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Before the Unseen—Reflecting on Human Smallness at the Start of Obon on a New Moon

2026年8月13日 11:00

Believe only in what you can see, and pretend that what you cannot see does not exist. People can face the world that way, or they can choose not to. Today, throughout this day of the new moon marking the start of Obon, I would like to reflect on that.

A question that has persisted since yesterday

This morning, according to the calendar, the seventy-two micro-seasons shifted from 'Cool Winds Arrive' to 'Higurashi Cicadas Sing.' The seventy-two micro-seasons are a traditional Japanese seasonal division that divides the year into seventy-two periods, describing the changing state of nature every five days in short phrases.

It is said to be the time when, having passed the beginning of autumn, one begins to feel the end of summer in the voices of the higurashi cicadas. The peak of the heat still continues. The calendar still informs us that the seasons are moving little by little in places invisible to the eye.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Awa Odori dance and the Perseid meteor shower.

In the streets of Tokushima, dancers and musicians formed 'ren' (dance troupes organized into groups), listening to the same two-beat rhythm while taking on different roles. In the sky, the Earth moved through the dust left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet, and tiny particles plunged into the atmosphere, emitting light.

If there are clouds, the meteors cannot be seen.

Just because they are invisible does not mean they are not happening.

Yesterday's article ended with those words.

And today, August 13th, marks the beginning of Obon in many regions. According to the National Astronomical Observatory's calendar, it is a new moon. On a night without moonlight, we light welcoming fires to greet our ancestors, who are invisible to the eye.

Yesterday's question did not end there.

The scenery we see is not the entirety of the world.

If so, how have humans behaved in the presence of the unseen?

The moon is invisible in the sky at the start of Obon

Obon was not always an event held from August 13th to 16th from the beginning.

The Urabon-e, the Buddhist event that served as its foundation, was held on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. The 'Urabon Sutra' contains a tale in which Maudgalyayana, a disciple of the Buddha, offered food to monks who had finished their training in order to save his deceased mother, who was suffering. In Japan, it is said that the 'Nihon Shoki' contains a record indicating that the Urabon-e was already being held in the seventh century.

Overlaid upon this were the customs of welcoming ancestral spirits that had existed in Japan since ancient times.

The Tohoku History Museum explains that there were events in Japan to welcome ancestral spirits around the full moon of early spring and early autumn, and that the early autumn one became linked with the Buddhist Urabon-e.

The seventh month of the lunar calendar is autumn. The 15th day of the seventh month was around the time of the full moon of early autumn.

Buddhist memorial services and Japanese ancestral worship. The day when a monk's ascetic training reaches a milestone, and the night when the moon is full. The teachings that came from outside and the sense of the seasons that has been repeated in this land overlapped, eventually becoming the event known as Obon.

The Meiji calendar reform created a gap between calendar dates and the seasons. If the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is simply replaced with the 15th day of the seventh month of the solar calendar, it becomes about a month earlier than the traditional sense of the season. For this reason, the response varied by region. In places like Tokyo, the original July Obon remained, while in many other regions, the August Obon, delayed by one month, took root, and in places like Okinawa and Amami, Obon is still observed according to the lunar calendar.

We do not light the welcoming fire on August 13th because we are adhering to a single date that has never changed. It is because the act of welcoming ancestors has been passed down while the calendar changed, lifestyles changed, and the timing was re-selected by each region.

And the start of Obon in 2026 fell on a new moon.

Originally, Obon was observed around the time of the full moon. Tonight, the moon is invisible.

Even though the event has been passed down, the appearance of the moon in the sky is not the same. While we keep the dates, we are welcoming our ancestors under a moon different from the one in the past.

Humans have been folding time.

Why is Obon at the turning point of the seasons?

Come to think of it, people have long placed some kind of ritual at the turning points of the seasons.

In spring, we celebrate new life and rebirth. When planting crops, we pray for a good harvest and safety. After the harvest, we give thanks to nature and the gods. At the entrance of winter, we pray to be able to survive the harsh season. At the end of the year, we close the old time and welcome the new.

It is not necessarily the case that the calendar date existed first and the ritual was added later. Daylight hours change, temperatures change, and the state of crops changes. When the way of life itself shifts, people have given it a name, prepared food, lit fires, sung, danced, and prayed.

For people of the past, changes in the seasons were not just a matter of atmosphere.

Will it rain? Will the crops grow? Can we survive the winter? Will disease spread? Will the family return safely? Changes in nature were directly linked to life and death.

Joy and anxiety coexist at the boundaries of the seasons.

So we pause there, eat and pray as a community, and remember those who have passed away. Rituals likely served the function of not having to bear change alone, but sharing it with everyone.

