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Quotations quiz

August 14, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

Who said the following?

1) ‘It is now apparent that the ecological pragmatism of the so-called pagan religions… was a great deal more realistic in terms of conservation ethics than the more intellectual monotheistic philosophies of the revealed religions.’

2) ‘The grove is the centre of their whole religion. It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient.’

3) ‘Shinto, at root, is a religion not of sermons but of awe.’

Part of a World Heritage site – but which one?

The whale as kami

August 14, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

Japan has acquired an ugly reputation for its duplicitous, cruel and government-subsidised whale hunting, together with the subsequent feeding of contaminated meat to schoolchildren and others. Australia has currently taken it to the world court about the ludicrous claim to be engaged in ‘scientific research’.

That Japan should be hell-bent on slaughtering the creatures, sometimes involving mothers with cubs and sometimes inflicting appallingly drawn-out deaths, is ironic given that in the past whales have been regarded as kami or associated with the divine.

On the excellent Huyakumonogatari Kaidankai website, Zach Davison has compiled a fine overview of whale folklore down the centuries. What follows below is an extract; for the full article, click here.

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The Drifting Ashore God
In pre-seafaring Japan—before Samurai William brought the secret of keels and ocean-going vessels—fishermen were limited to the coastal waters their small ships could take them too. They eked out a subsistence living harvesting what was in reach. But every now and then, the oceans would deliver a bounty beyond imagination.

Whales would sometimes come inland, or beach themselves on the shore. Fishermen hunted these whales in a practice called Passive Whaling, using harpoons to kill the whale that was trapped in the shallows. This was a rare and auspicious event—a single whale provided vast amounts of meat and resources for the village, and seemed like a gift from the gods. And the whale itself was only a piece of the bounty. Whales often came in following larges schools of fish, so their arrival meant an abundance of sea life beyond the leviathan itself. The arrival of a whale could save a village teetering on the edge of starvation and ruin. It was manna from the oceans.

Like modern Cargo Cults, the villagers could not understand from where or why the whale came in to shore. They only knew that a whale meant wealth and rare full stomachs. Whales were considered to be embodied deities (shintai), and whale religions sprang up in coastal villages, called Hyochakushin (Drifting Ashore God) or Yorikami Shinkyo (The Religion of the Visiting Kami).

The Whale and Ebisu

These original whale cults were primitive. The people praying generally had one request—send more whales. But in time they evolved. Like many religions, the Whale Cults in Japan were built on a portion of respect and gratitude and a portion of fear. Because whaling—even Passive Whaling—was a dangerous operation, some whale religions also saw in whales the ability to be malevolent gods, and prayed to appease their spirits and assuage their wrath. Bad storms of poor catches could mean an angry whale god, and nobody wanted that.

In time, these whale religions merged with another, more popular deity, the god of abundance Ebisu. Whales were first thought to be emissaries of Ebisu, and then became considered to be an incarnation of Ebisu himself. Because whales were thought to have the power to control fish, fishermen began carrying images of the god Ebisu as a whale to give them the same fish-controlling powers.

Kujira Jinjya – Whale Shrines

A shrine dedicated to whales (this pic and that below courtesy Zach Davison)

When you have feasted on the body of a god, it only makes sense to give the leftovers a proper burial. After stripping the body of everything useful, villagers buried the whale carcass in mounds called Kujira Tsuga (whale mounds). Kujira Tsuga were capped with monuments of some sort, varying from carved stone tablets to pagodas to small wooden or rock shrines. Often these Kujira Tsuga were created in memory of some particularly bountiful harvest, and annual festivals where held like the Daihyo Tsuifuku (Big Catch Memorial Service). Or people prayed to the Kujira Tsuga for Kaijyo Anzen Kito (Prayers to Ensure Safety at Sea).

Places where passive whaling was more prevalent also had Kujira Haka (whale graveyards) and Kujira Ishibumi (whale stone monuments). There are about 100 known whale graveyards throughout Japan.

Many Kujira Tsuga have their own legends and myths. In Miyagi prefecture, Kesenmema city, Karakuwa town, a legend is told of a ship foundering in the storm that was approached by two massive, white whales. The two whales swam to either side of the ship and steadied it, guiding it into port before sailing away. From that day forward, the citizens of Karakuwa down abandoned their ancient custom of whale eating.

The legend is attached to the MIsaki Shrine in Karakuwa, but the connection is not exactly accurate. Misaki Shrine is an old Kujira Tsuga, raised over a whale corpse and topped with a stone monument expressing gratitude for the whale’s death.

