Central Figures in Shinto
March 30, 2008
Who are the major figures in Shinto, I was asked perhaps by someone attempting to write a report for their religion class. My answer was Amateras the spirit of the sun. Some would argue that she is not all that important at all and only became important as a result of the post Meiji imperialisation of Shinto but, being a fan of the Kurozumi Kyou sect I am inclined to put her (she was once a guy) in the top spot as orthorodox and nationalist scholars would agree. In second place, for my money is Amaterasu's father, Izanagi who helped to pull the world out of the brine and is the Adam or perhaps Eve of Japanese myth of the fall. Then their is his wife, Izanami who is perhaps the origin of all scariest of Japanese Horror movies. Then, as a fan of Kagura I would have to recommend Susanoo as the slayer of that eight headed dragon, Amaterasu's sister and a god of war. Then for those that like Shinto old style, more natural perhaps, before the arrival of the Shining princes, then Ookuninushi the chief of the spirits of the land that resides in the Grand Shrine at Izumo, who helps those who come and pray to him, good luck in love.
Hachiman or Oujin deserves a mention since there are more Shrines to him than to any other spirit. There are plenty of other spirits that are important but, with regard to humans the nationalist Shinto scholars Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane also deserve mention as thinkers that shaped the way that Shinto is percieved.
Overcoming Fear
July 19, 2007
Fear is the mind killer, said James Herbert.
To overcome fear, I guess that perhaps a Shintoist might go to a shrine to have a priest perform a sweeping (harai), purification ceremony, wherein the 'ethereal vampire' which is your fear would hopefully be swept of into nowhere you would, hopefully, be left feeling pure and free of fear.
It would be difficult, to say the least, if not impossible, to perform this ceremony upon yourself, but there are instructions for making the paper wand used in the ceremony at the bottom here and prayers used in the ceremony can be found here. You may be able to get a friend to perform it for you.
Better still perhaps, another method of purification is ritual rinsing (misogi) of which there are various techniques, including getting under a waterfall (preferably not such a big one) or into a stream or river, and reciting perhaps the misogi prayer also included on the page above.
People do Misogi in Watefalls, rivers (I think that this may be Rev Barrish, in Oregon) and in the sea.
I think that it helps if the water is not warm, and you are in a natural setting. I used to do misogi in a little waterfall up on Kora mountain in Kurume, Kyushu, and I highly recommend it. Getting under a mountain waterfall and reciting something can cure you of all manner of concern, if only via brain freeze and general numbness, leaving you with a pleasant warm feeling afterwards. Please don't over do it though.
My Buddhist Beckian interpretation of both rituals is that they aim for 'emptiness' or freedom from 'automatic thoughts.' Under this interpretation, the ethereal vampires are ideas or words going round and around in your head and these can be swept away by concentrating on something else, nice white pieces of paper fluttering around, cold running water, and with the help and belief in your favourite spirit.
Amae
May 21, 2007
Amae(ru) is according to Dr. Takeo Doi a word that cannot be directly translated into English. Doi starts out by making a Sapir-Whorf hypothesis based observation that any word that exists in one language but cannot be expressed easily in others, refers to a phenomena which is culturally important in culture of the first language, but not so important in the culture of the others which lack a means of its expression.
It is very true that Amae(ru) does not translate well into English. I would use "(to) fawn upon" or perhaps "to be a baby," or "to be cute." It refers to the action and emotional state of mind of a baby towards its mother (care giver). By "emotional state" I mean that it involves the expectation, need or desire to evoke the love in the other. Another way of putting amae(ru) is "passive love" i.e. feeling and behaving in such a way as to be loved (by a parent). It does not refer to being sexy, flirting or pouting or all the other ways of attracting eros (i.e. being "erotic" ?) but ways of attracting what C.S. Lewis calls "affection," the love of parents towards children. So amae is anticipating, and behaving in such a way as to receive love, affection, or induldence. The last word is moot too since the active form of amae in Japanese, amayakasu is usually traslated as "to indulge". One of Doi's most accessible examples is the behaviour of a puppy. A puppy (or an older dog, since dogs are always children to their masters) might roll on its back and wait for its belly to be stroked. Or it might come up to you wagging not only its tail, panting, and looking you in the eye. This is partly just being happy to see you but it is also a call for affection.
