Tag: Zen and Shinto

Zen and Shinto 21: Katsura Villa

December 16, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

Katsura Rikyu Following on from the series investigating the links of Shinto and Zen, this piece from Wikipedia struck me as insightful about the architectural and aesthetic overlap between the two practices. It concerns the Katsura Imperial Villa (or Detached Palace) in the west of Kyoto, which many consider to be the sublime example of a traditional estate. Shinto values of simplicity, naturalness and harmony with nature are mixed with the desire for contemplation and transcendence of the ego (For the full Wikipedia description see here.)

Many say that Shingon is the closest Buddhist sect to Shinto because of its emphasis on the integration of humans in nature. Green Shinto has been building up a substantial case for thinking Zen is even closer. In both cases sweeping the grounds may be the highest form of spirituality!

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Katsura Rikyu

The Katsura Imperial Villa is a good example of the essence of Japanese traditional design. The Villa combines principles usually used in early Shinto shrines and merges it with the esthetics and philosophy of Zen Buddhism.

One example of Katsura’s use of traditional ideas is its use of raised floors with tatami mats covering them. Tatami are mats approximately 3 feet by 6 feet in length that are not only used as the floors of the villa, but are also used to define the dimensions of each individual room and the house as a whole.

At Katsura, the mats are used to create the sprawling and pinwheel-like plan that it has today. The terraces and porches created by the arrangement of the tatami mats provide opportunities to view the landscape and link interior spaces with the outside world. The floors of each building of the site are also raised as well, which originally was derived from vernacular designs for granaries, as well as early imperial palaces. They serve the purpose of both keeping the floor dry while also giving hierarchy to the space.

Another classic characteristic that the Katsura Imperial Villa utilizes is the use of screen walls (the shōji and the fusuma). The fusuma allows the rooms to change and open up to the natural world with exterior decks becoming extensions of the interior and framing views of the landscape. An example of this type of transformation is the moon viewing platform connected to the Old Shoin. Besides these characteristics, there are many traditional Japanese ideas that are used in the Katsura Imperial Villa, like the decorative alcove (tokonoma), built-in desk (tsukeshoin) and square posts.

Teahouse

At the Katsura Imperial Villa, the teahouses are perfect examples of how Zen Buddhism has affected the architecture and landscape. The tea ceremony, performed at the pavilions, is a very important part of Japanese society because it is a spiritual ritual symbolizing detached perfection in the Zen tradition, and it has greatly affected the architecture and landscape around it to enhance the experience one receives while in the ceremony. The teahouses were constructed expressly to incorporate the qualities of concord, reverence, pureness, and isolation that are the very essence of the ritual.

The five different teahouses are all separated from the main building and are isolated from everything except for the nature around them; to reach each building, one must take a path that doesn’t reveal the view of the pavilion until the very last moment. The teahouses also use rustic elements such as bark covered wooden supports or irregular shaped wooden pieces as extensions of the natural world, for the tea ceremony aims at fusing the spiritual and the natural.

Additionally, the teahouses account for many experiences while you are inside of it. The windows and apertures in the pavilion are at eye level when sitting so that one can feel more in tune and closer to nature and so that one can “admire the cherry blossoms in the spring and the crimson leaves in the autumn… while preparing tea and enjoying exquisite cuisine”. Finally, the interior of the buildings were planned so that the designers imparted their reverence for the materials and spatial harmony, which are intended to promote reflection that will achieve inward simplicity and tranquillity of the mind.

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For the other 20 postings about Zen and Shinto, please click on the Zen category on the righthand side of the page.

Zen rocks (Book review)

January 3, 2018 / John D. / 2 Comments

The famous garden at Ryoanji shows how Zen Buddhism absorbed the native tradition of reverence for rocks

Reading Zen in the Rocks by Francois Bertbier (translated with a philosophical essay by Graham Parkes) Uni of Chicago Press, 2000

Understanding the role of rocks in Japanese culture, and specifically in Shinto, has been something of a quest for Green Shinto. Here is a book which does much to throw light on matters that have long intrigued us. Though the focus is on the dry landscape gardens (karesansui) so beloved of Zen, the book has much to say about the wider subject and its background.

