Stand beneath a waterfall at dawn. Feel the ice-cold water hammer your shoulders as you chant sacred words. Let the discomfort wash away impurities—physical, mental, spiritual.
This is Misogi in its original form: a Shinto purification ritual practiced in Japan for over a thousand years.
Today, when entrepreneurs talk about their "Misogi" or athletes describe year-defining challenges, they're drawing on this ancient tradition—often without knowing its full history. The journey from sacred waterfalls to modern marathons is a fascinating one, reflecting how timeless wisdom adapts to meet contemporary needs.
Understanding where Misogi comes from enriches the practice. It's not just another productivity hack or goal-setting framework. It's an ancient technology for transformation, refined over centuries.
The Shinto Roots
Misogi (禊) is rooted in Shinto, the indigenous spirituality of Japan. Unlike organized religions with founders and fixed doctrines, Shinto emerged organically from the Japanese relationship with nature, ancestors, and the sacred.
Central to Shinto is the concept of kegare (穢れ)—spiritual pollution or impurity that accumulates through daily life, contact with death, illness, or moral failings. Kegare isn't sin in the Western sense; it's more like dust accumulating on a surface. It's natural, inevitable, and needs regular cleaning.
Misogi is that cleaning.
The word itself combines two characters: mi (禊), meaning purification, and sogi (削ぎ), meaning to scrape away or remove. Together, they describe the act of scraping away impurities to restore spiritual cleanliness.
In ancient Japan, purification wasn't optional—it was essential before approaching the sacred. Before entering a shrine, before performing rituals, before beginning important endeavors, practitioners would perform Misogi to make themselves spiritually clean.
The Mythological Origin
According to Japanese mythology, the first Misogi was performed by the god Izanagi, one of the creator deities.
The myth tells that Izanagi descended to Yomi, the underworld, to retrieve his wife Izanami after her death. What he found horrified him—her body was decaying, surrounded by thunder gods born from her rotting flesh. He fled, and she pursued him in rage.
Escaping to the land of the living, Izanagi was polluted by his contact with death. He went to a river in Hyuga (modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture) and performed the first purification ritual, washing the pollution from his body.
As he washed his left eye, the sun goddess Amaterasu was born. From his right eye came the moon god Tsukuyomi. From his nose emerged the storm god Susanoo. The most important deities in the Shinto pantheon were born from an act of purification.
This myth establishes Misogi as primordial—older than the gods themselves, or at least contemporaneous with their creation. Purification isn't a human invention; it's woven into the fabric of existence.
Traditional Misogi Practices
Over centuries, Misogi evolved into various forms, all centered on using water to purify body and spirit.
Waterfall Misogi (Takigyo)
The most dramatic form of Misogi involves standing beneath a waterfall, known as takigyo (滝行). Practitioners dress in white, recite prayers or mantras, and endure the pounding cold water as a form of ascetic purification.
The experience is intensely physical. Mountain waterfalls in Japan are cold—often near freezing—and the force of falling water is substantial. Practitioners describe altered states of consciousness, moments of complete presence as the mind empties of everything except the immediate sensory experience.
Waterfall Misogi was particularly associated with the yamabushi, mountain ascetics who combined Buddhist and Shinto practices. For them, the waterfall was a crucible—a place where ordinary consciousness dissolved and practitioners could touch something deeper.
Several sites in Japan remain popular for waterfall Misogi today, including waterfalls at Mount Ontake, the Kiyotaki waterfall at Mount Takao near Tokyo, and numerous sites throughout the Japanese Alps.
Ocean and River Misogi
Not everyone had access to mountain waterfalls. Coastal communities performed Misogi in the ocean, often wading into cold morning surf. River Misogi was common throughout Japan, particularly at rivers associated with shrines or sacred sites.
New Year's traditions often included Misogi, with practitioners entering cold water to purify themselves for the year ahead—a parallel to modern New Year's resolutions that's hard to ignore.
Ritual Hand-Washing (Temizu)
A simplified form of Misogi survives at every Shinto shrine in Japan. Before entering the main worship area, visitors stop at a water basin called a temizuya or chozuya to wash their hands and rinse their mouths. This abbreviated purification is a daily echo of the more intense waterfall rituals.
