Tag: ego

Zen and Shinto 14: this world

May 16, 2016 / John D. / 0 Comments

Zen or Shinto? The gardens and aesthetics are similar..

It’s often said that while Shinto is concerned with affairs of this world, Buddhism looks to salvation in the next. Hence the emphasis in Shinto on rites of passage, such as birth, 7-5-3, weddings, yakudoshi ages of transition, etc. Buddhism by contrast is concerned with death, so much so that the term ‘funeral Buddhism’ is widespread and temples are said to derive their income largely from services for the departed. In this way Shinto and Buddhism complement each other.

However, I came across this passage recently, which made me rethink the relationship, at least in terms of Zen. It suggests a surprising commonality of worldview.

Zen tries to help man live fully in this world. This is called the expression of full function. Zen stresses present rather than future, this place rather than heaven. It aims at making actuality the Pure Land.

Religion, of course, transcends the world of science, but it should not conflict with science. Buddhism is a world religion that envelops science. Any religion that hopes to appeal to modern man must embrace science and as well as transcend it. Zen does this.

In conclusion, Zen….
* Frees man from enslavement to machines and reestablishes his humanity;
* Eases mental tension and bring peace of mind; and
* Enables man to use his full potentialities in daily life.

From this grow the Zen characteristics of simplicity, profundity, creativity, and vitality that have attracted so many Westerners. (S. Hisamatsu in ‘Zen and Art’ p.24, states that the 7 characteristics of Zen art are asymmetry, simplicity, austerity, naturalness, profundity, detachment, and tranquility.)

If Zen is truly concerned with this world, then what are we to say about the differences? Particularly since the characteristics overlap so closely with Shinto – simplicity, austerity, naturalness, asymmetry…
DSCN6571 In this respect one has to wonder if Zen is not a more sophisticated view of the notion that humans are the children of kami. In other words, we all have ‘kami nature’ which is pure in spirit, just as in Zen we all have buddha-nature. It’s why we need the ‘magic cleansing’ of the oharai from time to time, to clean us of the dust of this world. No wonder that both Shinto and Buddhism use mirrors on their altars.

There are however two striking differences that come to mind. One has to do with individualism. Zen aims for personal salvation; Shinto looks to the well-being of the group (family, community, nation). The other striking difference is in perspective. Zen seeks truth within, whereas Shinto looks for harmony on the outside. In other words, Zen is inward looking and Shinto outward.

Zen’s search for inner truth centres around the meditation hall (zendo)

The fundamental concern of Zen is to uncover one’s true self, the self that lies beneath the rational thinking ego. It’s the self that functions unconsciously, breathing and digesting and making a myriad ‘decisions’ that maintain life. It’s often referred to as one’s Buddha nature, and is an intrinsic part of the wider universe. The ego likes to think of itself as an independent being; the Buddha self is inextricably linked with the environment on which it is dependent.

Whereas Zen finds expression in sitting silently, Shinto finds expression in matsuri (festivals) when the kami is paraded around its parish. Both religions disdain logic and reason in favour of non-verbal truth. Both have fed off and fed into the Japanese trait for emotional response and wordless communication. Here then may be the mutual complementary nature that has sustained the two religions over the centuries. One is yin and the other yang, both being part of a larger whole. It’s an idea I’d like to explore further in the next post about the role of the sun and the moon in Japanese religion.

The grounds of Ise resemble the dry landscape of Zen gardens. Both seek to symbolically strip away embellishments and externals to arrive at a state of purity.

Zen and Shinto 9: Mirrors

March 9, 2016 / John D. / 0 Comments

Mirror

Both Shinto and Buddhism in Japan use mirrors as spiritual symbols, and Green Shinto has covered their use in several previous posts (here and here or here or here for instance).

The essential idea, common to both religions, is that mirrors have no ego – they reflect without bias whatever is before them. This is tied in both Zen and Shinto with the idea of original purity. In Shinto you try to recover the purity with which you were born (the purity of another world, one might say). In Zen this takes the form of trying to recover one’s ‘Buddha nature’. “What is the face of your original nature?”runs a well-known koan.

In both religions, then, inner purity is treasured. This can be seen in the words of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido, who drew on different aspects of Japanese spirituality in putting together his thinking about the martial art. The quotations below are taken from The Art of Peace (tr John Stevens).

Watching you, watching me.... Altar mirrors often reflect the spirit of the kami within the person of the onlooker

The Shinto mirror reflects without ego whatever is before it

All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force… Return to that source and leave behind all self-centred thoughts and petty desires.

You are here for no other reason than to realize your own inner divinity and manifest your inner enlightenment.

