Shinto and Buddhist priests in a joint procession (courtesy Mainichi)
The true religion of Japan is not Buddhism, as is sometimes claimed, nor is it Shinto, as is also often claimed. The true religion which exists in people’s hearts is a mix of Buddhism, Shinto, ancestor worship and folk belief (such as Tanabata, Shichi-go-san and the Seven Lucky Deities, etc). In the past this all fell under the hyphenated composite of shin-butsu shugyo.
In 1868 the Meiji ideologues in their concern to create a state religion centred around a captive emperor artificially split this tradition that had more than a thousand years of history to it. In addition, they outlawed all the elements they saw as primitive or hostile to the new unifying principle. Genuine shamanism was out; fossilised ritualism was imposed.
On previous occasions Green Shinto has posted signs of a revival in Shinto-Buddhism, evident in such instances as new pilgrimage courses, festivals and shugendo rites. Now today comes news of a significant development in Kyoto.
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 styleThe 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).
In our modern times, Mt Oyama (1,252 meters) in the Tanzawa mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture makes for a pleasant excursion from Tokyo or Yokohama, but historically Oyama was a site of religious pilgrimage particularly popular with Edoites (modern Tokyo was known as Edo before the mid-19th century).
The tour I joined began at a Tougakubou, a shukubo inn at the foot of the mountain. Shukubo are inns that specifically serve the needs of religious pilgrims. As we donned our gyo-i (a kind of happi worn by pilgrims), the guide explained that Oyama has been a sacred site for at least 4,000 years, although the mountain’s Shinto shrine, Oyama Afuri Shrine, dates back to the 10th emperor (ie, approximately 2,000 years ago) and its affiliated Buddhist temple, Oyama-dera Temple, was founded by a priest named Roben in 755.
We were then told how during the Edo Period (1603-1868), merchant associations, guilds and neighborhoods of Edo would send representative groups to worship on the mountain at least once a year. Travel in those days was highly restricted by the shogunate. Traveling all the way to Mt Fuji, Japan’s ultimate religious mountain, required special travel permits, while Mt Oyama was designated as a “short trip” for which permission was not required. Consequently, Mt Oyama became a popular substitute pilgrimage among Edoites. Needless to say, even with the goal of religious pilgrimage, traveling as a group meant there was plenty of lively fun, too. Our tour was designed to emulate the experience.
We began with a blessing in the shrine room of the inn, a Shinto priest offering prayers for our safe ascent and return. Each of us was given a small wooden “sword” on which to write our particular prayer for the journey while one of the guides carried a large wooden sword (about a meter long) representing prayers on behalf of all of us. This, too, emulated the Edo Period experience, when groups came to the mountain as representatives of their friends, neighbors, or colleagues, and so carried their prayers, as well.
Our first stop was the Roben Waterfall, a thin stream of water
dropping nearly four meters from the mouth of a dragon and then flowing
into the Oyama River that forms threads through this
community. Traditional pilgrims bathed in one of several similar falls
in this area before beginning their ascent. Roben himself is said to
have used this one, hence the name. These days, visitors can only look,
but not enter the water.
Next we passed by a number of shukubo inns and tofu restaurants on Tofu-zaka, a long slow incline. Because of plentiful pure water, this area is particularly known for its excellent tofu. We are promised a tofu meal upon our return.
Just across the Oyama River is the start of Koma Sando, regarded as the initial approach to mountain. Pilgrims ascend 362 steps, lined with shops and restaurants, to reach the trailhead. It takes about 15 minutes to traverse the Koma Sando, more if you stop for a snack or to admire the wares. Koma means spinning top, a popular Japanese wooden toy that is made and sold in this area. In the Edo Period the spinning of a koma was seen as an analogy for money circulating — something desired by merchants — making these koma a popular talisman among the merchant class.
Photos: VICKI L BEYER
Fortunately, the 362 steps are broken by 27 landings. Tiles depicting tops connote which landing one is on. There is a signboard explaining the “code.” Trivia questions are posted in Japanese on some stairs, taunting that the answer is just a little further on. Finally, a sign informs pilgrims that they have reached the top step.