Shrine Purification Ceremonies
Professional Shinto priests perform elaborate purification ceremonies called harae or oharae. These involve waving a wooden wand decorated with paper streamers (haraigushi) over people or objects to remove impurities. Major shrines hold large-scale purification ceremonies at the end of June and December—again, the timing around New Year is significant.
The Philosophy Behind the Practice
Traditional Misogi is more than physical discomfort for its own sake. The underlying philosophy involves several principles:
Purification Before Action
In Shinto thought, purity is necessary before engaging with the sacred or undertaking important endeavors. You wouldn't enter a shrine dirty; you wouldn't begin a significant project polluted. Misogi clears the slate, making space for what's next.
Mind-Body Unity
Unlike Western dualism that separates mind from body, Shinto views them as unified. Purifying the body purifies the mind. Physical discomfort breaks down mental barriers. The cold water isn't just shocking the body—it's shocking the spirit into a state of alertness and clarity.
Return to Original Nature
Kegare accumulates through living in the world—through contact with death, illness, conflict, and the general messiness of existence. Misogi represents a return to original nature, the clean state we had before life's pollutions accumulated. It's less about becoming something new and more about uncovering what was always there.
Voluntary Hardship as Growth
Perhaps most relevant to the modern interpretation: Misogi involves voluntary discomfort. No one is forced under the waterfall. The practitioner chooses the ordeal, embraces it, and emerges transformed. The willingness to undergo hardship is itself purifying.
The Bridge to the Modern Era
For most of the 20th century, traditional Misogi remained the province of Shinto practitioners, martial artists, and spiritual seekers. It wasn't a mainstream concept in Japan, let alone the West.
The bridge to the modern interpretation came through several channels:
Martial Arts
Japanese martial arts traditions, particularly those with Shinto influences, preserved and transmitted Misogi practices. Students of aikido, kendo, and traditional karate might encounter waterfall training or cold-water purification as part of their spiritual development.
As martial arts spread globally in the postwar era, some Western practitioners encountered these traditions. The idea of purification through voluntary hardship began filtering into broader consciousness.
Endurance Athletes
Separately, endurance athletes were discovering similar principles through different language. The runner's "long run," the cyclist's epic ride, the swimmer's marathon distance—these weren't called Misogi, but they served similar psychological functions: using physical challenge to break through mental barriers and access deeper reservoirs of capability.
Athletes described peak experiences during extreme exertion—moments of clarity, ego dissolution, connection to something larger. These descriptions echoed what waterfall practitioners had reported for centuries.
The Jesse Itzler Spark
The modern Misogi concept crystallized through Jesse Itzler, the entrepreneur, ultramarathoner, and author. Itzler encountered the concept through Mark Devine, a former Navy SEAL commander who had studied martial arts in Japan.
Devine introduced Itzler to the idea of an annual Misogi: one event per year so challenging that it becomes the defining memory of that year. Not a series of habits. Not incremental improvement. A single transformative challenge.
Itzler, with his platform and storytelling ability, began popularizing the concept. He described his own Misogis—including a 24-hour relay race through the San Francisco hills—and encouraged others to adopt the framework.
The concept resonated. In an era of overwhelming options and fragmented attention, the simplicity of "one thing per year" cut through the noise. The ancient wisdom of Misogi, repackaged for modern goal-seekers, started spreading.
Traditional vs. Modern Misogi
The modern interpretation differs from the traditional in several ways:
| Traditional Misogi | Modern Misogi |
|---|---|
| Spiritual purification | Personal transformation |
| Water-based ritual | Any challenging endeavor |
| Repeated practice (regular purification) | Annual challenge |
| Remove impurity | Achieve specific goal |
| Group or solitary ritual | Usually individual pursuit |
| Prescribed form | Self-determined challenge |
Are these differences betrayals of the original? Or natural evolution?
Arguably, the core remains intact: using voluntary hardship to create transformation. The waterfall practitioner and the marathon runner are engaged in the same fundamental act—choosing discomfort, enduring it, and emerging changed.
