Before attempting to explain the concept of nature in Shinto, it is best to say a little about Shinto itself. Shinto is Japan's oldest and native tradition. It expresses the basic spirituality of the Japanese people and their reverence for nature and its awesome powers, their respect for their ancestors and their sense of dependence upon nature seen in the flow of the seasons and the cycles of agricultural activity. Traditional community life was centered around the local shrine ( jinja ) which means literally place of kami. Kami is often ( and not helpfully) translated as 'god' in English. However, kami in Japanese means any object, place, person or even creature who inspires in us a sense of wonder and awe -- a definition that can include trees, waterfalls, animals, the sun, moon, oceans or mountains. Through these particular manifestations of the divine, we perceive the divine in the universe. A shrine is therefore a place where kami are celebrated in festivals and w here the people symbolically make their offerings, report on their activites and seek the purification which will] free their enterprises from misfortune and distress, thus enabling them to fulfil their human potential. Shrines are places and not, like churches or temples, buildings. Shinto has no formal scriptures, but lives as it always has, in its rituals and symbols and in the various gyoji or ceremonial tasks as well as disciplines undertaken from one year's end to the next. You will not see people gong faithfully to a shrine once a week as people attend church in Christianity. You will see them marking their own special days by a shrine visit. New Year is the busiest of national days, when over eighty million people visit shrines. But at other times, the building of a new home, the opening of a business, the birth of a child, undertaking a trip overseas or a change of duties in the company, will evoke in people the need to seek the co-operation of the kami in what they do, You can see at a shrine, fleets of vans from a company being purl fied for road safety, or a priest purifying a piece of ground on which anything from a house to a hotel, railway to a runway, will stand. Many companies have their own kamidana, a small altar inside the company premises in which the protective kami of the company are enshrined. Shinto pervades all of Japanese culture and life. It is rightly called Japan's Spiritual Roots. It lives within the lives, hearts, and spirits of the Japanese people.

Proceeding now to the topic of nature, the first point to be made is that the word 'nature' itself in Japanese, shizen, is of fairly recent origin. Like many other words, it was specially devised after the Meiji Restoration ( in 1868) when Japanese culture was being invaded by foreign concepts for which there were no Japanese equivalents. Many of the occasions on which the Western mind would have said 'nature' the Japanese would probably have said kami. In other words, the idea of an opposition or confrontation between man and nature was absent from Japanese thought. Somehow, man and kami, nature and man were perceived as a continuum, united extensions of' the evolutionary process that stands in a relationship of mutual dependence. This is not a primitive mythopoetic doctrine. It is quite in keeping with the deeper insights of process philosophy as expressed in Bergson, de Chardin or Whitefiead and consistent with the entire philosophy of' modern environmental science.

The Japanese mythology discusses the origins of the world and the Japanese archipelago in terms of spontaneous creation. The universe was a chaotic mess given form by the kami of growth and birth. The concept of musubi or creativity appears in the names of' Takama-musubi -no -kami ( kami of Birth) and Kami-musubi-no -kami (kami of Growth). Along with Ame-no-minakunishi the two are known as the Three Divine Creators. They are united in the power of the Great Spirit which accomplished creation. As the various elements of the universe came into being, it began to be defined in terms of pairs of opposites whose balance kept the universe in equilibrium but also able to develop.

The basic tendency of Shinto thought is thus monistic, using the concepts of creativity and unity to bring together the diversity of the divine into a unified concept of kami. In contrast, the Western antithesis of God and Man, or Man and Nature suggests a way of thinking that is dualistic and consequently open to the contrasts and conflicts already noted. The idea of a human nature in Shinto is profoundly influenced by these points. Shinto speaks of man born, innocent, and essentially good. But there is suffering and unhappiness and evidence that people can be bad. This in the West is the basis of the contrast of sin and grace. Man is born sinful but needs continual correction and improvement and requires purification. This is the basis of the concept of purification. In Christianity, baptism is a symbolic once and for all washing away of original sin. In Shinto, purification (oharai ) is the regular removal of the impurities from people that prevent their true natures from shining through. Shinto thus enjoins man to follow the way of kannagara , the way of the kami which can restore to man the obscured his original goodness. The most dramatic form of oharai or purification which is performed at Tsubaki Grand Shrine is called misogi harai, purification achieved by standing under a pounding waterfall to purify the tama, or soul. This experience which is both invigorating as well as spiritually uplifting, unites the participant momentarily with the waterfall and its kami, and through that, with the creative life force of the universe which we call daishizen or Great Nature. This term includes the total organizing force of the universe, the laws of creation -- all the things we see and observe in nature, space and time. In Shinto, these are not seen as remote from in an, as the last link in the chain of evolution, but as close to man, since the awareness of evolution lies within. Thus the purification of man means the restoration of his greatness within Great Nature.

