Author: John D. (Page 126 of 202)

Pottery Shrine

November 2, 2013 / John D. / 2 Comments

The front entrance of Wakamiya Hachiman-gu, aka Toki Jinja (Pottery Shrine), near Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. A guardian deity of pottery, and now sadly of cars it seems...

On a recent visit to Kiyomizu Temple here in Kyoto, I happened to come across Wakamiya Hachiman-gu, which also calls itself the Pottery Shrine. It’s on Gojo street, at the bottom of the slope leading up to the temple, and the area has long been associated with Kiyomizu pottery. Given its fame, I imagined the shrine would be something special, but sadly it had clearly seen better days.

Two young women on their way to Kiyomizu Temple. According to the official prefectural website, it's a popular place to pray for an easy delivery as well as for good pottery.

Kiyomizu pottery once had a high reputation but has been on a steady decline over the past century. The shrine seems to have suffered with it. The courtyard was given over to a car park, the shrine office was shut, the buildings looked shabby, and at the back was an overgrown garden.

It’s said the shrine originated in 1053 with Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, one of the Genji warriors. it was located near Nishi Honganji and patronised by the Genji clan, later by the Ashikaga shoguns. But the shrine was wiped out in the Onin civil wars (1467-77), then forced into temporary locations before being finally reconstructed on the present site in 1654.

As you’d expect with a Hachiman shrine, the main deity is legendary Emperor Ojin and his putative parents, Emperor Chuai and Empress Jingu. Only in 1949, relatively recently, was the pottery kami Shiinetsu hiko no mikoto installed. (The kami appears to be an ancestral member of the Yamato clan.)

The shrine has a festival every summer to coincide with the Kiyomizu pottery event from Aug 7-10. Its most striking physical feature is a modern full length mirror in which to check the purity of one’s heart and soul. Set right before the Haiden, it is stark in design with none of the traditional elegance of Japanese pottery. Sad days for Shiinetsu hiko, it seems…

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For a useful article about Kiyomizu ceramics, see http://www.kyotoguide.com/ver2/thismonth/kiyomizu-ceramics.html

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Neglected and unused at the back of the shrine is a garden waiting for a touch of water and a caring hand to be restored to its former glory

The rather startling mirror that stands in front of the Haiden worship hall.

A hungry frog on one of the subshrines in the compound has clearly not been fed for some time

A clumsy attempt at attracting some 'enmusubi' custom to the shrine

Meanwhile, the ox at the Tenmangu subshrine was happilly basking in the sunshine

Questioning Shinto (Kuroda Toshio)

November 1, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

What exactly is Shinto? It’s a vexing and intriguing question. Ancient animism which has survived to the present day? An ancestral and tribal religion, which celebrates Japaneseness? An indigenous religion with roots in Yayoi times, or a manipulative system to legitimise the Yamato emperor?

Questions like these underpin a striking introduction by Mark Teeuwen and Bernard Scheid, editors of ‘Tracing Shinto in the History of Kami Worship’ in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2002 29/3-4. Quote follows:

There is a fundamental uncertainty about central questions relating to Shinto. Is it a relic of ancient nature worship, surviving by some miracle into the modern age? An amorphous repository for Japan’s metahistorical cultural subconscious, impenetrable for foreigners? Or is it an outdated invented tradition, cynically created by the Meiji government to aid the building of the Japanese nation state? Even if we limit our view to contemporary society, how is it that most Japanese are involved in some form of shrine practice (at least in the form of hatsumode (New Year’s visit to a shrine), while at the same time “Shinto” seems to mean nothing to them?

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Kuroda Toshio (1926-93)

Much of the modern scholarship questioning Shinto has been influenced by the work of Kuroda Toshio (1926-1993), a noted scholar of religious history. The following passage is taken from the above journal and gives an account of Kuroda’s work, which can also be found summarised on this Wikipedia page dedicated to him. (‘Kenmitsu Buddhism is a term referring to all types of Buddhism, whether exoteric or esoteric.)

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Kuroda introduces his argument by focusing on the history of the term itself. He states that until at least the Kamakura period, the word Shinto was used not to refer to a “popular religion” by that name, but more or less as a synonym for kami. Moreover, he points out that during the later Heian and Kamakura periods, the worship of these kami functioned as a well-integrated constituent of kenmitsu Buddhism, the orthodox system of exoteric and esoteric Buddhist schools that dominated religious practice throughout the premodern period.

The so-called temple-shrine complexes, where kami and buddhas were worshiped side by side, were paradigmatic for the religion of that time. In Kuroda’s view, the religious thinking that gave rise to these institutions was not a compromise or a mixture between two opposing religions, but a well-integrated system of religious thought and practice applied to a range of different deities.

