Reverend Greg

Rehearsed routines lack the ability to adapt... Broken rhytm! - Bruce Lee

Hey, you see... Irish nationalism was not off topic! :)

I'm simply over-whelmed by all these excellent replies. Darn people, you're awesome.

State Shinto has a special meaning for the Nichiren Sect and specifically for the pre-WWII Soka Gakkai. The Japanese Government appropriated Shinto in order to support the Emperor in being a God. They mandated that everyone had to have a State Shinto plaque enshrined in their home. Many Gakkai members refused and were jailed.

What most of us aren't immediately aware of is that it was a renegade Nichiren Priest that constructed and submitted the whole plan to the Government.

Bottom line - if you want to know about what a religion is about, specifically Buddhist or Shinto in Japan or Hawaii, you need to be able to speak to the priest. The average believer doesn't know much.

Rev. Greg

Lyssa I agreee with most of what you said, but I think you've got the American-christian connection backwards. America was founded by the Puritans, a Protestant Christian sect. The government and ideals of our country were based on many of the Puritans beliefs. Im not disagreeing with your suggestion that they are connected, but I am disagreeing with you in a "cart-before-the-horse" kind of way.

I don´t get what this blog is about?

best regards
peter

ps. now three lessons in ninja-training. did a lot of "rolling-falls" (don´t know what it´s called in english). very interesting. extremely effective infighting. we train with swords also (not real ones).

Woah, Danny! It was *me* that suggested it is a kind of Pavlovian reaction going on there with the chopsticks in the rice.

I've had Japanese people say ridiculous things to me, too, claiming the most preposterous things are Japanese. One tune from a Dvorak piano album has Japanese words to it, and I've had people swear up and down that the tune is from Tokushima.

Or the magatama is an ancient Japanese symbol when it's clearly half of the yin/yang.

I think what Adrian referred to is State Shinto, the codified version of a number of folk practices and shrine rituals that did exist in Japan before the 19th century. In classical Japanese literature, such as Manyoshu, Kokinwakashu, Heike Monogatari, the word Shinto isn't used to describe the practices of the shrine priests. But it is true that many of the significant poets and writers of the Heian Period were priest/esses of a native religion centred at Ise Shrine.

About Wicca - Gerald Gardner picked up that term, Maria Gimbutas and other Europeans used it, and then others picked up the capital p Pagan and neoPagan (regarded by some as pejoratives) to refer to the old religion believed to be practiced across Europe in ancient times.

Modern Wiccans/Pagans have some interesting attitudes about this myth making. Most of the elders I've run into say they're not worried about the literal truth of the existence of the religion in history. Instead, they say they focus on what the mythos means to them personally, regardless of the historical veracity of the lineage claims.

Modern Shinto isn't quite so up front about its origins. Korea has a similar native religion, but few scholars have dared compare the two. Why? I have a hunch that many Shinto practices aren't native to Japan at all, but are in fact borrowed from Korea. If this connection were made, it would threaten Japan's uniqueness, so Japanese scholars better stay away from that one...

Also, archaelogy in this country sucks. So-called scholars salt digs and generally manipulate facts to suit the generally held view that Japan's people are somehow genetically and (in the distant past) culturally different from their Asian neighbours.

Oh dear, I think I just ranted ;)

Japanese students at the English school in Vancouver were offended when they saw a Korean guy had drawn a picture on a classroom whiteboard of 'Goodbye Kitty' with a Korean military issue pistol to one side of her head, exit wound and gore on the other side.

Hey Greg, when you raise a glass in an izakaya, remember to shout CHIN CHIN at the top of your lungs.

They hated my Hello Cthullu badge, too, but they all liked my pentacle. Quite the opposite reaction of my Baptist church going mother :)

It seems like Adrian's point fits in very well with Danny's original writing about the religion of Japan being Japanese-ness...which seems to me to be how a lot of mainstream Americans feel about Christianity. I think this is more general than just religion in Japan. Mainstream American Christianity also has a tremendous amount of nationalism built into it, which can be heard every time you seen the U.S. Senate and House on CNN.

Being a member of a non-mainstream religion implies some conscious choice and study...after all, you most likely had to seek out that path actively, not just passively absorbing what came. For many people, this is not the way they feel; they just do what their parents did, their grandparents before them, and so on. This is not bad, just different.

"I would say things, and people would blame me for stuff"

Well, that certainly would be a successful blog, wouldn't it? Let's just imagine, if you were to have a blog on FWP, what title would you give it?

