torii Archives - Green Shinto

The famous torii tunnel at Fushimi beckons the visitor ever further into the other world

There’s nothing so evocative of Japan as the torii. The stylised gateway is a thing of beauty in itself, but it’s also a symbolic opening that suggests entrance into a different realm. It’s not intended to keep anyone out, and it’s not intended to prevent ingress. Typical of Japanese aesthetics, it frames emptiness – an invisible gate for invisible spirits. The marker divides the sacred from the profane, beckoning the visitor to enter into a special realm. It’s impossible to resist the feeling of being drawn into a different dimension, for it marks the point where this world and the spirit world abut one another. Some say that passing between the pillars is a form of purification in itself, as if there’s a spiritual charge running between them.

Passing between posts is reminiscent of our first entry into the world, and calls us back home as it were by inviting us to seek re-entry into the womb. In casting off the cares of our material world, we return to that garden of Eden before we attained consciousness and self-awareness. We become children – children of the kami.

If you took an aerial photograph of a typical shrine and looked at the layout, you’d see the distinct shape of a uterus. From the vulvic entrance represented by the torii runs a pathway through the woods to a womb-like opening in which stand the shrine buildings. Within that womb is a vertical dimension from which the kami descend as agents of the life-force. Yin and yang are symbolised in the open and closed mouths of the pair of guardian creatures, and the five elements conspire to produce a harmonious whole – wood in the shrine buildings; air in the freshness of the woods; earth in the ground below; fire in the flame that lights the lanterns; running water in the temizuya, and metal in the dragon that feeds it.

Here in the creation of a sacred realm is where spiritual and material worlds come together. The visitors proceed along a horizontal plane, the kami descends unseen on a vertical axis. Refreshed by the encounter, the visitor returns to the world ostensibly the same but reborn in spirit. What better way to mark this magical encounter than with a torii. There is pure nothingness, yet the outer form marks an inner transformation.

*****************

For a piece about the origins of the torii, please see here. There’s more on the subject, with reference to a Kansai Scene article, on this page.

Meditation at a shaman's rock in Korea. Candles, alcohol and nature...

Previously Green Shinto carried a posting on agnosticism, which resonated with several readers, and it’s a theme I’d like to develop further as thoughts turn towards the celebration of spring. It’s a time when, in tune with nature, new ideas spring up and blossom.

"Nature is my god." - Mikhail Gorbachev

Spirituality as a concept is increasingly attractive to many in advanced countries, as outmoded belief systems give way to individual development. In a recent poll in the US about a quarter of the population described themselves as spiritual but not religious. Many such people see nature religions as a modern alternative to a God-based religion. The pragmatic proponent of Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev, put it this way: “I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.”

The modern aversion to traditional religion stems from it being rooted in a non-scientific past with a tendency to create barriers between believers and non-believers. ‘Religions are divisive and quarrelsome,’ said the late, great Alan Watts. ‘They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the “saved” from the “damned,” the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group.’

Sam Harris, one of ‘the Holy Trinity of Atheism’, has written a book on the subject, seen from a modern scientific angle. In Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, he explores the subject by integrating scientific and spiritual viewpoints. Harris is a well-known sceptic with no belief in God or gods, yet he sees the possibility for a more fulfilling life than the simple pursuit of materialism:

Rediscovering ties to nature...

“Although the claim seems to annoy believers and atheists equally, separating spirituality from religion is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is to assert two important truths simultaneously. Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.”

Harris considers the nature of happiness, and how in the modern age it consists of repeated acts of gratification. ‘Is there a form of happiness beyond the mere repetition of pleasure and the avoidance of pain?’ he asks.

His book pursues the possibility of lasting fulfilment at a deeper level, and the solution he comes up with has to do with attaining a state of ‘selfless well-being’. Meditation is one of the practices he advocates.

The gateless gate of torii, open to all who wish to commune with the transcendent, is a potent symbol for those seeking greater spirituality. It neither demands membership, nor imposes a mandatory doctrine. It is a belief system with no belief. It calls us back to nature, back to the contemplation of the mystery of life, back to a state of grace. It calls us home.

The torii – symbolic opening into a sacred world and open to everyone

Tag: torii

The torii reexamined

Spirituality