A ceremony might be a way of folding time.

We fold the flowing time for a moment to confirm that we have lived this far. We remember who we owe our existence to. Before moving on to the next season, we confirm that we are not living by our own strength alone.

Both Obon and the Awa Odori exist within those folds.

The origin of the Awa Odori is not fixed to one thing. There are several theories, such as castle construction celebrations, furyu dances, and Obon dances. Not being fixed to one thing is not a weakness of the festival. It can be thought that it became impossible to contain in a single explanation precisely because it has passed through the bodies of the townspeople and accepted the prayers and joys of each era.

Gongs, flutes, and drums beat a two-beat rhythm, and people dance with their hands raised. In the season of welcoming the dead, the bodies of the living are linked together.

Quiet memorial services and lively dances are likely not opposites. People sometimes hold their grief in silence, and at other times, they embrace it through sound and dance.

The world, too, welcomes the dead at the turning of the seasons.

The custom of welcoming ancestors and the deceased is not unique to Japan.

In Mexico, the 'Day of the Dead' is observed from the end of October to the beginning of November. The focus is on November 1st and 2nd, with the first day considered a time to welcome deceased children, and the second for adults.

Altars are set up in homes, where photographs of the deceased, their favorite foods, bread, fruit, and candles are offered. Vibrant marigold petals and the smoke of incense are believed to serve as a guide for the returning souls.

The colors are quite different from those of the Japanese Obon.

In Japan, the quiet impressions of welcoming fires, farewell fires, Obon altars, vegetarian meals, and visiting graves are strong. In Mexico's Day of the Dead, the celebration is filled with flowers, music, food, and skull motifs, joyfully celebrating the reunion with the departed.

This is not to treat death lightly. It is not to erase grief. I believe it is a way of transforming grief into color, sound, and food, so as not to forget the departed and to welcome them back into the family once more.

The Day of the Dead overlaps with indigenous death rituals and the Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day brought over from Spain. The timing also coincides with the end of the harvest cycle for crops such as corn.

In Japan, ancestors are welcomed during the full moon of early autumn and at agricultural milestones, while in Mexico, the dead are welcomed in the autumn after the harvest is complete.

The Chinese Zhongyuan Festival also falls on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. In some regions, people offer food to their ancestors and light lanterns to guide their spirits. The Catholic Church designates November 2nd as All Souls' Day, a time to pray for the deceased and visit cemeteries.

The timing, doctrines, and explanations of the afterlife are not the same.

If we erase these differences and summarize it by saying 'all humanity does the same thing,' the history accumulated in each land becomes diluted.

However, there are movements of the heart that appear to overlap.

We do not dismiss the deceased as things that no longer exist. We prepare a place for them to eat. We light fires or candles. We decorate with flowers. We call their names. We go to their graves. Family and community members gather.

Even if religions differ, the question of whether a relationship is completely extinguished by death remains. The answers vary. Yet, there is something similar in the behavior of those who carry that question.

Reincarnation is not a universal answer

Some people think of past lives or reincarnation when they hear stories about the deceased returning.

Here, we must be careful to distinguish between them.

Obon and the Mexican Day of the Dead are not necessarily rituals of reincarnation. Temporarily welcoming the spirit of a deceased person and that person being reborn as a different life are not the same thing.

Reincarnation is not a teaching common to all religions.

Religions born in India, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, include the idea of the cycle of life and death and liberation from it. However, the content is not the same. Many Hindu traditions speak of a self or soul that persists beyond the body. Buddhism, while teaching "anatta" (no-self), which denies an unchanging self, considers that the causality of actions and their results continues into the next life.

The idea of the transmigration of the soul can also be found in the works of Pythagoras and Plato in ancient Greece. Regarding Judaism, although it is not a doctrine common to all, the mystical tradition of Kabbalah includes the transmigration of the soul, known as "gilgul."

On the other hand, the mainstream of Christianity and Islam teaches not reincarnation, but a single earthly life followed by resurrection and judgment.

What is common across religions is not the answer of reincarnation.

What happens to a person after they die? Does the connection with loved ones disappear entirely upon death? What meaning does this current life have?

I believe these are the questions that humans have repeated throughout history.

If I were to decide from the beginning that past lives exist, this article would be taking a single religious stance. There is no need to deny past lives, either. What I want to consider here is not whether past lives exist, but why people are drawn to the narrative of past lives.

If one could know their past life, they might find the reason why they are living this particular life. If one could know the future, they might be able to choose which path to take today without hesitation.

People seek explanations for both the past and the future.

Perhaps this is less about mere curiosity regarding the supernatural and more about the desire to understand one's own life as a single story.