Rev. Greg

How could Irish nationalism be off topic? Sheesh. As for my own Blog... I think that would be too dangerous... I would say things... and people would blame me for stuff... and then there would be a lot of trouble. Probably I would be smarted not to even write comments on other people's blogs... but if I don't comment on my friend's blogs, then they will think I do not love them, and then more problems, blame, trouble... besides, what would I talk about?
You know me... I am just not the sort who has a lot to say. ;)

Adrian, I must notify you - you are way off topic.

However, how would you like your own blog on FWP?

I mean, we have Nichiren Buddhists, we have a Ninja Nichiren Buddhist, why not have a Ninja Non-Nichiren Buddhist physicist?

RG,S

I would be quite suprised if you found a Japanese anything (let alone a waitress) at Pink Godzilla. I am thinking she must have been Korean.

I have to throw in my 2c on the complexities of "what is Shintoism". First some choice quotes from here and there:

"Shinto has been called 'the religion of Japaneseness', and the customs and values of Shinto are inseparable from those of Japanese culture"
(Wikipidia)
"Shinto is probably not a native religion of Japan (since the Japanese were not the original 'natives' of Japan), and seems to be an agglomeration of a multitude of diverse and unrelated religions and mythologies. There really is no one thing that can be called 'Shinto,' since there are a multitude of religious cults that gather beneath this category. The name itself is a bit misleading, for 'Shinto' is a combination of two Chinese words meaning "the way of the gods" (shen : 'spiritual power, divinity'; tao : 'the way or path') and was first used at the beginning of the early modern period. The Japanese word is kannagara: 'the way of the kami .' Calling the religion of the early Japanese 'Shinto' is a gross and unsupportable anachronism."
(Google: "I feel lucky")

A note on "Early modern period". So far as I can tell, the term "Shinto" dates from only about the 19th century, and was part of an attempt to _create_ a state religion for the new, post Tokugawa Japan. It appears that it was strongly felt by the intelligencia of the time that a term and a framework was needed which could sum up all of the collective bits of extant non-Buddhist (read "non-Chinese") practices in Japan.

So far as I can tell, this is the source of many confusions about what _is_ Shinto. Shinto is essentially everything in Japan in about 1850 that was not Buddhism.

I have pondered over all of this at some length, because I have some fascintion with the overlap between this construct, and what appears to me to be it's European analog "Wicca". Wicca similarly represents a wide range of non-Christian religious practices which existed in Europe before Christianity. The term Wicca, as best I can tell seems also to come from about the same period. I can not immediately come up with as clear a connection to nationalism, though it is true that Irish nationalism played a very strong role in the resurgance of certain pagan practices there and in England.

If I am off topic, people can ignore the direction this post has gone off to... but it is kind of a topic in which I have some continuing interest, so if folks have thoughts, opinions, or corrections, I would love to hear them.

Well, all of that is fine and dandy Danny and Liz, thanks as always for replying!

All I know is I'm going to start experimenting with the chopsticks-sticking-in-the-rice at every Japanese place I eat at, start with Godzilla Sushi before sword class Friday.

I'll know if I upset some Japanese waitress, I'll see her eyes and expressions. And if anyone says anything I'll simply casually aim my chopsticks at them while asking why they are upset.

Consider it religious experimentation. I'm qualified, I'm a minister.

Stay tuned.

Maybe I'll even arrange some flowers in a way that makes them look like a threatening sword. Dousing my rice with soy sauce? It's all good.

Rev. Greg

Wow. Its not religious, but rather a "group memory of an identical action from a religious ceremony"?

I have a degree in Anthropology and many of my former colleagues were masters of this kind of semantic redefinition, but this has to be one of the crown jewels.

Take note, however, because this is a very Japanese kind of thing, a very Japanese way of thinking and speaking. You take any idea, situation or act and redefine it so that no possible negativity or culpability or even responsibility is admitted.

See what I mean? I even mentioned this earlier on in the comments section. "No matter what, we cant be wrong!"

I remember asking a Japanese person once about trophies in Japan. I said "Why are Japanese trophies adorned with crosses, eagles and crowns?"
He said "Well, its not the Christian cross, the American Eagle or a European crown. Those are all Japanese symbols."

Are you laughing? You should be. Man I bring up phlegm laughing at that one. Whatthefuckever! I think there was even a Japanese person there in the room who laughed when the guy said that. It approaches the ridiculous here quite often. You need a life preserver to keep above the BS.