The specific form matters less than the underlying intention. This is how wisdom traditions survive: by adapting their outer forms while preserving their inner essence.
What We Can Learn from the Origins
Understanding traditional Misogi enriches the modern practice in several ways:
The Importance of Ritual
Traditional Misogi wasn't haphazard. It involved preparation, specific clothing (white robes), mantras or prayers, and intentional entry into the practice. These rituals created psychological containers for the experience.
Modern Misogis can benefit from similar ritualization. How do you begin your training? How do you mark significant milestones? How do you approach the challenge itself? Building ritual around your Misogi transforms it from a goal to be achieved into an experience to be lived.
Purification, Not Punishment
Traditional Misogi was about cleansing, not suffering for its own sake. The discomfort was instrumental—a means to purification, not an end in itself.
This reframe matters. Your Misogi isn't about punishing yourself for past laziness or proving your toughness. It's about clearing away what doesn't serve you and making space for who you want to become.
Renewal Follows Discomfort
In the traditional understanding, Misogi leads to renewal. After the waterfall comes clarity. After the purification comes capacity for the sacred.
Modern Misogis work similarly. The marathon doesn't end with collapse—it ends with transformation. The novel doesn't drain you permanently—it creates new creative capacity. The challenge isn't subtraction; it's addition through difficulty.
Connection to Something Larger
Traditional Misogi connected practitioners to the sacred—to kami (spirits), to nature, to the cosmic order. The individual act had transpersonal significance.
Modern Misogis can carry similar weight. Your marathon isn't just about you crossing a finish line. It's about joining a lineage of humans who have pushed beyond comfort, who have tested their limits, who have discovered what's possible. There's something almost sacred about that.
The Living Tradition
Traditional Misogi isn't a museum piece—it's still practiced in Japan today. Thousands of people perform waterfall Misogi annually, and shrine purification ceremonies continue unbroken from ancient times.
Meanwhile, the modern interpretation spreads globally. People who've never heard of Shinto are choosing year-defining challenges, experiencing similar transformations, and using the language of Misogi to describe their pursuit.
This parallel existence is fitting. Ancient and modern. Traditional and adapted. Water and effort. The forms differ, but the essence persists: voluntary hardship as a path to transformation.
Beginning Your Own Misogi
Whether you're drawn to the traditional practice or the modern interpretation, the invitation is the same: choose something hard, commit to it, and let the challenge transform you.
You don't need to find a waterfall (though you could). You don't need to move to Japan (though the traditional practice awaits those who seek it). You just need to select one thing—one year-defining challenge—and pursue it with the same intentionality that characterized those ancient practitioners standing beneath cold mountain water at dawn.
If you're unsure what that challenge might be, explore our 50 Misogi ideas or read our guide on how to choose your Misogi.
The form adapts. The essence remains. Purification through challenge. Transformation through difficulty. A year made memorable through intentional hardship.
Izanagi washed away the pollution of the underworld and gave birth to the sun.
What might you create after your own purification?
Track Your Modern Misogi
We built the Misogi app to honor both the modern interpretation and the spirit of the ancient practice: one challenge, pursued with intention, tracked with daily dedication.
- Define your Misogi with the same clarity as ancient ritual
- Log daily progress as a form of renewed commitment
- Watch your year fill up with evidence of transformation
- Join a community of people choosing voluntary challenge
The waterfall awaits—whatever form it takes for you.
Key Takeaways
- Misogi originates from Shinto, Japan's indigenous spirituality, as a purification ritual to remove spiritual pollution (kegare)
- Traditional practices include waterfall Misogi (takigyo), ocean and river purification, and shrine ceremonies—all using water as the purifying agent
- The philosophy emphasizes purification before action, mind-body unity, return to original nature, and growth through voluntary hardship
- Jesse Itzler popularized the modern interpretation: one year-defining challenge that becomes the memorable centerpiece of your year
- Modern Misogi adapts the form (any difficult challenge) while preserving the essence (transformation through intentional difficulty)
- Understanding the traditional roots enriches modern practice through ritual, purpose, and connection to something larger