Shinto, Self-Examination, and Religion as Tools for Political Control
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As a love machine lumbers through desolation rows --David Bowie, "Cygnet Committee" I was born in a strictly atheist household and, even though I attended a Christian secondary school, I spent most of the time asking difficult questions about why Mother Mary had to be a virgin and railing against what I felt to be the inherent conservatism of the Christian establishment and values. I was very much involved in the environmental movement at the time, and I had come to the conclusion that the Christian concept, set out in the first chapter of Genesis, of man (not even woman) being at the apex of a hierarchy of creation and indeed created to "control" the other animals, was largely responsible for the attitude that underlay all the environmental destruction that human beings were wreaking. I assumed, in my limited exposure and understanding, that all religions were basically similar to Christianity; thus, they were all condemned in my mind to, at best, a crutch for weak-minded people and, at worst, a mindset that was causing the destruction of the planet. I first came to Japan as a high-school exchange student, and during that year I came into contact with Shinto for the first time. However, perhaps due to the fact that even Japanese seemed a little embarrassed about it, a little wary and unable or at least reluctant to talk about it in detail, I came away with the idea that Shinto, like other religions throughout history, had been a convenient way of controlling the masses in Japan, whipping up nationalism and eventually giving the militaristic government a tool to drive the population into cruel, disastrous wars, the scars of which still fester. From these unlikely beginnings, I became a Shinto priest--the culmination of a journey fraught with self-examination. It's never easy to question your own strongly held beliefs, but neither is it comfortable, in the end, to live a lie. I believe that critical thinking and self-examination are essential to keep all of us honest to ourselves, no matter where our journey takes us, but for those on a religious path, they are particularly important because of the tendency for religion to be used by those with political power in order to control or at least influence the masses. When the human desire not only to believe but also to belong overrides individual powers of expression and self-reflection, that's when we find ourselves, like the "love machine" quoted above, simply listening to commands but not hearing anymore. From Atheism to Shinto Priest I first went to Asakawa Konpira, a small shrine on top of Mount Konpira, next to the more famous Mount Takao in western Tokyo, in 1994, hoping to meet with environmental activists who had managed to stop a development project that was going to flatten the mountain. That was no mean feat in Japan, where "Construction" and "Development" seem to have many more believers, or perhaps just more powerful believers, than "Natural Environment." One of the first people I met at Asakawa Konpira was the head priest (kannushi). He was quite an elderly man and had been a pilot in World War II. But he didn't seem at all like the type that would be lining up with little flags at Yasukuni Shrine every August; in fact, his whole body shook with long-standing anger when he talked about his friends who shouted "Tenno-Heika Banzai" (Long live the Emperor) and climbed into their planes to die for their country. It was at this point that the first of my ideas about Shinto--that it was simply a method of control and manipulation--began to change. Here was a man who was deeply and personally opposed to what had happened during the war, yet he had since chosen to become a Shinto priest. There must be more to Shinto than I had imagined. The original name of Asakawa Konpira was not jinja, or shrine, but daigongen, a term more associated with Buddhism. Indeed, the shrine managed to escape the Meiji-era laws separating the two religions, and to this day there is still a statue of a thousand-armed Kannon alongside the Shinto deities. Soldiers who were being sent away to war used to come there to pray that they would be able to return home alive, which, at the time went very much against the prevailing official line of dying for their country and reassembling as spirits at Yasukuni Shrine. It seemed that Asakawa Konpira had a bit of a history of dissent. Basically, most of the people who gathered at Asakawa Konpira for the ceremonies and the monthly picnic were involved in the movement to save Mount Konpira from the developers. Most were also involved in other environmental movements in the area, most notably the campaign to stop a tunnel being drilled through Mount Takao as part of a road project. I felt very much at home with these activists, who were of very diverse nationalities, ages, and occupations. I became a Konpira regular and got to know the people in this community very well. It was discussions with these activists, whose environmental movement had become joined with the shrine, that led to the second turning point in my ideas, not just about Shinto, but about environmentalism and my part in it. The key concept at Asakawa Konpira, which is written on the flags that line the path up to the shrine, is Jinen goji mirai eigo, which loosely translates as "Maintaining nature is the path to the future." The first two characters are usually read shizen (nature), but Asakawa Konpira has adopted the more ancient reading of jinen. In fact, the word shizen was introduced during the Meiji era. It was created, as were many other words at that time, to reflect Western concepts that were supposed to facilitate Japan's modernization. The Western meaning of "nature," as in "natural science" and "natural resource," includes a much stronger concept of something that human beings measure and control, even exploit, than the concept of jinen, which is more cosmic. Jinen expresses the whole universe, the way it exists, as it is, with humans as a mere part of this whole. We often talk about "protecting nature" (shizen hogo in Japanese) but jinen goji expresses an acknowledgment that human beings are the ones protected by nature, not the other way around; that, in the entirety of the universe, human beings are not the only form