Like I said, the chopstick thing is part of a religious ceremony for the dead. Is it actually Buddhist? No. Buddha gave specific instructions that he was to be buried, without ceremony, without even a headstone, and certainly not cremated. Therefore, the chopstick ritual is NOT actually Buddhist and we know its not Christian, they dont use chopsticks in India, so lets just say it is "a Japanese religious custom of native, possibly Ainu (Oh God, no!!) origin concerning death."

Shinto does indeed place importance on "purity" and that is, IMO, one of the worst aspects of it. Think about the effect this has on a person who grows up believing this crap about purity and holiness being synonymous. Don't see the problem?

Go find out what happens to kids who are discovered to have an ethnically mixed family. I believe the term schoolteachers used was "dirty blood."

FYI - Shinto doesn't really deal with death at all. What Danny refers to is a ritual that is often carried out in a funeral hall or private home or Buddhist temple.

In Shinto, there is a very strong value on 'kirei', the concept of cleanliness and ritual purity, which pervades Japanese culture (think about all the fluourescent lights, tissue consumption and high value on new goods in this country). As a result, dealing in dead bodies, which are 'kitanai', or dirty, is not part of Shinto rites.

The taboos on passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks, sticking chopsticks upright in a rice bowl are not the result of a religious restriction, but rather a collective memory (understanding?) that these actions resemble funerary rituals too closely, and are thus too sad, too laden with grim associations, to do casually.

Go see http://tanutech.com/japan/jfunerals.html

Bereaved people in any culture make associations with certain parts of funerary rituals, right? Me, I associate Nearer My God to Thee, Mozart's Requiem, and lilies with western funerals. My Scots Irish grandmother recoiled from irises because this flower was often part of the funeral decor in her hometown, Paisley.

"Shinto Death Ritual", now THERE is something I'd like to learn. Can you learn that and teach me Danny?

I use San San Kudo (sake ceremony) for services, mostly weddings. I'm sure I can find a good use for the death ritual.

I know you don't hate the Japanese Danny, but I value your frustrations and perceptions. Thanks always for sharing.

Rev. Greg

I wanted to add that the Christian cross has become another victim in Japan. It is now worn by women here as a form of "fashion" and has quickly become de rigeur for any woman who wants to be sexy and chic. Yes, it has become a sex symbol. The Muslim world is burning and rioting over one cartoon. Just imagine, if all the Christians in the world reacted the same way when then somebody lets them know about the endless perversions and desecrations that happen in Japan on a daily basis.

They have started using variations of "Oh my God" whenever they can now. Such as:
My Lord! (shoe store, i think)
Oh My Dog! (little plastic dogs you collect)
Oh My Mask! (they have been using that to sell the Mask 2 DVD just released here..

If you were a Christian, I promise you, it wouldnt make you laugh.

I make it a point to ask any Japanese I meet wearing the cross if they are Christians. (To date, NONE (of dozens) of them have said yes) Several people have suggested that I shouldnt ask, that it doesnt mean anything, etc... blah blah blah.

I tell you what, though, Rev Greg, If I were to take my chopsticks and stick them in my rice vertically,(part of the shinto death ritual) every Japanese person around would have a friggin stroke.

Why? Because THAT means something. THAT would be wrong.

They just have no clue whatsoever that the world outside of Japan actually exists in 3-dimensional reality. It's all just TV to them.

I want you and everyone else here to know that I do not hate the Japanese people, but I am a very sensitive person and many things bother me about this country. Talking about it here helps me to deal with it.

I went to a Christian church in Nagareyama near Noda for a few years. The inside of it was also minimalistic, and reminded me of the country Baptist church I attended in Canada in my youth. Hard, straight-backed wooden pews... Just like the Japanese church I went to in Vancouver before moving to Japan. Also similiar was the strength of the one man serving as pastor/minister - such a central authority figure that it was basically a cult of personality. As many Japanese institutions (especially Japanese religions) are...

Yet another reason why it was high time I got out. :)

S

A "love hotel"... you mean for people who love staying in hotels??

Welcome back!

note - Lyssa has been adventuring in Japan! Look for her stories on http://recklesscraft.blogspot.com/

Rev. Greg

It is funny that any building in Tokyo that looks "churchy" is almost certainly not...it is a love hotel, a wedding venue, or a funky bar. The actual christian churches are severe and minimalist in their exterior decoration (I haven't seen the insides) to it clear that they are not the same thing.