Author: John D. (Page 91 of 202)

Fertility item

November 24, 2014 / John D.

A subshrine of Yaegaki Jinja in Shimane Prefecture

Green Shinto has written several items on the fertility aspects of Japan’s religious heritage, including the famous Hounen Matsuri where large phallic symbols are born around town and shrines such as Yaegaki Jinja in Shimane Prefecture where phallic objects are the object of veneration. There are shrines too such as Oagata Jinja near Nagoya where the female sexual part is worshipped.

Sacred rock at Oagata Jinja near Nagoya

There is an obvious connection of human sexuality with the fertility of rice and other crops. Indeed, since humans are an integral part of nature in the Shinto viewpoint, rather than being superior, special or separate, human sexuality is very much part of the divine way of Great Nature. In the celebration of sexual parts lies the urge to foster the life-force.

In this respect it may be of interest to readers in the US to learn of an offer by a Green Shinto reader of an authentic fertility object such as would have appealed to early Japanese. With the spread of Shinto practises in north America, it is only a matter of time before folk Shinto practices catch on along with the more formalised shrine rituals. Indeed, in at least one instance it already has.

The person responsible for unearthing the object below writes: “I am brokering a granite and quartz naturally shaped rock that was excavated 10 feet in the earth amongst other rocks. It is 4ft by 12 inches in diameter. The rock has no known tool marks and was found in Michigan.”

If anyone is interested, would they please write directly to the person concerned at <boardcloat[atmark]gmail.com>

An unearthed fertility stone looking for a new home where it will be treated with due reverence

Haiku

November 22, 2014 / John D.

Autumn colours turn thoughts to verse

Green Shinto has posted items before on the connection of poetry and Shinto sentiments. Indeed, it’s said the very origins of the poetic impulse in Japan lie with religious utterances by miko, and in Kojiki (712) kami such as Susanoo are claimed as the country’s earliest poets (see postings in the category for Poetry to the right).

Some places compel a sense of awe – and poetry

Sense of place has always been important to Shinto, as it has indeed to Japanese poetry. One only has to read the early verse in the eighth-century Manyoshu to see that. The notion was later transmitted into an even shorter verse form – haiku.

Arakide Moritake (1473–1549) was from a family of Shinto priests who served at Ise Shrine. He was a poet of renga (linked verse) and is said by some to be the founder of haiku though no one knows for certain when the first 5-7-5 verse was written. The form emerged in feudal times out of the initial stanza of renga, and early haiku tended to be light-hearted or witty in their approach, as evident in this one by Arakide:

a cherry petal
flies back up to its branch—
oh, a butterfly!

It was not until Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) that the haiku came to express serious themes. Basho moved the haiku beyond simple word play and surprises. Here for example is his reflection on a famous battle field that evokes the themes of transience and vanity:

summer grasses—
all that remain of
warriors’ dreams

Basho’s association with Zen steered commentators like R.W. Blythe into promoting the notion that haiku was an essentially Zen form. But many of its best proponents like Issa for instance had nothing to do with Zen. It was born rather out of the Buddhist-Shinto sensibility that was (and still is) the religious mainstream of Japan.

Wandering poet, Matsuo Basho

The website for the haiku foundation has a very interesting discussion on the links with Shinto, from which the piece below is taken, written by moderator David Grayson. If you would like to read more, there are plenty of other comments and examples on the webpage, and amongst the contributors Green Shinto friend Gabi Greve is particularly prominent. Please click here.

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David Grayson writes: As a starting point, I want to highlight five Shinto assumptions and beliefs that are reflected in haiku.

1. Shintoism is local – A characteristic of Shintoism is that it is locally focused. Kami are rooted in specific locales, as are the shrines dedicated to them, and their constituents.

2. Physical vs. spiritual – Shintoism does not draw a hard distinction between the physical world we inhabit and the spiritual world. A nice illustration are Torii gates, which mark the entrance to shrines. The gates, which are actually arches, often have no gate or fence — marking the permeability between our world and the spirit world.

