Author: John D. (Page 16 of 202)

Power Spots (in Kanto)

July 3, 2020 / John D. / 3 Comments

Power spots have been discussed before on Green Shinto. Popular with New Agers, they are welcomed by progressive shrines for the increase in visitors. On the other hand, official Shinto views them with suspicion because they distract from the upholding of Japanese heritage and imperial values to which post-Meiji Shinto is committed. If you’re visiting Ise Jingu to absorb the energy in the woods, you many neglect to pay respects (and money) to the putative ancestor of the emperor.

Think of it in terms of authority. Power Spots are based on direct communion with nature. Open, democratic, pluralistic. Shrine Shinto by contrast is based on a hierarchy with priestly privilege and regulated ritual. Power Spots place power in the spirit of place; Shrine Shinto looks to shrine tradition. For New Agers authentic experience is paramount; for orthodox Shinto it’s subjugation to the communal bond.

An article in Savvy Tokyo highlights the popularity of Power Spots for young Japanese. Given the popularity of paganism and New Age spirituality in the West, it’s surprising that Power Spots in Japan have not caught on in a bigger way with foreign tourists. We’ve already seen a rise in interest in Shugendo tours and walks along pilgrim trails such as Kumano Kodo or the Shikoku 88 Temples. When the Covid crisis is over, perhaps we’ll see an upsurge in spiritual tours to the Power Spots of Japan too.

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Power Spots: The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind

Take Care Of Your Life Force By Visiting A Tokyo Power Spot

By Erika van ‘t Veld | June 30, 2020 |Savvy Tokyo

Bathe in the energy of these power spots in and around Tokyo to rejuvenate and recharge your mind and body.

A power spot (パワースポット or pawa-supotto in Japanese) is an area where spiritual visitors can take in the energy of the Earth and experience healing, generate good luck, or rejuvenate a tired body and soul. You might have heard about them as “energy spots” or “energy vortexes.” A staple of Japanese tourism guidebooks, they’re more discrete outside the country. Global power spot examples include Stonehenge in England, Sedona, Arizona in the U.S.A, and Uluru (formerly Ayer’s Rock) in Australia.

In Japan, power spots are often known as sacred places where gods come to walk the Earth, so they often coincide with shrines and temples. Many Japanese tourists who value the mind and spirit travel to power spots every year, which is why many articles introducing strong power spots across the country are published around New Years, like this one from Jalan News (Japanese only).

Why visit a power spot?

Power spots are all places where visitors can pray for good luck, and bathe in healing energy to improve their well-being. According to power spot experts—many who are astrologists and psychics and especially in-tune with the Earth’s energy—, some power spots have different benefits to offer its visitors. Similar to shrines with different deities in Japan, some power spots are famous for their physical healing powers, while others are best to visit for bringing luck in love or at work.

Power spot skeptics

As with any spirituality-based notion, many skeptics dismiss power spots as being figments of imagination. Just remember the benefits of visiting power spots are purely for the individuals who seek the healing energy or ‘good luck’ associated with a location. It’s a familiar concept in Japanese culture and not too far from buying omamori good luck charms for fortune, health, and love at Shinto shrines throughout Japan. Many rural regions promote their charming shrines and alluring countrysides as being power spots, which can bring tourists and pilgrims to places forgotten by time.

5 Power Spots in and around Tokyo

1. Hie Shrine

Power Spots: The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind - Hie Shrine steps — Photos courtesy Savvy Tokyo

Hie Shrine is a Tokyo power spot, located on the top of a small hill in the heart of the Akasaka neighborhood. It’s most famous for its steep staircase of vermilion torii gates, and the monkey statues that dot the grounds of the 800-year old great hall.

The shrine is a power spot for those looking for luck in love. It’s a popular venue for Japanese weddings, and many couples who wish for a baby come to pat the statue of a mother monkey and her baby for good luck. When standing in the calm of the shrine’s grounds, even while being surrounded by skyscrapers, you’ll be able to feel the serene energy of the urban power spot.

2. Mount Takao

Power Spots The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind - Tengu statue at Yakuo-in on Mount Takao

Just an hour from the bustle of Tokyo city center is Mount Takao, a holy mountain home to several power spots immersed in nature. The central power spot here is the main hall of the Mt. Takao Yakuo-in temple. It houses the deity Tengu, a supernatural creature that brings fortune and protects against disasters. Near the main hall is the bright red Aizen-do, a shrine and power spot that will bring luck in romance and marital harmony. The summit of Mount Takao is also a power spot, where you can see Mount Fuji on clear days—and if you hiked all the way to the summit, you’ll definitely feel powerful with a side of accomplishment. Reenergize by taking in the energy of the mountain, and by refueling with a bowl of Mount Takao’s famous soba!

