night, the scene can feel like a living ghost story—eerie, yet deeply moving. Under the flicker of lanterns against the darkness, an elderly woman is steadied by her daughter as she pulls the heavy rope emerging from the wooden walls. Nearby, at the water basin, a mother guides her children’s small hands to dip the Koyama‑maki pine branch into the water, gently splashing it over the inscribed tablet to complete the final Mizu‑eko blessing. The deep reverberations of the concealed bell linger in the humid summer air, turning the sultry night into an unforgettable threshold between two worlds—one seen, one felt
For a true Japanese ghost story involving Kyoto’s Rokudō Chin’nō-ji Temple, see The Ghost Mother of Rokudō: A Kyoto Ghost Story.
Welcoming Guests from Beyond
Back at home, the family prepares the butsudan for the official welcome. Fresh flowers are arranged, incense is lit, favorite foods are offered, and ceremonial lanterns are placed where they can guide the spirits safely home. You might even see Nana’s favorite type of peaches on a small lacquer dish—simple gestures of omotenashi, the quiet hospitality Japanese families extend to honored guests who have traveled from afar to visit their homes.
Throughout the visit, the household altar becomes the focal point of remembrance, where generations separated by death are symbolically reunited beneath the same roof. Someone might tell one of Grandpa’s favorite fishing stories for what must be the hundredth time, and nobody complains. The children listen as if it were a beloved bedtime story.
In this way, memory becomes an inheritance, lovingly passed down from one generation to the next.
As evening falls, communities gather for bon odori. Beneath strings of lanterns, dancers circle a raised platform at the center of the grounds. Some move with the grace acquired with years of practice while the children fumble with the steps, laughing with joy at their own mistakes. Above them, the lanterns sway gently in the summer night.
Seeing Them Off Again
In the evening of August 16, the mood gently changes. Across Kyoto, enormous bonfires ignite on the surrounding mountains. The blazing characters of Gozan no Okuribi, better known as Daimonji, are more than dramatic spectacles. The bonfires signify farewell, illuminating the spirits’ journey back to the spiritual world after their brief respite.
Along riverbanks and hillsides, conversations fade as the first flames appear against the darkness. Cameras are raised to capture the moment. Thousands of eyes turn toward the mountains.
Along the Ōi River in Arashiyama, floating lanterns drift quietly downstream. Their light flickers upon the water before gradually disappearing into the darkness, accompanying the ancestors on their voyage home until the following summer.
The farewell is poignant but not final. In Japan, it is customary to remain outside and watch a departing guest until they are no longer in sight. That same spirit of omotenashi shapes this moment: viewers wait until the last ember fades on the mountainside or the final lantern boat vanishes into the night, offering the ancestors the same courtesy and care they would extend to any honored guest leaving their home.
What Remains With Us
The influence of these traditions extends far beyond the days in which they are observed. Bon odori transforms neighborhoods into places of reunion and celebration, and the rituals surrounding death become rituals of continuity, strengthening not only family ties but also the communities that have long sustained them.
That continuity is seen in a neighbor offering incense at a wake; a family selecting bones at the crematorium; a student sharing the results of an entrance examination with a photo of his grandfather; crowds waiting patiently to ring the welcoming bell at Rokudō Chin’nō‑ji; and the Gozan no Okuribi bonfires lighting the path for the spirits to follow on their return trip home.
In Japan, profound emotions are more often conveyed through ritual and fellowship than through words. Gratitude, sorrow, regret, and remembrance find expression in the lighting of incense, the gathering of families, and the social rituals involved in welcoming and saying goodbye to departed loved ones.
Every August, lanterns glow beneath the summer sky and Kyoto’s mountains blaze with farewell bonfires. Families gather, stories are retold, and ancestors return to the homes they never truly left.