3. The natural world – Shintoism is grounded in the natural environment. Shrines are built in harmony with nature, usually built with natural materials and incorporating natural elements. Indeed, some “shrines” are natural landmarks like waterfalls and trees.

4. Seasonality – This is related to number three, but deserves to be called out. Festivals are tied to the seasons and to milestones in the farming calendar. [Gabi Greve has compiled a saijiki of kigo for festivals and ceremonies.]

5. Focus on the present – Shintoism is very much focused on the here and now.

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Mountain muse, Fuji-san

Shinto-inspired haiku abound; here are several that I’ve enjoyed:

on the trail of the gods …
all creatures and spirits
blessed by hoarfrost

– Nozomi Sugiyama, from Seasons of the Gods (2)

flicking off water
a dragonfly quickly
becomes divine

– Hoshinaga Fumio (3)

there is no voice
in this waterfall in November —
Fudo Waterfall
– Shimomura Hiroshi (4)

Having climbed Mt. Fuji,
My shadow stretches into
The form of a giant man

– Nobuyuki Yuasa, from Seasons of the Gods (5)

As mentioned above, Gabi Greve’s Saijiki for Festivals and Ceremonies is a good resource.

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Notes:

(1) BBC Religions: Shintoism – http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/beliefs/religion.shtml. 76% indicated that they followed Buddhism.

(2) Icebox – http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/representative-haiku/

(3) Richard Gilbert, Poems of Consciousness (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2008), 167.

(4) “Religion and Nature” Topic in Religion, created by Gabi Greve. http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/index.php?topic=465.0

(5) Icebox – http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/representative-haiku/

At its best haiku is a gateway into the realm of the sacred

Campbell on myth

November 20, 2014 / John D.

Sanctification of the spirit of place transforms the mundane into an object of reverence

There are two people in particular who have shaped my spirituality – Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. Neither pretended to be a priest or guru, but both imparted jewels of wisdom. Joseph Campbell in particular wrote revealingly of myth and its power to provide signposts to a fulfilled life. When he came to Japan in 1954 he was entranced with the survival of a primal religion like Shinto into the modern age. In the quotations that follow, he shows how human existence is empowered through the quest for self-knowledge and sanctification of the world around us. We live in an awe-inspiring universe and carry within us the magic spark of life. Look in the mirror then and rejoice, for we are one with nature. Celebrate the diurnal round. Be here now!

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“The function of myth is to put us in sync—with ourselves, with our social group, and with the environment in which we live… One of the most interesting and simple ways to get this message is from the mythologies of the Navaho. Every single detail of the desert in which they live has been deified, and the land has become a holy land because it is revelatory of mythological entities. When you recognize the mythological aspect of Mother Nature, you have turned nature itself into an icon, into a holy picture, so that wherever you go, you’re getting the message that the divine power is working for you. Modern culture has desanctified our landscape and we think that to go to the holy land we have to go to Jerusalem. The Navaho would say, ‘This is it, and you’re it.’ ”

Joseph Campbell, Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, p.19

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“And just as in the past each civilization was the vehicle of its own mythology, developing in character as its myth became progressively interpreted, analyzed, and elucidated by its leading minds, so in this modern world––where the application of science to the fields of practical life has now dissolved all cultural horizons, so that no separate civilization can ever develop again––each individual is the center of a mythology of his own, of which his own intelligible character is the Incarnate God, so to say, whom his empirically questing consciousness is to find. The aphorism of Delphi, ‘Know thyself,’ is the motto. And not Rome, not Mecca, not Jerusalem, Sinai, or Benares, but each and every ‘thou’ on earth is the center of this world…
Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology (Vol. IV of The Masks of God), p. 36

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“How, in the contemporary period, can we evoke the imagery that communicates the most profound and most richly developed sense of experiencing life? These images must point past themselves to that ultimate truth which must be told: that life does not have one absolutely fixed meaning. These images must point past all meanings given, beyond all definitions and relationships, to that really ineffable mystery that is just the existence, the being of ourselves and of our world. If we give that mystery an exact meaning we diminish the experience of its real depth. But when a poet carries the mind into a context of meanings and then pitches it past those, one knows that marvelous rapture that comes from going past all categories of definition. Here we sense the function of metaphor that allows us to make a journey we could not otherwise make …”
Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That, p. 8-9

