Tag: purity

Japan by Train 12: Toyama

July 29, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

In surveys about the quality of life, Toyama Prefecture is always near the top, thanks to the prosperity and pleasant environment. The town is located by the side of a bay, with spectacular views of the Japan Alps. The combination of sea and mountains means the fish is fresher, the air cleaner and the water clearer than pretty much anywhere in Japan.

Apart from the castle, the shrines and the temples, there are any number of well-endowed art galleries and culture halls, which owe themselves to a generous level of funding derived from the prefecture’s industries – pharmaceuticals, electronic parts and metal products. The town’s leading attraction is a Glass Art Museum, housed in a light and airy building worth seeing in itself. Designed by famous architect, Kengo Kuma, the building is shared with the city library, which explains the number of visitors who carry books and never show up in the museum. The exhibitions can be dazzling, but the highlight is invariably the spectacular Glass Art Garden by master artist, Dale Chihuly. Even those uninterested in glass tned to be wowed.

The prefecture’s Mt Tateyama is one of Japan’s ‘three holy mountains’ (together with Fuji and Hakusan). At the top, a Shinto priest waves a purification stick over bowed heads. In my early days in Japan this was puzzling to me, so I asked the priest to explain. ‘You pay me money and I purify you,’ he said. ‘I see,’ I replied, ‘but is there something more? For example, rules on how to behave in everyday life.’ There was a short pause. ‘Yes,’ came the answer, ‘you pay me and I purify you.’

At the time I thought the answer amusing. Later, as I came to understand more about primal religions, I realised he was right. The concern is not with morality, but with harmonising with the spirit world. Whereas the material world is characterised by disease and decay, the spirit world is free of taint. Pure purity, in other words. The waving of the magic wand is the Japanese acknowledgement of what Arthur Koestler called ‘the ghost in the machine’, the animating spirit that lies within the physical body. Here at the top of the mountain the priest was evoking oneness with the universe.

Voted Japan’s best Starbucks, it stands next to the canal a few minutes walk from the station

Onsen Purification

March 16, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

Onsen purification

Posted on February 11, 2018 by John D.

This week Green Shinto is pleased to host an item by contributor, Sally Writes (photos by John Dougill)

Tamatsukuri Onsen is a charming hot spring resort either side of a small stream and boasting ‘the biggest magatama in Japan’

Going with the flow: Onsen hot springs as part of Shinto
Wherever your destination in Japan, you are sure to encounter an onsen – or several. These natural hot spring bathing facilities are scattered across the country, taking advantage of the geothermically active landscape. Some are outdoors, some indoors, some attached to large hotels and others in secluded natural settings – but all are part of the ritual cleanliness which permeates all of Japan’s society. Shintoism is based around ideas of purification and cleanliness, as opposed to the dirtiness associated with ‘pollution’. Water and its cleansing properties is seen as central to their way of life.

Hot spring water basin, highly welcome in winter

The importance of water and washing
There are several different ways in which cleansing with water is practised in Shintoism – ranging from ‘harae’ – the washing of hands and face – to the full-body cold-water immersion of ‘misogi’. It is considered optimal to use natural, free-flowing water such as a stream, waterfall, or the sea; and while you may be forgiven for thinking that the water at the hot springs will be purified like a swimming pool, it is the free-flowing nature of onsens which keeps fresh water in the pools and gives them their purifying qualities.

Onsens for Shinto purification
The deep cleansing soak of an onsen is about more than just getting physically clean: you will generally have to wash at a normal shower before entering the hot springs. The act of soaking in the gently flowing, hot mineral water helps to cleanse your soul too. It may be accompanied by chanting or meditation practises designed to clear the mind. This purification means that you can live a more spiritual and balanced life in harmony with the surrounding teachings of Shinto and the natural world.

Kuwayu hot spring
(courtesy of Wakayama tourist board)

The science behind it
The physical benefits of onsen bathing are also attractive, if you are not a practicer of shinto yourself. Onsens range in temperature from around 30 degrees upwards. This heat helps to improve blood circulation and metabolism, and literally take the weight off your feet as you can relax and let the water support you. The hot springs also contain different minerals, which should be listed on the outside of the onsen. Compounds useful for healing bruises and dermatitis and easing joint pain include calcium chloride, sulfate ions, and sodium chloride.

Whether you are keen to try the rituals of Shintoism to experience the cleansing of mind and body, or if you would just like a comfortable afternoon soaking in a natural hot spring, the benefits of Japan’s onsens are enjoyable for all.

Kawayu Onsen in Wakayama, the world’s only World Heritage hot spring open to the public

Torii at Unzen in Kyushu where a shrine sanctifies the awesome power of the hot spring

Zen and Shinto 20: Ryokan

May 14, 2017 / John D. / 2 Comments

There are many individuals who exemplify the close ties between Zen and Shinto in Japanese history, particularly in the period before an artificial line was drawn between Buddhism and ‘the indigenous religion’ in Meiji times.