Shinto, however, should not be confused with simpler ideas of nature worship. Shizen, or nature, in the Western sense of nature' as in 'natural science' is not a Japanese concept. I suspect that the use of the term 'nature' in the West and shizen in Japanese carry different nuances. For example, the antithesis of 'natural' and I artificial' is not perceived in the same way. In the West, the tradition of machine breakers in the early industrial period in England represented a distaste for the mechanical which has, in the views of some scholars, impeded the development of' industrial robots in some cultures. The Japanese see them as 'natural' outgrowth,, of scientific development, and feel them even to be 'friends' ( except perhaps if they lead to loss of jobs!), in a way which has had profound effects upon Japanese industrial development. Shinto has been described as "Nature, kami and man,' which is correct, if by nature we mean ' kami + man .' Man is as much as the mountains. trees, rivers, a part of nature. The harmonious coexistence of these produces the balance in which man's true greatness and the universe's ultimate goals can be achieved.

The question is sometimes posed by critics of Shinto, "If Shinto is concerned about nature, why has Japan had problems with pollution?" This is a fair question, if by nature you mean only the natural environment. Shinto is concerned about the natural environment, which, in the last decade has been restored and nurtured to a degree that makes even extreme critics marvel. However, it should not be forgotten that there are some 120 million Japanese concentrated on usable land space about one quarter the size of California. What nation has not traded off some of its environment as the price of development? The resurgent power of Shinto is bringing people back to a better understanding of their origins and of man's need to seek harmony with all that is around him. It is more, however, than a coming to terms with nature. It is appealing to people to see their lives not merely in a society or community, nor yet even on a planet but within a vast array of cosmic forces that we call Great Nature, within which mankind can find harmony if he seeks it, true well-being if he pursues it, and that state of creative equilibrium that we call peace for those who earnestly desire it. To speak in Shinto of nature is to speak of harmony, well-being and peace, surely the ultimates for which all mankind is seeking. This is nature. This kannagara. This is the heart of Shinto.

People often ask why Japan was able after the disastrous defeat in 1945 to rise, like a phoenix from the ashes and build a new nation and a new economy that has been by modern standards quite successful. Of course, many political and economic factors assisted, not least of all the attitude of the United States. But other countries in the world have been assisted and had the benefit of American or European aid, both economic and technical and yet have found difficulty in accommodating their traditional ways of thinking to suit modern needs. Because of Shinto, Japan has not had to face the same difficulty.

Rebuilding and renewal are a basic part of our culture. During the Edo age, when the country was closed from 1600 to the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry, the city of Edo was destroyed by earthquakes and fire on at least five occasions -- each one requiring extensive rebuilding. Earthquakes have forced us to take the view that nothing can be really permanent and that destruction is an opportunity for renewal and renovation. This may seem too simplistic but if you don't have a pragmatic and an optimistic outlook, how can you hope to 'live again' so to speak? The centuries of Japanese life with Shinto rituals at the heart of the community have engendered a way of thinking that could help us to face a catastrophe with determination and believe our efforts to rebuild would meet with success. As a Shinto priest, that is my own way of explaining some of the events after 1945 in Japan. Now perhaps I should say a little more about what Shinto is and why it encourages these attitudes.

