Tag: nature

The power of nature

April 16, 2021 / John D. / 0 Comments

The reverence for nature undoubtedly underlies the appeal of Shinto, though it is a mistake to think there is nothing more to the religion. Nonetheless that is the part which is often assumed by some outside Japan to comprise all there is. In the following powerful piece by Maria Popova one can see why the desire for Shinto to be simply a nature religion is so strong, for there is a deep need in humans to connect with our environment.

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The great naturalist John Muir observed long ago, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe”; a return to what is noblest, which means most natural, in us. There is something deeply humanizing in listening to the rustle of a newly leaved tree, in watching a bumblebee romance a blossom, in kneeling onto the carpet of soil to make a hole for a sapling, gently moving a startled earthworm or two out of the way.

Walt Whitman knew this when he weighed what makes life worth living as he convalesced from a paralytic stroke: “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”

Those unmatched rewards, both psychological and physiological, are what beloved neurologist and author Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) explores in a lovely short essay titled ‘Why We Need Gardens.’ He writes:

As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.

Having lived and worked in New York City for half a century — a city “sometimes made bearable… only by its gardens” — Sacks recounts witnessing nature’s tonic effects on his neurologically impaired patients: A man with Tourette’s syndrome, afflicted by severe verbal and gestural tics in the urban environment, grows completely symptom-free while hiking in the desert; an elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease, who often finds herself frozen elsewhere, can not only easily initiate movement in the garden but takes to climbing up and down the rocks unaided; several people with advanced dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, who can’t recall how to perform basic operations of civilization like tying their shoes, suddenly know exactly what to do when handed seedlings and placed before a flower bed. Sacks reflects:

I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.

More than half a century after the great marine biologist and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson asserted that “there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity,” Sacks adds:

Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.

Early Shinto

May 28, 2018 / John D. / 2 Comments

Kami worship in a woodland clearing is believed to have been the origins of today’s Munakata Taisha

Travel around modern Japan, and the shaping of the country’s spirituality is still very much evident in the villages that nestle in the valley basins. Fertile land is at a premium, so houses tend to be packed together. A system of channels and conduits steer the clear flowing water down through the rice fields. Graves are set apart from the houses, edging up the lower slopes of the hillsides. Above them hovers a dark and unseen world, hidden by a canopy of trees.

Model depicting the rice-growing communities of Yayoi times

The rice-farming communities of Yayoi times (300 BC–250 AD) settled along these river basins, and the abundance of life-sustaining water which gushed down from the mountains must have seemed truly a gift from heaven. Wet-rice production necessitated village cooperation at planting and harvesting times, and the collaborative effort was reflected in communal rites and festivals. Since rice was susceptible to the elements, requests were made for protection as the agricultural cycle began and gratitude offered as it came to an end. The sultry climate with its fetid humidity encouraged too an emphasis on cleanliness, which was made into an article of faith.

Around the settlements, on the lower slopes of the hillsides, lay an area for the dead. Ancestral spirits thus became an intermediary between human settlements and the wooded hilltops in which loomed monsters, tengu and terrifying animals. In this way the Japanese mind became imbued with a legion of otherworldly spirits, a legacy that still evident in the popular culture of today’s secular society.

Over 70% of the archipelago is covered in mountains, and even today a remarkable 67% of the country comprises woodland. The beauty of the natural features inspired a sense of divinity, together with an acute awareness of its volatility for Japan is a land of earthquakes, typhoons and tsunami. On top of that, about one-third of its 188 volcanoes remain active and likely to erupt at any time. In the face of such destructive forces, placating the spirits that govern them became a matter of vital importance.

The mountain peaks which spoke of other worlds gave rise to the notion of a sacred realm off-limits to ordinary humans. Certain sites such as Mt Fuji which resonated with a numinous presence became the objects of local lore and places of ritual. Waterfalls for instance embody the universal energy which emanates from them. Particular rocks and trees, especially those with striking features, were singled out as vessels into which spirits descend, symbolic entities which represent the life-force. Shinto in this sense can be said to be more kami worship than nature worship. It’s not the sun that’s worshipped. It’s the spirit in the sun.

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The above is an extract from a work in progress, tentatively titled Within the Mirror.

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Shinto’s greenness

May 18, 2015 / John D. / 0 Comments

New greenery at Tadasu no mori, Shimogamo Shrine’s sacred grove. These abodes of the kami are held up as shining examples of Shinto’s greenness, but preserving a grove can go hand-in-hand with environmentally destructive policies elsewhere.

