Yujiro Seki, a filmmaker, discusses his film Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptors of Japan and emphasizes the importance of craftsmanship in Japanese culture.
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Passion for the Art of Filmmaking
How can one uncover or identify their passion for something? Yujiro shares what ignited his love for the world of filmmaking.
Enamored with the process of filmmaking
Nick: How did you discover your passion for filmmaking? Was there a particular film that inspired you to study cinema and filmmaking?
Yujiro: Well, it was a little bit of a coincidence and a little bit of a discovery at the same time. I was doing theater when I was in high school, and one day, I saw my senior, somebody who's older than me, a senpai.
Senpai made a film about the summer kids trying to look for marijuana or something. Kind of weird for high school students, but you know, they were kind of serious. And frankly, I was unimpressed. I thought I could make something more interesting.
And I decided to make a comedy detective film, and it was a feature film. It was very difficult to make for high school students. Back then, we didn't have a lot of technology, and it was not easy to edit. But I finished it. And I fell in love with the process of filmmaking.
So you know, my actor friends and I got together and made this film. And I really discovered my passion. I thought, if I want to study cinema, I should go to the United States. That was like a naive thought back then — because, you know, United States and Hollywood.
Kind of an A-list way of thinking, but that's what I was inspired for. And ever since, my dream was to make a movie that inspires people.
Nick: Well, you certainly did that with Carving the Divine.
Carving the Divine: A Focus on Butsuzo
How can one generate ideas that are both unique and impactful to others? Yujiro's first full-length documentary delves into the realm of Butsuzo, the intricate art of sculpting wooden Buddha statues. This captivating subject holds deep significance for Yujiro, as his father is an esteemed craftsman in the realm of Buddhist furniture-making.
Deep understanding of Butsuzo
Nick: Your movie focuses on this tradition. It's a fascinating documentary, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've watched it about four times, maybe five. So I highly recommend, if you have any interest in Japan, and craftsmanship, or art, or Japanese culture, I recommend you watch it.
And so the documentary is about Butsuzo, the carving of wooden Buddha sculptures, and it explores many themes. But can we first talk about your connection to Buddhism and why you decided to have Butsuzo as the main focus of your first feature length documentary?
Yujiro: Well, first of all, I never thought it will take this long to make it and produce it, and promote it and everything. But yes, the reason why I started working on this subject, you know, if you want to talk about that, we have to talk about my childhood, but I'll make it as short as possible.
So, yes, my father is a Buddhist altar maker, Butsuzo maker. And ever since I was a little, I was surrounded by Buddhist objects: tablet, ihai, butsudan, and statues, Butsuzo, and I never thought anything of it, because it was just a family business.
My father took me to different places, such as temples, because he had many connections with priests and nuns. And I didn't think anything of it either. It was just something that was a part of my life — no more, no more.
And as I told you that I discovered my passion for filmmaking when I was in high school, and I went to the United States, and I saw people from different cultures, and I interact with them, I discover so many new things.
Like, I had an opportunity to go to Israel, and participated in my friend's wedding. He married an Israeli woman, and it was such a fascinating experience, everything was so new. And I started working in Los Angeles, after graduating from University of California, Berkeley.
At first it was exciting, it was my new job and everything I got to work with film, a video, but it was not something that I dreamed of. It was just recording videos for businesses mainly. You know, it paid a bill and it was okay, I learned a lot. But deep inside my passion was to make a film that inspires people.
So after a while, when I got a green card, permanent residency, I decided to work on my own project. I decided to leave my job. Because if I hadn't done that, I would have a regret for the rest of my life. I would have probably never left a job like that.
And I was thinking, what can I make that is very unique, that is worth something, that means something to myself, to my people and to the world? And I happen to have access to Busshi people, Buddhist sculptors, and it is a 1400 year old tradition.
And I was thinking like, this subject must be something that I could only make. It felt like anybody can go out there and make this film, they could, but not to the level that I could. Because I had such a deep connection with many of the people there. So, that's why I decided to work on this documentary. But I told you, I never imagined it would take this long time.
Bond Between a Master and Apprentice
What unfolds within a master-apprentice relationship? Yujiro shares how in Japan, the master-apprentice relationship holds great significance as a means of skill refinement through observation and skill acquisition from the master.
