Mount Takao Fire Walking Festival

The Mount Takao Fire Walking Festival (Hiwatari-sai) is an intense annual Buddhist ritual where Yamabushi monks (mountain ascetics) pray for world peace and purification. Its most spectacular feature is watching the monks walk barefoot across a long path of glowing, smoldering embers from a sacred bonfire. After the monks have completed the ceremony, the public is often allowed to walk across the cooled ashes, making it a unique, participatory spiritual event.