But this is by no means the end of the journey.
From here one must choose whether to walk or ride the cable car. Our group chose to continue on foot, up more stairs to a small shrine from whence the trail divides into the “otoko slope” (steeper and more arduous) and the “onna slope”. We went for the “onna slope”, resulting in a 40-minute climb to Oyama-dera. Along the way, we could enjoy lush woodland and a burbling stream. We also spotted four deer grazing on the hillside above us. Our guide explained that deer and wild boar were common in the area, and recently bears had also been sighted.
Along the trail were signs explaining seven “mysteries” including a spring of pure water associated with Kobo Daishi (774-835), the great Buddhist evangelist who travelled the length and breadth of Japan, and a Jizo relief in stone said to have been carved by Kobo Daishi using his fingernails.
When we reached Oyama-dera we were greeted by another long steep staircase, divided by stone lanterns and lined with small bronze statues of Fudo Myo-o, a Buddhist guardian deity. The guide explained that the maple trees growing in this area were brought in from the Kyoto area. In the late fall they turn a spectacular red, a sight that draws huge crowds.
The temple at the top of the stairs boasts a spectacular view of Enoshima, Sagami Bay and the Miura Peninsula beyond. The temple itself is covered with intricate wood carvings and houses three 13th century Buddhist images cast, unusually, in iron.
Our final destination was Afuri Oyama Shrine. Here we were met by a Shinto priest who told us more about the shrine’s history and practices, while leading us up a last flight of stairs and into a small worship hall. We placed the small wooden swords inscribed with our prayers onto a special table between our seating and the inner sanctuary of the shrine. The priest performed a small ceremony to send our prayers to the gods and concluded by waving his purifying white pom-pom over our bowed heads. Next, two local boys performed a kagura dance for us. The priest explained that kagura means “entertaining the gods”, but we are also entertained by this rare and special spectacle.
After the ceremony we had time to explore the shrine grounds before catching the return cable car. One feature we were advised not to miss is the spring underneath the main shrine, where we filled our water bottles with the shrine’s sacred water.
And, of course, having gained higher elevation, there is also the
view. Michelin has awarded two stars to this expansive view, which now
includes not only Enoshima, Sagami Bay and the Miura Peninsula, but also
extends all the way to Tokyo Bay and the Boso Peninsula.
We made our descent by cable car and then back down the stairs of the Koma Sando to regroup at Tougakubou for a sumptuous lunch featuring the local tofu fixed in a variety of ways. In keeping with the theme of emulating Edo Period pilgrims, we were entertained throughout our meal by traditional entertainers including acrobats, musicians and dancers, as well as by a few audience participation games that were, apparently, popular in those times.
The explanations and entertainment provided by the tour made this a
much deeper experience than merely ascending the mountain would have
been. It was easy to see why Edo people were so eager to make these
religious pilgrimages with their additional entertainment and
conviviality, and I felt like I had become one of them.
Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), who wrote extensively on Japanese religions
In his writings on Shinto and Buddhism, Lafcadio Hearn touched on the interaction between the two faiths and they way they influenced each other. One important aspect he identified was compassion for fellow creatures. Surprisingly perhaps, given that Shinto is supposedly ‘a nature religion’, it was Buddhism which proved the stimulus for an enlightened policy in terms of animal rights.
In the seventh century the notion of pity for the suffering of animals led the Buddhist-minded Emperor Tenmu to forbid the eating or trapping of four legged mammals. His decree stayed in force, more or less, till the end of the Edo Era in 1867. Apparently Tenmu did not instigate a complete ban on killing animals, as he was wary of upsetting native Shinto followers, for whom meat-eating was an established way of life. (Rabbits were a notable exception to Tenmu’s decree, being considered birds since they ‘flew’; the word for hop and fly (‘tobu‘) are the same in Japanese.)
Hearn also pointed out that Buddhist art had a huge influence on Japan in general, and Shinto in particular. Images and paintings of kami only appeared after the arrival of Buddhism, and the development of shrine architecture came about as a response to the sophisticated ‘houses’ built for Buddhist deities. Buddhism’s emphasis on education and morals had an effect on Shinto too, with the development of study centres and educational facilities.
