Interview with Mr. Kumagai

December 22, 2024

At Fumonji Temple in Rikuzentakata, I met Kousei Kumagai, the vice chief priest. He returned to his hometown just two days after the tsunami and found the landscape unrecognizable. “I remember just laughing,” he said—not out of humor, but because the destruction was so overwhelming, it felt unreal. The streets and buildings he had grown up with were simply gone.

Before the disaster, he was a professional darts player. However, after returning, that part of his life no longer felt meaningful. He wanted to help but had no idea where to start. “I had the physical strength to do something,” he said, “but I didn’t have the connections with other people.” Without clear direction, he stayed home, unsure of what to do and weighed down by the sense that he was useless.

That period forced him to pause and reflect. He kept asking himself what truly mattered, slowly moving forward one day at a time. Eventually, he chose to stay in Rikuzentakata. It was his hometown, and rebuilding his life there felt like the right step. That’s when he decided to become a Buddhist priest.

His story reminded me that recovery doesn’t always look productive from the outside. Sometimes it means sitting with uncertainty until something shifts. For Kumagai-san, that shift led him to a life rooted in his community and shaped by a quiet sense of purpose.