setrrush.blogg.se - Shinto kami

Marriages and births which are only celebrated in Shinto and are practices of another founding principle: family.

There is no real religious aspect to this celebration, which is more a social rite rather than a mystical one. It is traditional to block a day in order to be present very early and to be able to settle, for then picnicking and drinking under the trees.

Love of nature: another great principle that we can find for example in Spring during hanami.

We can encounter other gestures of this sort, for example removing shoes before entering in a house or a temple, or taking a shower before bathing. This gesture acts one of the main Shinto principles: cleanliness.

Cleaning hands and mouth: (手水役 temizuya), when we enter a shrine or when we want to start praying.

The goal is to appeal luck for the coming year and to predict if the year will be fruitful or less lucky.

Dosojin matsuri: fire festival held on January 15th, following the new year where decorations used on December 31st are burned in bonfires.

Among festivals, rituals and gestures, we can think of:

Shintoism does not have weekly rites such as Sundays mass for Christians, but rather annual celebrations and punctual rites done on demand. The kamidana is also dedicated to worshipping a home god. We can easily make the difference between a Shinto altar and a Buddhist one as the first is higher and ornamented with a paper garland called gohei, while the latter possesses doors.

This altar is called 神棚 kamidana and is usually oriented towards the East or the South, where it will receive more light. Buddhism takes care of funerals in Shintoism, funerary ceremonies are very simple: The deceased person becomes an ancestor and an altar is dedicated to him in the family house, where members offer prayers and offerings. Shinto is a positive religion celebrating life and family, therefore weddings happen during a Shinto ceremony. And yet its history was turbulent: the American army, during WWII, tried to destroy Shinto as this cult explained, according to them, the will of Japanese people to die for their country. More than a century later, this "religion" still reigns in the country, sitting next to Buddhism, the two of them mutually influencing each other. This term appeared during the 19th century to name other religions, period when Shinto became the State cult. It is only after the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, and the tumultuous history of these two cults, that Japan decided to put an end to the word religion: 宗教 shukyo. If an unfortunate event happens or if a man gets sick, especially in a period where nor science nor medicine existed, it was considered caused by a malicious spirit, therefore we had to ask for its pardon and purify the places. Indeed, Shintoism assumes that Humans and Earth are neutral. These spirits and entities are called kami, a term that is simplified in its translation by "gods" although the concept is more complicated. The belief that all Earth elements have a spirit, that ancestors should be respected (by an effigy) and worshiping higher entities allowed Shintoism to last throughout ages. Just like many other animist cults, it is complicated to state when it started. From a specifically Japanese way of life to a religion They can be noticed in deeply anchored practices in daily life to the point that they can become nearly invisible. We can discover Shinto across rituals which punctuate the Japanese society, celebrations for specific ages or seasons of the year. Shintoism is often cited as a religion, and yet, before Japan welcomed Buddhism, locals did not talk about it as a proper religion, but rather as what might be called a philosophy of life.