Some other examples of the way in which Buddhism influenced Shinto can be found in the following extract taken from a 2007 Japan Times article, entitled ‘Japan’s Shinto-Buddhist Medley’ by Eric Prideaux.
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Kami or Buddhist priest? Sogyo Hachiman depicts the Shinto kami as a student of Buddhism, on the path to enlightenment
Ever since Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 552 (some say 538), Japan has seemed uncertain about how to weave it into its cosmology. The year the religion was introduced, a delegation from the king of Peakche, a territory on the western Korean Peninsula, sent the emperor an image of the Buddha in gold and copper and a collection of the holy texts known as sutras.
The internationalists in the Japanese court welcomed Buddhism. Others saw it as a threat to the status quo, with Buddha nothing more than a “jajin,” or devil.
Prince Shotoku (574-622) promoted Buddhism and it took hold. Still, Japan would never see a full conversion away from its indigenous religion, as occurred to a much greater extent across pagan Europe with the introduction of Christianity. Rather, Japanese absorbed Buddhism gradually, mixing it with local folk religions.
This process played out in the divine realm, too, with certain Shinto gods coming to be seen as protectors of the Buddha. One was Hachiman, the Shinto god of war, who legend has it aided the construction of the Great Buddha statue in Nara during the Nara Period (710-784). This act of kindness won him the name “Great Bodhisattva (Buddhist saint) Hachiman” in 781. Reflecting this meeting of religions, Hachiman was sometimes depicted in sculptures as a very unwarlike Buddhist monk.
But what does the eighth century have to do with mixups over temples and shrines now? The syncretism, or weaving together of religions, would continue over centuries as Japan went about absorbing Pure Land, Zen and other Buddhist sects from China. Over time, cross-pollination between Buddhism and Shinto would deepen in a process known as “shin-butsu shugo” (Shinto-Buddhism coalescence), or less flatteringly as the “shin-butsu konko” (Shinto-Buddhism jumble).
Buddhist statue, Shinto torii: one of the many syncretic aspects of Inari
Much of the convergence amounted to Buddhism trying to make a mark on the host culture. Buddhist monks felt certain Shinto divinities needed salvation. So they chanted sutras in front of shrines that were the gods’ sacred homes. Meanwhile, temples started sprouting up next to Shinto shrines, to be called “jingu-ji,” meaning “shrine-temples.” By the 16th century, such mixing and matching had become official policy.
Nationalist yearnings have surfaced periodically, resulting in calls to rid Shinto of its foreign influence, especially during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) push for a State Shinto purged of its foreign Buddhist influences. At Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Buddhist artifacts were burned and otherwise removed.
It was impossible, though, to completely sever the link formed over so much time, and this helps explain why Buddhism and Shinto tend to blur together somewhat in the modern Japanese mind.
What evidence of syncretism do shrines display?
The magnificent komainu guarding Fushimi Inari, are elaborate works of art. Notice his paw on the ball of wisdom, a syncretic touch.
Guarding the average Shinto shrine are two stone statues, most often of the mythical Koma-inu, which despite the “inu” (dog) in its name actually looks like a miniature lion. Koma-inu fend off evil for a wide range of gods. Author Hiromi Iwai writes in the book “Nihon no Kamigami to Hotoke” (“The Gods and Buddha in Japan”) that Koma-inu’s lionlike design can be traced to China, while “Koma” may have been derived from “Korai,” an ancient Korean dynasty.
But Koma-inu’s heritage goes even further afield. In each pairing, one creature’s mouth will usually be open and the other’s closed. (This is true with other animals as well.) The “A” that seems to issue from one Koma-inu’s mouth, and the “M” voiced through the other’s closed lips are said by Iwai to represent the ancient Indian belief that the universe began with the first sound and will conclude with the other.
In Hinduism, this is written fully as “A-U-M,” with the three letters representing a long list of concepts. One is the triad of Earth, our surroundings and heaven. Another is the trinity of Hindu gods Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the god of maintenance) and Shiva (the Destroyer). In a holy word, Aum embodies the entirety of being.
