I know, the mere thought is ridiculous. How on Earth could there be any similarities between these games in spiritual practice?
For the answer, you ultimately need to ask one simple question:
What does successfully playing Touhou require?
Focus, determination, repetition. The ability to cultivate new forms of perception and the ability to transcend your limitations. Sometimes we are also asked to go against our most obvious impulses and habits. At the same time, we have to learn to ”let go” of overthinking and simply live in the moment. These same qualities can be found in many spiritual practices.
While at first it seems that any link between playing Touhou and something like meditation is tenuous at best, there are indeed some similarities once you start digging into it. Ultimately, both Touhou and meditation are difficult and require commitment. Naturally they are very different things for different purposes, but in the end, there is an element of finding a calm in the middle of the storm to both of them. Touhou is at first glance extremely overstimulating, meditation is understimulating. Yet as one starts to manage the storm of danmaku, the mind grows quiet and the focus absolute. With meditation, the mind grows louder and louder until it becomes quiet. Both require determination, focus and repetition in order to be mastered.
It is my personal experience that these two actually feed into each other. If one is able to build a routine of playing Touhou games, one can also build a routine of meditating. If only for a single attempt a day, if only for ten minutes every day. And when your mind starts growing quieter, more focused from meditation, you will also become a better player of the games.
While meditation exists in many forms in many spiritual traditions, it's not the only technique or aspect of spiritual practice. Let's have a look at some other aspects of spiritual practices that can be found in Touhou.
Cultivation of new forms of perception
Learning to weave through the patterns of danmaku in Touhou forces you to cultivate new ways of perception. It's said that good Touhou players dodge danmaku, and great Touhou players dodge patterns. While I am hardly a good or great Touhou player, I have strongly felt that playing these games has somehow altered the way I process visual information. I also feel like the games have improved my overall pattern recognition that has spilled over from improved visual pattern processing.
There's a fascinating anecdote in a NHK Japan documentary about mountains around Hakuba, the town where ZUN was born and lived his childhood. It's mentioned that the locals have a game where they try to spot patterns that look like things such as animals or plants in the interplay of snow and rock on the mountains. If ZUN was engaged in this play too, he would have been training himself to perceive patterns from a very young age. This has perhaps contributed to his ability to create the danmaku patterns.
How is this cultivation of pattern perception related to spirituality? Certain traditions of divination such as astrology, tarot and I Ching heavily rely on the ability to cultivate pattern recognition in the user. In the case of tarot, the patterns are archetypes. With I Ching, there are certain repeating events or processes. The form of pattern recognition here is recognizing how such things manifest in and interact with your life. And of course, ultimately, perhaps these techniques might even allow you to glimpse the future and find answers to your questions. Speaking of tarot, it began its life as a form of a card game – Touhou is not the first form of entertainment to start developing some spiritual qualities...
In other forms of spirituality other new forms of perception are cultivated. These forms of perception can range from relatively mundane things such as bodily, mental emotional awareness and heightened perception of how things are connected to each other. More supernatural forms of perception are cultivated too, such as the awareness of the subtle/spiritual side of human existence, ability to perceive spirits and even things such as extrasensory perception, telepathy and clairvoyance.
Faith, in yourself, if nothing else
The power of faith plays a very important part not only in the lore and worldbuilding of Touhou, but in a way the gameplay too. Describing Mountain of Faith, ZUN tells the player that they need to have faith in themself to succeed. Due to the high difficulty of Touhou games, many feel discouraged to play them. They lack faith in themselves to do it, belief in their capability to improve. But if one were to put some faith into themselves and actually play the games and don't give up and keep going, they might find themselves capable of doing things they didn't previously imagine possible. And perhaps this act of putting faith into yourself and transgressing what you perceived as your previous limitations can spill over to other things too. It certainly did for me, as unusual it may sound.
It might seem strange in the context of spirituality that you would be asked to put faith in to yourself. There are actually some rather egocentric spiritual traditions aimed at a kind of self-deification. In such cases you would of course put your faith into yourself. But such traditions are not the focus here.
I believe that ultimately in many forms of spirituality where you have to put your faith into higher powers, you also have to have faith in yourself. The pilgrim who finishes an arduous journey or the yamabushi who climbs a mountain has to believe that they are capable of succeeding at their task. Such people obviously call upon higher powers, but it's ultimately the pilgrim who makes the journey, the yamabushi who climbs the mountain. Now what if you did this too? What kind of limitations could you perhaps transcend if you put faith in both yourself and something greater? Could you climb a more literal Mountain of Faith?
