Pol Pots parents were Buddhist.
Shinto is Buddhism
You are a f`ing dope.
go google it yourself
and GFY.
The Synchronization of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan
posted August 18, 2006 - 8:37pm
The Synchronization of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan
As in many previous countries which Buddhism was introduced to, Buddhism encountered an indigenous religion in Japan. In order to have an enduring place in Japanese life, Buddhism had to do what it had done in such countries as India, China, and Sri Lanka: synchronize with the indigenous religion. The following hopes to explain why the synchronization of Shinto and Buddhism was important, and why Buddhism could not have existed in Japan if not for this initial acceptance of Shinto. It also explains how these two opposing religions managed to fit together, and what both religions mean to the Japanese today. The synchronization of Shinto and Buddhism is extremely important in the consideration of Buddhism as a missionary religion, and in the consideration of Buddhism as a Japanese religion. If one does not look at this merging of religions, the effects of them on each other becomes lost, and the development of Buddhism across countries, waters, and numerous cultures cannot be fully understood.
Without synchronization, existing societies would have faced many difficulties in accepting Buddhism into their culture. Buddhism also would not have had such a lasting presence in the world. However, both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism found ways in which to adapt to the cultures they traveled to, and integrated with the traditional customs of countries newly introduced to Buddhism. This is seen purely in the initial Chinese rejection of Buddhism for being a religion of the outside. Until Buddhism agreed to be understood within a Daoist context and partially synchronized with this indigenous religion, China would not allow it to exist within its borders. Once Buddhism got in through the gates of Daoism, it was able to prosper and eventually undergo reformations so that a purer form of Buddhism could be established outside of Daoism. This happened in any number of Buddhist countries when Buddhism first was introduced; if synchronization had not already happened through myths of Siddhartha himself making a missionary appearance, it occurred years to decades afterward.
Before Prince Shotoku made Buddhism the national religion of Japan, many opposed the integration of Buddhism into Japan. Once this forced integration occurred, Japan synchronized Buddhism with its native religion Shinto, resulting in a unique sect of Buddhism existing only on the East Asian Island. This synchronization had a profound impact on Japan, and although the Shinto/Buddhist religion underwent dramatic changes over the years, it still exists fully today. However, if not for Buddhism’s inherent ability to synchronize with existing beliefs, it could never have existed in Japan. “Buddhism was accepted for its willingness to merge with Shinto” (Reader 38).
Shinto was a religion based on the natural beauty of Japan, and the Japanese’s attempt at understanding the origins and the origins of their island. It stated that everything of power had a god, or kami, almost like a living aura. They prayed to these kami, and found new kami within everything introduced to them, including leaders and eventually Buddhism.
“In the Shinto view, the natural state of the cosmos is one of harmony in which divine, natural, and human elements are all intimately related. Moreover, human nature is seen as inherently good, and evil is thought to stem from the individual's contact with external forces or agents that pollute our pure nature and cause us to act in ways disruptive of the primordial harmony” (Watt).
The kami play an extremely important role in Shinto, as they exist within anything powerful. This could include a rock, a tree, or a tribal leader. The kami is a spirit, the essence of a thing, and is a pure being.
The importance of purification, the innate powers of renewal within the world, and the disruptive influences of unnatural and premature death and its resultant pollutions are themes…vigorously extant in the contemporary age…Perhaps overriding all these is the view of this world and life as paramount and alive, with the inherent vitality of the kami as a spiritual force that permeates the world, giving life to it and upholding and protecting those that live in it” (Reader 25).
Shinto also states that the Japanese all descended from one royal family of gods, specifically from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. This “…legend of divine descent implies that both Japan and its people are unique, existing in a relationship with an ethnic array of spiritual beings special and relevant to their situation and existence.” This mentality carries into Buddhism, where nationalism has developed along with an ethnocentric point of view (Reader 27) which originally threatened Buddhism’s existence in Japan. Had the Buddhist-Shinto integration not occurred, the Japanese nationalism would have, like the Chinese, not allowed for Buddhism to exist on the islands. It was through Buddhism’s willingness to merge with indigenous religions that it was able to win over the Japanese as it had won over the Chinese and made itself a part of indigenous culture, thus overcoming the inherent ethnocentricity of the Japanese.
Buddhism has a long tradition of synchronization, whether between itself and Hinduism in India, between itself and Bon in Tibet, itself and Daoism in China, and an innumerable list of others. The reason Buddhism was accepted in Japan was because of its willingness to accept certain Shinto practices and traditions, in the same way that Shinto was willing to accept Buddhist beliefs and practices.
This was eventually accomplished by identifying the Shinto kami as manifestations of various Buddhas and bodhisattvas that had grown up within Mahayana Buddhism. By this conception, the Buddhists were able to introduce many of their own ideas into Shinto, and, in the end, argue that Shinto and Buddhism were complementary versions of the same fundamental truth -- a view that gained wide acceptance in Japan (Watt).