Commonly known in the West as “Om,” the term was adopted as a mantra by Buddhists, who in turn transmitted it to Japan via China during the Asuka Period (593-710). After that, it showed up on Shinto statues, reminding visitors to holy sites of our humble place within the greater scheme of things.
Nachi’s waterfall, sacred to Shinto, is also a site of Buddhist animism
What happens if you apply Zen to the Celtic tradition of Druidry? It’s not something that would usually come to mind, though a book with that theme has just been published with neo-pagan specialists, John Hunt Publishing.
Druidry is a nature based religion that in recent years has been gaining in popularity. It seeks to make connections with the land and with ancestral spirits. In this it can be seen as part of the early animist/shaman religions that were worldwide before the Axial Age introduced more cerebral and ethically based practices.
So what would happen if you mixed Druidry with Zen? Something close to Shinto, one might imagine! Previous Green Shinto postings have dealt with the commonalities of Zen and Shinto, and how the two complemented each other in times past. One looks to nature, the other to inner nature. Both look to dissolve the ego and find in the mirror a pure reflection.
It was with great interest therefore that we heard of the publication of this new book, and we look forward to reading it. Should any of our readers have already taken a look at it, we’d be delighted to hear your feedback.
The teachings of Zen Buddhism combined with the earth-based tradition of Druidry can create a holistic way of life that is deeply integrated with the seasons, the environment and the present moment. In soul-deep relationship we can use the techniques and wisdom from both traditions to find balance and harmony within our own lives. In this text we explore the concepts of the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings) and how they relate to the wisdom of the Druid tradition. We also look at the Wheel of the Year in modern Druidry with regards to the Dharma, incorporating the teachings into every seasonal festival in an all-encompassing celebration of nature. We explore meditation, mindfulness, animism and integration with nature, learning how to find sustainable relationship in the work that we do, opening our souls to the here and now and seeing the beauty and wonder that enchants our lives in every waking moment. Step into a new life, fully awake and aware to the beauty of the natural world.Joanna van der Hoeven is a Druid, Witch, best-selling author and teacher. She is the co-founder of Druid College UK. Joanna moved to the UK in 1998, where she now lives with her husband in a small village in Suffolk near the coast of the North Sea. Woodbridge Suffolk United Kingdom
ABOUT JOHN HUNT PUBLISHINGJohn Hunt Publishing has published nearly 1500 titles since 2004. Subjects range from spirituality and philosophy to culture and politics in over 25 separate imprints, non fiction and fiction. www.johnhuntpublishing.com.
The circular Shinto mirror that ends where it begins
The following is taken from Wikipedia, indicating how Buddhism and Shinto overlapped architecturally. The similarities are particularly acute in Zen, which lays great emphasis on the kind of exactitude and purity of form found in Shinto. One thinks for instance of dry landscape gardens and the use of plain gravel for shrine entrances, or the use of rocks as spiritual and symbolic features.
In Japan, Buddhist temples co-exist with Shinto shrines, and both share the basic features of Japanese traditional architecture. Not only can torii, the gates usually associated only with Shinto, be found at both, but the entrance to a shrine can be marked by a rōmon, a gate which is Buddhist in origin and can therefore very often be found also at temples.
Some shrines, for example Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū, have a Buddhist-style main gate called sōmon. Many temples have a temizuya and komainu, like a shrine. Conversely, some shrines make use of incense or have a shōrōbelltower. Others – for example, Tanzan Jinja in Nara – may even have a pagoda.
Similarities between temples and shrines are also functional. Like a shrine, a Buddhist temple is not primarily a place of worship: its most important buildings are used for the safekeeping of sacred objects (the honzon, equivalent to a shrine’s shintai), and are not accessible to worshipers. Unlike a Christian church, a temple is also a monastery. There are specialized buildings for certain rites, but these are usually open only to a limited number of participants. Religious mass gatherings do not take place with regularity as with Christian religions, and are in any event not held inside the temple. If many people are involved in a ceremony, it will assume a festive character and will be held outdoors.