To purify yourself you must wash away all external defilement, remove all obstacles from our path, separate yourself from disorder, and abstain from negative thoughts. This will create a radiant state of being. Such purification allows you to return to the very beginning, where all is fresh, bright, and pristine, and you will see once again the world’s scintillating beauty.

Words such as these show why sincerity and purity are so treasured in Japanese culture. In a recent talk in Kyoto on Zen terrorism in the 1930s, author Brian Victoria illustrated how political assassins had been defended by a Zen master because of the ‘purity’ of their heart in wanting the best for the nation. And in the Japanese entertainment world of late there was a big scandal involving a woman called Becky. Why? Because she had a boyfriend and was therefore not as ‘pure’ as everyone thought. Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the purest of them all? runs the Japanese version of the old folk tale.

Buddhist altar with mirror

The use of mirrors in Buddhist temples, where they often feature on altars as in Shinto, derives apparently from a fifth-century Indian called Vasubandhu, who came up with the idea of eight levels of consciousness. The top level shines with the light of a wisdom like a great mirror… hence the expression in Buddhism of The Great Wisdom Mirror, or Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, which reflects the universe as it really is, free of distortion from ego or ignorance.

The Buddhist mirror is thus intended to liberate the mind. Life is an illusion, and one should not be deluded by mere appearances. Look and reflect upon reality! In An Introduction to Zen, p. 48, D.T. Suzuki quotes a Chinese monk as writing:

This body is the Bodhi-tree
The soul is like the mirror bright;
Take heed to keep it always clean,
And let no dust collect upon it.

Later, on p.61, Suzuki comments, ‘Zen often compares the mind to a mirror free of stains. To be simple, therefore, according to Zen, will be to keep this mirror always bright and pure and ready to reflect simply and absolutely whatever comes to it.’

Significantly in both Shinto and Buddhism the mirror is round, and the circle has great symbolic value in its never ending completeness. In ancient China the soul was conceived of as circular, which is why in Japanese mythology Amaterasu chose a round mirror to represent herself.

Zen is also focussed on the circle, and in the Dharma Hall of Zen temples one finds a ceiling painting of a dragon within a circle signifying the universe. And in calligraphy the best-known image is the ensou or circle, interpreted variously as enlightenment, emptiness, strength or the unity of all things. In Buddhism the moon is a symbol of awakening; in Shinto the sun. Both religions find in the roundness of celestial objects a cause for worship, and in the depths of the mirror both find a cause for reflection.

The circular window at Genko-an gives a picture of reality but is suggestive of much more

The circular window at the Zen temple of Genko-an gives a picture of reality but is suggestive of much more

Zen and Shinto 2: Kennin-ji

January 17, 2016 / John D. / 4 Comments

The entrance gateway to the Founder’s Hall (Kaisando) at Kennin-ji, where Myoan Eisai is buried

My second outing into the world of Zen was a visit to Kennin-ji, oldest Zen temple in Kyoto. It’s located in the heart of Gion, the city’s largest geisha district. As a result it is neighbour to the pleasure quarter with its drinking bars and love hotels. Tourists focus their cameras on the geisha, unaware that within feet are temple treasures and gardens of outstanding beauty.

The mix of worldly and otherworldly pursuits is characteristic of Japanese religion, meaning that the temple teahouses with their spartan furnishings stand alongside geisha teahouses where customers are plied with drinks and flirtation. The ‘floating world’ of Buddhism here merges with that of ‘the water trade‘, and, as the wits have it, paradise can be found on both sides of the temple wall.

Myoan Eisai (1141-1215)

Interestingly, the temple’s founder, Myoan Eisai (1141-1215), was the son of a priest at Kibitsu Jinja in Okayama. Brought up in a Shinto household, he was sent away to study Buddhism at the tender age of three and was later ordained into the Tendai sect on Mt Hiei. As the man who introduced Zen to Japan, it’s surely not without significance that Eisai’s upbringing was shaped by the native tradition and Shinto values. (It was an age when Shinto and Buddhism were seen as complementary and fused into one; Eisai’s contemporary, Kamo no Chomei, writer of Hojoki (1212), dropped out of being a priest at Shimogamo Jinja to become a Buddhist hermit.)

After visiting Kamakura and securing patronage of the shogun, Eisai established Kennin-ji as his base. Although he taught and practised Zen, he remained a Tendai priest to the end of his life. Tendai was a very pragmatic sect and its founder Saicho had encouraged worship of the native kami, particularly Sanno, mountain spirit of Hiei where the head temple of Enryaku-ji stood. The sect had close ties with tutelary guardians and protective shrines (chinju). In the case of Enryaku-ji, it was Hiyoshi Jinja at the foot of the mountain. Eisai carried on the tradition, and the guardian shrine of Kennin-ji was the nearby Ebisu Jinja.