In Ehime prefecture, Seiyo city, Akehama town there are three known Kujira Tsuga, one of which is high up in the mountains. The shrine is ancient, and overlooks the ocean. It now sits along the national highway route making it much more accessible. Hauling up that carcass must have been quite the event.

On June 21st, 1837 (Tenpo 8th), a massive whale came to shore directly underneath this shrine. This was during the Great Tenpo Famine, and the whale saved the entire area from starvation. The villagers gave the whale a posthumous Buddhist name, meaning roughly “The Great Whale Scholar of the Universe who Brings Health.” That was extremely rare at the time, as posthumous Buddhist names was an honor reserved for great lords. The shrine is still honored by the villagers today

Whalebone Torii Gates

By the Edo period, Japan had become a seafaring nation and created a whaling industry and culture. Whaling Associations established and maintained official Whale Shrines in coastal areas, many of which still exist today. Whale shrines were also built in Taiwan when it was under Japanese rule, usually dedicated to Ebisu.

The most dramatic of these have Whalebone Torii gates—the picturesque post-and-lintel design that signifies the presence of a kami spirit.. The oldest Whalebone Torii is in Wakayama prefecture, Taijicho town, called the Arch of Ebisu. Ihara Saikaku mentions this Tori in his book Nippon Eitaigura (Japan’s Warehouse of Eternity; 1688). The torii is probably much older, however. The newest whalebone tori is in Nagasaki, Shinkamigostocho town at the Kaido Jinjya (Shrine of the Sea). Dedicated in 1973, it was built by the Japan Whaling Association.

Ebisu the fisherman somehow became conflated with whale catching and whales themselves. One of the Seven Lucky Gods, he acts as patron of those at sea.

Hour of the Ox

August 12, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

The hitogata paper is used in Shinto to represent the human figure. Sometimes dolls are used too.

Green Shinto friend Ted Taylor has provided a link to a website with an account of a former practice that I had read about but did not know the details … On the surface it seems not dissimilar to some of the practices in witchcraft, where dolls are used to represent the person one is healing (and in black magic cursing).

The article appears on a site run by Zack Davidson called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, and he has drawn on various Japanese sources to provide some fascinating facts. The article can be found by clicking here. What follows below is a short extract….

At the Hour of the Ox (between 1-3 A.M.) a lone figure creeps silently towards a sacred tree. She is dressed in white, and on her head an upturned trivet is worn like a crown, three candles burning in the night. In one hand, she carries a doll made of bound straw in the form of a person; in her other hand, a small wooden hammer and a set of long, iron spikes. The hatred in her heart blazes brighter than the candles, appropriate for one completing the curse-ritual known as Ushi no Koku Mairi, the Shrine Visit at the Hour of the Ox.

The Ritual
Ushi no Koku Mairi (丑の刻参り; also known as 丑の時参; Ushi no Toki Mairi, both of which translate as Shrine Visit at the Hour of the Ox) is an ancient, famous, and terrible Japanese curse-ritual. It has been performed for millennia—some sources trace it back as far as the Kofun period (250 – 538 CE), although in a different form. While the costume and ritual have changed over the centuries, the basic rite of pounding nails into dolls remains the same.

To perform an Ushi no Koku Mairi, you first make a straw doll (藁人形; waraningyo) to serve as an effigy of the person you want to curse. For the best effect, the doll should have some part of the person in it, some hair, skin, blood, fingernails, or other DNA. In a pinch a photograph will do, or even their name written on a piece of paper. This done, you done the ritual costume, and sneak into a shrine late at night. Many Shinto shrines have sacred trees, called shinboku, that are the homes of kami spirits. Nail the doll to the sacred tree using long, iron spikes called gosunkugi (五寸釘).

Nailing a doll into a sacred tree in the Hour of the Ox was an ancient practice. Don't try it, though – nowadays it's illegal.

Yasukuni politics

August 12, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Former prime minister Koizumi makes a political point by visiting Yasukuni as prime minister.

August is a time for the celebration of the dead in Japan. Unfortunately it’s also a time for nationalist members of the government to turn the anniversary of the ending of WW2 into a political occasion to serve revisionist notions of history.

In a sensitive piece in The Japan Times, Shaun O’ Dwyer writes of the symbolism behind Yasukuni and the way the nationalist discourse obscures the real gains that Japanese society has made since the war. Here follows an excerpt related to the Shinto aspect.