The reason for the great structural resemblances between the two lies in their common history. It is in fact normal for a temple to have been also a shrine, and in architectural terms, obvious differences between the two are therefore few, so much so that often only a specialist can see them.
Shrines enshrining local kami existed long before the arrival of Buddhism, but they consisted either of demarcated land areas without any building or of temporary shrines, erected when needed. With the arrival of Buddhism in Japan in the 6th century, shrines were subjected to its influence and adopted both the concept of permanent structures and the architecture of Buddhist temples.
The successive development of shinbutsu-shūgō (syncretism of Buddhism and kami worship) and of the honji suijaku theory brought to the almost complete fusion of kami worship and Buddhism. It became normal for shrines to be accompanied by temples in mixed complexes called jingū-ji (神宮寺lit. shrine temple) or miyadera (宮寺lit. shrine temple).The opposite was also common: most temples had at least a small shrine dedicated to its tutelary kami, and were therefore called jisha (寺社temple shrines?). The Meiji era’s eliminated most jingūji, but left jisha intact, so much so that even today most temples have at least one, sometimes very large, shrine on their premises and Buddhist goddess Benzaiten is often worshiped at Shinto shrines.
As a consequence, for centuries shrines and temples had a symbiotic relationship where each influenced the other. Shrines took from Buddhism its gates (Mon), the use of a hall for lay worshipers, the use of vermilion-colored wood and more, while Chinese Buddhist architecture was adapted to Japanese tastes with more asymmetrical layouts, greater use of natural materials, and an adaptation of the monastery to the pre-existing natural environment.
The clear separation between Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, which today is the norm, emerges only as a result of the shinbutsu bunri (“separation of kami and Buddhas”) law of 1868. This separation was mandated by law, and many shrine-temples were forced to become just shrines, among them famous ones like Usa Hachiman-gū and Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū.
Because mixing the two religions was now forbidden, jingūji had to give away some of their properties or dismantle some of their buildings, thus damaging the integrity of their cultural heritage and decreasing the historical and economic value of their properties. For example, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū’s giant Niō (the two wooden wardens usually found at the sides of a temple’s entrance), being objects of Buddhist worship and therefore illegal where they were, were sold to Jufuku-ji, where they still are. The shrine-temple also had to destroy Buddhism-related buildings.
Megan Manson, a leading figure in the pagan-Shinto fusion currently underway in the West
Could you tell us about how you came to be a pagan?
I had been interested in Paganism for many, many years before I actually started practising it! My interest almost certainly comes from my Dad. He isn’t a Pagan (funnily enough he raised me Catholic!), but he is a history buff and he’s always had an interest in the Arthurian legends and ancient Celtic beliefs. I think it was this interest that inspired him to launch a business selling Pagan-related jewellery and gifts, which has been running for about 30 years. So for my family, Paganism was literally our lifeblood – Pagans made up a large percentage of people who bought from us, and therefore they were people upon whom we depended for putting bread on the table.
But despite already having a considerable grounding in Pagan basics from an early age, it wasn’t until much later that I considered myself a Pagan proper. For a long whether the Pagan path was truly right for me. I had continually resisted embracing my passion for Paganism and graduating from “Pagan enthusiast” to “practising Pagan.” What seemed to hold me back was my assumption that I could not consider myself to be both a rational, scientific person and also a follower of a religion. I love science and technology, so how could I essentially turn my back on science by embracing the realm of the supernatural?
How did your interest in Shinto come about?
It was actually Shinto that helped me resolve my “science verses religion” conflict with Paganism! I’d graduated with a degree in Japanese from university prior to working in Japan as an English teacher, and later returned to England to work in the field of Japan-UK relations. I’d written about Shinto and other forms of Japanese spirituality in undergraduate essays, and participated in Shinto directly in Japan by going to Shinto shrines and festivals.
The Japanese have a great respect for science and technology – just look at their contributions to the global field (I believe there are currently 16 Nobel Prize winners from Japan in the fields of physics, chemistry and medicine). But this devotion to science sits comfortably with an open-minded attitude to supernatural experiences and a great enthusiasm for ceremony and ritual based on religion; that’s probably why Japan has so many festivals. There are many possible reasons for the harmonious relationship between the scientific rationality and spiritual outlook held by a large proportion of the Japanese population, but I think one of the most important is that in Shinto, actions take precedence over belief. In my experience, many Japanese aren’t too sure what they believe at all – additionally, they do not consider having well-defined spiritual beliefs as particularly important.