Whereas Green Shinto has previously asserted that the cult of rocks came over with Korean shamanism (the result of southern migration from Altaic shamanism), this book makes no mention of that but looks instead to the Chinese tradition of litholatry. And in the philosophical essay by Graham Parkes, there is the assertion of origins too in the ancient cosmology of China.

For early Chinese, humans lived in a giant cave of which the sky formed the ceiling. That the sky should be made of rock can be seen as a logical conclusion from the way meteorites fell to earth, for they were presumed to be bits of the celestial covering that had fallen off. In similar manner mountains were seen as huge blocks or stalactites that had descended to earth. Their heavenly provenance was not their only distinguishing feature, for in the precipitous fall they had accumulated huge amounts of energy (known as chi or qi). It helps explain why rocks that fell to earth are traditionally treated as divine in Japan.

Another vital point the book makes is that whereas the West has an established dichotomy between animate and inanimate, for the Chinese there was a continuum of existence with chi energy running throughout. The dichotomy such as there was rather between yin and yang. The earth was yin, mountains thrusting upwards were yang. The landscape was thus pulsing with energy, seen graphically in the Japanese word for landscape sansui (mountain – water).

Since rocks constitute the very material of a mountain, they came to be seen as a microcosm of it. They were thus held to possess the same properties and energy as the original mountain. Though the book does not go into this, as it is concerned with Zen, the notion sheds light on Shinto practice. Kami in ancient times descend from heaven into mountains, the nearest point on earth, and Amaterasu’s offspring famously descended on Mt Takachiho in Kyushu. If kami could descend into mountains, they could also descend into the representation of a mountain, i.e. rocks. And here we can understand the possible evolution of iwakura, or sacred rocks.

In this way we can see that in ancient Chinese thought the rock was of a mountain, and the mountain was of heaven. Small wonder that Daoists liked to retreat into caves to seek the ultimate reality. Small wonder too that Bodhidharma spent nine years meditating in front of a rock face. The result was that Buddhists came to incorporate the nature of sacred rock into their philosophy. Zhanran of the Tiantai School for example claimed that even non-sentient beings have Buddhist nature.’ And in Japan Saicho, founder of Tendai, spoke of ‘the Buddha-nature of trees and rocks’.

Garden development
In Shinto it is usual for the area to the south of the main shrine building to be flat and covered with white sand or gravel. It is a place of purity where the kami will be honoured and entertained. Much of Zen in the Rocks is concerned with decoding the famous garden of Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, and it is pointed out that the dry landscape there lies to the south of the main building in Shinto fashion and is on a piece of level land covered with gravel. The Shinto preference for purity, simplicity and naturalness was woven into the Zen tradition.

Sand cones at Kamigamo Jinja. The Zen temple of Daisen-in has a similar pair in its front dry landscape garden.

Buddhism incorporated other aspects of Shinto too. One example is the use of sand cones at Kyoto’s Daisen-in, which is located in the Zen monastery of Daitoku-ji. Its rock garden contains two sand cones which mirror those at Kamigamo Shrine. These may have originally served a purpose similar to the use of red carpets today, in other words prior to the visit of an important dignitary or to the holding of a ritual event the sand from the cones would be spread over the forecourt as a form of purification and renewal. In other words, the cones were a means of storing spare sand, and over time they came to be seen as agents of purification in themselves. Something similar happened at the Zen temple of Ginkaku-ji, where the famous tall cone of sand, said to represent Mt Fuji, was originally just a garden device to keep extra sand when needed.

Zen in the Rocks is relatively short and though it focusses on the rock garden, it offers a range of unexpected insights in the role of rock in Japanese culture. It shows for instance how the Heian garden of pond and vegetation transmuted into the bare rocks and pebbles of Muromachi times. This was part of the Zen concern with pointing to the root of things and stripping away the inessential. In this way the Buddhist emphasis on perpetual change and the transience of life, given emphasis in the Heian garden, was replaced in the Zen garden with symbols of permanence and the eternal.