3. Meiji Jingu

Power Spots The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind - Meiji Sanctaury

The Meiji Jingu is another power spot in central Tokyo that retains its tranquility even though it’s so close to flashy Harajuku and Shibuya. The Meiji Jingu Shrine houses the deities of Japan’s Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, and visitors can take part in many Shinto traditions here like purifying one’s hands and mouth with water from the omizuya, and writing a wish on an ema wooden plaque.

The inner gardens (which costs ¥500 to enter), and specifically the Kiyomasa Well within it, are known to be a potent power spot overflowing with positive energy. The outer gardens also consist of many walking trails and lush greenery, making it a green oasis perfect for re-energizing.

4. Mount Fuji

Power Spots The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind - Top of Mount Fuji

Mt. Fuji is undoubtedly a mighty natural power spot—being in the presence of Japan’s holiest mountain and the spiritual heart of the country is a feeling you’ll always remember. The energy felt here doesn’t come from forests like other natural power spots, but from the mountain: feel the silent strength of the sleeping volcano as you peer down the caldera.

Visitors who summit Mt. Fuji and spend time at the highest point in Japan describe it as a transformative experience. At the summit are several mountain climbers’ huts and restaurants, as well as Okumiya shrine which embodies the holiness of Mount Fuji. Being so close to the gods here makes it a great place to have your wishes and prayers be heard.

5. Toshogu Shrine in Nikko

Power Spots The Japanese Way To Recharge Your Mind

The Toshogu Shrine in Nikko is another power spot in Japan, and the massive shrine complex is declared a Unesco World Heritage site. It was built in 1617 to enshrine the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and is famous for its colorful carvings and intricate woodwork on the buildings. The paths and staircases found here follow the natural topography of the shrine’s grounds, creating a feeling of balance with nature. Because it’s a popular tourist spot, be sure to stray to the quieter outskirts of the Toshogu Shrine to fully (and more quietly) experience the energy of this power spot.

Savvy Tip

Next to the Toshogu Shrine is another power spot at the Futasara-jinja, where visitors can follow a ritual of crawling through a hollowed-out tree trunk to receive purification.

Animism (5): Pico Iyer

June 28, 2020 / John D. / 2 Comments

Pico Iyer is a writer with a worldwide following, who has lived in Japan for the past thirty years. He’s won awards and been hailed as ‘arguably the greatest living travel writer’. He’s noted in particular for his sensitivity in exploring cross-cultural themes and spiritual matters, two examples being Zen and the Dalai Lama.

Amongst his most recent books is A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, subtitled Observations and Provocations. The subtitle is more of a clue to the contents than the main title, for it’s not really a beginner’s guide so much as a collection of notes and reflections by a seasoned resident. (He lives for much of the year in Nara, and though married to a Japanese he remains on a tourist visa.)

The book has two pages on Japanese spirituality in a section entitled ‘Between the Torii Gates’ (though Through the Torii Gates would have better captured the sense of Wonderland). Much of what is said supports the notion of animist thinking as fundamental to the Japanese worldview, with observations that ‘People down the road to me pray to trees,’ and that ‘in the Shinto universe every last piece of dust and vegetable is believed to have a spirit.’

Just three pages before this, in true syncretic fashion, he observes that ‘A school of local thought holds that “mountains and rivers, grasses and flowers, can all become Buddhas.”‘

The absorption of Shinto values by Zen, explored previously by Green Shinto in a series of postings, is referenced too by Iyer in a couple of passages. ‘”Take care of things,” as the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki says, “and things will take care of you.”‘

‘When one of his Western students was having trouble cleaning toilets, Suzuki suggested talking to them as if they were friends, telling them how happy she was to get the chance to look after them. It worked.’

In a paragraph that reflects the raison d’etre of Green Shinto, he states that ‘It’s often noted how Japanese Buddhism has influenced the world, everywhere from the Zen reduction of sushi bars to the wabi-sabi aesthetic of white-on-white hotels. But the culture’s most striking cultural export these days is Shinto.’

Marie Kondo and the Oscar-winning films of Hayao Miyazaki are cited as examples. ‘Anime is the natural expression of an animist world,’ Iyer claims. This links in with the Japanese love of robots and mascots, contrasted with the tendency to minimise individualism in Japanese art.

‘When foreigners arrive in Japan, they sometimes remark – as I did, in 1985 – that the people around them look like robots. This may be less because the Japanese are so machinelike and dependable than because inanimate things in Japan possess so much spirit and life.’

Now there’s an observation and a provocation!

Auspicious beginnings

June 21, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Misogi at the summer solstice at the Meoto rocks near Ise

Today is the summer solstice in Japan, known as geshi. A time for celebration, surely. But as Green Shinto friend, Megan Manson, has pointed out in this article it’s surprising that the longest day of the year is not more widely celebrated in Japan.