Stealing the craft from the master
Nick: It has come up with past conversations I've had with Japanese friends, and also, podcast guests, including neuroscientist and author Ken Mogi. Actually, on a past episode, if people want to listen to that episode, it was episode 41.
But he actually reminded me of this concept that the apprentice must steal the craft from the master. And this almost seems to contradict that relationship. So would you like to talk about this unique concept or custom? How in Japan, the apprentice must steal the craft. What does that mean?
Yujiro: So without spoiling the movie too much, I'm gonna go into it a little bit. So, yes, this is one of the theme of the documentary, actually. So in the modern time, we go to university, and you pick your major, and you write an essay, take a test, and the you get the degree, and you go out there and try to find a job. That's the idea, right?
I think many people cannot find a job after going to universities, but that's a story for another time. This is a whole system of this apprenticeship engine system. Nowadays, more people go to universities, but back in my father's time, 50, 60, 70 years ago, it was a common place.
After you finish Junior High School, either you continue education by going to high school, or you just try to find a job. And often people don't have any skill set, they try to find a skill set that could feed them for the rest of their life.
They want to find a job, occupation, but to do that, you need a training. So they don't go to school, but you become an apprentice for somebody and learn the skill for a set amount of years. And you become independent and you start make a living.
This is not only about the world of Buddhist sculptures, but it's also about umbrella, I mean, like carpenters, daiku — many places, they do apprenticeship in order to find an occupation. So some of them require three years, five years, 10 years, it depends on the field that you're getting into.
Some people may only want to find an occupation that pays the bill. Some people are passionate about certain skill sets, and they want to make a career out of it. So that's the idea. But what's unique about the apprenticeship here is you almost become a child of somebody.
The master, they feel they're responsible to bring up their children. It's not like university professors, I don’t want to offend University professors, but you just go to universities and they give you assignment, and you don't really have personal connections with them that much.
You don't live under the same roof as your professor. But often, apprentice and the masters, they eat together, they do stuff together, and they form a very close relationship. But at the same time, since he or she is your mother or father, they’ll be strict on you. They won't be easy on you.
And also, this is kind of a unique thing that you said that apprentice must deal. They're not going to really teach you anything step by step like in university. So you actually have to steal the techniques. This means without being told, you have to be observant and careful about stealing, or learning the craft without being taught.
If the master says, ‘You got to do this. Can you do this?’ And you say, ‘Oh, I don't know, you never showed me.’ That’s a big mistake. The master will say, ‘You are supposed to be looking, learning, and you should be able to do that.’
So there’s a positive side and negative side. Because if you are not fast, you're not gonna be able to learn it. Whereas in university, they teach you step by step for the most part. So yeah, that's what they mean by stealing.
Nick: It’s interesting. And I've seen it in other documentaries. I think quite a popular documentary was Jiro Dreams of Sushi. There's some element of that. You see Jiro never complementing or never praising his apprentice chefs.
And there's actually one scene where he interviews an apprentice, and he's making egg for months, and he's still not getting it right. And Jiro won't teach him. Then finally, one day, he gets the egg right, and then Jiro casually says, ‘Maybe one day, you'll become a good chef.’ So there's unique relationship where, I guess if you're the apprentice, you have to be observant, and you have to really want to learn.
And maybe in the West, or maybe in traditional education now, it's become so easy, we teach you everything how to do it, and maybe there needs to be a balance between the two.
Yujiro: Interesting story. So one of the apprentices in the film, I will not say who, but he went to this university, wood carving University, before he enter into the apprenticeship world, the world of Busshis.
So he was very cocky and confident because he thought he was good at it. When he was being interviewed, because he wanted to learn Butsuzo, how to make Butsuzo, he was so fascinated. He said, if you want to be like true artist, true wood carver, I must learn Butsuzo.
So yeah, he wanted to be an apprentice. And he was interviewed, and he told the master: ‘I'm very good at wood carving. And if you take me in, I'm gonna be really good for you, because I can do a lot of work and I can be beneficial.
And the master says: ‘Okay, that sounds great. So can you do this?’ And it is something that is very basic. And this person who went to university for four years and got that degree, and he thinks he is a top dog. You know, he cannot do it. And the master laughed and say, ‘What did you learn for four years?’