Transcending one's limitations is indeed another one thing spiritual practices and playing Touhou share. While a Lunatic 1CC in Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom might not be quite as life-changing as achieving some kind of transcendental experience via intense meditation, both are achievements that are out of reach for most people. One has to wonder what would happen if the most passionate players of Touhou put 5% of their time into meditation and other spiritual practices..?
Acting against impulses
Many spiritual traditions ask their participants to go against their most obvious impulses. Of the traditions featured in Touhou, Buddhism imparts most restrictions on those taking part in it. Asking us to refrain from things like eating meat or harboring ill will towards others goes against the instincts of many. Traditional Chinese understanding on human physiology, derived from Taoism, also advises people to go against their impulses when it comes to indulging in things like food or sex. Esoteric Taoist practices have taken these restrictions to the extreme at times.
Some of Touhou games also ask us to go against our most obvious, distracting impulses. Undefined Fantastic Object (which deserves a whole write-up of it's own) and Wily Beast and the Weakest Creature are prime examples of this. It's very easy to chase after the shiny power-ups and lose sight of the gameplay itself. This mechanic also wonderfully ties into the ethos of these games too. UFO is centered on Buddhism, and almost feels like a Buddhist fable. A greedy shrine maiden goes after rumored treasure, only to find that the real treasure is the Three Treasures of Buddhism. The player is distracted by the UFOs only to find themselves hit by danmaku over and over again. Greed is a distraction and obstacle that obfuscates the true path and what needs to be done both in mechanics and themes presented within the game.
While Wily Beast is more morally ambiguous, one can still find the link between the plot of the game and the mechanics. The protagonist becomes possessed by an animal spirit. These animal spirits come from a hellish realm that is inspired by the Buddhist ideas of an animal realm. This realm is thought to be dominated by instinct and fear, and the profoundly unlikable animal spirits most certainly are dominated by such. As the protagonist becomes more and more possessed, they begin to embody more and more of these characteristics. As for the player, chasing after the powerups is probably their first instinct that must however be controlled to get anywhere in the game.
Learning from wordless teaching
Playing Touhou games can also be seen as a form of wordless teaching, a Taoist concept. While there certainly are strategy guides written for the game, trying to explain these games in text or speech is very difficult. Anyone who wishes to play these games will simply to a very large extent have to feel their way through the games. Over time the player develops reactivity, ability to read the hectic visuals of the game, the ability to memorize and strategize and many other skills needed to successfully finish a Touhou game.
While the concept of wordless teaching is of Taoist origin, you can probably find examples of it elsewhere, even in mundane fields. It just might not – as one would perhaps expect – get readily put into words. For example, there is the idea of implicit and tacit knowledge which are forms of knowledge that are difficult to write down, speak out and pass forward. Many activities, such as learning languages, playing sports, playing musical instruments or riding a bicycle are such that while you can receive instructions for them, you have to put in personal work to really get how to do it. Touhou is exactly the same.
I think a lot of spiritual practices are also in this category. Even simple meditation runs into this. At its most basic form it's one of the simplest activities you can do, yet most of us struggle to sit in one place doing nothing but counting our breath for 20 minutes if asked to do so. It gets even harder beyond that. ”Just be mindfully present” is so simple and so hard.
While many would not say Tai Chi is a spiritual practice, this is where I have perhaps most concretely come in contact with this idea of ”wordless teaching”. Of course the instructor talks and shows how to do the moves. However, before doing Tai Chi I had never thought consciously of things like where the center of gravity in my body is at any given time. Things like these are something you simply have to feel for yourself to understand.
I believe there are many spiritual practices with this element of having to get a feel for it to understand it. Having done the yohai over and over again at this point, I can tell you there is a point to the movements, but I could not articulate what the point is even if I tried. The same most likely goes for Buddhist mantras, Taoist qigong exercises and parts of the rituals of the Western Esoteric Tradition.
