Author: John D. (Page 17 of 202)

Green shoots

June 10, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Humans as part of, not apart from, the environment

“In recent decades, debates have erupted and intensified about the relationships between religions, cultures, and the earth’s living systems. Some scholars have argued that ritual and religion can play a salutary role in helping humans regulate natural systems in ecologically sustainable ways. Others have blamed one or more religions, or religion in general, for promoting worldviews and cultures that precipitate environmental damage. Religious production in recent years suggests not only that many religions are becoming more environmentally friendly but also that a kind of civic planetary earth religion may be evolving. Examples of such novel, nature-related religious production allow us to ponder whether, and if so in what ways, the future of religion may be green.”

So runs the abstract for a paper entitled ‘A green future for religion’ by Bron R. Taylor. I must confess my interest was aroused by the notion of a ‘civic planetary earth religion’. Yes, please…

For the moment it’s of more than passing interest to witness the ‘greening’ of religions as the environmental crisis deepens. Even the Pope has been showing green credentials.

Izumi Hasegawa at the Shusse Inari Shrine in Matsue, parent shrine of her Los Angeles project

A striking example of a Shinto outreach to the green movement is currently being displayed in California with the recent establishment of the Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari. The head priest has been pushing the environmental potential inherent in Shinto with slogans such as ‘Passing along eco-conscious traditions to the next generation’.

It takes courage to be a pioneer ahead of the game, and our respect goes out to Rev. Izumi Hasegawa for her trail-blazing activities. As a resident of Los Angeles, she is undertaking a daunting task in setting up a Shinto shrine with English outreach to the local population, yet thanks to her hard efforts she is managing to succeed against the odds.

Indicative of Hasegawa-san’s resolute and innovative spirit is the live stream of Shinto services she is offering, one of which will be starting on youtube even as this article is being written. It’s a Summer Blessing ‘to show respect and appreciation to the nature spirits and asking for blessings’. Here is part of the publicity for the event, which shows a revisioning of Shinto along pan-national and environmental lines.

Shinto is a mindset and way of living with respect for nature, living things and our ancestors, and it has long been recognized as Japan’s cultural root. Unlike Buddhism, Christianity, or other religions, Shinto has no holy texts, and there is no individual founder. It is said that Shinto has been practiced for more than 2,000 years.
　One of the most important elements of Shinto is paying respect and seeking harmony between people and nature, among our families, communities, and the world. In today’s society, the need to strive for these goals has become more apparent than ever before.
We hold various events introducing the traditional Japanese eco-conscious way of life so that future generations can enjoy nature as we do. Details about Shinto and these events can be found on our Newsletter, website, and social media.
Please join and enjoy our events!!

May the Nature Spirits/Kami-sama be with you!
Stay safe and be well!
Rev. Izumi Hasegawa
Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America

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

Rev Izumi Hasegawa pays respects at Fushimi Inari, head of the Inari shrines nationwide

Spiritual environmentalism

June 9, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Biodiversity and Spiritual Well-being

Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, 2019

Article by Dusty Hoesly et al, Lecturer in Departments of Religious Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Among government agencies, practitioners and researchers there is growing interest in the potential of natural environments for human health and well-being. In parallel, conserving biodiversity is seen as critical in this effort. Likewise, spiritual well-being is increasingly considered as an important dimension of human health. This chapter examines the interrelationship between biodiversity and spiritual well-being.

Celebrating the connection with nature

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Ethical prescriptions and community practices that can promote ecological conservation are also present in various ‘world religions’ and alternative spiritualities. Whether the divine is seen as transcendent or immanent, dualistic or monistic, the range of beliefs and practices described in this section demonstrate increasing concern for biodiversity and engagement in speciﬁc actions to preserve it.

The Religions of the World and Ecology series from Harvard University Press illustrates the vitality of concern for ecological conservation within many ‘world religions’. The series includes volumes on Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Indigenous Traditions, Islam, Jainism and Judaism. Similarly, various ‘world religions’ alongside other spiritual orientations are included in several scholarly handbooks on religion and ecology (e.g. Jenkins et al. 2017), at least one of which includes a chapter on biodiversity. In Hinduism, for example, natural objects such as rivers, trees, stones and animals can manifest the sacred as forms of divinity worthy of devotion and conservation. As one Hindu woman explains: “When I look into the face of the goddess on the tree, I feel a strong connection with this tree”.

