Why Successful People Visit Their Ancestors' Graves No Matter How Busy They Are: Maintaining the Ancestral Wi-Fi Router

01An invisible "connection failure" can derail a life

Wi-Fi signals cannot be seen, yet no one doubts they exist. When a phone loses its connection, the first thing we do is check the router and try restarting it. We do not conclude that something is absent simply because it is invisible. That is the rational attitude of modern people.

And yet, as soon as the subject turns to ancestors or visiting graves, many people become skeptical. There is no scientific basis, they say; I am too busy; it is just a matter of feeling.

The leading figures of Japanese business, however, were not people who dismissed the invisible. Konosuke Matsushita, often called the "god of management," spent his life teaching that one does not arrive at today by one's own strength alone, and Kazuo Inamori placed gratitude at the base of his formula for life¹². Were these men irrational? I believe the opposite is true. They understood the laws of the invisible world more rationally than anyone.

This essay uses the image of the ancestor as a Wi-Fi router to explain why successful people value their bond with their ancestors, and then points to a world that lies beyond ordinary ancestral memorial practice.

02Why Matsushita and Inamori built on gratitude

Matsushita did not begin life with advantages. After his family fell into hardship, he left elementary school at the age of 9 and was sent to Osaka as an apprentice¹. He had no formal education and was not physically strong. In the midst of that adversity, the question he kept asking was why he had been allowed to live.

As I understand him, Matsushita saw himself as a leaf budding at the newest tip of his ancestors' tree. Just as a withered leaf affects the whole tree, the way one lives shapes the honor of the family; and just as a rotten root starves the leaves, the leaf depends on the root. I believe he grasped this mutual dependence both intuitively and logically.

Kazuo Inamori founded Kyocera and DDI (today's KDDI) and later led the revival of Japan Airlines. He expressed the outcome of life and work in a single formula.

The result of life and work = attitude × passion × ability

— Kazuo Inamori, *A Way of Living* (Ikikata), Sunmark Publishing, 2004²

In this formula, if attitude is negative, the result is negative no matter how high passion and ability may be. And in *A Way of Living*, Inamori teaches that a grateful heart is what invites happiness².

Why gratitude? Gratitude toward one's ancestors is a declaration that one does not live alone. It is also the source of the humility that says one's success is not the fruit of one's own power only. This humility protects a person from arrogance, draws the cooperation of others, and in the end leads an enterprise to success. These men, I believe, saw that chain of cause and effect clearly.

03Who are the ancestors? DNA as a river of information

Let us look at ancestors through the eyes of science.

The genetic information that makes up your body, your DNA, was received from your parents, who received theirs from their parents in turn. Counting simply, without allowing for overlap, 10 generations back there are 1,024 ancestors, and 20 generations back roughly 1,050,000, all involved in the blueprint of who you are. This is not a metaphor; it is biological fact.

Beyond this, the field of epigenetics has produced studies suggesting that experiences of the parental generation can affect how genes function and be carried into the children and grandchildren. In one study, mice trained to fear a particular odor produced offspring and grand-offspring that were sensitive to the same odor³. In another, Holocaust survivors and their children each showed changes in a chemical marker on a gene involved in the stress response⁴. Whether these findings apply to humans in general is still debated, and I state that caution plainly. But I see in this research the first signs that an ancient intuition, that the experience of ancestors remains in the bodies of their descendants as information, is beginning to be spoken in the language of science.

Ancestors, then, are not "people of the past." They are alive in your cells at this very moment.

04The ancestor as Wi-Fi router: what the image of "connection" reveals

If we picture ancestors as a Wi-Fi router, we are the devices connected to it. The router emits invisible signals, and by receiving them the device gains access to a vast sea of information.

I understand ancestors, too, as emitting "something" we cannot see. Whether one calls it virtue, a spiritual working, or information from the collective unconscious depends on one's view of the world. Whatever the name, the idea that the state of one's connection to one's ancestors affects one's life is found in many cultures, East and West.

The problem is that most modern people no longer pay attention to this connection. A neglected router gathers dust, overheats, and eventually fails; it needs regular restarting and care. The ancestral "router" is the same. Without attention the connection weakens; without prayer the line grows thin. Visiting the grave is the first step of that maintenance.

05Reading the benefits of grave visits through modern science

The act of visiting a grave also has aspects that science can explain.