Divine overstimulation
There exist certain forms of spiritual practices that are of less disciplined nature compared to things like meditation. These are the various forms of ecstatic practices that aim to facilitate spiritual experiences via things like dancing or festivities. Sometimes particularly the latter also features intoxicants. In the West, various Dionysian rites, the Saturnalia of ancient Romans, the Carneval and various remnants and resurrections of the more rowdier pagan festivals are examples of such. The Eastern world isn't without such traditions either. Some Japanese matsuri can get quite rowdy and are in stark contrast with the usual rather orderly nature of Shinto rituals.
There is indeed a more wild, shamanistic strain at the heart of Shinto. If one recalls the often retold myths of Amaterasu Oomikami's hiding, it was the wild, noisy, ecstatic and mostly naked dancing of Ame no Uzume no Mikoto which lured her out of her hiding. Ame no Uzume no Mikoto is sometimes seen as representing a kind of archetypal shamanic miko, and the story of Amaterasu Oomikami's hiding being as kind of an instruction manual for reaching out to the kami.
While the more shamanistic elements of Shinto have withered after the Meiji reformation, the kagura dances performed for the kami still remain. There are some references to these practices in Touhou – one of Reimu's spellcards in UFO, Yorihime-sama calling upon Ame no Uzume no Mikoto and Okina-sama's nature as a patron deity of entertainers (among her many other roles) are such references. The role at these dances for calling the gods is referenced to in a very straightforward manner in Cage in Lunatic Runagate where Reimu is made to perform such dances to in the Lunar Capital to prove that she was the one calling upon the kami of the Moon without the proper permission and protocol.
I would argue there is this kind of ecstatic element to playing Touhou too. While it obviously takes much discipline to play, there is a kind of dance-like quality to the gameplay – or at the very least, for me the gameplay ”clicked” to me once I started viewing it as a kind of a dance. It has been argued that there is a certain amount of discipline to ecstatic shamanistic practices too, and even in the rowdiest Saturnalias and matsuris there remain some norms that can not be broken. Nevertheless, once you reach a certain level of skill, it becomes very possible to lose yourself in the trance of danmaku. That's when these games become truly beautiful.
Music features prominently in many of the various ecstatic spiritual practices. I don't think I need to even say that the Touhou games are in particular known for their music, which has a powerful, uplifting nature. One can't help but wonder if these games are a kind of kagura – accidental or intentional – to the spirits of Gensokyo. While the notion may seem absurd at face value, there is at least one self-reported experience of someone reaching some kind of state of religious ecstasy while playing Mountain of Faith.
Brain danmaku
Ultimately we humans are also biological creatures, and certain methods of altering brain function are known to induce spiritual experiences. Such include not only psychoactive substances, but also certain devices like the ”god helmet” and techniques like hemi-sync and trying to push the limits of human ability to perceive things using tone generators.
Hemi-sync and tone generator techniques (which I have not experimented with and I'm slightly hesitant to recommend weird CIA-derived techniques) are of particular interest here. While psychoactive substances alter brain function via biochemistry and the god helmet uses electromagnetic stimulation, hemi-sync uses particular types of sound known as binaural beats. The tone generator techniques also uses sounds. This strongly implies that it's possible to alter brain function in ways that are conducive to spiritual experiences using repeated sensory stimuli. Repetitive drumming and chanting might have been traditional ways to achieve this.
Touhou is certainly a form of ”repeated sensory stimuli” for sure. As has already been pointed out, successfully playing these games requires one to cultivate heightened reaction times and increased capability for pattern recognition. When the ”exercise” is repeated over and over again, it will carve itself into our brains. This happens with all experiences though, so it's not unique in that regard. It's just a very particular kind of stimulus.
More traditional forms of spiritual practice also leave their mark on the brains of their practitioners. It has been found that people who have been engaged in meditation for a long time have less active ”default mode networks” in their brains. That is to say, the lessened errant activity of the mind can be seen via brain imaging techniques.
It should also be noted that Touhou isn't the only form of seemingly very mundane activity that requires a high degree of focus with unusual experiences reported among those who engage in it. There's a weird micro-genre of literature about the anomalous experiences of professional sports players. Something about the high stakes, extreme focus and adrenaline-filled state sometimes pushes people into altered states during the sport. Sometimes this has some kind of a spillover effect outside the game too.
Confusing mandala battles
The confusing mandala battles are of course a hallmark feature of the Touhou series. While I already wrote about them from a gameplay perspective, they are of course a major, very terrifying and appealing part of the franchise. Of course mandalas in religious context have great visual appeal too. They are a very striking visual device, and make for a very interesting link between Touhou and spiritual practice.