Such an orientation can lead to environmental activism, for example, cleaning up the polluted Yamuna River in northern India or protecting sacred groves threatened with deforestation. Similarly, Buddhist environmentalists rely on Buddhist teachings about interdependence to support claims to oneness with nature and conservation. Joanna Macy, an eco-Buddhist activist, writes that in Buddhism the egotistical self is “replaced by wider constructs of identity and self-interest– by what you might call the ecological self or the eco-self, co-extensive with other beings and the life on our planet”. These religious perspectives, based on modern interpretations of ancient traditions, can spur people toward conservation of biodiversity. Indeed, a large-scale ‘religious environmentalism’ movement in America has challenged prior emphases on humanity’s dominion over the earth, instead insisting on ‘creation care’ or ‘stewardship’ as a central religious principle…

New Age and Neopagan spiritualities, including Wicca and Goddess worship, are also engaged in biodiversity conservation, in part because practitioners experience spiritual well-being through interaction with nature. These new religions draw on indigenous traditions, Asian religions and/or Western sources to create holistic spiritualities based on unity with nature and harmony with natural cycles. As Neopagan leader Starhawk writes: “The craft is earth religion, and our basic orien-tation is to the earth, to life, to nature…. All that lives (and all that is, lives), all that serves life, is Goddess” . Identiﬁcation with nature in all its diverse manifestations impels Neopagans to protect nature through social engagement and religious practice. One survey study showed that members of such alternative spirituality movements view both experiences in nature and environmental actions as spiritual. One practitioner of this Gaia-centered spirituality said that “getting back to the earth” means to “give back and give thanks to the earth, and be more of that one community… [of] oneness”. Based on these views and experiences with nature, many Neopagan and New Age people engage in ecological activism and preservation efforts, including “recycling, tree-planting, alternative energy strategies, petitions, and so forth”.

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In addition to spiritual beliefs and practices that can foster respect and action for biodiversity, we found ample sources on sacred natural sites as repositories of biodiversity. Spiritual values and taboos associated with sacred natural sites can help to preserve biodiversity In this context, sacred places are natural areas that have special signiﬁcance for local communities, often linked to religious myths or rites…. Additionally, conservation of these sites aids the preservation of local cultures and their traditional ecological knowledges.Of particular interest amongst researchers in this area are sacred groves and sacred forests.

Sacred forest at Togakushi Jinja in Nagano

Sacred groves are patches of natural vegetation dedicated to local deities and protected by religious tenets and cultural traditions; they may also be tree-stands raised in honor of heroes and warriors and maintained by the local community. Taboos against over-harvesting, harming particular sacred species or disrupting the ecological balance of sacred groves and forests can preserve species richness. For example, the Nkodurom and Pinkwae sacred groves in Ghana have been protected through traditional beliefs and taboos, resulting in preservation of threatened mollusk, turtle, monkey and heron species.

In India, the number and spatial distribution of sacred groves creates a network that preserves “a sizable portion of the local biodiversity in areas where it would not be feasible to maintain large tracts of protected forests”. Local traditions that include worshipping trees in a sacred grove helped to preserve a rare bat species, and, in another area, spiritual beliefs about a hidden shrine within a sacred grove preserved riparian forests and streams.

In central Italy, local Catholic practices around pilgrimage sites have helped to conserve biodiversity through preserving relic habitats and vegetation assemblages, protecting old growth forests and tree species, and maintaining greater habitat heterogeneity due to sacred grottos and water sources. Reﬂecting on forest preservation by the ofﬁcial association of Shinto shrines in Japan, Rots (2015) observes: “The signiﬁcance of these forests … extends well beyond ecology and nature conservation proper. Constituting continuity between the present and the ancestral past, they have come to be seen as local community centers that provide social cohesion and spiritual well-being” (p. 209).

Many studies of biodiversity at sacred sites have used standard ecological survey techniques of tree species diversity, tree species richness, regeneration status, ﬂoristic surveys of vegetation composition and ethnobotanical uses of species. An alternative approach was taken by Anderson et al. in documenting the biodiversity of sacred mountains in the Himalayas of Tibet. Existing vegetation maps and geo-graphic information systems (GIS) were used to remotely assess species composition, diversity and frequency of useful and endemic plant species. Sacred mountains had signiﬁcantly greater overall species diversity than surrounding areas. These studies highlight the various measures being used to document biodiversity preservation in sacred protected areas.

A bridge transporting the visitor into a sacred world of nature and renewal

Animism (3) Marie Kondo

May 30, 2020 / John D. / 8 Comments

Previous postings in this series looked at trees (natural phenomena) and a subshrine of Yasui Konpira-gu in Kyoto which exemplifies the animist strand of Shinto. In this third posting we look at a world-famous individual with beliefs shaped by the religious heritage of Japan.

