Shinto: The Kami Spirit World of Japan
This month we’ve been looking at Japan so we’re wrapping up the month with a look at this weeks book, Shinto: The Kami Spirit World of Japan by Sokyo Ono. So lets do this.
When I started my journey on religious explorations, with The World’s Religions by Huston Smith, he had categorized Shinto as a “primitive religion.” I do feel he sold this short shrift. By a lot. This book correctly identifies Shinto as an indigenous religion, and virtually the entire population of Japan practices Shintoism.
The beauty of Shintoism is that it allows for plural practice. So while basically all of Japan practices Shintoism, they ALL also practice another form of religion, and from last weeks book, Pax Tokugawana: The Cultural Flowering of Japan, 1603-1853 by Haga Toru, we learn that the vast majority of the second faith in Japan is Buddhism. 87 million practice Shinto, and 84 million practice Buddhism, with a distant second of Christianity at 1.9 million. Total population of Japan is 126 million.
So what is Shinto? At it’s heart, it is the worship of Kami. So what are Kami? Or rather, WHO is Kami? Kami is “Fundamentally, the term is an honorific for noble, sacred spirits, which implies a sense of adoration for their virtues and authority. All beings have such spirits, so in a sense, all beings can be called kami or be regarded as potential kami.”
ALL BEINGS have such spirits. Being is a broad scope to say that anything is capable of having Kami attached to it. Widely, Shinto is known for tree worshiping, and part of this is that the shrines for Shinto are frequently...but not always...set in small groves by the wayside or within city limits. Mountains are sacred, stones are sacred. As I read this book, I feel like Shinto is about finding the sacred in Nature. In the West it would be called Druidry. In the East...it’s Shinto.
This book is not very long, only 121 pages of text but for it’s brevity, it’s pretty comprehensive, covering the basic mythology, scriptures, different sects of Shinto and overall organization.
In mythological terms, the Kami of the Center appeared first, followed shortly by the Kami of Birth and Growth, followed by the Creative Couple, Izanagi-no-mikoto and Izanami-no-mikoto. These two gave birth to the Great Eight Islands, i.e. Japan, and then all things. Three of the Kami who are the most august. These are the Sun Goddess (Ama-terasu-ō-mikami), She is also in charge of the high plain; her brother Susa-no-o-no-mikoto, who is in charge of the earth; and the moon goddess Tsuki-yomi-no-mikoto, who is the Kami of the realm of darkness.
The grandson of the Sun Goddess, Nini-gi-no-mikoto, was instructed to descend and rule Japan after the god in charge of earth...because I know I’m painfully mispronouncing the Japanese so I’m just using the job description here...anyways, he misbehaved and was banished to the lower worlds, and in anger over his many outrages, the Sun Goddess hid herself in a celestial cave.
So these are the basic mythos that guide Shinto. It was interesting because this book references several works of Hayao Miyazaki, namely Princess Mononoke, the tree spirits there called Kodama, who begin to die when the forest is attacked, and then Spirited Away, No Face’s attraction to the kindness Chihoro shows him and her lack of interest in the gold he offers as she tries to find her way back to harmony with nature and rescue her parents.
Now...the Kodama was a pretty obvious parallel, but I had never considered the connection between lack of harmony with nature and No Face until I read this, connections which are no doubt blatantly obvious to a Shintoist.
The book describes the shrines, the differences between shrines and temples, Torii gates, government role in state religion, practices of Shinto, and how Shinto...it’s not really a religion one converts to. Most of Japan is born into it and raised with Shinto from the womb, with various blessings and knowledge being inculcated at birth and beyond.
He does discuss what formal prayer and offerings look like and what an ideal family shrine might entail, as well as the reality of a quick obeisance and nodded prayer as one goes about their busy day. Importantly for worship and festivals, the chapter opens that “In Shinto all life is lived in communion and in accord with the mind of the kami, which afford the devout constant protection. Daily life is regarded as service to the kami, that is, as matsuri, a term generally associated with only gala occasions and elaborate processions, but which has its deeper meaning of service and worship.”
I think in reading this book, my sense is that to be Shinto is to live mindfully, aware of your actions, and to be respectful to the spirits around you and grateful for the gifts they provide. And while not specifically addressed in this book, I kind of wonder if the reason spitting in public places in Japan is illegal is not just because it’s disgusting, but also because it is disrespectful to the Kami. And since people are in the state of becoming Kami, it’s disrespectful to people too.
So considered from the perspective, if Shinto is about being respectful to the Kami, then the argument could be made that the entire nation are practicing Shintoists...since Japan is pretty universally known for their high levels of respect.
I do find it interesting and….refreshing...that in Shinto, nothing is inherently good or evil. I mean, in Christianity, though shalt not kill and pride is one of the seven deadly sins. Yet in Shinto, you can kill in defense of self or other, and ritual suicide is a way to expiate shame and restore pride to the family. In the book a few weeks ago, The Battle of Sekigahara by Chris Glenn, he mentioned at least one Samurai post battle who ran into this very conundrum, as he had converted to Christianity and so was unable to commit seppuku. I think he got around it by having one of his retainers, who was not Christian, execute him.
This book is a basic primer on a religion that is not very well understood in the West. As I said above, Huston Smith classified it as a primitive religion. But here’s the thing...all the hallmarks are there for a major organized religion. 87 million practitioners is not nothing. Temples and shrines, and organized priesthood, clear cut methods of worship. If the only reason for classifying it as primitive is lack of scripture...well, bad news there too.
While Shinto does not have scripture like a bible, torah, or quran, they do have records they use as foundational texts. The Kojiki, aka Record of Ancient Matters, is the oldest Japanese historical record, dating to 712 C.E., and traces events back to 628 C.E.
The Nihongi or Nikon Shoki, aka Chronicles of Japan, provides additional details back to 697 C.E. The Kujiki (Chronicle of Ancient Events), Kogoshui (Gleanings from Ancient Stories), and Engi Shiki (Detailed Laws of the Engi Period) go even further back, with The Kujiki claiming to have been written in 620.
From a historical perspective, what is interesting to me is that these texts cover a period of Japanese history, that in the west, we still call the Dark Ages, largely because we have virtually no written history from this time. We are literally in the dark as to much of what was happening in Europe during this time period.
So calling Shinto primitive seems a little cheeky to me.
I quite liked this book. It was short, it was a fast read, it was a basic primer of Shinto. It would be lovely to find books on all religions that are this succinct in what it means to be...X. Whatever X is.