Within this system, groups specializing in kami worship existed alongside a number of more mainstream Buddhist factions. While these groups concentrated on certain Japanese kami, they did not question the Buddhist framework within which these kami were to be understood and worshiped. It was among such groups that self-professed forms of Shinto emerged towards the end of the medieval period.

Water basin for washing hands with the Buddhist symbol of lotus blossom, indicative of Buddhism's dominance of kami worship over the centuries

In the early-modern period, this newly invented Shinto tradition gained particular favor among anti-Buddhist Confucian scholars, while at the same time, popular kami practice remained subsumed within Buddhism. By and large, it was not before the Meiji period that the notion of a non-Buddhist Shinto religion gained general acceptance, and was implemented m practice. It was largely due to repressive Restoration politics that “Shinto achieved for the first time the status of an independent religion, distorted though it was” (Kuroda 1981,p.19). By gaining independence from Buddhism, however, Shinto was cut off from high-level religious philosophy, and as a result it “declined to the state of a religion that disavowed being a religion” (Kuroda 1981,p.19).

In this way Kuroda denies the existence of Shinto as a religious system, in effect during any period of Japanese history, and exposes the notion of Shinto as Japan’s unbroken indigenous religion as a theological fabrication. At this point it is essential to specify that Kuroda does not, of course, maintain that kami cults or shrine worship are recent inventions. Far from denying the prominence of kami and shrines, Kuroda ascribes to them a central role within the hegemonic kenmitsu system, as a way to localize Buddhist power in the Japanese territory and state (Kuroda 1996, pp. 374-75).

What Kuroda rejects is the existence of Shinto as an autonomous system parallel to kenmitsu Buddhism. If we employ the term Shinto in a way that is consistent with the sources, Shinto history began in the fourteenth century. If we define the term analytically, it can be argued that the nationwide system of ritual offerings to kami, instituted as part of the Ritsuryo system and epitomized in the Engi shiki (“Procedures of the Engi Era”, 927), was a benchmark in the history of Shinto.

Syncretic kami worship remains the norm in many places, here exemplified in a Shingon Buddhist temple on Shiraisihi Island in the Inland Sea, which houses a shrine within its grounds

Samhain autumn rites

October 31, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Huffington Post carries an article today in celebration of Samhain…

Autumn has arrived, and with it comes the advent of Samhain, a Gaelic holiday celebrated by Pagans and Wiccans, which is the year’s third and final harvest festival. Brush up on your Samhain knowledge with our 10 facts to know.

1. Samhain is celebrated from sunset on October 31 to sunset on November 1, almost halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

2. Some modern Pagans consider it the “witch’s new year,” though other traditions simply recognize Samhain as the end of the year, says Kelley Harrell, the author of ‘Gift of the Dreamtime.’

3. Rituals surrounding Samhain include bonfires, healing, dancing, thanksgiving, and honoring of the dead.

Pagan honoring of the four directions, or the four seasons

4. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals along with Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh.

5. It’s considered a liminal time, when the veil between life and death grows thin. Food is set aside for ancestors and protective spirits, and rituals honoring the dead take place.

6. Samhain is pronounced “sah-win” or “sow-in.”

7. Samhain is one of the original festivals behind the holiday we know as Halloween.

8. As it was believed that faeries, witches, and demons roamed the earth on Samhain, food and drink were customarily set out to placate them. Later on, people began dressing up as these creatures and claiming the goodies for themselves, sometimes performing antics or tricks in exchange for food and drink. This practice evolved into trick-or-treating.

9. Some of Halloween’s most common traditions are rooted in Samhain’s harvest festival roots, such as the carving of pumpkins and bobbing for apples.

10. Some celebrate Samhain with a ritual to guide the dead home by opening a western-facing door or window and placing a candle by the opening.

Portal to another world in an Okinawan cave

A touch of Halloween

October 28, 2013 / John D. / 3 Comments

Halloween parade in Kawasaki, largest of the Halloween festivities in Japan (REUTERS/Yuya Shino)

Today’s picture in Japan Today is of a Halloween parade with about 3,000 participants and over 100,000 spectators. Every year in Japan there’s noticeable increase in Halloween decorations, and now there’s more than I recall ever seeing in Britain.

It’s a fine example of the way Japanese adopt and adapt foreign ways and make them their own (foreign ways, but not foreign people!). Christmas has already become the well-established celebration of Kurisumasu, complete with Colonel Sanders chicken, romantic dinner parties and obligatory gift-giving. The religious element of course is missing – as it is by and large in the secular West.