Through her books and television series on decluttering, Marie Kondo has achieved the status of a lifestyle guru. It’s a sad indictment of our time that over-consumerism has become such a problem that we need advice in how to cope with discarding unwanted material possessions. While much of the world has not enough to live on, privileged firstworld citizens have too much of everything.

What’s striking about Marie Kondo is the spiritual manner with which she approaches a simple physical task. She starts off, for instance, by greeting the house where she will work as if it is a living being – a kami, even. ‘I began this custom quite naturally based on the etiquette of worshipping at Shinto shrines,’ she says in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (p. 188).

She goes on to say that ‘The tense expectancy in the air when a client opens the door resembles the atmosphere when one passes under a shrine gate and enters the sacred precincts.’ Speak to your house and it will respond is her underlying message. The house has a soul, and so do its contents.

One of her key principles is to only keep items that serve as a source of joy. One might imagine that the mountain of unwanted things would be nonchalantly dismissed and discarded. However, these too must be shown respect and thanked before being sent off. Even then, they will leave behind the energy of wanting to be of service. This reminds one of the religious custom in Japan of mortuary rites for thanking unwanted dolls, or sewing needles, or ink brushes before their final sending off.

Behind Kondo’s thinking is the idea that objects absorb and transmit energy. This is particularly evident with things that are regularly touched, such as clothing. ‘As you run your hands over the cloth, you pour energy into it,’she says. ‘Therefore when you fold, we should put our heart into it, thanking our clothes for protecting our bodies.’

‘I began to treat my belongings as if they were alive when I was a high school student,’ Kondo asserts towards the end of her book (p.169). It’s this assumption that has proved vital in bringing her worldwide success based on a deep respect for what is normally dismissed as useless clutter.

It’s an attitude to the physical world that runs through Japanese culture. It means a greater respect for things, and an awareness that secondhand goods come bearing the spirit of their previous owner. Pottery is revered for those who have touched it in previous generations, and the thinking has enabled excellence in carpentry and numerous other crafts in which the raw material is treated with deep understanding. In this way it can be seen that Kondo is no kook, but heir to an ancient tradition that recognises the spirit in the sword, the anima in the inanimate.

A common belief in Japan is that rubbing an object transmits energy. At Tenmangu shrines where the ox is envoy of the kami, rubbing the statue for good health is common practice.

Animism (2) Syncretic Yasui

May 26, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Corona Gion – The geisha district’s most famous street during virus time

Yesterday I took a walk through Gion to explore the ’empty Kyoto’ phenomenon. The crowded teeming streets of overtourism days a few months ago have been transformed into eerily vacant spaces devoid of human presence. Even the top geisha district spot was empty. It’s very unnerving.

Green Shinto has carried items on the Gion Shrine of Yasui-Konpira-gu before, focussing on seven different distinctive features. It’s said to be a power spot and is famous above all for its ‘en-giri‘ rock, through which one can crawl in order to make a clean break with an old relationship. The petitioner can then crawl back through the other way in the hope of starting a new relationship.

A young girl takes advantage of the lack of worshippers to crawl through the enchanted stone (covered in paper prayers)

The history of the shrine is tied up with a temple called Rengein, of which it was an integral part until it had to make a break when the Meiji government introduced the shinbutsu bunri law in 1868 separating Shinto and Buddhism. The evidence of its ties with Buddhism remains, however, in a curious subshrine called Hachidai Rikison which stands in a corner of the precincts.

The shrine is built on the spot where once stood one of the pillars supporting the massive Main Hall of the temple. The pillar is seen now in animist fashion as a kind of Herculean spirit for having borne such weight. Though worshipped as a Shinto spirit, its past is signified in the Buddhist features of the subshrine – the architecture, the Chinese style opening, the bell.

As can be seen in the pictures below, the focus of worship are eight statues of wrestlers with stern expression – a unique expression of Shinto animism representing the personified spirits of eight stone pillars that once supported a massive temple. As such collectively they are said to represent firm foundations, overcoming adversity and the strength to survive.

The focus of worship is eight strong men within a Buddhist shaped opening. The figures are made from the eight base stones which once supported the temple to which Yasui Konpira was attached.

The Buddhist-style bell produces a very different tone to the normal Shinto style

The subshrine is sited in a quiet corner, nestled below its larger Gion neighbours

The ema (votive plaque) celebrates the eight base pillars in personified form as eight strong men. In this way the subshrine not only acknowledges the shrine’s Buddhist past but is dedicated to one of Shinto’s prime concerns – extraordinary displays of power (which are seen as a manifestation of the lifeforce).