‘Brother rock’ may seem an odd concept to Westerners, but if you think in terms of the Big Bang, we all share common origins. In considering the changing attitudes to nature in the Sino-Japanese tradition, this book helps us to look at rock anew. Not as something dead, sterile or alien. But as fundamental to our place in the universe. Fundamental to ourselves. As Alan Watts pointed out, the giant rock on which we travel through space is ultimately the source of our existence. The spirit in the rock is ourselves.

For more on rocks, please see the list of categories in the righthand column and browse through the relevant section. For Alan Watts on rock, see this entry here.

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 19: Architecture

April 24, 2017 / John D. / 2 Comments

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.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_temples_in_Japan

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 shōrō belltower. Others – for example, Tanzan Jinja in Nara – may even have a pagoda.

Honden of the Zennyo Ryūō shrine, inside a Shingon temple in Kyoto

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.

A Buddhist-style gate (karamon) at Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū

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.

Zen and Shinto 17: Sun and Moon

July 11, 2016 / John D. / 6 Comments

Clever lighting effect created this round drum-sun-mirror preceding the production

Sun or full moon, the circle is a powerful symbol

In thinking about the complementary nature of Zen and Shinto, the thought struck me how Shinto is associated with the sun (Amaterasu) and Zen with the moon (enlightenment). This leads to some interesting comparisons in the way the two religions balance each other, like day and night indeed.

The sun is worshipped in the form of Amaterasu at the nation’s most important shrine, Ise Jingu. It is at the heart of the national consciousness, emblazoned across the national flag. Nippon is literally ‘the origin of the sun’, and Japan the land of the rising sun.

The moon ‘singularly attracts the Japanese imagination,’ wrote D.T. Suzuki. Certainly it is central to Zen thought. ‘Each language has a word for the moon, but it’s not the real moon. The word is like a finger pointing in the direction of the moon. Don’t confuse one’s finger with the moon,’ says James Austin in Zen and the Brain.

As the spirit of the sun, Amaterasu signifies the all-encompassing light shed on the nation by the imperial dynasty to which she gave birth. Such is the thinking at the heart of Shinto mythology. Historically, it could be said this ‘light’ derives from the late seventh century, when the notion of a solar ancestor for the Yamato dynasty was officially promoted.

One world! The sun rises on all alike...

The sun rising over Japan.

In the 10 Ox-herding Pictures that describe the stages of Zen practice, no. 8 is a full moon, symbol of enlightenment. Round, empty, shining, the circular shape is a symbol of oneness and the neverending cycle of life.

Both the sun and moon are mesmerising globes, which govern life on earth. Both are much celebrated in verse. Both are round and bright, like mirrors. Go to shrines and you’ll often see a mirror on the altar. In temples too, there may be a mirror on the altar. In both cases keeping the mirror of the soul clean and free of dust is an essential principle of the religion.

In Shinto the cleanliness of the mirror is tied to the purity of the kami. In Zen the cleanliness of the mirror is tied to one’s Buddha nature. Sincerity and selflessness are central to both.

The sun is yang and outward in nature. It’s a symbol behind which to unite in collaborative action. Shinto festivals are noisy affairs with a strong territorial aspect to the parading around of the mikoshi with its spirit-body.

Tonight's blood moon rises behind Kyoto's Eastern Hills

The full moon rising over Kyoto’s Eastern Hills

The moon is yin and inward. It’s a symbol of introspection and reaction. Buddha nature lies within, and Zen practitioners sit in silence while following a lifestyle of disciplined self-restraint.

The sun is constant in shape, yet the moon changes on a daily basis. Shinto tends to celebrate the world as it is; Buddhists strive for self-improvement. All things revolve around the sun, as the national well-being is thought to centre on the emperor. Zen sees the monthly cycle in terms of the cycle of existence.

Japanese religion is, and remains, fundamentally syncretic. In the symbiosis of Shinto and Buddhism, light and dark come together in the harmonious combination of sun and moon. D.T. Suzuki maintained it was Zen that was at the heart of the culture, yet the moon is but a reflection of sunlight. After all, the sun shines on everyone; only a few search in the dark for moonbeams.

The real heart of Japanese culture is Shinto.

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For further thoughts on the role of circular mirrors in Shinto and Zen, please click here.

Full moon over Shimogamo Shrine. A Zen symbol in harmony with the Japanese soul.