Shinto, the way of the kami ( or divine beings), existed in Japan without a name until Buddhism appeared and the ancient way as it was also known, the way of the kami came to be so called to distinguish it from the way of the Buddha. It grew around sacred places ( which we call shrines) and its rituals were related to agriculture. The kami at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine was the kami who taught the people rice cultivation. Nature of course renews herself and nature in Japan has been like a mother to the people, blessing them abundantly with food and water. The kami protected the crops and the people celebrated them in festivals. The stages in life were marked by shrine events and so the different branches of Shinto began to take shape. Behind them all was the common idea of Daishizen, Great Nature, the combined forces both physical and mystical that make up the world in which we I live in all its dimensions and complexity.

Daishizen can be explained in several ways. It refers as I said to the cosmic and physical context of our lives. It also can mean something that guides us from within as we are in harmony with it. Shinto has never been interested in formulating complicated codes of ethics. Rather like Shakespeare it says "To your own self be true. When human beings are in harmony with Great Nature, they need no ethics to guide them because they are prompted from within about how to live and how to behave. The gap here between Japanese thinking and Western thinking is perhaps wider than in any other matters. Motoori Norinaga, the l8th century scholar put the point that once people truly understand human nature, they will behave well and therefore had little need for rules to govern their lives. It may also be interesting to note that the death penalty was little used in Edo age Japan. But this topic takes us on to the second important theme, namely Shinto and Human Nature.

Shinto implies the view that human nature is essentially good, and that people are not bad by choice. In an interview, a Japanese prison official was reported as having said that the prisoners in his institution were no worse than people outside. The problem was that they were weaker. It was weakness and not malice that had brought them to commit a crime. What was required was rehabilitation and the reshaping of character. Consistent with the view that human nature is essentially good is the view that it is fluid. It is not fixed in any rigid sense. It is flexible and can therefore be 'straightened' if it has become 'crooked.'

One illustration that was used by a 19th century Shinto leader was that of a mirror. Human nature should shine like a mirror. But if it becomes covered with dust, it ceases to sparkle. Once the dust is removed. it begins to shine again. Dust can continue to collect and so it must be removed from time to time. At the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, we practice misogi, standing under the waterfall as an act that is both physical and spiritual, symbolic and actual in its meaning as purification.

The water symbolizes washing, like baptism in Christianity. But for us, it is not once only, but repeated. I have heard that the ancient Christian Coptic Church used to practice an annual baptism of the whole nation on New Year's Day. Shinto would be at home with that idea. As the waters wash us, our spirits are purified also. But there is more. The water of the fall is itself a kami, so we are merging with the divine to achieve purification. Thus misogi is not simply a waterfall purification rite. It is also a coming together of human and kami. In this way, our kami nature is restored and we can once again return to kannagara, the way of the kami.

Every religion has something distinctive and unique to offer to man in his search for truth, goodness and beauty. The ideal of purification, the ritual of misogi is the unmistakable heart of the Shinto tradition. Even in the age of materialism and violence, more and more Japanese are returning to their spiritual roots to re-enter the life of kannagara. They come in ever-increasing numbers to Tsubaki Grand Shrine to take part in misogi . It refreshes them and it challenges them.

Words fail. Misogi must be experienced. Shinto itself is something caught rather than taught.I hope I have helped you to understand a little of what Shinto and misogi are. Please come to Tsubaki Grand shrine and discover them yourself. Thank you.

Shinto differs from other world religions in one important respect. Most have founders. Shinto does not. It grew with the life of the people of ancient Japan. It is supremely a religion of life -- religion in its truest etymology -- something that binds society together. Shinto, in Japanese means 'way of the kami,' the way of the divine in Japanese life. Shinto is a way, the basis of a life-style, the most fundamental, although often unspoken influence on the Japanese way of understanding the world and of living in It, Shinto has no official scriptures or holy writings. It has no formalized system of doctrines. Yet its basic beliefs and presuppositions have survived through its rituals and ceremonies and in some of the most basic habits of daily life in Japan, such as washing the genkan in the morning and relaxing in the ufuro at night.