So here's the thing, in a traditional university education system, you do many things. But in apprenticeship, you just do one thing. You work for your masters during the day, and you try to get better. And at night when you're not working, you make your own work.
Because if you don't make your own work, you're just working for masters and you cannot improve yourself as an artist, right? So since you are doing it all the time, there's a big discrepancy between people who go to university and people who do apprenticeship.
I’m not discrediting university education, but when it comes to learning a craft, apprenticeship is one of the best way to go about it.
The Value of Traditional Art
Do you value the significance of ancient wisdom? Yujiro highlights the growing dependence on social media in today's digital age, overshadowing the significance of traditions and customs that have shaped our existence.
Respecting the wisdom of our ancestors
Nick: I learned so much from your movie. And something I sense from you, and I'd like to quote you from one of your YouTube videos, because I think there's this important message you have about craftsmanship in general, and about Japanese culture in general. And so you say:
‘We are living in an age that completely dismisses the value of traditional art, the art of ancient wisdom. We are in a culture that disrespects the wisdom of our ancestors. We embrace anything new but disregard the old as superstitions of the past.’
And that really spoke to me when you said that on one of your YouTube videos. So Japan does seem to be losing its traditions and cultural customs to technology and globalization. I sense this really frustrates you?
Yujiro: Well, again, technology makes things easier for us, I recognize that. And because of the technology and medicine, people in some way, have a better life. But at the same time, we are overconfident about this whole thing that we disregard anything that's not scientifically proven.
If you cannot see it, hear it, smell it; if you cannot prove the existence of it, you automatically think this is a bogus.
Nick: Mumbo jumbo.
Yujiro: Yes, mumbo jumbo. Some people might say, those statues are superstitions from the past. And maybe they are, maybe they're not. But what they don't understand is those statues are guidance for us to live in a way that we can have a more grounded life.
So what happens is like, if you disregard all the spirituality, all the things that we cherish — our ancestors cherish, what happens is, how can we grant ourselves the material thing themselves? Yeah, they will make you feel better: there's a food, and there's a house, and you drive a fancy looking car. Yeah, it's cool and everything.
But beyond that, what's there? What's gonna happen when you die? Have you asked that question before? I'm not talking about you, but people in general. Like, we pretend as if we're going to live forever. And once we get ill and face the fact that we are going to die, we are not ready. That's one of the aspects of it, we can go into more detail. Like, some people might say, this guy is so crazy. So I will just…
Nick: I don't think so. I think my audience enjoys these conversations, and I guess busshi and butsuzo connect us to the spiritual world. And much of Japanese culture also connects to, I guess, Shintoism connects very much to the natural world. And we are living in an artificial world now.
But you do say that this art puts people directly face to face with certain questions like, why are we born? Why do we suffer? Why do we die? And so on. So do you think people ask themselves these questions? Or have we become, it sounds like we’ve become lost to technology and entertainment, and we don't think deeply about our existence anymore?
Yujiro: Well, of course, some people do. And some people don't. I think some people are so entertained by the fact that we have a lot of things that we can enjoy. So this whole social media world that I'm a part of, which, frankly, I don't like it.
But this is one of the best ways to get your point, get your message out to the world. So it's a double-edged sword, right? If this was not for carving the divine, the film, I would have probably never done social media, I probably would have had like Facebook or something, and just post few pictures, and that's it.
But what I see is like, when you are young and beautiful, that's being cherished. Wow. You know, people admire handsome guy and a beautiful, sexy woman. But those people, they won’t stay like that forever. 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, they get older, and they look back in the past, well, in the past, a lot of people pay attention to me and they love me so much.
But now, nobody pays attention to me. That's a suffering. So many different things that we don't pay attention to, or we try to avoid talking about it. Actually, the important issue, you know, one of my best friends had a cancer, and he suffered from it for three years, and finally passed away last year.
And he must have gone through such a difficult time. He was always facing the fact that he might die in any moment, and he was writing his will. I don't know if he ever finished his will or not. But he's always constantly faced with the fact that he will die.
So that's the suffering. We could lose our legs any moment, getting into a car accident. We could go blind, and not gonna be able to see anymore. So people have a tendency to focus on what's beautiful, what's exciting in life, through the window of social media, and other medium, and we have a culture of admiring celebrities, while dismisses people who do the job that they don't respect.