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It’s time for conservatives of Japan to get over the war
BY SHAUN O’DWYER SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

There is … a conviction [among conservatives] that if Japanese are to rally around their democracy in the face of an increasingly aggressive China and a belligerent North Korea, they must have feelings of pride rather than shame for those who lost their lives in past wars.

The dead servicemen honored at Yasukuni must all be remembered as having sacrificed themselves righteously for their country, including those executed as war criminals.

Naturally, conservative politicians’ revisionism and Yasukuni Shrine visits are infuriating the Chinese and Koreans, and disturbing Japan’s allies. They are also divisive for the Japanese people. Many still cherish Japan’s postwar pacifist values, and regard Yasukuni as the stronghold of a discredited State Shinto cult.

This State Shinto cult is often overlooked in foreign media commentary, but it deserves closer scrutiny. In the 1930s, as militarism took hold, Yasukuni Shrine moved to the center of Japan’s spiritual life, and so did its deadly contract with Japan’s enlisted men.

In return for their unquestioning loyalty to the emperor as the head of this cult, they were promised enshrinement as heroic spirits (eirei) at Yasukuni if they died in action, to be honored by the emperor and the rest of Japan. Yasukuni Shrine still embraces State Shinto, and refuses to accept criticisms of Japan’s wartime conduct that might insult the spirits it enshrines.

The problem for Yasukuni and its allies is a historical burden shared with Germany that irretrievably darkens patriotic truisms about the war dead. They cannot credibly deny that Japan waged an atrocity-laden war of conquest between 1937 and 1945. Many Japanese, and most citizens in nations antagonistic to or even friendly to Japan, see nothing meaningful in the cause that over two million Japanese servicemen died for in the Asia-Pacific war.

So a predictable cycle drags on in which conservative politicians and loose cannons like Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto assert their revisionist convictions, suffer international condemnation and then retreat into insincere back-downs or tu quoque bluster.

Their obsession with overcoming shame at Japan’s wartime past also comes at the cost of overlooking what Japanese patriots should be proud of in Japan’s postwar era.

Tension between nationalists and protesters can sometimes spill over into violence. Christian members of a protest group were once badly beaten up while police looked on (photo courtesy ededition, which carries a report on the riots at http://www.ededition.com/yasukuni-shrine-riotsprotests/).

Spirit of place

August 11, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

The very special spirit of place on Yakushima was celebrated by Hayao Miyazaki in the anime film, Princess Mononoke

Sanctifying sacred space is a key element in Shinto. The sense of the numinous is evident in its shrines and sacred rocks. Most of the ‘power spots’ which have won popularity in recent times relate to Shinto.

In an interesting article in Britain’s Independent newspaper, the author questions the modern practice of destroying houses where mass murder or other atrocities have occurred. Despite the secular, scientific notions of the age, the supposition seems to be that something related to the event lingers in the fabric of the building – something that might in Shinto be called kegare, or pollution. The destruction can be seen as an act of ‘cleansing’ or purification.

As D.H. Lawrence once wrote, ‘Different places on the face of the earth have different vital effluence, different vibration, different chemical exhalation, different polarity with different stars: call it what you like. But the spirit of place is a great reality.’

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By Brian Masters Independent 08 Aug 2013

The destruction of the house in Cleveland, Ohio, where three women were imprisoned for more than 10 years by Ariel Castro, a former school-bus driver, is a bizarre undertaking. There is no question that terrible things happened within those walls, that the three young women were deprived not only of their freedom but of their dignity, reduced to featureless sexual playthings for their jailer, a man whose desires were vile and unpredictable. He was arrested, charged, tried, found guilty, and last week was sentenced to life in prison, plus 1,000 years. That is as it should be, and justice has been demonstrably met.

Sanctifying the spirit of place

But what is meant to be achieved by removing the house in which the crimes were committed? The house is merely the décor to those crimes, and cannot in itself be considered part of the wickedness that corroded the lives of its inhabitants.

The immediacy of the destruction, within days of Castro’s sentencing, offers a clue. It is not a rational act, but an emotional one, and it must be done with speed, the better to effect the requirement to cleanse. In a dim, unfocused way, it is assumed that the building must be contaminated, and that its disappearance will exorcise the demons who despoiled it. The assumption holds that things can absorb what is loosely called “evil’, itself an emotional word which substitutes for explanation. This is a very old superstition, and its persistence into the modern era betokens the strength of its power to comfort.