In their original religious meaning, mandalas are spiritual tools used for guidance, establishing a sacred space, and aid to meditation and trance states. It's generally thought that mandalas establish a kind of link between the inner world (microcosm) of the person using it and the outer world (macrocosm).
It's exactly this mandala-like quality of the danmaku that drew me to play these games. Seeing one of my friends play the game and witnessing the strangely numinous, beautiful patterns made me want to explore the gameplay side of Touhou. While I neither use nor endorse the use of psychedelics, it must also be noted that both mandalas and danmaku patterns are similar to the geometric patterns people report seeing in altered states of consciousness. I have occasionally experienced this type of phenomenon, even before playing Touhou in certain states such as when drifting to sleep, but the occurrence seems to have intensified ever since I started playing the games. The fact that we can apparently generate ”inner mandalas” under certain conditions in my opinion lends some credence to the idea that mandalas act as some kind of microcosmic-macrocosmic links.
The question of course then is, what kind of microcosmic-macrocosmic links the danmaku mandalas are establishing..? Did they just emerge from a desire to make interesting patterns, or is there more going on here?
Numinous aesthetics
All spiritual traditions come with their own set of aesthetic sensibilities. While we should not confuse aesthetics with spirituality, this can not be ignored. Thus we can not ignore the certain numinous aesthetic quality that these games have. I believe this is a combination of the soaring music, the frequent use of motifs derived from nature, symbolism and the mandala battles. ZUN is of course famous for his very particular style of music. It's very difficult to explain what exactly makes his music sound so ”souled”, especially in context, but I believe it to be some mix of strong emotional charge, brightness and fast tempo that gives it an urgently upwards rushing feeling. It should be noted that in Shinto, music is thought to be pleasing to the kami, and music plays a very big part of the various matsuri. How pleased the inhabitants of Gensokyo must be for ZUN to compose something so beautiful for so many of them!
Many Touhou games feature scenes of nature rather prominently for such a digital product. We find locations like the Youkai Mountain, often depicted in autumn colors, the Bamboo Forest, Misty Lake and Forest of Magic. Seasons make themselves known, often by acting abnormally, calling focus into natural cycles. One can find flowers decorating all kinds of graphic elements in the games, from menus to the background that flash in the background of spellcards. Nature is thought to have great spiritual value in Japanese culture. I don't know if many westerners share this experience, I think I do. Many certainly feel a longing for nature, as demonstrated in the various fantasies of going ”off grid”.
It should also be noted that in Japanese culture, there exists a widespread idea that complete focus and immersion into something is in itself a spiritual act. This can most likely be traced back to forms of art that developed during the Kamakura and Muromachi periods under the influence of Buddhism. Tea ceremony, flower arrangement and noh theater (explicitly referenced in Okina-sama) all require diligent, physical and spiritual discipline that is very reminiscent of religious practices. To some, artistic pursuits and appreciation came to be seen as a form of spiritual salvation. This idea is apparently outright found in certain new religious sects in Japan today. Coming from such a cultural background, is it then any wonder that ZUN has produced something so wondrously numinous.
I believe it's these numinous qualities that makes the games so enduring and satisfying for many people. They come together and speak to certain Higher Self qualities we all possess: the desire to transcend our limitations and boundaries, the desire to experience beauty and the desire to experience numinous, otherworldly and magical things. And while Touhou has taken a darker turn since its inception, every ending of every game still speaks to any of the best Higher Self qualities: the desire to resolve conflicts without violence or death.
From Touhou to spiritual practice
Most however do not play Touhou for spiritual goals, and even for me they are firstly and foremostly video games, just the most magical, uplifting ones I have ever played. The point of this chapter has not been to offer Touhou as a form of spiritual practice in itself or as a substitute for one. Rather, I want to ask the question of what if one were to take the lessons learned from playing Touhou and start applying to spiritual pursuits?
After all, real life spiritual traditions lie at the core of Touhou's worldbuilding. What if you took the grit and determination needed to get a 1CC and put it to daily meditation? What if you made an attempt to perceive patterns not only in danmaku but also real life too? What if you started searching for wordless teachings in things like Tai Chi? What if you tried to perceive the kami around you?
But before we move on to the various forms of practice, we are going to take a look at some factors related to physical health and mental well-being that will have an impact on spiritual pursuits.