Michael Pye is an English academic who has worked at Marburg and Kyoto. He is on the committee of ISSA (International Shinto Studies Association) and has just published what looks like an interesting book on Japan’s Buddhist pilgrimages. On the academic.edu site, he has recently posted a revised version of a talk on the environment and Shinto he first gave in 1995 entitled Can Shinto think Green?

The conclusions Pye reaches are central to the concerns of Green Shinto, and the premises on which they are based will be of interest to the readers of this blog. Many Westerners are drawn to Shinto in the belief that as a nature religion it must be ‘green’, but within Japan such thinking seems simplistic. ‘In fact, Shintō, like most religions, has a somewhat ambivalent relationship to environmental matters,’ writes Pye.

What follows is a summarised account of the paper, and quotations are given with the permission of the author. (The full paper of ‘Can Shinto think Green?’ can be accessed here.)

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Can Shintō think Green? Introductory Remarks on Shintō, the Environment and Industry
by Michael Pye, Marburg.

Sacred waterfall at Matsuo Taisha. Shinto is particularist, and not all waterfalls are sacred…

One of the first issues Pye addresses is the orientation of Shinto in terms of ethics, and he notes the juxtaposition of ‘a religion of the Japanese people’ which ‘mainly promotes a national perspective’ as opposed to the universal nature of the environmental crisis. In terms of Shinto’s early development which grew out of its close relationship to nature, Pye asserts that it was ‘a question of the regulation and manipulation of natural forces, rather than of any kind of romantic love of nature.’ Moreover, as Green Shinto has noted on previous occasions, it is by no means evident that worship of particular items of sacralised nature leads to any significant change in environmental attitude or behaviour. The conservation of sacred trees for instance has gone hand in hand with the large-scale destruction of forests in south-east Asia .

In terms of moral values, Pye notes the emphasis on purity, sincerity and honesty. He notes too a contrast between the particularism of Shinto, whose concern is broadly limited to the frontiers of Japan, and the universalism of Buddhism. Given that water, air and sunshine are shared by humankind, Pye suggests that geographical restrictions are out of place in the face of a global crisis and that, while refraining from being seen to meddle in Japan’s affairs, ‘It is good to emphasize that progressive efforts for environmental protection would meet with world-wide recognition. That is always welcome.’

Pye then gives a concrete example of how change might be encouraged in Japan, which is worth quoting here at length:

Calling for a change of attitude is best done in conjunction with political and economic pressure. Specially targeted conferences and symposia are probably the most effective means of mounting influence from outside Japan, because they are often reported in the media. Responsible participation can be encouraged by the psychologically effective method of planning such symposia on the basis of mutual partnership and exchange.

International collaboration is one way of drawing Shinto into matters of universal concern.

A meeting on environmental questions in Germany, for example, could be complemented by a follow-up meeting to be held in Japan, and so envisaged in the planning stage. Moreover, funding is more likely to be forthcoming. Since the meeting in Japan then refers back to the previous meeting in Germany, it is able to have a much stronger effect on public opinion. For similar reasons, the participation and financial support of industry in both countries should be aimed at. Support in the form of subsidies only may lead into the blind alley of alibi-production, and would be analogous to the donations which flow from the major Japanese companies to the Shintō shrines. Such donations have above all an exorcising function and are supposed to ensure peace, safety and prosperity. It is therefore desirable to have direct representation from industry to industry, in the presence of other experts, ensuring that the environmental aspect remains on the agenda.

By way of conclusion, Pye considers whether Shinto representatives will be prepared to truly ‘go green’, or whether they will just use the word ‘nature’ as a feelgood factor to win popularity. In other words, will the Shinto establishment adopt ‘greenwashing’ as a tactic to project a sympathetic image? Noting that Shinto is an adapted primal religion, he states that throughout history it has undergone change reactively rather than proactively. If indeed it is to be truly a nature religion rather than a national religion, then it will probably need to be nudged in the right direction.

‘So, in the last analysis,’ Pye concludes, ‘there is a question to be posed. Are Shintō leaders prepared to think “green”? The question is urgent.’

Westerners sometimes have an idealised view of Shinto as a religion of nature worship, but Shinto in Japan often has concerns that are far removed from environmentalism.