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“[W]e are the children of this beautiful planet that we have lately seen photographed from the moon. We are not delivered into it by some god, but have come forth from it. We are its eyes and mind, its seeing and its thinking. And the earth, together, with its sun, this light around which it flies like a moth, came forth, we are told, from a nebula; and that nebula, in turn, from space. So that we are the mind, ultimately, of space …
No wonder, then, if its laws and ours are the same! Likewise our depths are the depths of space, whence all those gods sprang that men’s minds in the past projected onto animals and plants, onto hills and streams, the planets in their courses, and their own peculiar social observances.”
Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

Shichi-go-san (7-5-3)

November 16, 2014 / John D.

Back so soon –
Autumn colours
And Siberian seagulls

One of the joys of Shinto is that it marks the passing of time. Seasonal celebrations remind us of the turning of the annual round, and the abundance of harvest thanksgivings is replaced now by preparations for winter. I was reminded of this on my walks up the river when I saw this week the return of the Siberian seagulls, first harbinger of the long cold months ahead. These joyfully lithe and lively birds add greatly to the beauty of the Kamogawa in winter, when greenery lies low and deciduous leaves have fallen.

With their splashes of white and beady intelligent eyes, the seagulls skim at dizzying speeds up and down the river, mostly in large groups but sometimes in pairs or singly. As the day darkens, they whirl up into a dizzying spiral that reaches up to the very heavens before flying off to bed down for the night at Lake Biwa. My heart leaps up when I see them, though I’m none too glad of the cold that clings to them from their Siberian north. (I was once delighted to find on my winter break in Kunming in the Yunnan Province of China that the Siberian seagulls migrate there too.)

Another way in which Shinto marks the passage of time is through the celebration of life events, such as the Shichi-go-san. It’s the time of year to celebrate seven-, five- and three-year olds, a rite of passage from ancient China. As such it marks a stage of maturation for children and is a delightful life-affirming affair, one of Shinto’s prime events. The explanation below by Yumiyama Tatsuya is taken from the Shinto encyclopedia produced by Kokugakuin University.

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Rite of passage for the Shichigosan
Generally, on November 15th boys aged three and five and girls aged three and seven are dressed in their best clothes and taken on a pilgrimage to their ujigami (clan or tutelary kami) to express gratitude and pray for their continued health and safety. Sometimes formal banquets are also held for this occasion.

In ancient times, both boys and girls would be shorn of their hair until they turned three, when a formal ceremony would be held after which they were allowed to grow it out. There was also a ritual for five-year-old boys in which they would put on a hakama for the first time. For seven-year-old girls there was the ritual of replacing the narrow belt of a child’s kimono with the much wider obi.

The particulars such as which sex does what at what age and the name for those celebrations varied based on region, era, and a child’s social standing, but generally we can say that these age-based rituals were conducted to pray for and celebrate children’s maturation from the precarious stage of infancy into the more stable stage of childhood. Shichigosan refers collectively to the performance of such rituals.

Although the date on which it is celebrated — the fifteenth of the eleventh month or November 15th — was already considered to be an auspicious day, Shichigosan became specifically associated with it when the fifth Tokugawa shōgun, Tsunayoshi, conducted rites for his child Tokumatsu on this day. It came to be conducted in grander fashion from the Taishō era [early twentieth century], and these practices grew in elegance as they spread across the nation.

In Tokyo, many pilgrims visit Meiji Jingū and other famous shrines at the time of shichigosan. Also, the selling of chitoseame (“thousand-year candy”) as a souvenir of Shichigosan, a practice that began at the shrine Kanda Jinja, in Asakusa, and other Tokyo sites, is said to have become widespread.