Shinto in its origins is closely related to Japan's traditional rice culture. Even Buddhism could not escape this influence. The earliest use made of Buddhist sutras in Japan was the readings of them to induce the rain necessary for the rice to grow! Shinto rituals were designed to keep the fields free from pestilences and other threats to the rice and the final harvesting was marked by a festival of' thanksgiving, to the kami for the protection of the crop and the people. Kansha, or thankfulness, is a basic Japanese emotion which comes from this way of thinking. People will, often say "This, has gone wrong or that -- but somehow I still feel thankful." "It expresses belief in the beneficence of nature of which our lives are a part.

In rural communities still, the shrine is at the center of life. The ujikosodai, a kind of local committee organizes the annual festivals and other events and ensures the continuity of the tradition. These festivals may be famous ones, like the Chichibu Yo Matsuri, attended by about a quarter of a million people which involves great planning, building of stages and grandstands for visitors and hundreds of extra police for traffic control. Or they may be small, local affairs. But whichever, they are never They express the community sense of thankfulness and celebrate the life of nature of which man's life is a part. They are full of vigour and music and drinking, dancing and fireworks. If the Japanese people have an unusual enthusiasm 'or life and a capacity for enjoying themselves, the origin has to he in the festival, the matsuri, the most natural formal expression of spontaneous religious feeling among the Japanese people.

Spirituality, however, is not only clebration. It is also discipline. At the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, we practice misogi, , which means purification by water under a free standing waterfall located within the shrine, near to the main buildings. This is performed either early in the morning, or late at night, or both. Unlike those religions were water is used to symbolize purification prior to initiation, misogi is practiced frequently nd thus symbolizes the continual role of purification in the lives of the people to restore them to their prime condition as children of the kami. The importance of a natural setting for misogi underlines again the closeness of its meaning to powers of growth, purification and renewal. Misogi help us to replicate this in our own experience.

These two activities are only examples of a whole cycle of annual events by which the year's life is structured. Other events include festivals for children, special festivals such as Setsubun, New Year, and others. An New Year, over eighty million Japanese visit shrines the length and breadth of the land.

I am sure you are saying "This is very interesting, but Japan is also an industrial nation as well as a rice culturing nation!" True, but there is no disjunction between the two. There is no major conflict between science and religion as there has been in the West. Shinto has not been forced to retreat in the face of science, or industry or technology. It never made claims it could not support. Our Tsubaki Shinto is based on an appeal to man' s highest common sense. It speaks to what people feel naturally, and in that way it helps to sustain them even in the more severe surroundings of concrete and steel.

People in cities support their local shrines as they do in the countryside. When they build a new house, a priest will perform jichinsai, a ceremony to pacify the ground where a kami might feel distressed at a fifty storey building going up without prior notice. Just as with the people, Japanese like careful negotiation and advance notice -- so too with the kami ! People have their own homes ceremonially 'purified' at important times. Companies also do the same. Before major works of civil engineering like railways or bridges are opened to the public, a priest will perform oharai. Even automobiles are purified for purposes of road safety! These are not to be seen as superstitions, but as a form of what Schleiermacher described as the basis of religion, a sense of dependence. The structure of the relation of human life to the divine might be called one of dependence. Shinto rituals accompany all the stages of life, from presenting a child to the tutelary shrine after birth, through marriage, the years of misfortune and the happy years to life's completion. Most people have a small kamidana ( literally, kami -shelf) in their homes. There, they can express their own gratitude in a personal way for themselves and their family. Dependence is thus shown.

Finally, Shinto has one distinctive virtue. It is tolerant. It can co-exist. It can see its highest thoughts, kannagara, the way of the kami, expressed differently in other traditions and can allow other traditions to understand themselves in terms of Shinto. It has lived with Buddhism in Japan, peacefully for centuries to the point where people can identify with both, without having to make a choice. This tolerance is based on the belief that the highest common sense for man is or should be self-evident to man. As one great Shinto thinker Motoori Norinaga ( 1730-1801) wrote and pointed out, "If man needs to be taught morals and behaviour, then he is less than an animal that needs to be trained." Purified to his best, man can rise to his highest. That is the spirit of Shinto.

BACK Webmaster .. © Tsubaki America 1988. Email Rev. Yukihiko Tsumura, Stockton.