This year the solstice happens to be an auspicious day for new projects according to the traditional calendar, which is still used to set dates for important events such as weddings. So it’s a particularly fortunate occasion for the Shusse Inari Shrine in Los Angeles to be launching a major project, with naming of its supporters club, a new logo, fundraising website and SNS accounts.

For environmentalists with Shinto sympathies this is an important breakthrough with access in English to a shrine that actively promotes its nature-oriented credentials. “Passing along eco-conscious traditions to the next generation,” runs their slogan. ‘May the nature spirits be with you.’

To find out more about the shrine and its supporters club, please check out https://shusseinarishrine.org/

For more happy solstice reading about doing misogi at Ise, see this page.

National identity

June 20, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Every year there’s a Shinto festival held at the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Uto City, Kumamoto Prefecture, to an English woman called Kathleen Drew. (Her full name was Kathleeen Mary Drew-Baker.) It’s a curious phenomenon which reminds us of another foreigner celebrated by what has been described as a ‘religion of Japaneseness’, namely American inventor, Thomas Edison (featured here).

Kathleen Drew became known in Japan as Mother of the Sea for her research on edible seaweed. An article she wrote in 1949 in the scientific journal Nature came at a time when the Japanese economy was in dire straits and there was a failure in the seaweed crop.

The information provided by Kathleen Drew was picked up by Japanese scientists and passed on to fishing communities which enabled them to cultivate nutritious nori. From near starvation the fishermen turned around the seaweed industry to become part of Japan’s rapid economic success. Now it’s said seven billion sheets of nori are produced a year, and riceballs wrapped with nori are Japan’s favoured comfort food.

Out of gratitude the seaside community of Uto put up a monument in 1963 to honour the English woman and inaugurated an annual festival called Drew-sai which draws some 100 people. A norito prayer in Japanese is addressed to her, and a tamagushi sakaki branch offered to her spirit. Although not a kami, she is considered an Onjin to whom the community is indebted.

What does this little-known oddity have to tell us about Shinto? For one thing it shows the vital role that gratitude plays in the religion and in Japanese culture as a whole. More than that though, it shows how Shinto acts to preserve historical memory. Kathleen Drew never visited Japan, but she’s become part of the national consciousness. Shinto serves many functions and by sacralising the past it reinforces the strong bond of communal identity. In this way, ironically, gratitude to a foreigner turns out to deepen awareness of Japaneseness.

Legacy of Kathleen Drew: cultivating seaweed
(All photos courtesy Wikicommons)

Summer Purification

June 18, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Nagoshi no Harae is a mid-summer purification ritual to rid oneself of ‘impurities’ accumulated during the first six months of the year. There are various means to accomplish this. One is passing through the symbolic wreath known as chinowa pictured above. This is done traditionally in a figure of eight form, so that one passes through the circle three times.

Another form of purification is a paper effigy known as hitogata. Thanks to Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America, based in Los Angeles, people outside Japan are able to participate in this through mailing in their hitogata. It’s thought to be particularly important this year because of the heightened anxiety caused by the worldwide Corona crisis.

Applications to obtain the hitogata can be made through the shrine website, and a contribution is asked for. The actual service will take place on June 30th. Once you receive the hitogata, write your name and age on the front, wipe it on the body part one wishes to cleanse or improve, breathe upon it, and send it in. (Deadine for arrival is June 27.)

See www.ShintoInari.org for full details

Animism (4): Rocks and Flowers

June 16, 2020 / John D. / 1 Comment

There’s a tendency for the modern world to think in terms of a clear difference between the animate and inanimate. The former are living and the latter are dead. There’s a clear linguistic divide.

But for many cultures and visionaries, the division is by no means so simple. Or simplistic. Take for example the Arab mystic, Ibn Arabi, who saw the world in terms of gradation…

“God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man.”

For those new to Japan, the notion of rocks as equally divine as trees is puzzling. Trees are magnificent creatures that react to their environment and grow upwards in similar manner to human beings. How can they possibly be bracketed with the physical material of an insensate rock?

Shinto, however, teaches us that all worldly substance is imbued with divinity. Paradise is here on earth, and kami inhabit rocks even more so than trees. In the mythology they even descend from heaven in rock-boats. Similarly rocks are likely to be the main features of a Japanese garden, and harnessing their power is a key to creating the dynamism that characterises the tradition.

In the passage below Eckhart Tolle discusses the spirituality of flowers, yet he begins with stone. Here the divide is not between the animate and inanimate, but between form and the formless. The focus may be on the beauty of flowers, but rocks too are part of the ongoing process of creation. As Alan Watts noted, we humans are born out of the rock of mother Earth, just as fruit is born out of a tree.

Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.”
“I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.”
“The flower of consciousness needs the mud out of which it grows.”
“Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless.”
“When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to know itself. It comes to know its own beauty and sacredness through you.”
“When the mind loses its density, you become translucent, like the flower. Spirit – the formless – shines through you into the world.”
“Many people are so imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not really exist for them. They might say, ‘What a pretty flower,’ but that’s just a mechanical mental labeling. Because they are not still not present, they don’t truly see the flower, don’t feel it’s essence, it’s holiness-just as they don’t know themselves, don’t feel their own essence, their own holiness.”

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Previous postings: for Animism (1) on Trees, see here. For Animism (2) on a syncretic shrine, see here. For Animism (3) on Marie Kondo, see here.

Shinto goes live

June 11, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Izumi Hasegawa in front of the parent shrine in Matsue, Shimane

Zoom and live streaming have been enjoying a heyday, thanks to the social distancing necessary to combat the Corona virus. Shinto shrines too have been exploring online possibilities while cancelling festivals and taking precautions to avoid crowds and the sharing of ladles at water basins, etc.

From an international viewpoint nothing has been quite so exciting as the live streaming on youtube of bilingual rituals by the Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America. Because its parent shrine in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, holds an annual Natsu Matsuri (Summer Festival), the Los Angeles branch shrine set up by Rev Izumi Hasegawa decided this year to hold a ritual at the same time – and to do it in virtual space rather than at a physical shrine.

The online event lasted a total of 30 minutes and was very smoothly managed. The priestess spoke directly to camera at the outset, with a large backdrop of the parent shrine. She then carried out the service on audio, while a bilingual card was shown on screen of the order of service. The event was dedicated to ‘Rapid End of Coronavirus Pandemic’, as you can see below.

The ritual had a pleasing symmetry. Opening ritual (purification), bow of respect and offerings were the prelude to the main focus of the event, a prayer and tamagushi presentation directly to the kami. Then in reverse order to the first half, there followed removal of offerings, deep bow of respect and closing remarks.

Everything was carried out in crisp and clear fashion, with prayers in Japanese prefaced by a simple explanation in English with directions as to whether to stand, or sit, or bow. Indeed, despite not being able to see the priestess there was a sense of real participation through the constant actions required throughout the proceedings.

During the twenty two minute ritual we were asked to stand up at least five times, and as well as the deep bows of respect we were guided through the conventional prayer mode of two bows, two claps and one bow. It was evident that the proceedings had been carefully thought through so that there were no moments of confusion. ‘I will countdown 3-2-1, then deep bow,’ ran one easy to follow instruction.

An interesting feature was the lively accompaniment during the unseen presentation of offerings of what sounded like a recording of festival music with drum and flute. Also, another innovation, during the opening Shubatsu purification people were asked to stand up and bow according to their location. This was done in rotation, with people to the north of the shrine asked to stand first and be symbolically purified, then next people to the east, to the south and to the west.

In her closing remarks, Hasegawa san noted that the service included Saishi (prayers) directed towards nature, prosperity in careers, happiness and a bountiful harvest. She had also prayed for World Peace. She noted too the importance of Shinto’s emphasis on respect for others, particularly in the light of recent events in the US, and of the desire for protection against illness such as pestilence.

Holding a hitogata to rid oneself of accumulated ‘pollution’

Next up for the LA shrine is Nagoshi no harae, the summer purification, and Rev Hasegawa spoke of how the aim was to renew and refresh after half a year of stress and ‘withered spirit’. In this year particularly there had been a lot of pent-up anxiety, which needs to be discarded. To facilitate this, her shrine was offering hitogata – human shaped cut-outs – which absorb the ‘kegare’ or pollution on behalf of the petitioner. (For more about this, with instructions how to obtain and use one, see the shrine website.)

All in all, this was an exciting and groundbreaking experience, allowing non-Japanese speakers access to a live Shinto ritual in which they could participate with near full understanding. It allowed participants to experience something of what Shinto is about, and according to Rev Hasegawa experiencing Shinto is the only true way to understand it.

The Corona virus has brought much tragedy with it, but it has also given pause for thought as to whether we want to revert to the practices of pre-virus times. The air is cleaner, and many have woken up to simple pleasures such as reading books and walking in nature. Without social distancing, perhaps we would not have had the benefit of Shusse Inari’s live streaming. Let’s hope that it becomes part of the new normality, and that isolated individuals spread around the globe with an interest in Shinto will be able to participate in this exciting new opportunity. Bravo, Hasegawa sensei!

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Please note that while the online service was free, participants are asked to make a contribution through the shrine website. For contact information or to follow shrine activities, see one of the links below. (These will soon be joined by one for ‘The Kitsune Club’, the newly-named support group.)

www.ShintoInari.org
Instagram @ShintoInari
Facebook@ShintoInari
Twitter@ShintoInari
YouTube ShintoInari