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Though the actual day is Nov. 15, it’s customary to visit the shrine on the weekends either side of that date. For a full account of a family visit, see this page. http://www.tokyowithkids.com/entertainment/shichigosan.html

Ame no Uzume (butoh)

November 16, 2014 / John D.

A butoh performance of female sexuality re-emerging from the Rock Cave

Last night in Kyoto I attended a striking butoh performance entitled ‘Uzume’. It portrayed the Kojiki deity in the distinctive manner of butoh, which meant that rather than simple narrative there was a succession of scenes in which the writhing and twisted movements suggested the inner nature of the journey. In the jolts and unnatural positioning was the suggestion of spirit possession. There was a strong primal atmosphere about the performance that spoke to the earliest stirrings of (wo)mankind.

Ame no Uzume in butoh garb and appearance

Uzume is an intriguing character because of her role in Japan’s primal myth, The Heavenly Rock-Cave (Ama no Iwato). She’s often neglected by traditionalists, because in her dance performance which draws the sun goddess Amaterasu out of her cave she exposes her breasts and private parts. These symbols of vitality and fertility are enough to repel the forces of darkness and reawaken life in the universe.

In neglecting the sexuality of Uzume, puritans and prudes have sought to make Shinto ‘safe’ and ‘respectable’. They are the same people that covered up the phalli and vulvae that used to be a common sight around Japan. They thought sexuality was shameful for an imperial state religion, and Shinto as a fertility religion was repackaged as Shinto as a nature religion. Ancestors not fertility rites are still given emphasis in public.

Much of the blame for this can of course be put on Western attitudes which were imported after the opening up of Japan in the 1850s. Christianity in particular preached that there was something shameful about the human body and that sex should be hidden away. As Alan Watts pointed out, no other religious culture in the history of mankind has been so obsessed with the subject.

Now as we move into a post-Christian age, things are changing and human sexuality is once again being liberated and celebrated. The Uzume on stage last night danced the central scene completely naked save for a minimal loin cloth barely covering the area between the legs. In a sense this was a feminist reclaiming of the body, and the production was notable for having four female dancers represent the festival of gods which takes place outside the Rock-Cave. Uzume was here presented as the physical vessel into which the lifeforce enters, the living key to the opening of the cave. Here, triumphantly, was the bringer of joy and sunshine.

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Wikipedia on Uzume…

Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto (天宇受売命) is the goddess of dawn, mirth and revelry in the Shinto religion of Japan, and the wife of fellow-god Sarutahiko Ōkami. She famously relates to the tale of the missing sun deity, Amaterasu Omikami. Her name can also be pronounced as Ama-no-Uzume.

A respectable Uzume at the Ise Jingu musuem

Amaterasu’s brother, the storm god Susano’o, had vandalized her rice fields, threw a flayed horse at her loom, and brutally killed one of her maidens due to a quarrel between them. In turn, Amaterasu became furious with him and retreated into the Heavenly Rock Cave, Amano-Iwato. The world, without the illumination of the sun, became dark and the gods could not lure Amaterasu out of her hiding place.

The clever Uzume overturned a tub near the cave entrance and began a dance on it, tearing off her clothing in front of the other deities. They considered this so comical that they laughed heartily at the sight.[3] This dance is said to have founded the Japanese ritual dance, Kagura.

Amaterasu heard them, and peered out to see what all the fuss was about. When she opened the cave, she saw her glorious reflection in a mirror which Uzume had placed on a tree, and slowly emerged from her hiding spot.
At that moment, the god Ame-no-Tajikarawo-no-mikoto dashed forth and closed the cave behind her, refusing to budge so that she could no longer retreat. Another god tied a magic shimenawa across the entrance. The deities Ame-no-Koyane-no-mikoto and Ame-no-Futodama-no-mikoto then asked Amaterasu to rejoin the divine. She agreed, and light was restored to the earth.

Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto is still worshiped today as a Shinto kami, spirits indigenous to Japan. She is also known as Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto, The Great Persuader, and The Heavenly Alarming Female. She is depicted in kyōgen farce as Okame, a woman who revels in her sensuality.