Corona Inari

May 19, 2020 / John D. / 3 Comments

A sign points towards the Main Shrine of Fushimi Inari, with not a single person to be seen.

With the cessation of tourism due to the Corona virus, Kyoto has taken on a very different atmosphere. This is apparent in the closed museums and empty downtown streets, but is nowhere more evident than at Fushimi Inari Taisha.

In recent years the shrine has been acclaimed as the number one tourist sight in the whole of Japan. The approach roads were packed with so many visitors it was hard to push through. Entering into the famous tunnel of torii was not so much a spiritual induction as a physical challenge. Only towards the top of the holy hill was there any sense of serenity.

What a difference a virus makes! Visiting the shrine yesterday was a reminder of how things must have been in prewar times when visitors were few and far between. The wide open spaces provided ample opportunity for contemplation of the shrine’s rich array of sacred sites. In this way one could sense the shrine had truly regained its spiritual allure.

An empty torii tunnel beckons the visitor to enter into the sacred realm.

With fewer humans around wildlife is apparently encroaching onto the precincts.

Cats too seemed to be enjoying the lack of human intrusion.

Sadly the water basin was out of action, replaced by alcohol sanitisers.

The once bustling tourist shops now stand empty…

…though some of the Japanese visitors still seemed to be enjoying themselves.

One of the large bilingual information boards, erected in recent times on the grounds of Fushimi Inari and a reminder of former days when the hillside was teeming with tourists.

Coping with Corona

May 17, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

The following is put together from an article by the Associated Press which appeared in the Mainichi and Japan Today. The article tells of a shrine in Tokyo that at the beginning of May provided an online service for those worried about the Corona virus. This was at a time when shrines were shut in compliance with government regulations to avoid people gathering together.

Shinto goes virtual with livestreaming (Photo: AP/Eugene Hoshiko)

The live streaming took place at the Onoterusaki Shrine in downtown Tokyo, just ten minutes from Ueno Park. It meant that worshippers could view the rituals from their homes and bow etc at the appropriate time. They could also send in messages on virtual ema prayer boards to be offered to the kami.

For Machi Zama, a freelance writer, that’s just what she needed. Zama prayed for her friend who recently had surgery, and everyone else experiencing difficult times, as well as for an early end to the global pandemic.
Watching the priests perform the purification rites, she felt as if she was at the shrine, Zama said. When one of the priests faced the screen and waved a religious paper streamer, she would bow. It was like her prayers were answered, she said. “Wherever you are, I think it’s your feelings and thoughts, the wish to pray, that’s what’s important,” Zama said. “Whether online or offline, I don’t think it matters.”

The decision to go online was apparently not welcomed by more traditional minded Shinto authorities, who could foresee a decline in physical attendance at shrines should the practice catch on more widely. However, the Onoterusaki head priest claimed this was only a temporary measure due to the Corona crisis.

With university classes going online, and with social distancing likely to be the new norm in the coming months, it does seem possible that Shinto shrines will increasingly look to the internet. One of the virtual worshippers called Naomi Shiba tweeted six prayers at the online shrine, in the hopes of an early end to the pandemic and for herself to lose some weight. “Perhaps this is the way to do it in the current age,” she said, though one can’t help thinking that if instead of tweeting she actually walked to the shrine she would be helping the kami fulfil her wish!

Gate to a miniature Mt Fuji guarded by monkeys at Onoterusaki Jinja

Animism (1): Trees

May 10, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Here’s a treat for anyone attracted by the animist aspects of Shinto. It’s part of a series of short videos called Wander by filmmaker Beau Kerouac to give quarantined people a virtual sense of parks and cultural sites, accompanied by meaningful narration.

In this particular five–minute video, Natascha McElhone recites a passage from Herman Hesse originally published in 1920 in a miscellany entitled Wandering: Notes and Sketches (words below the video). Accompanying the extract are scenes from London’s Kew Gardens, which bring together the visual and the verbal in a triumphant championing of the majesty of trees. Their spiritual and restorative power is here presented in a way that is uplifting and inspirational. If you can’t hug a tree, you can do so virtually through this creative collaboration, a perfect antidote to our socially distanced times.

The recognition of certain trees as embodying the life-force is indicated in Shinto by the designation of shinboku (sacred tree). As in other shamanic traditions, these are the trees selected by the kami as special. Some are extraordinary for their size, some for their age, some for their shape, and some because they have been struck by lightning (a sign of heavenly descent). The trees are honoured by having a shimenawa rice rope strung around them, as if to express in physical manner a desire to embrace the tree. As Herman Hesse says, they have much to teach us if we listen…

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one

thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts… Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”