Author: John D. (Page 191 of 202)

After a tour of the shrine grounds (see Part One), Barrish sensei and I moved towards the entrance of the shrine buildings before which stands the temizuya (water basin).  It’s not often at a Shinto shrine you get to see the instructions for the ritual washing in English.  Nor indeed will you find many shrine bells inscribed with the name of a foreigner.  In this case the name of the foreigner just happened to be mine!

The Haiden (Worship Hall) is a large spacious room of tatami, which is used four times a week for people to train in aikido.  At the altar are all the trappings one would expect, though in more pristine form than one finds in older shrines. The main kami enshrined are those of Tsubaki in Japan, namely the mythological figures Sarutahiko-no-O-Kami and his wife Ame no Uzume.  In addition, there are four other kami here, including protector of the N. American continent, America Kokudo Kunitama-no-Kami.

Mirror, drum, triple tomoe and other shrine trappings

Shrine operations
Before getting an oharae purification from Rev. Barrish, I went upstairs with him for an informal chat and took the opportunity to ask a few questions. How had he managed to set up such an impressive shrine? It seems he invested savings from his aikido teaching (he has an international reputation, having introduced the martial art to the Soviet Union in the 1980s).  Through dedication and hard work he’s managed to build up the shrine to where it’s now financially independent.  There is too a solid base of supporters: rather than the ujiko parishoners on which Japanese shrines rely, there are some 450 ‘sukeiya‘ who form the shrine membership.  Most are non-Japanese.

I thought perhaps that Japanese-Americans would comprise the bulk of shrine-goers, as in Hawaii, but it seems that nearly half the visitors are in fact Japanese nationals, temporarily in the U.S. for one reason or another.  How did they react to a Caucasian priest, I wondered? ‘Once they experience Oharae and Go-kito-kigansai, they are always very happy,’ came the answer.

Cultural exchange

Shinto in the West
Amongst other topics covered was the matter of Shinto’s appeal in the West, which we agreed has much to do with its positive and life-enhancing quality.  For myself I see it developing in the direction of spiritual practice, much as Daoism has done in transferring to the West, whereby individual faith replaces communal tradition.  For his part Barrish sensei pointed out that gatherings like New Year, 7-5-3 and the annual festival draw large groups of people. Moreover, shrine supporters often practise other faiths.  One notable member, for instance, is a bishop in the Greek Orthodox church.

The use of language
One point that intrigued me was the retention of Japanese terms for everything. Wasn’t the profusion of words like omamaori, ofuda, kamidana, gohei, oharae, temizuya etc etc overwhelmeing for anyone not familar with Japanese?  How could Westerners cope with longwinded names like Ame-no-Murakumo-Kukisamuhara-Ryu-O?  Surely it would be easier and more accessible to anglicise everything, I proposed.

Barrish’s response was that much gets lost in translation and that English words are culturally loaded. Temizuya for instance is more than a water basin, and ‘spirit-body’ carries altogether different connotations from goshintai. It reminded me how Catholic missionaries in the sixteenth century ran into catastrophic problems trying to translate Christian terms into Japanese, for the words they used were Buddhist.  God for example was translated as Dainichi.  As a result, people thought the missionaries were simply a new sect of Buddhism.  

Drumming up the spirits

Green Issues
So what about the political and environmental dimensions of Shinto?  What for instance are Westerners to do about reverence for the emperor which the official face of Japanese Shinto is keen to promote?  Rev. Barrish said he took a non-commital stance on the issue.  One of the shrines I visited in Hawaii had replaced Japanese patriotism and reverence for the emperor with American patriotism and reverence for the president.  I wondered if that was a possible direction here too, but Barrish said he had no interest in it.  Rather he was drawn to the environmental aspect of Shinto and was thinking of celebrating Earth Day with raising the Earth flag. Green Shinto gives that a big thumbs up.

Final rites
Following our discussions, there was a short interval while Rev. Barrish donned his ritual attire and we proceeded downstairs to the shrine where he performed a purification ritual, complete with the loud banging of a drum to signify beginning and end.  Following the three-fold sweep of the haraigushi (purification wand), there was a recital of norito prayers in Japanese to preserve the ‘word-magic’, or kotodama.  It marked a satisfying conclusion to a stimulating visit.  The Tsubaki Shrine is a pioneer of historic significance, run by a non-Japanese and catering to Japanese and non-Japanese alike.  Will it prove to be a unique experiment, or the model for many more to come? Either way, here is history in the making…

Stained glass showing the kami Sarutahiko bridging the divide between Japan and the US

Main building

With the Rev Barrish

For years I’ve been intrigued by the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America.  Here, uniquely, is a fully-fledged Shinto shrine run by a non-Japanese priest under the auspices of Tsubaki Shrine in Mie prefecture.  As you can see in the picture, it has all the conventional features of a Japanese shrine though with an original style of architecture. Shinto-style trappings abound, and only the bilingual nature of explanations betrays the location, set as it is in the depths of Washington State less than an hour by car from Seattle.

Driving down some broad country roads, one passes all of a sudden a torii.  No doubt few of those who pass give the gateway much thought, but once you turn into the driveway you begin to enter something of an enchanted world, for the road curves round and down a gentle slope toward an opening that nestles in the nook of the free-flowing Pilchak River.

Entrance to enchantment

But how did it come to be here in the first place?  It’s a question I put to the priest of the shrine, the Rev. Koichi Barrish.  ‘Kamisama fushigi,’ he replied (the mystery of the kami).  He first established a Kannagara Jinja here in 1992, born out of his work as a teacher of aikido, when he was offered land on which to build a shrine. After training during the 1990s at Tsubaki in Japan, he was licensed as a priest and in 2001 a decision was made to turn the Kannagara Shrine into an official branch of Tsubaki by combining it with the previously existing Tsubaki America Shrine in Stockton, California. (For more info. see the shrine website,  http://www.tsubakishrine.org/)

Driveway to another realm

Barrish sensei, as he is known, came to Shinto through aikido.  For myself, I come to Shinto out of love for the genus loci.  So it was with great delight that i found Tsubaki to truly sparkle with the spirit of place. This has much to do with the energising qualities of the river, that bends round the shrine as if in loving embrace.  The waters are crystal clear and come happily spilling down from the snow-capped peaks of Mt Pilchuk, bringing with them a pure freshness that radiates health and vitality.  All around the lush vegetation speaks of its life-giving nature.

The flow of kami essence

The shrine grounds are compact, but packed into them are a wealth of interesting items.  A stone lantern decorated with eto (Chinese zodiac); a sculpture of Sarutahiko (the main Tsubaki kami); an ema stand carrying votive tablets in both Japanese and English; a torii facing onto the river where misogi takes place; and a ‘happiness ball’ whose smooth stone surface you rub while praying to cleanse Shinto’s ‘six senses’.  ‘If you make your best effort each day with the heart of gratitude, happiness will come naturally into your life,’ runs the optimistic message of the accompanying noticeboard.

A path runs along the riverside past a small Inari shrine to a building where Barrish sensei lived in his bachelor days, and along the way is one of the most striking shinboku (sacred trees) I’ve come across. Standing on a small promontory of its own at the bend of the river, it seems to delight in the blessings of the nature it so evidently enjoys.  As Joyce Kilmer put it…..

I think I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/ Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,/ And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear/ A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;/ Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,/ But only God can make a tree.

Tree of life

For Part Two of this article, please click here.