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For an account of a fertility rite, see here. For a shrine with fertility symbols, click here. For fertility festivals near Nagoya, including Honen Festival, click here or here.

The meeting of a fecund Uzume and a phallic Sarutahiko as depicted on an ema at Tsubaki Jinja

Hitaki-sai (Fushimi Inari)

November 13, 2014 / John D.

Green Shinto friend, Hugo Kempeneer, has written up his visit to a most interesting ceremony at Fushimi Inari which took place recently. It’s a ceremony I’ve never seen myself, but thanks to his very clear videos of the event, I almost feel that I was there in person! (For an 18 minute video of the event, see here. For Hugo’s excellent Kyotodreams blog, see here. All photos copyright Hugo Kempeneer.)

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Hugo writes…

Today was the annual Hitaki Sai (火焚祭) Fire Festival at Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社) in Kyoto. As usual the Fushimi Inari shrine is crowded with people from all over. Today was no different, though the weather was kind of nice and many people where lining up to get a good spot at the festival site. Myself, I was standing in line for more than 1½ hours. It paid off though and I had a first row view. The ceremony is held to express gratitude for the bountiful harvest and to pray for good health of worshippers. More than 100.000 wooden prayer sticks from all over Japan were burned in three separate bonfires.

Green Shinto comments: Looking at this, one can’t help seeing the syncretic nature of Fushimi Inari writ large. The ceremony is typical of Shingon Buddhism, and the shrine was appointed by the Shingon founder Kukai to be a guardian shrine of his Heian-kyo temple seminary, To-ji. Still today the Inari mikoshi is brought past the entrance of To-ji in its annual festival, when the Buddhist priests come out to pay their respects. The syncretic nature of Inari belief may be the reason, or one of the reasons, as to why Fushimi Inari is not a member of Jinja Honcho (Association of Shrines).

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Hugo’s Hitaki Sai Fire Festival Highlights:

The ceremony started at 1.00pm at the main hall of the Fushimi shrine and about 45 minutes later the priests and kagura (神楽) dancers entered the grounds. A cleansing ritual was performed in front of each heap, afterwards the fire starter bamboo sticks were set alight. Three priests lit the three bonfires.

First there was an overwhelming smoke that engulfed all the spectators, but soon it cleared up and the first flames were reaching to the sky. The long and hot task of throwing the prayer sticks onto the fire began. The priests and participants were singing prayers to thank the gods for a bountiful harvest and prosperity. After all, the Fushimi Inari Shrine is dedicated to Inari, kami of rice and business.

In-between the prayers and burning of the prayer sticks was a performance by some pretty kagura dancers, performing a beautiful traditional Kagura dance. They did this three times. The burning of the more than 100.000 prayer sticks lasted for one hour. It was quite an experience, as this was the first time I attended this ceremony at the Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Miko, drum and divine utterance - relics of a shamanistic past

Hugo writes:

During the Hitaki Sai Fire Festival at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Kagura dancers livened up the ceremony. While Shinto priests were busily throwing the prayer sticks onto the bonfires, these pretty miko (巫女) or Shrine Maidens treated us to a traditional Kagura dance. Kagura (神楽) or “god-entertainment” is a theatrical dance—with roots arguably predating those of Noh. Originally called kamukura or kamikura (神座), kagura began as sacred dances performed at the Imperial court by shrine maidens (miko) who were supposedly descendants of Ame-no-Uzume [the dancer in the Rock-Cave Myth, whose bawdy performance leads a curious Amaterasu to emerge from her cave].

The slow and stately kagura dance performed by miko

The Far Right

November 13, 2014 / John D.

Four recent articles have highlighted the growing danger of right-wing extremism in Japan.

First Murakami Haruki, Japan’s leading novelist, spoke out against the whitewashing of Japan’s record in WW2. “After the war, it was eventually concluded that no one was wrong,” said Murakami of the pervasive attitude in Japan. It is offensive to the millions who suffered untold cruelty at the hands of the Japanese army, and nationalists need to take on board that more Chinese died in WW2 than all the Americans, British and Japanese put together.

