Kakuho Aoe

Born in 1977 in Tokyo, Kakuho Aoe, is the chief priest at Rokusenji Temple, of the Jodo Shinshu East Honganji Sect, and also CEO of nakamichi Co.Ltd.  He also obtained his MBA at California State University Fresno Graduate School. 

As a cooking monk, he strives to spread the way of Buddhist cuisine and food education, and also started the first “Blind Restaurant”, in Japan, and by a temple.  He is founding member of “Higanji” a site where monks from different sects gather together, and also Vice-President of one of the world’s largest Shinto-Buddhism Festival “Kogen”.

Reference

Blind Restaurant

With today’s abundance of information, it is essential in business to be able to see through what is important and make the decision and take action, without getting caught up by miscellaneous unimportant things.

At Blind Restaurant, we have guests where an eyemask in a dark room and have their meal without depending on their eyesight.  Then we become aware of many things that we are not conscious of our daily lives. It is also a program where you have to communicate with other members of the group to move forward, and through the process, you naturally become aware of your own preconceptions and openness towards others.   

Many corporates take up this program as new product development, team building exercises and corporate training, as when we serve the food, we start to understand the various issues that corporates have through the dishes.

Kogen 

One of the world’s largest Shinto-Buddhism Festival “Kogen” …Held in temples and shrines, this is a festival for the general public to experience the essence of the various traditional culture.  In 2016, when Aoe became Vice President, it became an event where nearly 20,000 people gathered in the Nihombashi area for this event. 

Higanji

Higanji is a temple existing on the internet, that is run by monks from different sects and Buddhist Fans.  When it started in 2003, it had been run without events, but purely run as a place of sharing thoughts on Buddhism on the internet, and was quite an innovative effort, ahead of the time.