On top of the fact that Doi's insight regardign Amae started from a Sapir-Whorfian insight, it has a yet stronger relationship with language, or rather the lack of language. This connection can be approached in two ways.
First of all Doi's first, and for me most memorable, example of amae, is from when he arrived in the USA and visited a friend. His friend put some cookies or something on a table and said "If you are hungry, please help yourself." Coming from the culture of "amae," Doi felt put out. He was hungry, but he was in an amae frame of mind. He did not want to say, "Well I don't mind if I do," and tuck into the cookies. He wanted his host to actively perceive ("sasshi") that he was hungry and give him a plate of cookies. He wanted to be mollycoddled. The word "mollycoddle," not so common in English, helps us to understand the term amae. Some one who wants to be mollycoddled does not articulate their desire but hopes by their person or their actions to elicit indulgence from an other without the use of language. As soon as they put their desire into language they are putting themselves on an equal footing, as another separate desiring individual - but the person who "amaes" (if I am allowed to conjugate the verb) wants to merge (Doi argues) with the other.
This brings us on to the second connection between amae and the absence of language. Doi, argues that amae is the desire to merge with the other, as if (?) still not an independent entity, and puts forward a theory of individuality (quite common these days among narrative psychologists) that says that being an individual is to linguistically articulate oneself and ones desires. To amae is to refuse to go down that path to linguistic self-hood.
Endo Shusaku is possibly Japan's most famous Christian. Not only was he a Christian but also, as mentioned above, he tried to define a sort of Japanese Christianity. Indeed, Endo Shusaku attempted to take the best of Christian and Japanese culture to propose a more Japanese, and in a sense an even more Christian version of Christianity! In perhaps his most famous book ("Silence") Endo Shusaku raised the question of the martyr, the person that sacrifices themselves for others. The Christian bible tells us, "There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." However, Endo suggests that there is greater love. Endo seems to come to the conclusion that the ultimate "martyr" could and would lay down his life for another, but ultimately she would also refrain for doing so, even if it meant rejecting all that she had lived for, if she felt that she would be held as an example, and thus encourage friends to lay down their lives as well. Putting it as tritely as this does not do service to Endo's sentiment but, Endo argues (successfully judging by the rave reviews from Western Catholics at Amazon.com) that sometimes it is even more difficult to *live on*.
Living on, even when this means not being entirely true to ones beliefs, is close to the philosophy of the Bodhisattva, such as. Kannon. A Bodhisattva is someone that could throw off their ego and reach nirvana/satori but decides to hang around, at the brink of satori, in the hope, working towards the day when, all other sentient beings reach nirvana/satori too.
It also reminds me of "About Schmidt" a film I saw today, in which the hero, played by Jack Nicholson, doesn't say what he really thinks, what he really believes, but chooses a polite, positive *silence* for the sake of those that he loves (perhaps a controversial reading of this bleak, but real and interesting film.)
Putting Endo's question back in terms of a possibly non PC gender related question: "who loves more, the fathers that go to war -- perhaps to die -- to protect those they loves, or the mothers that refuses to go to war, and would rather live in slavery, and abjection, for the same reason?" I think that opinions are likely to be divided. I am afraid that my sentiment is on the side of the warrior, but one might argue that a true blue Shinto-ist would come out on the side of the mother.
Shusaku Endo is a very famous novelist. His books are even more popular among Japanese Christians, who make up less than 1% of Japanese Christians.
