Buddhist monk sues temple for his depression

A JAPANESE monk is suing his temple, claiming he suffered from depression because of his heavy workload catering to tourists.

The monk is seeking 8.6million yen (£57,720) from his temple on Mount Koya, a World Heritage Site known as Koyasan, which is one of Japan’s most sacred places for Buddhists.

The unnamed monk, in his forties, started there in 2008 and began to suffer from depression in 2015, according to his lawyer Noritake Shirakura.

Shirakura said that when Koyasan celebrated its 1,200th anniversary in 2015, the monk worked up to 64 days in a row to handle a surge of tourists. Some days, he worked for 17 hours.

“If you work as a monk, too often you work without work-hour management,” the lawyer told AFP.

“You provide labour, but you are told it’s part of religious training.

“And if it’s training, you must endure it, even if it causes you significant hardship. Through this case, we will argue that such a notion is outdated.”