That Shinto priest may be aiming his arrow at Kinkaku-ji, the famous Buddhist temple in Kyoto, but it doesn’t mean that Japan is roiled by religious strife. Rather, he’s participating in a joint Shinto-Buddhist ceremony of a kind once common but seldom seen since the Meiji Restoration. In fact, it was the first time this particular ceremony, the Yumi Matsuri, or Bow Festival, has been held since the 1670s.

This ecumenical exercise commemorated the 600th anniversary of the death of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, who built Kinkaku-ji to serve as his retirement villa. Both Yoshimitsu and the temple priests frequently worshipped at the Kyoto’s Kitano Tenmangu Shinto shrine, which dates back more than 1,000 years. The enshrined deity at Kitano Tenmangu is Sugawara Michizane, known for his archery skills as well as for being the patron saint of learning.

At Saturday’s ceremony, Kinkaku-ji’s chief priest read some sutras and the head of Kitano Tenmangu offered a Shinto prayer to drive away evil spirits. This was followed by another Shinto priest in hunting garb, who drew cheers from the onlookers when he shot five arrows into the pond in front of the temple’s Golden Pavillion. That pretty much covered all the bases.

The Japanese are well known for their open attitude toward religion—one survey that asked the subjects to name their religious affiliations got an average of 2.7 responses per person. (I once knew a Japanese woman who was a serious Catholic and who also served as a miko, or shrine maiden, the rough equivalent of an altar boy. She used to assist the priest at Shinto wedding ceremonies.)

There was more serious competition centuries ago, when the Shintoists insisted that the Buddhist deities were the incarnation of Shinto deities, and the Buddhists claimed the opposite. Many institutions served both as shrines and temples, and Buddhist priests held important positions in the shrines. This ended in 1868, when the government ordered the Buddhists to leave their positions and take their images with them. This was part of the Meiji Restoration government’s effort to institute State Shinto.

Raitei Arima, the Buddhist priest who participated in this joint ceremony, said that the combination of Buddhism and Shintoism has traditionally been a characteristic trait of the Japanese. He added his hope that the day’s events would help foster a deeper sense of belief among the people.

Or as Jack Seward, the author of Japanese in Action, pointed out, that old-time religion is still good enough for many in this country. And when you have 2.7 per person, you get more of a choice!