The experience of seeing and the meaning of what is seen

Some people say they can see auras around others. It is sometimes explained that the colors differ from person to person and change depending on their mood or personality.

There is no need to immediately dismiss that story as a lie.

There is research on people who claim that specific colors appear around others when they look at them, and researchers interpret this as a form of synesthesia. In synesthesia, one stimulus automatically triggers another sensation, such as seeing colors when looking at letters or numbers, or feeling colors when hearing sounds.

For the individual, the experience of seeing colors may be real.

However, whether those colors are energy that actually exists outside the body or are generated by the brain's perceptual functions is a different matter. In blind tests investigating whether people could perceive an "energy field" around others, that ability was not confirmed.

What is important here is to distinguish between the "experience of seeing" and the "interpretation of what is being seen."

If you dismiss the experience of having felt something, you risk denying the person's experience itself. If you immediately treat what was felt as evidence of spirits or energy, you turn an interpretation into a fact.

Respect the experience, and do not rush to judge its meaning.

I believe that leaving a margin in between is what it means to face the unseen with care.

Does the supernatural exist outside of nature?

People yearn for the supernatural.

In past lives, we seek the reasons for who we are now. In prophecies, we seek the path we are to follow. In auras, we seek the essence of a person that words alone cannot convey. In the afterlife, we hope that our connections with loved ones will never be severed.

The question of whether supernatural things actually exist and the fact that people seek them can be considered separately.

Perhaps, in the first place, there is no distinction between 'nature' and 'the supernatural' on the side of nature itself.

If we only call things that humans can explain the mechanisms of 'nature,' and call things that cannot be explained by current knowledge 'supernatural,' then the supernatural might not be something outside of nature, but rather a name given to things that have not yet entered the realm of human understanding.

If some kind of color or field around a person could be observed by anyone under certain conditions, if different observers could obtain the same results, and if it could be repeatedly reproduced, it would no longer be supernatural, but would become a newly discovered natural phenomenon.

There are two leaps here as well.

Deciding that it exists because it cannot be explained by current knowledge.

Deciding that it does not exist anywhere in the world because it cannot be explained by current knowledge.

Even though they are facing in opposite directions, both are unable to endure the void of 'not knowing' and are filling it with their own answers.

To leave things that are not understood, as they are, with care.

This does not mean stopping one's thinking. It means not rushing to conclusions in order to continue observing, questioning, and verifying.

'Has this professor been to the edge of the universe?'

When I was a child, I saw a natural science professor on television who was denying the existence of UFOs.

The professor was asserting that aliens did not exist.

I wondered about this in front of the television.

Has this person been to the edge of the universe, a place no one has ever seen?

Of course, I do not know how the statements were edited before and after in that program. Perhaps what the professor meant to say was, 'There is no evidence to conclude that the sighted UFOs are alien spacecraft.'

In that case, it is scientifically sound.

UFOs, or what are now called UAPs, originally refer to phenomena whose identities have not been confirmed. Not knowing what something is does not mean it is an extraterrestrial vehicle. NASA also states that there is no data linking UAPs to extraterrestrial technology.

'There is no definitive evidence that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth' is completely different from 'Extraterrestrials do not exist anywhere in the universe.'

Extraterrestrial life has not been confirmed to date. Research institutions, including NASA, are investigating Mars, ice-covered moons, and the atmospheres of exoplanets in search of traces of life. Humanity has simply not found life outside of Earth yet; we have not finished searching the entire universe.

I think my question at that time was not a rejection of science.

Why can we say with certainty that something does not exist in places where human knowledge has not yet reached?

As a child, I was not questioning the conclusions of science, but its limitations.

Humanity is also extraterrestrial

When asked, 'Do extraterrestrials exist?', we imagine creatures living outside of Earth.

If we take the words literally, humanity is also a life form living in the universe.

Earth is not a special place floating outside the universe. It is a planet in the solar system, and our bodies, the soil of the Earth, the water, and the atmosphere are all made of the matter that constitutes the universe.

Does life exist in the universe?

If we include humanity, the answer is already 'yes'.

When we add the condition of whether life exists outside of Earth, the answer becomes 'we don't know yet.' Whether intelligent life exists outside of Earth and whether it has visited Earth are separate questions with different levels of evidence.

The most accurate answer humanity can give at present is likely, 'We have not met yet.'

We separate the Earth we live on from the universe and look for 'aliens' far away.

In the same way, we call the range we can understand 'nature,' and call everything outside of it 'supernatural.'

The Earth is also inside the universe. Unknown phenomena, if they exist, are also within nature.

I think it is necessary not to mistake the boundaries drawn by humans for the boundaries of the world itself.