Halloween is a strange one. ‘Happy Halloween’ is becoming a common slogan now in Japan, though what’s happy about it I’m not sure. But the festival does seem to fit in nicely with the seasonal calendar that the Japanese treasure, with pumpkins having something of a harvest festival feel. It’s also an occasion for ‘cosplay’, which draws on the rich traditions of kabuki, Noh masks and geisha etc. Moreover, there seems to be something in the Japanese psyche that is attracted to ghosts and the spirits of the dead. One thinks of Noh, Obon and ancestor worship, for instance.

Many of Japan’s ‘traditions’ have been drawn from China in ancient times. It seems we are witnessing history in progress as Halloween and other celebrations are being adopted from the West. At some point in the future I expect Halloween will be incorporated somehow into Shinto, and today while visiting a shrine in Okayama prefecture I came across the fruit below displayed at the shrine office, alongside all the Shinto goods for sale. Haha, I thought, it won’t be long before little pumpkin amulets are for sale too…..

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An article in Japan Today examines the phenomenon of Japanese Halloween, dating the recent boom back to theme parks and the year 2000. To read about it, click here.

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Quince displayed on the counter of the shrine office at Achi Jinja in Okayama

Misogi and cold water

October 24, 2013 / John D. / 2 Comments

Misogi at the summer solstice at the Meoto rocks near Ise

Misogi is a ritual form of cold water immersion, practised by some Shinto followers. As with many traditional practices, it turns out that modern science corroborates the benefits. That cold water is invigorating is obvious enough, but that it has many other practical health benefits is not so widely known.

Below is a report on the benefits of cold water showers by Todd Becker, a scientist who has been following medical research on the subject. For over six months he has been taking cold showers himself, and he writes about the experience below. (See http://gettingstronger.org/2010/03/cold-showers/)

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As one form of hydrotherapy, the health benefits of cold water therapy are numerous. Cold showers provide a gentle form of stress that leads to thermogenesis (internal generation of body heat), turning on the body’s adaptive repair systems to strengthen immunity, enhance pain and stress tolerance, and ward off depression, overcome chronic fatigue syndrome, stop hair loss, and stimulate anti-tumor responses.

Christian Grubl performs a misogi rie with a shugendo group

When you start with cold water, you will experience the phenomenon of cold shock, an involuntary response characterized by a sudden rapid breathing and increased heart rate. This in itself is very beneficial.

The extent of cold shock has been shown to decrease with habituation, and exposure to colder water (10C or 50F) appears to be more effective than just cool water (15 C or 59F) in promoting habituation. The habituation itself is what is most beneficial, both objectively and subjectively. There is an analogy here with high intensity resistance exercise and interval training, both of which elevate heart rate and lead to long term adaptations to stress, with improved cardiovascular capacity and athletic performance.

But cold showers provide a different and probably complementary type of habituation to that which results from exercise. A study of winter swimmers compared them with a control group in their physiological response to being immersed in cold water: Both groups responded to cold water by thermogenesis (internal production of body heat), but the winter swimmers did so by raising their core temperature and did not shiver until much later than the controls, whereas the control subjects responded by shivering to increase their peripheral temperatures.

Other studies confirm that the benefits of habituation show up only after several weeks of cold showering. For example, adaptation to cold leads to increased output of the beneficial “short term stress” hormones adrenaline and thyroxine, leading to mobilization of fatty acids, and substantial fat loss over a 1-2 week period.

So regular cold showers, like high intensity exercise, and intermittent fasting, appear to provide similar, but not identical benefits.

Waterfalls await cold water practitioners all over Japan

But now I’d like to focus on the subjective experience of taking cold showers, something not commented on in many of the studies I’ve read. If you follow my approach and plunge right into a cold shower, you’ll get the initial “cold shock” mentioned above: a quickened pace of breathing and a pumping heart.

Often I find myself involuntarily smiling or even laughing. For waking up, this beats caffeine. I keep the water cold the whole time. It helps to brace yourself when entering by gritting your teeth and stiffening your muscles. Go in head first and alternate from back to front to make sure you are getting cold all over, including your hands and arms and any sensitive zones.

After about a minute, you’ll find the cold water starts to become more tolerable, and after 2 or 3 minutes you’ll feel your body getting warm by its own efforts. This is thermogenesis. I make a point of staying in the shower until I’m no longer uncomfortable. I found that at first my hands were the most sensitive part, and now they are no longer as sensitive, so they have habituated.