Extreme nationalists like the Zaitokukai make Yasukuni a rallying point

A second article by Hugh Cortazzi, former UK ambassador to Japan, stated: ‘It is very much in Japan’s national interest that the revisionists are discouraged from propagating their historical lies and that Japanese democratic processes are not threatened by extremist anti-democratic individuals or groups.’ As a supporter of Japan, Cortazzi ends his forceful piece with, ‘Better a candid friend than an insincere sycophant.’ Hear, hear! (For the full article, click this link.)

A third article by Japanese professor, Yamaguchi Jiro, further highlights the extreme rightwing orientation of the Japanese government. While campaigning to win respect abroad, it pursues repressive politics at home and condones ties to neo-Nazis. The media have been effectively silenced, textbooks are being rewritten to omit mention of atrocities, and the head of the national broadcaster NHK has more or less declared that it operates as an arm of the government. (Click to see The article in the Japan Times .)

Fourthly, there was a stinging condemnation of extremist elements by Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University, entitled ‘Right-wing witch hunt signals dark days in Japan’ (click here). “The revisionist right in Japan with the active encouragement, if not involvement, of the Abe government has succeeded in controlling NHK news, intimidating Asahi Shimbun and now academia,” says Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University.

A far right van in Kyoto bearing the slogan Respect the Ancient Japan School (wikicommons)

Intimidation of those who speak out against prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni is part of the extreme right’s campaign of vilification. “In 2006, Koichi Kato, a moderate (Liberal Democratic Party) politician, had his house in Yamagata burned down for his criticism of Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine.”

Things have grown so bad now that some commentators are likening the situation to the 1930s. “In recent years, pressure by right-wing groups has led to cinemas canceling movies dealing with sensitive war-related issues; hotels canceling the reservations of conference rooms for symposia dealing with such issues; and museums canceling or revising exhibitions with sensitive contents. (There has been) widespread anti-China and anti-Korea sentiments (and) books of that kind becoming best-sellers, hate demonstrations, assaults on history by the nation’s leaders that trickle down to the general public, page-ripping of Anne Frank’s diaries, hiding of ‘Barefoot Gen’ in school libraries, assaults on protest tents in Okinawa and anti-nuclear tents in Tokyo, and public places refusing to rent space to groups that discuss issues like the Constitution and anti-nuclear power.”

There are times in history when it’s important to stand up and speak out. Conservative collaborators in the West, including sympathisers with Shinto, like to turn a blind eye to political developments such as visits to Yasukuni. In so doing they are guilty of complicity, for the stink of collaboration with racist thugs like the Zaitokukai* hangs over them. As Yamaguchi points out in his article, ‘It is the job of members of the media and academics to tell people immersed in narcissism that they, in fact, have ugly aspects.’ So let it be clearly stated: those who exploit Shinto for extremist ends are ugly indeed!

* To learn about Zaitokukai, see here.

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Author Murakami chides Japan over WWII, Fukushima responsibility
NATIONAL NOV. 04, 2014 Japan Today

Murakami Haruki (source unknown)

Speaking to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, the 65-year-old author said: “No one has taken real responsibility for the 1945 war end or the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. I feel so.”

“After the war, it was eventually concluded that no one was wrong,” said Murakami of the pervasive attitude in Japan. Japanese people have come to consider themselves as “victims” of the war, he added.

Murakami, one of Japan’s best known writers who has repeatedly been tipped as a future Nobel Literature laureate, said that it was natural for China and the Koreas to continue to feel resentment towards Japan for its wartime aggressions. “Fundamentally, Japanese people tend not to have an idea that they were also assailants, and the tendency is getting clearer,” he said.

Japan’s lack of repentance over its in the first half of the 20th century continues to strain relations with regional neighbors.

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For a suppressed 2-hour documentary on WW2 by Kazuo Hara, The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yukiyukite shingun, 1987), see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDkrunQwoLc. You can switch on subtitles at the bottom.