On December 20, 2023, the year-end ''Susuharai'' (meaning ''big cleaning'') was held at Nishi Honganji Temple and Higashi Honganji Temple in Shimogyo Ward, Kyoto City. Devotees and monks used bamboo sticks to knock out the dust that had accumulated on the tatami mats of Miei-do and Amida-do halls in preparation for the New Year.
At Nishi Honganji Temple, 300 people participated wearing tenugui or towels wrapped around their heads. At 7 a.m., Kojun Otani, the 46-year-old head priest, swung a 4-meter broom from side to side, and then the participants flexed the bamboo sticks in their hands and struck the tatami in unison. They fanned the dust with a large fan about 2 meters long and took it outside.
An 80-year-old woman from Oyodo Town, Nara Prefecture, who participated for the second time last year, said, ''It was refreshing. She decided to try her best again next year.''
About 350 people participated in the soot clearing at Higashi Honganji Temple, which began at 9 a.m. In recent years, the number of participants has been decreasing due to the aging population and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This year, new students from Otani Junior and Senior High School (Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City) and Kyoto Koka Junior and Senior High School (Ukyo Ward, Kyoto City) joined the event, and they were hard at work kicking up dust in their gym clothes.