But we all are human beings, and we all suffer, and we always try to find happiness in life. And in a simple way, those statues can be a guidance for our life. So that's one of the reasons those statues are very important.
And those statues are there in Japan for 1400 years, because they try to answer these eternal questions, I think, why we are born, why we suffer when we die, how can we overcome the suffering of life? And for somebody to tell me that's useless and a garbage. Well, let's see, when you truly suffer, what kind of option you have.
Embracing Passion as a Duty
When does pursuing something you love transform into a personal mission for you? Yujiro recounts his journey in filmmaking, starting from a passionate pursuit to a sense of obligation, as he strives to bring inspiration to others.
The intricate process of filmmaking
Nick: So what about you, Yujiro? Is filmmaking your ikigai? Or is it something else?
Yujiro: I know you're gonna ask me that. Well, I have the answer for you. So when I started making film when I was in high school, that detective film, comedy detective film, and I showed it to people in my school, and made people laugh — that empowered me.
And I already felt something special of making something out of nothing. So filmmaking became my ikigai. Yeah, for sure. But when I started working on Carving the Divine, it's not ikigai anymore. I hate it. I hate is so much, there's so many obstacles, and there's so many unpleasant experience during the shooting.
And after I finished making a film, people frankly wonder: ‘Why you spent so many years making a film about the woodcarvers? Why don't you just make a film about famous people, like Justin Bieber or something?’ Regular people didn't get it.
And I was thinking that this is really an important Japanese culture, a 1400 year old tradition never been brought to the Western world, and why don't you get it? But people are not enthusiastic about it.
Many people, I mean, some people get it, some people like yourself, you’re my audience, definitely. They just get it right away. I don't need to talk to them anything. I made a film about busshi, and they were like, ‘Oh, I want to watch it. When is it gonna be released?’
But the regular folks, they just didn't get it. So last six years, about six years or five years were not mainly about making the film, putting the film together, but it is about promoting the film, marketing the film.
And marketing the film is as hard as, or even harder than making a film itself. You know, when you tell that to filmmakers, they get really upset. Well, you know what, you made a film and everything, but that's just half the battle, it's not even half of the battle, it's a quarter of the battle — it’s the easy part.
Now you finish the easy part. Now you're going to do a difficult part to promote the film, so the people take your film seriously. To them that's overwhelming, because of making a film itself is such an incredible journey, incredible task. Film is one of the most expensive art form in the world. People don't know it.
People watch it for two hours and just the time passed by, but you cannot make a film alone. Even though you might think that you did the writing, and directing, or producing, editing, and sound, and everything by yourself, you might say that, but I still had to have a people, and I had to have a film composer, and I had to have somebody who can give me advice while I'm editing, so that I can be objective.
So, you cannot make a film alone. You know, people get really upset, what are you talking about? Making a film isn’t the hardest thing you can ever do. And more than making a film, the promoting thing is a bit more difficult. I would say yes, it’s more difficult. Definitely a lot more difficult.
So, after making the film, I started doing that YouTube show Carving the Divine TV, which is about the basic concept and the history of Buddhism. And we also did a lot of shows about statues and how to identify different types of statues.
And we did a blog Butsuzotion, which is about how to appreciate Buddhist statues, Japanese Buddhist statues. This is more like an artistic approach, right? So between my YouTube shows and blogs, I wanted to raise awareness of this wonderful, beautiful, incredible, ancient tradition of Butsuzo.
And slowly, people started to pay attention to my content and started to discover my documentary. And I did my best to do the best possible shows, so that people can benefit from it. My purpose is to promote my documentary, but at the same time, I really wanted to create a great content for the people.
So few people can learn something. And I also wanted to make it entertaining. And I wanted to bring a great guest. So I've done all this. I enjoy doing it, but at the same time, it became a burden. I always thought about, come on, when can I quit? When can I finish it?
So you say ikigai, yes, it was ikigai. But it became a dharma. So dharma, in Buddhist sense, is the teaching of Buddha. But dharma in Hindu sense, is the duty in this life. I took it as a duty in this life. It's not ikigai anymore.
For the full podcast episode, go to: Unravelling the Beauty of Japanese Craftsmanship with Yujiro Seki