From a space of less than two meters

In most cases, the human body stands at a height of less than two meters from the ground.

The average distance between the Earth and the Sun is said to be about 150 million kilometers. Even if we assume a human height of two meters, it is only about one seventy-five-billionth of that distance.

This is the difference just in the distance to the Sun.

Once you go beyond the solar system, distances are expressed in light-years, and if you consider the edge of the universe, the size of the human body disappears from the numbers.

We view the world from that small body.

We have built telescopes, created microscopes, launched probes, and captured radio waves and gravitational waves, expanding our perception into worlds invisible to the naked eye. What human intelligence has achieved is significant.

At the same time, being able to expand our field of vision through tools is not the same as knowing everything in the world.

Humanity, viewing the universe from a vantage point of at most less than two meters, asserts that what it cannot see does not exist. In that, it is not intelligence that enters, but an overconfidence in intelligence.

Perhaps humans have known of that danger somewhere all along.

Is that not why we have paused at the turning of the seasons, lit fires, placed offerings, prayed, danced, and bowed our heads?

It cannot be concluded that all rituals were born for the purpose of admonishing human arrogance. There must have been many reasons at their inception, such as gratitude for the harvest, fear of calamity, memorial services for the dead, and the re-bonding of the community.

As a result, rituals have reminded humans of things greater than themselves.

Time that has flowed longer than our own.

Nature that cannot be changed by our own power.

Life and death that we cannot control ourselves.

Those who lived before we were born and passed down their lives and cultures to us.

The act of bowing one's head before them lowers humans just a little bit from the center of the world.

How to behave in the presence of the unseen

Obon and the Mexican Day of the Dead are not the same.

They are not the same as the Chinese Ghost Festival or the Christian All Souls' Day. Where the dead are, how they return, whether they are reincarnated, or whether they are resurrected—the answers differ depending on the religion.

While keeping those differences intact, there are things that appear to be held in common.

Creating a space before the unseen.

Not pretending that things beyond one's understanding do not exist.

Not allowing the connection with those who have passed away to be severed by death alone.

Pausing at the turning points of the seasons to confirm that one has not reached this point by one's own power alone.

What I want to ask is not whether or not one believes in the unseen.

It is about how human beings have behaved in the presence of the unseen.

Awe is not about blindly believing in the unknown.

I believe it is an attitude of trying to engage with things carefully, while knowing that one's own understanding has limits.

Science and awe are not necessarily on opposite sides.

Science is not a tool for making the unknown disappear. It is an endeavor to observe, measure, put things into a form that others can verify, and gradually expand the scope of what is understood.

Awe, too, is not about immediately linking the unknown to supernatural beings. It is about knowing that one's understanding has not caught up with the vastness of the world, and being cautious in its presence.

Do not decide that something exists just because you want to believe in it.

Do not decide that something does not exist just because it cannot be proven.

Do not fill the wide margin that remains between those two with fear alone, nor entrust it solely to imagination, but walk forward while holding onto questions.

Human beings have created stories, nurtured religions, and established rituals within that margin.

Religion gives stories to the unseen.

Ritual gives physical form to those stories.

Lighting a welcoming fire. Seeing them off with a farewell fire. Making a path with flower petals. Offering the favorite foods of the deceased. Standing before a grave. Joining a circle of dancers.

These things do not scientifically prove the existence of the unseen.

What is expressed there is the human heart's desire not to treat the unseen with neglect.

Welcoming on the night of the new moon

Tonight, the moon is invisible.

It is not that the moon does not exist.

From Earth's perspective, the moon is in almost the same direction as the sun, and we simply cannot see its illuminated side.

Just as meteors were flying behind the rain clouds yesterday, the invisible moon is also continuing along its usual orbit.

Under that sky where the moon seems absent, we welcome those who are invisible to the eye.

We cannot confirm whether they have truly returned.

Even if we cannot confirm it, we light fires, offer food, and press our hands together in prayer.

What is proven by these actions is not the existence of the dead.

It is that we, who are living now, still cherish our connection with those who have passed away.

The human body is small. The scope of human knowledge is also limited compared to the vastness of the universe.

That is precisely why, when faced with the unseen, we can pause instead of immediately denying it or rushing to create an answer.

We can mark the seasons, light fires, and bow our heads to a time greater than our own.

The scenery we see is not the entirety of the world.

There is no need to insist that what is invisible is visible.

There is also no need to assert that because it is invisible, it does not exist.

At the start of the Obon season on a new moon, we stand in that space between.

Holding what we do not understand without trying to force an answer, we still choose not to treat it with neglect, but to welcome it with care.

I believe that in that posture lies the form of reverence that humanity has cultivated over a long period of time.