It is obviously the imagination, rather than analysis, which is at work here, but it cannot be dismissed as unworthy of attention. Imagination can be an alternative route to truth, because it enables the unknowable, the unverifiable, the spiritual understanding that we all share, whether we are religious or not, to be brought to bear witness.

One must welcome the power of imagination to discern truth, while at the same time guarding against its tendency to reach false conclusions. It is perfectly proper to recognise that people may feel better because Castro’s house in Cleveland has been demolished, but unhelpful to claim that the demolition has purged the site of its evil.

Places can resonate with positive as well as negative connotations

We have seen this many times before. The house in Gloucester, where Frederick West visited such squalid torture and depravity upon many girls and young women over a protracted period of years was razed to the ground.

Centuries before, people identified as “witches” were burnt alive because it was simpler to wipe them away than to examine the questions raised by their alleged conduct or, even more, society’s irrational response to such questions. In the same way, it is now simpler to knock houses down than to comprehend the human nature which allowed vile acts to be committed within them.

I have had personal cause to experience whether or not “things” can be infected by the wickedness of people who once owned them. Dennis Nilsen, who murdered young men at two addresses in Muswell Hill and Cricklewood, north London, in the Seventies, was tried at the Old Bailey in 1983 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Neither of the houses in which he had a flat was destroyed and, as far as I know, there are people living in them now, presumably quite unaware of the history that they contain. And because they don’t know, they cannot be anxious about any such history.

Or can they? Might they not feel an involuntary, mysterious shudder pass through them if the spiritual legacy of such places lingers?

The presence of a spiritual dimension is testified by many of us who have “felt” it with the mind, despite its inherent illogicality, and places can be thought to be inhabited by good spirits as well as bad. You have only to spend some time among the war graves scattered over the Belgian fields, as I did earlier this year, to be touched by the hundreds of thousands of young soldiers, some barely out of adolescence, slaughtered there between 1914 and 1918 for the sake of a few yards of mud.

I could not see their faces, nor hear their voices, and did not recognise their names, yet they were there with me, in my head, with their loneliness and fear. That can only mean that the fields carry their memory – and what else is that but spiritual?

Then, too, if you are privileged to go beneath the altar at St Peter’s in Rome, where the original basilica built by the first Christians over the tomb of Peter has been excavated, at one moment you turn a corner into a room where the excavations have been suddenly halted, to leave a hole in the wall. And beyond the hole are some bones, said to be those of the apostle himself, in a direct straight line down from the mighty dome of Michelangelo.

This was once the man who knew Jesus, and you fall silent, engulfed with spiritual awe; in fact, you are struck dumb even before you see the bones, as the spirituality of the place announces itself in advance, and your imagination does the rest.

So, I find myself thinking, perhaps the house in Cleveland was better destroyed after all, just in case it carried a memory of what it witnessed. But we will never know. In these matters, there are only questions, not answers; suggestions, not certainty.

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Brian Masters is the author of Killing for Company: the Case of Dennis Nilsen and The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

Avebury stone circle in England exudes a special kind of energy

Purity (mirrors and rocks)

August 9, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

The mirror prompts reflections on the interface between the physical and the insubstantial

In one of his talks, the late great Alan Watts talked of detachment and mentioned that in Hinduism yoga practitioners are advised to observe without being attached. “Keep your mind like a mirror, pure and clean, free from dust, free from flaws, free from stain, and just reflect everything that goes on but don’t be attached.” (Alan Watts podcast; ‘Sex in the Church’)

Buddhism uses the imagery of mirrors too, and talks of the need to keep one’s mind clean of the dust of the world. It set me thinking about how this applies to Shinto, where the mirror is a symbol of the spiritual world – of purity, in a word. A concern with purity lies at the heart of Shinto, but what is the reason for that?

Rocks open onto another world, one that is subject to decay

Human beings have for long thought of the world in terms of spirit and matter. The ghost in the machine, as Arthur Koestler put it. We live in a material world, subject to decay, deterioration and death. The world of the spirit by contrast is everlasting, for there is no physical matter. It’s pure spirit..

The distinction between the pure world of the spirit and the polluted world of the physical is one common to all religions, but it’s particularly strong in primal religions like Shinto. In fact, it’s so strong that it outweighs moral concerns. Nothing else matters but the pure world of the kami and the polluted world in which we have our being. Striving for the pure while overcoming the polluted is the name of the Shinto game.

In this way the significance of rocks and mirrors in Shinto becomes clear. Rocks are the closest matter comes to permanence. It’s why kami descend into rocks and use them as a vessel for manifesting themselves. They give a sense of solidity to that which has no substance.

