Dr. Richard Boeke, Rev. Yopie Boeke and Mr. Yuji Inokuma

In Japan, the home of the poet Basho is only a one hour drive to each of two Shinto Shrines: Ise, the Shrine of the Sun Goddess, and Tsubaki, the shrine of the Earth God. In his book, Kami No Michi, "The Way of the Kami," the 96th Chief Priest of Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Yukitaka Yamamoto, expresses the poetry of his life. Like Basho, Chief Priest Yukitaka Yamamoto adds wings to his subject. This autobiography is a spiritual journey through the nightmare of the Japanese defeat in New Guinea, through years of the spiritual exercise of Misogi, Japanese waterfall purification. In the midst of his Misogi, a voice comes. Six people ask to join in experiencing Misogi. The young Yamamoto

realizes that it would not be fitting just to ask them to join him under the waterfall. He drew on old traditions to teach exercises of spiritual preparation. These became the basis of the Misogi Association, which has brought waterfall purification to tens of thousands.

His father, Yukiteru Yamamoto, had witnessed against Japanese Militarism. Like many Japanese, he opposed fanatic forces which murdered a former Prime Minister and the Lord Privy Seal. For a time he was in prison. If he had not been a senior Shinto Priest, he might have been killed for his opposition. In the war, he lost his elder sons, leaving the succession to Yukitaka and Yukinune, the youngest son (who taught music Lin High School before becoming a priest at Tsubaki).

The spiritual vision of Yukitaka Yamamoto saw the kamis of Tsubaki, the Earth God, Sarutahiko and his consort, Amenouzume, as spirits of the whole earth. He invited westerners to come experience Misogi at Tsubaki Shrine. To build understanding, he established a branch shrine of Tsubaki in Stockton, California, and sent his son, the Rev. Jun Yamamoto, to open this Shrine in the United States. In appreciation of his work in interfaith understanding. Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Theology in 1989.

Tsubaki Shrine continues the partnership with Starr King by hosting students from Starr King at Tsubaki, and by sponsoring a class on Shinto at Starr King taught by Dr. Delmer Brown, editor of Volume One of the Cambridge History of Japan. "Yukitaka Yamamoto, the Martin Luther of Shinto" is the title of a videotape by Dr. George Williams of California State University at Chico. However, while Luther translated the Bible into the National Language of Germany, Dr. Yamamoto's Reformation is transforming Shinto from a National Religion into a Universal Religion.

I have been privileged to participate in bringing Misogi to America. We have setup Purification Rituals at Gypsy Falls and Lake Tahoe. In June, 1993, 1 participated in Misogi at the Mountain. The Mountain is a Unitarian Universarist Retreat consisting of eighty acres on Little Scaly Mountain at Highlands, North Carolina. We spent three days in study and spiritual preparation. Then, with the help of Mr. Yuji Inokuma and the leadership of Shinto Priests Hitoshi Iwasaki and Tetsuji Ochiai, we participated in Misogi at High Falls. With the help of The Mountain staff, we hope to have more Misogis at the Mountain. Shinto is coming, to America!

Since high school, I have been fascinated by Japan. It is the closest thing we have to visiting an advanced culture on another planet. As I immerse myself in Japan, I am aware of two things that seem opposite, yet both are true:

1) Surveys of Japan show values are similar to American values. Japanese have a similar vision of "The Good Life." We note other similarities: the "feel" of Shinto is like Thoreau's daily "baptism" at Walden Pond, or John Muir experiencing, "Purification" under Yosemite Falls. Also, Native American Ritual has many similarities to Shinto Ritual.

2) In Japan, the values are put together in a different way. Unitarian Universalist values focus on the Planet, and the individual person. Dr. Yamamoto once wrote: "Shinto is Unitarian Universalism." The "Reverence for Nature" is similar. But while our mental focus pushes for ONE TRUTH, in Japan, millions are both Shinto and Buddhist: Shinto for weddings Buddhist for Funerals.

While Americans tend to celebrate "family values" mixed with "individualism," Japanese values cluster around a larger context that we might translate "Clan" and "Place." To the Japanese, Japan itself is a holy place. And Kamis are in trees, waterfalls, mountains. A hundred thousand places have a holy spirit (Kami). And persons have their identity as part of a village, or a company, in which mutual loyalty is expected and given. For example, workers at Mazda Motors all voted to take a 25% cut in pay rather than accept the dismissal of 25% of their co- workers (In contrast, the workers at the Berkeley Coop de facto preferred to see it go out of business rather than take a cut in pay. In America labor and management are often adversaries rather than partners.) This cluster of Japanese values is part of what Hans Kung calls "the Third River of Human Culture:" The "Spirit Way" or Shin/Tao of China, Japan, and Korea.

In August, 1993, Dr. Yamamoto became vice president of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF). I take this occasion to honor the memory of Soichi Kato, who served as vice president of the U.S. Chapter of the IARF from 1969 to 1972. Soichi Kato invited Chief Priest Yamamoto to visit the 1969 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. Soichi Kato and Dr. Shinichiro lmaoka, principal of the Tokyo School Seisoku Gakurin, have been two Shimenawas, "Sacred Ropes," linking Shinto and the religions of the world. Yukitaka Yamamoto follows their path in seeking to bind Shinto with the larger World.

The year 1993 was a landmark year in interfaith dialogue. This year marked the 100th anniversary of the Chicago World Parliament of Religions. Major interfaith parliament and meetings occurred in Bangalore and Chicago. The Japan IARF invited guests to Ise to celebrate the reconstruction which takes place every 20 years. In January, 1993, at the University of San Francisco, Professor Michael von Bruck of Munich spoke to a gathering of Buddhists, Catholics and Protestants on a "Theology of World Religions." Dr. von Bruck envisioned that even though religious traditions will remain plural and particular, theology is now moving to be universal, to be a theology of the world. He quoted from Paul Tillich's last lectures on Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions: "The way leads into the depth ... There is a point at which any religion breaks through its own particularity and points to the divine present in all parts of life."

"Breaks through its own particularity." Discovering what Martin Buber would call the "ultimate Thou," Von Bruck finds the start of vital interfaith understanding in religious experience. In his own life, he learned the Bible from singing Bible texts in a boys choir in East Germany. Misogi is a quite different experience that links us both to nature and to one another. This experience can be witnessed in the award winning film, Misogi, and through the beautiful new videotape entitled, "Tsubaki through the Seasons-" This video beautifully shows how Shinto integrates life into the rhythm of the seasons.

Shinto gives us a different approach to "Creation Theology." For individualistic Americans, Shinto is a good contextual way of looking at religious practice as the celebrations of the life of a community. Not Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" but instead looking at the riddle, "How does my belief affect my children and my community?" Whether we have children or not, each one of us is a resident theologian. As Albert Schweitzer said, "My life is my argument." If your life is your argument, what are you arguing for? What might you learn from Kamis and waterfall?