When I started taking cold showers, I measured the water temperature at around 60 F (16 C), but over time I have reduced this somewhat to 50-55 F (10-13C) as my body has adapted. (You can determine this by bringing into the shower a plastic cup and meat or candy thermometer and collecting some water once the temperature equilibrates). Of course, depending on where you live and the season, there is a lower limit to how cold you can go, but in general you should be able to get at least as cold as 60F in most places.

Also, my cold showers used to be very short, maybe 4 or 5 minutes, but now they last as long as my previous warm showers, perhaps 10 minutes. I still take the occasional warm shower, perhaps once every week or so, but I prefer the cold ones.

I find that cold showers are great for the mood. Not only are they physically invigorating, they make you feel alive, vital and ready to take on the day. They stimulate thinking early in the morning. I also believe that they have the effect of slightly raising blood glucose very quickly — by perhaps 10 mg/dl, and thereby have an appetite suppressing effect. Generally, this rise in blood glucose is relatively short in duration, but that’s good enough to prime the pump and get the day started.

These effects are apparent with the first cold shower. If you continue the practice for several weeks, you’ll find the psychological benefits are even greater. First and foremost, cold showers appear to have improved my stress tolerance, by buffering emotional reactions. What I mean by this is that bad news, surprises, arguments, or events that would have previously caused a brief surge in adrenaline or an emotional flush, no longer have that effect, or at most have a very attenuated effect. I think this is a consequence of becoming acclimated to the the adrenaline-producing effect of the cold shock.

You can experiment with the intensity of cold, the duration, and the frequency of cold showers to improve your tolerance at a tolerable rate. If you find that your heart is beating uncomfortably fast or you are going numb or experiencing pain of any sort, that’s a good reason to ease into the routine more slowly with water that is not so cold. Check with your doctor first if you have a heart condition, migraines, or pain. But don’t sell yourself short and rush through a cold shower, because you may find that extending a few more minutes provides the greatest benefits in adapting your body to tolerate stress. Not just cold stress — but physical and emotional stress in general.
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If you want to take cold showers to the next level, i.e. bathing in ice, check out this article.

Waiting anxiously for cold water immersion in the early morning hours

Community activist

October 24, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Great news for all Green Shinto followers in the Japan Times today…. an example of a community activist with true environmental concerns.

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Shinto priest blazes trail as a community activist
BY TAKESHI NISHIDE KYODO OCT 23, 2013

HIGASHIHIROSHIMA, HIROSHIMA PREF. – In these challenging times, Shinto priests can’t afford to confine themselves to the quiet and peace of their shrines.

Forward-looking: Mitsunobu Okada, chief priest of Sugimori Shrine in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, holds a purification ceremony attended by children on Sept. 8. | KYODO

On a Sunday afternoon in September, Mitsunobu Okada, chief priest of Sugimori Shrine in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, was talking to a group of children as he led them through the forest surrounding the compound. “I hope they will become sensitive children through exposure to nature,” Okada said.

The forest stroll followed an oral recitation lesson using classic Japanese literary works that was organized by a nonprofit organization. The lesson was attended by more than 80 children and parents. The shrine’s involvement in the education of children is just one example of Okada’s efforts to strengthen local bonds as communities across the country grapple with an exodus of young people.

A shrine's surrounds can be a creative focus for the local community

Okada, 48, arrived at Sugimori Shrine in spring 2011 from Jinja Honcho in Tokyo, the administrative headquarters of an organization that presides over Shinto shrines across Japan. He was inspired to become a Shinto priest by the sight of his grandfather dedicating himself to his duties as chief priest of a shrine.

After high school, he enrolled at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo as a night student to obtain a Shinto priest qualification. During the daytime he worked at a shrine where he was a live-in student. Japan was caught up in the bubble economy of the mid-1980s. “When everyone else was enjoying an extravagant student life, I was chopping firewood for cooking,” Okada recalled. “My experience at the time made me what I am now.”

After he was graduated, Okada served briefly at a shrine in Chiba Prefecture before being employed by Jinja Honcho. After working at the national center of Shinto for 20 years, he took up a vacancy at Sugimori Shrine, where there was no permanent priest. When Okada arrived there, he was greeted with a depressing sight. The forest in the shrine precincts had not been tended and the exterior of the shrine building was not well maintained.

Immediately after introducing himself to the 550 families in the area, Okada worked to make the shrine a more pleasant place to visit, starting by trimming the thick grass. “I was starting from scratch,” he said.

The sight of the new priest working hard prompted nearby residents to help. A path through the forest was cleared and a prefabricated cabin was set up to serve as a meeting place. Katsumi Tanaka, a 55-year-old parishioner, praised Okada as a “really conscientious man.”