of life that is going to make or break nature, we are simply a part of this entirety. This sounds very obvious, but it was a revelation to me. I realized that all this time I thought I'd been saving the world when really the world was simply allowing me to live in it. Shinto and Self-Examination This particular journey, from convinced atheist to born-again Shintoist, obviously involved a lot of questioning, re-considering, and eventually discarding of closely held beliefs (that is, beliefs that there is no god and that all religions are basically harmful)--in other words, self-examination. Perhaps arriving at religious beliefs through a process of self-examination makes one less likely to surrender one's critical powers to the judgments of religious (or political) leaders than if one had always been religious. In any case, becoming a Shinto priest did not, for me, entail blanket acceptance of the views of all my teachers. There are still things that I am uncomfortable about regarding policies of some Shinto institutions. There are also many things regarding which I am still trying to work out where I stand, including the Shinto attitude toward women. But for me, Shinto has been conducive to self-examination rather than obstructive. In order to reflect on self, first, one needs a space. In the busy life of an activist, this was often hard to find. Going from one meeting to the next, working out strategies, organizing conferences, as well as the day-to-day grind of earning a living often meant that I didn't even have time to spend in the mountains and forests I was trying to save! I always knew that time was something that we don't just have, but something that we must make. Shinto ceremonies ensure that this time, away from everyday life, is made regularly. Separating self from the rush and bustle of everyday life to create a space where one can just be is an essential part of any meditation or self-examination and Shinto of course provides this space in both profound and simple ways. My Shinto training at the head shrine in Kagawa Prefecture is perhaps an example of a more profound separated space. It is held every spring over a five-day period, during which the thirty or so participants, priests from Konpira shrines all over Japan, eat, sleep, bathe, and study together. Morning and evening ceremonies are held every day and various special ceremonies are also practiced. By the first or second day, I always find that the things I would usually spend my time thinking about in my "normal life" all gradually melt away until what is left is my body, as the training is in many ways quite physical, and the main players in the ceremonies that we are conducting--the gods. How I communicate with them is really about how I communicate with a much deeper part of myself and this for me is the opening to self-examination. On a more simple level, creating a space in which to contemplate can be as easy as remembering it's not me who's protecting nature--if I let it, nature can give me the energy I need. Shinto has made me more conscious of just taking time out to watch the fireflies or listen to the river or feel the breeze. After a separated space, the second thing that is not necessarily essential, but that can be conducive to self-examination, is a format, a shape, an expression, a guide as to what to do in that space. The Shinto ceremony expresses some very basic concepts. To me, it is first and foremost about gratitude, expressing thanks to the gods, to nature, and to one's community for life, happiness, and support. Offerings of food and sake are made to the gods to express thanks and to ask for protection. It is usually celebrated as a community and the priest must lead the community in its expression, but for me, this ceremony gives me concrete pointers in order to think about myself in relation to nature as well as myself in relation to my community. Thinking about these relationships is, to me, the bricks and mortar of self-examination--a kind of environmental spiritualism. Environmental Spiritualism and Self-Examination as a Counter to State Shinto There is another relationship that is also a vital part of self-examination, especially in the context of religion, and that is the relationship between self and state. As mentioned previously, religion is easily used by political leaders as a tool to control large populations, and Shinto is no exception. Many of the Shinto practices and philosophies described above can, with a slight change in nuance, be used for this purpose. For example, both training and ceremonies could be used for indoctrination instead of providing a space and assistance for individuals to develop their own relationships with the gods (nature) and their communities. It is sometimes a thin line indeed between "assistance" or "facilitation" and "indoctrination." In order to prevent the use of Shinto to promote Japanese nationalism and xenophobia, I also feel that having non-Japanese priests and that the work of international Shinto scholars and international participation in Shinto are very important, so that we might show the world not only that Shinto is a uniquely Japanese religion, but also that it has universal principles that all human beings can appreciate. Politically, Japan is in very interesting times. With recent changes to the Basic Education Law incorporating "patriotism" into the school curriculum, for example, it is important to be aware of the ways in which something like Shinto could once again be abused. If, on an individual level, we can use the philosophies of Shinto to examine our own selves, our relationships with our communities and with nature, and not allow this self-examination to be taken over by central state authorities, I believe Shinto can be a positive force. Let us remain vigilant. Caitlin Stronell moved to Japan from Australia in 1990 and received her master's degree in law from Keio University in 1997. She has worked for the labor movement and NGOs in Japan in a wide variety of fields, including environmental issues and HIV/AIDS. She started training to become a Shinto priest at the Asakawa Konpira shrine in western Tokyo in 2000 and received official qualification from the head Konpira shrine in 2002. This article was originally published in the April-June 2007 issue of Dharma World. |
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