People are meditating inside coffins in Japan: ‘Gaze at life through being conscious of death’

Finally, some rest in peace.

What started as a quirky offering from a funeral home in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture has blossomed into a full-blown trend among Japan’s zen-seekers.

“Coffin-lying,” or the practice of meditating inside a coffin, is giving people a safe, if rather claustrophobic, space to contemplate their mortality — or just recharge.

While coffin lounges might sound gimmicky to Americans, the concept of kuyō, which translates to “memorial service,” is a well-established part of Japanese culture, and helps explain the national tradition of embracing the fragility of life and the beauty of death. 

Coffin-lying has also risen amid a period of record-high suicide rates among Japanese youth, prompting people to get creative with mental health advocacy.

Businesses promoting their coffin-lying services have said this kind of meditation is useful for people who want to spend time alone to ease their nerves.

The trend has officially grown big enough that there are different coffin options to accommodate different personalities. 

If a plain, wooden box doesn’t calm your nervous system, perhaps you’ll find the “cute coffins” at a newly opened Tokyo spa, Meiso Kukan Kanoke-in, more soothing. 

Designed by a company called Grave Tokyo, these colorfully decorated caskets are meant to facilitate “a meditation experience where you can gaze at life through being conscious of death” — in style.

Customers have options for how they want their 30-minute, $13 session to go.

Naturally, there’s the choice between an open or closed casket, but they can also opt for “healing” tunes, a video projected on the ceiling or total silence and stillness. 

Grave Tokyo designer and custom coffin-maker Mikako Fuse has said that her fanciful approach to funerary wares helps people see that “death is bright and not so scary.” But it’s also intended to be a reminder of why life is worth living.

In 2024, Fuse hosted a workshop at a Kyoto university in which she invited students to participate in a coffin experience intended to change their ideas about death and encourage a “desire to live.” 

Some of the students who gave Fuse’s coffins a try told Japanese newspaper Mainichi that the simulation “was an opportunity to reflect on myself and reset my worries,” and that it made “the fear of death disappear, and I felt a stronger desire to live.” 

Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy are standard tools used to improve mental health outcomes. Medications like SSRIs can be helpful in managing suicidal ideation over time, while drugs like ketamine and esketamine are emerging as possible options for an acute crisis, in addition to hospitalization.

But what champions of coffin-lying argue is that specifically rehearsing death can have a profound impact on a person’s mental health and suicidal ideation.

“I have seen many people who have participated in Grave Tokyo’s coffin experience that have reduced or alleviated their thoughts of death,” Fuse said in a press release. “Before choosing a death that cannot be reversed, I want them to experience a death that can be reversed.”