Okada came up with a succession of ideas to invigorate the local community, such as providing the shrine as the place for traditional seasonal customs like the “tsukimi” moon-admiring ceremony in September and the “setsubun” bean-throwing ceremony in February. “If the shrine is energized, the community will also be energized,” Okada reasoned.

Given his meager income, Okada makes ends meet by tapping into the savings he accumulated in Tokyo. “I face a lot of difficulties, but this is the life I have chosen.”

The story is similar for priests across Japan. There are around 79,000 Shinto shrines and about 22,000 priests nationwide, according to Jinja Honcho. And like the population at large, congregations are growing older and shrinking, and sources of revenue for shrines are drying up.

Okada, who has been aware of the sorry state of shrines since his days at Jinja Honcho, views his community initiative as an “experiment.” In setting an example by taking action himself, Okada said, “I want to cheer up young priests and show ‘You can do it if you try.’ “

Community involvement at Kyoto's Shimogamo Shrine

Oct 22 festivals in Kyoto

October 21, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Just a reminder that Oct 22 is a big day for Kyoto, with the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of Ages) during the daytime and the Kurama Hi Matsuri (Fire Festival) in the evening. The former is run by Heian Shrine and the latter by little Yuki Shrine in Kurama Temple.

The two festivals make an interesting contrast. One was created in Meiji times as a conscious attempt to revive the city’s fortunes in the wake of the move of the emperor and his associates from Kyoto to Tokyo. It’s given the full backing of the city in provision of its lavish costumes etc, and it has a strong imperial bias in keeping with the notion of Kyoto as seat of the emperor for over 1000 years.

Kurama Fire Festival by contrast has the feel of a traditional village festival with an air of merriment and spontaneity as revellers parade their large burning bamboo torches along the main street of the small settlement. “Saireya, sairyo,” shout the torch bearers. When they turn to rush up the steep stairs at the entrance to the temple-shrine, things can get quite sparky. Literally.

Both the festivals are parades. Both memorialise Japanese history. But while one is a stately procession of 2000 people that seems to go on forever, the other has something of the true spirit of kami possession (if only the police didn’t sanitise the whole thing by keeping the crowds back and the traffic flowing!!).

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The following comes from the monthly Kyoto Visitors Guide.

The Jidai Matsuri Festival (Oct. 22)
The rich costume pageant portraying Kyoto’s history

Jidai Matsuri (courtesy Kyoto Visitors)

In 1895, Kyoto city held its first Jidai Matsuri Festival: a colorful, exotic costume parade dedicated to the Old Capital’s 1100 year history. The first festival also marked the opening of Heian Shrine, a 2/3 scale model of Kyoto’s original imperial palace. The shrine was specially built to enshrine the spirit of Emperor Kammu (reigning 781-806), who founded Kyoto in 794, and the city’s last reigning emperor and Emperor Komei (reigning 1847-1866).

Today, after nearly 120 years, the Jidai Matsuri Festival continues to be a major focus of pride for the city of Kyoto. For most visitors, the festival’s biggest attraction lies in the fantastic range of authentic historical costumes, covering twelve centuries of Kyoto’s history and social development, worn by the participants.

One of the historical characters (Shizuko Gozen, Yoshitsune's wife) in the Jidai Matsuri parade

The festival begins at seven in the morning on the 22nd with the transferal, on sacred palanquins, a covered seat carried on poles on the shoulders of two or four people, of the imperial spirits from Heian Shrine to the Old Imperial Palace. At around 12:00, the southern central axis of the Old Imperial Palace becomes a massive stage of the ages. The procession departs from here and slowly makes its way through the streets of Kyoto to Heian Shrine. See the map below for the procession route, details and approximate procession passing times.

Oct. 22 Kurama Fire Festival in Kurama

The festival begins at sunset with the lighting of fire lanterns in front of each house; The highlight of the festival is watching the men in traditional clothing as they walk up through the village straining under the weight of huge fire torches (5-6 meters long, weighing over 100 kg); Around 20:00, a group of cheering men race up the stairs to Yuki Shrine carrying a large mikoshi (portable shrine) to make the annual offering to the gods; Access: Eizan Railways Kurama Stn. (from Demachiyanagi Stn.; *The train after 17:00 or so, expect to wait in line and be packed in; It’s best to go early and leave early.

The fire festival in full flow

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For a two and a half minute video of the fire festival, with lots of chanting, smoke and flames, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pzc2C8EqFs

For a similar length video that gives a feel of the Jidai Matsuri, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp_QUCBTPVU