Myojouden, the small Shinto shrine in the eastern part of the temple precincts honouring Raku Daimyojin

Eisai preached that Zen aims to diminish the ego and that it promotes purity, sincerity and unselfishness. It was therefore good for the country and for a harmonious, peaceful society. This is remarkably close to Shinto teaching when you think about it. Rather than the individual ego, Shinto is community oriented and encourages suppression of self for the greater good. For the sake of harmony, selfish impulses should be nullified.

Eisai lies buried in the Founder’s Hall of Kennin-ji, and close to the hall stands a small Shinto shrine, Myoujouden. Legend has it that when Eisai’s mother went to worship at Kibitsu, she had a vision of a bright star and subsequently became pregnant (sound vaguely familiar?). The child turned out to be Eisai, marking him out as special. The kami associated with her vision was Raku Daimyojin, which in syncretic terms equated to the boddhisattva Kokozo Bosatsu, a guardian of learning and knowledge. Consequently the small shrine tends to be popular at exam time with students.

Shrine offerings were well maintained and kept free of birds

Shrine building, housing the spirit of Raku Daimyojin

Once a year there’s a ritual carried out here conducted by one of the Zen monks. Such shrines and activities are not included in the official figures as ‘Shinto’. In other words, there are literally many thousands of temple shrines throughout Japan that are overlooked when people give numbers for ‘shrines’. My feeling is that such syncretic shrines should definitely be included and that the official statistics should be disputed. The true religion of Japan is not neatly divided into Shinto and Buddhism, as people pretend.

Wild boar at the Marishiten Hall with lots of little boar ‘omikuji’

The small Shinto shrine lies on the eastern side of the Zen temple’s grounds. Over in the south-west is a much bigger and thriving complex within the Zenkyo-an subtemple. This is the Marishitendo (Marishiten Hall), dedicated to an imported Indian goddess (originally Marici). Like Japan’s kami, Marishi Sonten was a guardian deity of Hindu/Buddhism who was adopted by practitioners in China. A priest who had made a small statue of her in clay brought it with him as protection in 1327 when he travelled to Kennin-ji as a teacher.

According to the Zen priest I talked to, Marishiten is Queen of Heaven, a particularly powerful deity with a radiance that dazzles those who look upon her like the sun. Consequently she was popular with warriors, who sometimes carried a statue of her in their helmet in order to dazzle the enemy. According to the priest, so powerful was the goddess that she overcame Kennin-ji’s previous spirit of place and took over its role as guardian of Kennin-ji.

Marishiten is known for bringing luck to devotees, and geisha come to make prayers to her. The subtemple is covered in images of wild boar, which is her messenger, and she is depicted as riding on a set of seven golden boars (in India the animals are known for their wiliness as well as their bravery). Japan has three main Marishiten temples – a Nichiren temple in Tokyo and a Shingon temple in Kanazawa in addition to Kennin-ji.

As I talked to the Zen priest in his shop with Marishi-related goods, there was a steady trickle of visitors and people praying at the shrine. Zen has an austere, atheistic image in the West. Here at the shrine of Marishi Sonten in the corner of Kennin-ji, the atmosphere was altogether different. I had a strong feeling that such deities offered a personal means of connection for the worshippers that ‘just sitting’ and looking inwards may not.

The temple is famous for its paintings by Tawaraya Sotatsu of Raijin (thunder deity) and Fujin (wind deity) – personifications of unseen forces i.e. kami.

Raijin, the thunder god, is surrounded by drums on which he bangs. Fujin (wind god) has a billowing scarf full of air as he speeds along below his companion.

The temple is famous for paintings by Tawaraya Sotatsu of Raijin (thunder deity) and Fujin (wind deity) – personifications of unseen forces.

Another of the temple's most prized items is the ceiling painting of twin dragons on the ceiling of the Lecture Hall (Hatto). Most temples have one dragon, but here there are two in the A-Un (Aum) pose of temple and shrine guardians. Shinto too adopted the Chinese dragon as a guardian figure, not only in the form of Ryujin but as spouts for shrine water-basins. throughout

Another of the temple’s most prized items is an early twenty-first century painting of twin dragons on the ceiling of the Lecture Hall (Hatto). Most temples have one dragon, but here there are two in the A-Un pose of temple and shrine guardians (one with mouth open, one with mouth shut to symbolise Aum – Om). Shinto too adopted the Chinese dragon as a guardian figure, not only in the form of the deity Ryujin but as a popular motif for spouts at shrine water-basins.

Omikuji fortune slips, surely borrowed from the native tradition, here in the form of monkeys or tigers (Bishamonten’s familiar)

As at Shinto shrines, good luck charms or protective amulets are also sold at the temple (these are for victory). Did the practice come with Buddhism, or was it already part of the native shamanic tradition?