Takeo Doi is also, as far as I am aware, a Japanese Christian. It is concievable therefore, in my opinion, that Takeo Doi may have been in part, subliminally inspired by the novels of Shusaku Endo. This is however, highly unlikely since (as kindly pointed out by Maraku below) Doi makes no mention of Shusaku in Amae no Kouzou. Takeo Doi does however, suggest, in the first chapter of his seminal work, that the origin of the word amae may be related to the name of the deity at the top of the Japanese panthenon, Amaterasu Oomikami. This suggests to me a common sensitivity motivating Shusaku Endo's and Takeo Doi's realisation that Japan is a country of amae. To Japanese Christians as they both are, it may be striking that there is a strong difference between their own religion, as expressed in the Bible, and that of the majority of Japanese who are much more enclined to amaeru to, request indulgence of, their deities.
Thanks to VikingSlav for the first paragraph and inspiration for this article.
N.B.
I would like to apologize for an earlier version of this article that suggested a closer link between the work of Shusaku Endo and Takeo Doi. This suggestion was entirely my own and based entirely upon supposition and speculation. In any event, nothing can be taken from Takeo Doi's immense achievement of making the notion of amae available to generations of psychologists, some of whom use the theory to cure people. And incidentally, academically, I am of course not fit to wipe Dr. Doi's shoes.
Japanese Superstitions
May 08, 2007
The following is a fairly long list of Japanese superstitions, or at least the ones that I do not recognise has existing in the UK. But I may be wrong about origins. Most of them are not connected with Shinto directly but there are a few towards the end. Many of them are from the Japanese language Wikipedia article on superstions.
If you whistle at night a snake, ghost or monster will come and get you. Originates in the time when there was slavery in Japan and one would attract a trader (to whom one might sell someone) by whistling at night. Thus children were taught to avoid whistling at night by stories of snakes and ghosts. This was the 3rd most popularly believed superstition among Japanese men and women in 2006.
There are many superstitions related to the Chinese calendar and various regular unlucky and lucky days related to Buddhist 'six day' interpretations of the calendar. The six day cycle
includes "daian" (big peace) the most auspicious day, "butsu metsu" (anihilation of the Buddha) the most unlucky when it is a bad news to hold a wedding (and wedding reception halls
are very cheap) and tomobiki (friend pulling) on which day it is bad news to hold a funeral lest friends of the deceased are pulled towards their deceased friend.
A calendar related superstitions that seems to have been widely believed is that females born in the year of the fire horse ("hi no e uma") every sixty years, last time 1966) will turn
into devils and cause suffering to their husband and children. The birth rate in Japan nominally declined by 25% in that the last Fire Horse year. I say "nominally" because, for example, a family member of mine is registered as having been born on the first day of 1967 but there is some question, at least in my mind, whether she may not have been born a little earlier. She is charming and her family members are fit and well.
Space in Shinto again
April 03, 2007
In Japan one does not say that a room in a house measures "10 by 12" but rather one counts room area in spaces, that is to say the number of tatami mats that would be needed on the floor of the room. In the West we seem to be thinking of the boundaries of space, in Japan the Japanese seem to be thinking of the space itself.
Typical Japanese house floor plan (scroll down to see numbers that show numbers of mats)
http://goodhouse.homepage.jp/1newly/003shimosakamoto3b.htm
Typical Western floor plan
http://www.virtualtours360.net/images/floorplan%20sample2.gif
Japanese roads are not given names. Japanese addresses are given by area name. Japanese houses are given numbers according to where they are in an area not where they are on the street(spatial boundary). Again this seems to suggest that space (or areas) in Japan is named, and thus emphasised, rather than the roads, lines or limits of space. This can make Japanese towns difficult to navigate
http://www.m-net.ne.jp/~kikuchiy/chimei1-1.htm
compared to even London towns where one can give a street name (the link below to where I grew up)
http://tinyurl.com/262qqm
In Japanese houses there are a lot of named spaces such as the "tokonoma" where wall hangings are put up and ornaments are placed, or the holes at the top of walls, or the gaps in partition walls. Here are some diagrams showing the various "spaces" created in traditional Japanese architecture
http://www.toyoshima-g.co.jp/yougo/0505.htm
Japanese traditional architects seem to enjoy making houses that are akin to 'rectangular Swiss cheese', with all sorts of spaces to enjoy by virtue of the interplay and presentation of spaces.
http://tinyurl.com/22pdxa
http://tinyurl.com/24hopc
Western interior design seems to emphasise boundaries such as walls and their coverings, and *content not space*, particularly a in traditional English interior
http://tinyurl.com/2x7go3
Corridors and hallways are given prominence as spaces over and above their practical uses as passage-ways.