When I realised this, I understood that this was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. I had approached Paganism from a Western, Christian perspective, probably due to my Catholic background. I thought that faith was a fundamental starting point for spirituality, and that one had to essentially choose between whether to trust in science or believe in religion. Shinto taught me that this was not the case at all. It taught me that it was OK to be a Pagan for no other reason than it feeling “right,” and that one could still follow a religion and hold scientific fact to be just as valid. As I grew to learn more about Neopaganism and the Pagan community, I realised that many other Pagans in fact feel exactly the same way.
What do you think paganism and Shinto have in common?
I believe they are far more alike than unlike! To summarise, both have roots in pre-Christian (and in Shinto’s case, pre-Buddhist) folk beliefs, both have elements of polytheism, nature worship, ancestor worship and animism, and both place more emphasis on ritual and living in the “here and now,” rather than abstract philosophies or preparing for the afterlife.
Why do you fuse the two in your practice?
Mainly for the reason that I find both paths speak to me equally so I cannot choose just one to follow exclusively! What’s more, they tend to reinforce each other, lending each other elements and therefore, for me, leading to a more “complete” path. For example, Shinto has little to say about death, other than the idea that it is taboo. But Paganism has lots to say on the subject and how one can honour the deceased and the gods that bring about this natural phenomena. On the other hand, Shinto has a lot of ideas about how nature-based animism can translate into the modern urban lifestyle (Paganism has these ideas too, but they feel a little more well defined in Shinto).
. Could you give us an example of how you combine the two?
Megan’s Yule altar for 2014 also incorporated O-Shogatsu items (photo c/o Megan Manson)
I often blend Shinto elements into Pagan ritual. For example, when I am purifying the sacred space I want to use, I’ll chant the “Hi-Fu-Mi” norito, which is said to have purification powers. I’ve found this particularly effective at group rituals – whenever I’ve chanted this norito at the beginning, it seems to put everyone in a quiet, contemplative, spiritual mood.
I’ll also blend the traditions for particular festivals in the Pagan and Shinto calendars. For example, the Pagan festival of Imbolc (Feb 1 or 2) is very close to the Japanese festival Setsubun. So I’ll combine them together; I’ll light candles in the Imbolc tradition and scatter beans as is traditional at Setsubun – both rituals are related to banishing negative energy and attracting positive energy. The more you look into the symbolism behind festivals close to each other in the Shinto and Pagan calendars, the more parallels tend to emerge. For example, both Imbolc and Setsubun are associated with a female figure representing fertility and happiness – Brigid for Imbolc, and Otafuku/Uzume for Setsubun.
Do you have a name for the path you’re following, and do you see potential for it spreading more widely?
For want of a better term, I just call it Shinto-Paganism! The term “Eclectic Paganism,” which describes Pagan paths that draw from many different cultural traditions, is already well known and would also be an apt description.
Some people might say that combining practices from opposite sides of the world is strange or wrong. How would you respond?
There will always people who find mixing elements from two different cultures strange or wrong. Certainly it’s strange, but then all religion is strange! (That’s sort of the point, religion is about exploring what’s beyond “normality”). As for it being “wrong,” I cannot see it being any more wrong than any other of the many examples of syncretism between religions we see throughout the world. Japan is perhaps the ultimate example of this – hardly any Japanese practise Shinto in isolation. It is almost always combined with Buddhism, a religion that originally came from India. In fact, the two are so intimately intertwined that it’s become practically impossible to say for sure where one religion ends and the other begins. Combining spiritual beliefs, or any other cultural practices, is just a natural result of cultures coming together, learning from each other, and copying one another’s practices that are found to be beneficial. This results not only in greater understanding and appreciation, of other people but also the creation of entirely new and exciting practices that increase the rich diversity of our cultural heritage as human beings. I can’t see how this can be a bad thing.
