In Japan, butsudan (仏壇) are small shrines found in Buddhist temples and homes. They certainly don’t usually look like the one above! Butsudan manufacturer Takumi Kougei, which is based in Hyogo ...

As the manager of the anesthesia department at Swedish Medical Center, Mitchell Ishikawa spends long, hectic hours attending to patients, surgeons and anesthesiologists. But when he gets home, he ...

Not long ago, Yagiken Co., an Osaka-based manufacturer of traditional Japanese Buddhist altars (known as butsudan) for home-based ancestor worship (known as kuyo), opened a showroom called Gallery ...

A butsudan, or ‘Buddha shelf’ is usually a cabinet arranged with sacred objects, with doors that are opened each morning and closed at sunset. Everything changes. A central tenet of Buddhism is that ...

As I get on in years, I sometimes hear a sound that had hitherto gone unnoticed—the footsteps of death. At such moments, my thoughts turn to how I will probably be cremated and how I want my remains ...