Japanese pottery is often sparsely or "naturally" decorated and rather than using geometric shapes, its is the "foot print-like" (kutsugata-chawan, kutsu-chawan) shape of bowls, their deformation and texture and individuality that is prized. This at least demonstrates a lack
of interest in geometrical lines, and a greater interest in texture and perhaps encapsulation of space. Again this may suggest the importance of space itself in Japanese aesthetics.
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~toushou8/otyawann.htm
http://syoindo.noblog.net/blog/g/10220755.html
http://www.nezu-muse.or.jp/syuuzou/toji.index.html
http://www.nezu-muse.or.jp/syuuzou/toji/40271.html
In Japan spaces themselves are related to power more so than in the West, I think. Such as there is a lot of emphasis placed upon where people sit in a room, at a table, in a car, or in
a lift. Space or spacing is perhaps inscribed with more meaning. Some pages describing the relative importance of the positions in a room.
http://www2.kid.ne.jp/teien/kannaiannai/yo_suwaru1.html
http://www.yuinou.com/manual/page2.htm
http://www.jobclick.jp/static/mg/050530_06.html (bottom)
Behaviour in Japan is especially 'spatially contingent', with some behaviours allowed in some spaces but not in others. Rules concerning the appropriateness of behaviours depending on the place in which they are carried out, are applied in the West too, but in Japan to an even greater degree.
Such as in the almost anything goes 'red-light-district', Kabukicho, Tokyo
http://flickr.com/photos/yeungkeefu/141311940/
Or the fact that the (spatial) addresses of Yakuza, are publically listed (in Japanese):
http://www.cji.jp/Link/coffebreak/story32.htm
Indeed in Japan it is rare that one should hold a dinner party at home, or allow non family members to enter the home, since the family in Japan is defined spacially (as "ie"). Entering a home in Japan, almost defines one as family member.
[Sad aside: The tragic and brutal murder of 22yr old British, English teacher, Ms. Lindsay Anne Hawker, by a twisted 28 year old Japanese man may have been precipitated in part by different conceptions of the importance of space. As is often pointed out, there is less violent crime in Japan. One article claims that there is a kind of lurking violence in the "honne" as opposed to "tatemae" of Japanese culture.
http://tinyurl.com/2n42x5
Be that as it may, I think that one of the problems arose from different interpretations of the fact that Ms. Hawker entered the murderer's appartment. As far as I am aware, entering a man's room is a vastly more value-laden in Japan than it is in the UK. While I believe the rape statistics that show that one is far less likely to be raped in Japan, as far as I know it is almost impossible to convict someone of rape in Japan if the victim enters a private space. Japanese women are aware of this and thus are far more reticent to enter a private space with a man. Unknowingly, Ms. Hawker may have sent a message to her murderer that she had no intention of sending. This does not of course excuse the murderer. I hope they catch him soon.]
In the Japanese Garden
1) The relationship or spacing of the elements in the garden is very important, perhaps more important than the things themselves. Thus the Japanese garden contains a plants that might not be all that much to look at on their own (unlike a rose bush perhaps) but gain their beauty by the interspacing of elements.
2) The relationship between the garden and the surrounding environment, as far away as mountains in the distance, is also and important part of the garden design.
3) Geometrical patterns - that emphasise lines - are rarely used but but rather it is spatial relationships between elements that are prized.
4) The parts of the garden may represent much larger spaces, such as a whole inland sea, Japan as a whole or a whole cosmos.
5) Rather than will natural look of the English country garden, or the trimmed artificial look of the stately home garden, the Japanese garden aims for controlled nature, a nature more natural than nature. I don't know if or how this last point connects to conceptions of
space but it relates to Japanese conceptions of nature.
http://flickr.com/photos/nihonbunka/24886024/
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