First, the body's response to a quiet environment. In experiments conducted by Japanese researchers in 24 forests across the country, participants who spent time in the forest showed lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and higher parasympathetic activity than when they were in urban settings⁵. A cemetery is not a forest, but it is usually a tranquil place surrounded by trees and set apart from daily noise, and I believe we may reasonably expect an effect in the same direction.

Second, the opportunity for reflection. The time spent with hands joined before a grave is time without screens or conversation, time simply to face oneself. Neuroscience has identified a brain network whose activity rises when we are not engaged in an outward task, known as the default mode network⁶. This network is thought to be involved in thinking about oneself and about past and future, and I understand the quiet moments before a grave as precisely the time when it is at work.

Third, a sense of belonging. A broad review in social psychology has shown that the sense of belonging somewhere is a fundamental human need, and that when it goes unmet, mental and physical distress follows⁷. Visiting a grave to confirm where one comes from is an act that meets that need.

None of these effects requires the explanation that "the spirits of the ancestors protect us." Yet it is striking that traditional ritual forms seem to have been composed as though their makers knew of these effects. The people of old preserved wisdom they could not put into words as kata, established forms. By inheriting those forms, we receive a benefit that goes beyond reasoning.

06The limits of ancestral memorial practice: one-way communication is not enough

Having spoken of the value of grave visits, I must, as one who conducts soreisai, point out something important. Ordinary ancestral memorial practice has structural limits.

First, it addresses only one family. Most people honor only the line whose surname they bear, that is, the father's side. But is your life made of the father's side alone? Your mother's parents, and their fathers' and mothers' lines in turn: at least four family lines are directly involved in your life. In the language of the Wi-Fi router, you are receiving signals not from one router but from four or more at once. If you maintain one and neglect the other three, the connection becomes unstable and information that should reach you does not.

Second, it is one-directional. Ordinary memorial practice leans toward "sending" from the living to the ancestors: joining hands at the grave, offering thanks, praying for their repose. These are precious acts, but in terms of communication they are upload only. The "download" channel, through which protection and wisdom come from the ancestors, is not open. Just as Wi-Fi has meaning only as two-way communication, the relationship with one's ancestors is complete only when the channel for receiving stands alongside the channel for sending.

07What is soreisai? From "memorial" to "festival"

The soreisai I conduct is a rite composed to overcome both of these limits.

In soreisai we invite the ancestral spirits of at least four families: the father's paternal line, the father's maternal line, the mother's paternal line, and the mother's maternal line. Not only the surname one bears, but every ancestor directly connected to one's life is honored equally.

Most important of all, soreisai is not a memorial (kuyo) but a matsuri, a festival. Kuyo is an offering from the living to the dead: praying for their repose, dedicating merit to them. There is nothing wrong in that, but structurally it tends to be one-way, from here to there. A matsuri, by contrast, is a gathering where the divine and the human come together and rejoice together. In soreisai the ancestors are welcomed not as beings who must be "sent on to peace" but as beings who celebrate and rejoice with us. We offer gratitude and reverence; the ancestors bestow protection and wisdom. Only through this two-way exchange does the connection change from a "line" into a "bond."

I have conducted many soreisai over the years, and it is not uncommon for participants to say afterward that something has changed. I believe this is not imagination but evidence that the state of their connection with their ancestors has in fact shifted.

08Connecting with ancestors is an investment in the future

Practice can be thought of in three stages. First, make grave visits a habit; simply going on the monthly or yearly anniversary of a death strengthens the connection steadily. Second, become conscious of the four family lines: set up a small altar at home and join your hands before the ancestors of both your father's and your mother's side; trace your family tree and learn the stream in which your life flows. This awareness alone changes the sensitivity with which you receive from the four routers. And third, if you wish to restore a full two-way connection, know that the rite of soreisai exists.

Let me close with one more perspective. Restoring the connection with one's ancestors looks like an act turned toward the past, but it is in truth an investment in the future. Your children and grandchildren are watching how you treat your ancestors. That sight is passed to the next generation as a message stronger than words. When a person realizes that they too will one day be an ancestor, they naturally wish to live in a way that brings no shame.

A Wi-Fi router eventually hands its role to the router of the next generation. Whether it is handed over in good condition or on the verge of failure depends on the maintenance we do now. That something cannot be seen does not mean it does not exist. Like the radio signal, "something" from your ancestors is reaching you at this very moment. Are you ready to receive it? And are you ready to connect, in both directions, with all four routers?