One such person is the poet Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831). His father was village headman, a job which would have included handling local (Shinto) rites. This was in a flourishing port called Izumozaki in Niigata, gateway for the Sado Island gold mines. Ryokan might have succeeded him but dropped out to become a Soto Zen monk. After obtaining his certificate of enlightenment, he wandered for five years before returning to live as a recluse in a hut on a hill near his hometown. Here he wrote poems, did calligraphy, and enjoyed games with the local children. He was a genial ‘big fool’ (Taigu), but a fool inspired by divine wisdom.

In 1826 at the age of 59, Ryokan felt physically incapable of continuing his life on Mt Kugami, and he moved into a Shinto shrine lower down the hill known as Otogo Jinja. He lived in a two-room hut next to the thatch-roofed Sanctuary. One can presume that in return for his lodging he looked after the shrine, sweeping the grounds and perhaps making offerings. A poem he wrote at the time reflects this:

When young, I learned literature but was too lazy to become a scholar.
Still young, I practiced Zen, but I never transmitted the dharma.
Now I live in a hermitage and guard a Shinto shrine.
I feel like half a shrine keeper and half a monk.

Reading through Ryokan with my poetry in translation study group, I can often sense a similarity with Shinto in the striving of the poet for Zen enlightenment. This is particularly evident in such matters as sincerity of purpose, identification with nature, and living in the present. It seems in many of his poems that he aspires to a state of complete selflessness, free of the ego which clouds human understanding.

kakubakari ukiyo to shiraba okuyama no kusanimo kinimo naramashi mono o

Had I known of this distressing world
I would like to have been
A blade of grass or a tree
On a remote mountain

Other of his poems are clearly inspired by Zen but have a strong Shinto element in their concern with natural purity versus the ‘pollution’ of human concerns. Zen like Shinto wishes ultimately to look into the soul-mirror and see no distorting ego (which is why both temples and shrines have mirrors on their altars).

Yamakage no iwama o tsutau kokemizu no kasukani ware wa sumiwataru kamo

Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.

On his choice of life as a recluse, rather than living in a monkish community, he had this to say:

I don’t tell the murky world
to turn pure.
I purify myself and
check my reflection
in the water of the valley brook.

In old age Ryokan had time for reflection on having ‘idled his life away’, and his conclusion about what he will leave behind is so pure and selfless as to bring a smile to the face…

My legacy —
What will it be?
Flowers in spring,
The cuckoo in summer,
And the crimson maples
Of autumn.

Ryokan’s grave (courtesy Wikicommons)

Zen and Shinto 11: Manpuku-ji

March 22, 2016 / John D. / 2 Comments

Hotei san, one of the temple’s main deities and a manifestation of Amida

Manpuku-ji is possibly the most striking Zen temple in Japan, because it looks so Chinese. The architecture is different, the clothing different, the statues radically different from the Japanese norm. Established in 1661 by a Chinese immigrant named Ingen, it’s retained a Chinese Ming character into the present day.

The small Hachiman-gu that protects Manpuku-ji. Note the doves on the corners of the roof, the messengers of the kami.

Ingen was invited by the Chinese community in Nagasaki during the so-called Age of Isolation, with the support of Zen priests in Japan. The 65 year old Chinese monk came with twenty disciples and a group of craftsmen. The temple he set up with backing from the Tokugawa was at Uji, just outside Kyoto, where he established a new type of Zen, somewhat different from Rinzai and Soto. It had elements of Pure Land belief, as well as keeping to Chinese style in its sutra chanting and clothing.

Shortly after the foundation of the temple a protective shrine (chinju sha) was added, which derived from the large Iwashimizu Hachiman shrine not far away. Interestingly, Hachiman is known as a guardian deity of Japan, so the immigrant Ingen was very much adapting to local practice in accepting the tutelary kami.

Hotei bags bearing prayers come in five different colours

Interestingly, one of the main deities at the temple is Hotei, the potbellied member of the Seven Lucky Gods and the only one to be based on a real person, it is said. (He was modelled after a rotund and happy Chinese monk.) At the base of the statue are five ‘Hotei bags’, the idea being that you write down a wish, place it inside the bag, and hang it up like an ema. The colours are based on the five elements:

Black – water. Cures illness.
White – metal. Good for business.
Red – fire. Love and academic success.
Yellow – earth. Traffic and home safety.
Green – trees. Health and longevity.

The prayers to Hotei echo Shinto practice, as do the Daruma omikuji (fortune slips) and a water basin shaped like a lotus flower. The theme of purity in Zen, a common point with Shinto, was taken up in a notice explaining the giant fish that hung before the dining hall. In Zen temples the wooden fish is struck at times of meals, and a notice at Manpuku-ji explained the practice as stemming from the ever-wakeful nature of fish, which never close their eyes. Being immersed in water, they are already pure but nonetheless it is spitting out a ball, representative of getting rid of world attachment (bonno) in order to keep a pure heart.

Fish is a symbol of purity and is about to spit out a ball from its mouth representing worldy attachment

Fish is a symbol of purity, and this one is about to spit out a ball from its mouth representing worldly attachment. The fish is used as a gong for meal times, and you can see clearly where it gets struck.

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