Mirrors act in a similar way by reflecting what is in front of them. Look in the mirror and you see yourself as you truly are. Physical. Polluted. And subject to decay. Renewal and rites of purification are the remedy. It’s a key element of Shinto, and it’s an element Shinto shares with Hinduism and other primal religions. Purity is the concern, not morality, for humans have an innate sense of right and wrong and a pure heart is needed to see that. It’s not a case of cleanliness being next to godliness. Cleanliness is godliness!

Reverse side of a bronze mirror, symbol of Shinto. If you don't polish and keep it pure, it won't shine.

A hero for our times

August 8, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Following the disastrous results of recent elections in Japan, which saw a large majority for a nationalistic, pro-nuclear LDP, there have been few brave enough to speak out against the direction the country is taking. The right-wing agenda of government ideologues is underpinned by a Shinto, emperor-centred philosophy.

It’s heartening therefore that one of the most outspoken voices against the new nationalism is someone whose work is inspired by Shinto themes and values. Despite the present climate, which has been fuelled by media whipping up fear of outside enemies, Hayao Miyazaki has stood up in defence of Japan’s peace constitution and against the bellicose moves by the militarists. He is truly a hero of our times.

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Anime director, Hayao Miyazaki. (pic by Alberto Pizzoli, AFP/Getty Images)

Miyazaki’s new film sounds a warning for Japan
By Elaine Lies Japan Today AUG. 08, 2013

Hayao Miyazaki’s new film is already a box office hit but its themes about the dangers of nationalism and war have set up the Oscar-winning animator for unprecedented criticism.

“The Wind Rises”, which debuted at the top of the Japanese box office last month and has a competition slot at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, is based on the man who designed Japan’s feared Zero fighter plane used in World War Two.

Commentators see it as a veiled warning that Japan may again be heading in a similar direction. Miyazaki, 72, emphasized that warning in a scathing essay in mid-July about proposals by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution.

“The time shown in the movie resembles the present,” said film commentator Ryusuke Hikawa, referring to the 1923 earthquake that devastated Tokyo and the 1930s Depression – parallels to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and Japan’s long-stagnant economy.

“After the quake, there was turmoil and Japan began heading toward war. It is possible to feel some similarities … The economy was bad and psychologically it was a situation of having to do something big, and that’s how things got nationalistic.”

Abe, whose coalition won parliamentary upper house elections last month, has pledged to revive the economy, bolster Japan’s defense posture and revise the constitution. Voters are wary of his constitutional views but welcome his economic policies.

Marked by Miyazaki’s vivid colors, the story of engineer Jiro Horikoshi is his first film centered on an historical figure and real events – Japan’s march towards war.

Much of the menace is masked by a romantic subplot, while Horikoshi’s work on the Zero comes off as a noble effort by a man in love with planes and flight. That is a love shared by Miyazaki, whose father made parts for warplanes.

“This movie is nothing more than a hymn to the Zero,” said one Internet commentator.

Critics and some viewers have dismissed the idea, but fears that others would see the film as praising war may have led Miyazaki to write the essay. He also criticized environmental destruction in the Oscar-winning 2001 film “Spirited Away”.

“One can only be appalled by the lack of historical sense and fixed convictions on the part of top political leaders,” he wrote, without mentioning any names, in a magazine put out by his studio and then carried on the internet. “People who have not thought enough should not be messing around with our constitution.”

Critics noted “The Wind Rises” is short on the whimsy of most Miyazaki movies, many of them hits abroad. No announcement about the timing of overseas openings could be made yet, a studio spokeswoman said.

Miyazaki’s film and essay “need to be seen as a set”, critic Yuichi Maeda said.

“He didn’t want people to mistake what he wanted to say, to think that war is somehow glorious,” Maeda wrote.

“Right after you see the first successful Zero flight, there’s a scene where the ground is littered with smashed planes, which is his message right there.”

An online article about the film was bombarded with nearly 3,000 comments, from disappointment at Miyazaki’s “intrusion” into politics, to those calling him a traitor. Ultimately, “The Wind Rises” seems to leave viewers with a less heavy message.

“Horikoshi worked hard for his dream,” said housewife Yukari Yamazaki. “It made me feel that all young people should find their dreams and give their all to make them come true.”

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For a piece on Shinto themes in Miyazaki, see ‘Hayao Miyazaki: Recovery of Japanese Cultural Values’.