A Mingei museum where you can stay and
cultivate nourishment for life
The Tonami region in western Toyama is a land abundant in water. Soetsu Yanagi, founder of the Mingei (folk craft) movement, once coined the term dotoku to describe the spiritual climate of this area which was formed synergistically through the work of both people and nature, and found it to have a deep resonance with Mingei thought. He wrote the thesis which would become the culmination of his philosophy here at Zentokuji Temple.
Moritosha is a Mingei museum where you can stay and create a way of life for the future inspired by dotoku. Originally a training hall built by Yanagi’s beloved disciple Keiichi Yasukawa, it was renovated into a hotel on the second floor and spaces open to both guests and non-guests on the first floor, including a hall, a cafe, a shop, and a telework space located in the study of Zentokuji Temple. Mingei items are displayed throughout like a museum.
More than simply an accommodation facility, we strive to create a place where you can experience dotoku through courses, activities, and interactions with local people, and in turn enrich your own life. In a space filled with the beauty of Mingei, lets’s think together about how to create a beautiful way of life for the future.
Scenery, livelihood, crafts, architecture, food, faith…a community which aims to learn from dotoku as it appears in its many forms and create a beautiful way of life for the future. While continuing to restore the value of the land, we are a self-sustaining community which creates nourishment for daily life through shared values and connections.
presented by
水と匠 Circular Commons
Workation in the study of
Hokuriku’s representative Jōdo Shinshū temple
Telework Reservations
Johana Betsuin Zentokuji Temple and the dotoku which inspired the Mingei movement
“One summer, while I was reading the Larger Sutra of Eternal Life at the temple in Etchu Johana, my sight was suddenly drawn into the fourth eye, and I still remember being immersed in an ecstatic state like to enlightenment.” – Soetsu Yanagi, The Vow of No Distinction Between Beauty or Ugliness
In his later years, while studying Myokonin–exceptional followers of Jodo Shinshu who are said to have an innate grasp of the faith–the founder of the Mingei movement Soetsu Yanagi visited Toyama and stayed in a detached room at Zentokuji Temple. One day, struck by the sutra he encountered in the main hall, he wrote “The Dharma Gate of Beauty,” a definitive treatise of Mingei thought. Around the same time, Shiko Munakata, who had evacuated to nearby Fukumitsu, was undergoing a change of style which Yanagi described as “the impurity of ego disappearing.” What drew them to this land and influenced their work was dotoku, the spiritual climate of the region and the deep gratitude to nature which it gives rise to.
A space which was once a Buddhist training hall is once again a place to study a beautiful way of life
Zentokuji’s training hall was designed by Soetsu Yanagi’s beloved disciple Keiichi Yasukawa, a woodworker and architect. It was built to accommodate a variety of functions beyond lodging and study, and is a valuable structure which serves as the basis for the Matsumoto Mingei Museum and Matsumoto Mingei Lifestyle Museum. Mingei is not a theory of mere objects but a social movement with a comprehensive philosophy which questions society from the perspective of everyday life. Continuing this intention, we have taken a training hall which had fallen into disuse and once again opened it as a space to gather and create a beautiful life.
A place to create the nourishment necessary for life
Zentokuji Temple has long been a center of faith in the region. This faith is not some lofty abstraction, but the cultivated heart which notices and delights in everyday things. At the time when Yanagi frequented Zentokuji Temple, it served as a gathering place for artists such Shiko Munakata and poets Isamu Yoshii, Fura Maeda, and others. Potters Shoji Hamada and Kawai Kanjiro also made frequent visits to Johana and Fukumitsu and enjoyed interacting with local people. Zentokuji Temple was a place where community, mutual aid, cultural exchange, and other things essential to life were cultivated. Moritosha would like to regenerate the power of this place in the present day, and create the nourishment necessary for life together with visitors and local people.
Johana Betsuin Zentokuji Temple
Founded by Rennyo Shonin, the 8th head priest of Hongan-ji Temple, Johana Betsuin Zentokuji Temple is one of the central temples of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Hokuriku. During the Edo period it served a managing role for temples in the Etchu area under the patronage of the Maeda Clan of the Kaga Domain, and had deep ties with the Maeda family. The temple houses over 10,000 treasures, including the “Yuishinsho” handwritten by the sect founder Shinran, as well as many other treasures and ancient documents–some of which can be viewed by the public during the annual summer airing ceremony. The temple continues to be a place which nurtures community and culture, and local people gather for ceremonies and sermons which are held 365 days a year.