Japanese monks embrace material world to raise cash as donations shrink

Koukyo Yoneta, a fifth-generation Buddhist priest in a small town in Japan’s Hokkaido, was struggling to keep up with the maintenance needs of his century-old temple, so he chose a path that would have been unthinkable for his predecessors – rather than wait for his congregation to give money they do not have, he invested what they had already donated.

The move paid off. Within two years, his portfolio of US treasuries, Japanese real estate investment trusts and stocks including BYD and Hyundai Motor returned more than 10 per cent annually, helping to cover part of the roughly 25 million yen (US$160,000) in needed repairs. The extra money even allowed him to expand the renovations beyond the original plan.

Having previously worked in retail sales at Daiwa Securities Group, Yoneta is an unusually finance-savvy priest but is also part of a growing wave of temple owners turning to financial markets to make ends meet.

Costs for the upkeep of the ornate wooden buildings are soaring while the country’s Buddhist population has dropped about 14 per cent in the last two decades as elderly adherents die and younger generations in larger cities lose their ties to religious practices.