The Essence of Shinto

I have found myself on a Japan kick: asking what lessons lie in store from the Meiji Restoration, Miyamoto Musashi, the lost decades of Japan’s economy, and Murakami Haruki. Though I was aware of Shinto, it did not occur to me to explore it further.

You enjoyed The Essence of Shinto by Yamakage Motohisa.

What made it rise to the top of your reading pile? Are you on a Japan kick? What is Japan to you?

I’ll tell you what I enjoyed about the book.

I see the book as a report from scientists on the other side of the elephant, where “the elephant” is the human condition (who are we and why are we here?) and “scientists” are fellow human travelers on the voyage of life.

What those Shinto scientists had to say about the elephant fall into three categories:

• corroborating evidence
  • I use these to bolster my existing theories
• new data
  • these show me new places to explore
• contradictions
  • these are bad science or point to the need to resolve something

corroboration

Much of what I learned about Shinto seems to conform to or corroborate observations I have heard from many places.

• the focus on nature is instructive. we are stewards of the natural world and should take the job seriously
• we often don’t see all that is there
• we should have an attitude of aiming upward, gratitude, and striving to be worthy of communion with a higher existence
  • πραΰτης (‘prautes’ - meekness in New Testament) may be very close to 誠 (‘makoto’ - sincerity)
• straight is better than crooked
• we should not worship idols
• humans and our language are fallible
• our modern era suffers from some kind of faith crisis
• we aren’t where we should be

I see Shinto in agreement with the general picture of our world shown in Genesis outside the walls of Eden. Shinto appears to agree that humans are often separated from communion with what is best for us. Yamakage seems to stress non-dualism sometimes (a Buddhist influence?), which I see echoed in how the Eden story shows that part of our problem is our concern for the difference between right and wrong (tov and ra in Hebrew). I hear an acknowledgment that there is a sense in which our trying to know good and bad experientially somehow misses the mark.

new data

These are some points I took away that

• harmony can be achieved locally
  • maybe it doesn’t get us to God, but maybe cleaning our environment and attitude does get us somewhere
• mystical powers: but i didn’t focus on these: I feel like Yamakage purposely restrains himself to only alluding to these. The “examples” I remember are more a report of feeling a resonance between environmental and bodily harmony… not exactly “powers”
• the possibility I have been wrong
  • maybe being concerned with right and wrong IS the problem
    • but again, ultimately, this leads to the next section: contradiction

Yamakage holds back his mystical secrets, but I wonder if Shinto ritual is not so divorced from “japanese design” principles, which are effective at creating spiritually effective places, even if we put off whether they allow us to transcend humanity completely.

contradictions

Here, I cannot shake the impression Yamakage is trying to have his cake and eat it too. I find him contradicting himself and wondering why. It seems like he wants the inclusivity of not committing to doctrine or theology of any kind, while also benefitting from doctrine and theology when it serves him. Some examples of the contradictions I hear:

• Shinto has no guilt and sin. You need not repent, but you should realize your actions can be sinful and beg for forgiveness because you are not worthy
  • ‘shinto Is free from notions of sin and guilt’, but ‘The distortion of the food line is seen as a heavenly sin, while the earthly sins, or kunitsu tsumi, are seen as evil deeds committed by people who are possessed by spirits’
• Shinto cannot be propagated, except when I propagate it as the 79th head of my sect
• Shinto has no doctrine, except the doctrines I teach in my sect
  • harmony matters more than truth
  • orthopraxy more than orthodoxy
    • “The systematic methods that Yamakage Shinto teaches are orthodox lines, so that when a person masters this method, that person gains not only mystical ability, but also a deep and all-encompassing knowledge of the universe. Nowadays, many people want one real experience instead of detailed words explaining the doctrine… Yamakage Shinto aims at transmitting the right methods to as many people as possible by opening to them the gates of knowledge.”
• “as long as that belief is not used to justify destructive ambitions or to do evil to others.”
  • what is destructive and evil? we’re back to outside of Eden again

But even when Yamakage appears foolish, this foolishness still points to some truths. There is something like sin, something like repentance matters, doctrine/belief and its propagation do matter, and harmony may not be hierarchically more valuable than truth.

NOTE: the end of each set of categories leads back to Eden! which has been my biggest, surprising takeaway from the book

Seeing Yamakage corroborate facets of nature (human and spiritual) makes me think all the more that the story of Eden holds more truth than I thought. Seeing Yamakage contort himself and speak out of two sides of his mouth indicates that the things he rails against seem all the more foolish to discount. Even the intriguing new perspectives from Shinto end up pointing me back to Eden, but this time illuminating something that was in the story all along, but had escaped my notice.

I wish Yamakage addressed his own question of how Shinto might address our modern crisis of spirituality.

Having read this, I can see more of the detail behind things like Hayao Miyazaki movies. I can see more evidence that the truths all of us find are universal, whether I hear Western or Eastern sources describing them. Most surprisingly, I see how effective and far-reaching the tale of the Garden of Eden really is!

What did you enjoy? Did you learn something? Will you be purifying your home? Wanna do a podcast about it?