Buddhism was particularly attractive to the Japanese because it offered them more figures of worship “who could be assimilated alongside the kami.” Their powers, for healing, compassion, and mercy, make them popular idols of worship through the present time, and are the main reasons Buddhism survived. (Reader 31-32)
Within time, however, Buddhism attempted to completely consume Shinto and take over as the main religion, blacking out Shinto in the same way Hinduism blacked out Buddhism. However, “…neither Shinto's relatively primitive original character nor the introduction of more sophisticated religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, caused the religion to wane in importance” (Watt). The native religion managed to find ways to remain an integral part of Japanese culture, mainly because the Japanese had such a nationalistic attitude that they refused to allow their culture to be wiped out, even if Shinto was an unwritten, up-in-the-air religion. In order to keep the kami from being completely devoured by Buddhism, “Shinto priests assimilated for the kami the role of defending the Buddhist images and temples standing on Japanese soil” (Reader 39).
Shinto, however, did not remain the prominent religion in early Japanese history. State Shinto was formed and “…placed in the status of a pure state religion which preserved the character of an ethnic religion and, at the same time, was subordinate to Buddhism” (Munakami 6). As long as Shinto still had an important place in Japan and Japanese life and culture, the Japanese willingly accepted Buddhism as a dominant religion. They allowed the Buddha to be the highest of all kami, even above their creator Amidamaya, but Shinto still had to have an active role in religion. Had Buddhism not allowed for this, Shinto would have completely replaced Buddhism, reinstating itself as the national religion – which it did at times – thereby showing Buddhism its inherent importance to the Japanese.
Buddhism and Shinto had a yin yang relationship from the start, which is one of the main reasons why they fit so well together. One would think the contrary would occur, but in such a religion as Shinto, answers had been left out, just as in Buddhism certain questions were never even addressed by the Buddha.
While Buddhism focused on death and emptying oneself of the self, emptiness, and attaining a higher state of existence, “the Shinto world view is fundamentally bright and optimistic, as befits a religion in which the main deity is a sun goddess. While it is not unaware of the darker aspects of human existence, Shinto's chief raison d'etre is the celebration and enrichment of life” (Watt). “…Buddhism is the religion for death in the same way that Shinto is the religion for life” (Picken 73), two opposites which, when put together, make a complete religion that could focus on all aspects of reality and answer many more questions than just one or the other alone.
Shinto was able to answer the question of creation with its myth about Izanagi and his wife/sister Izanami, who the gods gave the task of completing the creation they had already nearly finished. Izanagi and Izanami created the islands of Japan, the people of Japan, and bore the goddesses of Sun, Moon, and Seas.
Buddhism answered the question of death in preaching about samsara, the cycles of death and rebirth, and the escape of samsara through Enlightenment, or Nirvana. To the Japanese, Shinto was the beginning, Buddhism the end, all fitting neatly together to form the answers they needed.
Shinto seeks to celebrate and enjoy life, while the Buddhist seeks to awaken and see life as it is. While Buddhism is not an especially optimistic religion, this characteristic would unquestionably mesh with the basic fundamentals of Shinto.
Buddhism regarded the world as transient and saw it as a source of suffering for those who remained attached to it, a view that contrasts sharply with Shinto's ready acceptance of the world. On the other hand, however, there was an optimism in Mahayana Buddhism that meshed well with Shinto -- an optimism about human nature, for it was committed to the belief that all human beings had the potential to attain the wisdom that brings an end to suffering, and an ultimate optimism about the world itself, since it taught that once human attachments are discarded, the world takes on a new and positive significance (Watt).
Although the Japanese took Shinto very seriously, they were willing to see the other side of Shinto (Buddhism), so long as the two could coexist without fazing each other out. Where Japanese Buddhism often attempted in its earlier days to exist without Shinto, it could not shed itself of the indigenous influence. Shinto used Buddhism for its own means, and vice versa, so that the two were unable to escape one another in their early development. Shinto accepted Buddha as kami, and Buddhism accepted Shinto rituals and myths. Even when the two became untwined by later government interventions, they both retained their place in society just as they had a place within the greater Shinto-Buddhism religion.
Despite all the radical oppressions and changes Shinto-Buddhism underwent over the history of Japan, today these two religions again exist together in relative harmony. Although “…most Japanese people would adamantly say that they are not religious at all, that the rituals they practice are simply part of ‘being Japanese’” (Sargent), many practice Shinto-Buddhism reverently and most take these rituals very seriously. Shinto and Buddhism are a yin and yang of Japanese religion, filling in where the other leaves off. Where “Buddhism eventually became concerned almost solely with death, funerals and afterlife…Shinto continues to be woven into the daily life of the Japanese people, celebrating such events as birth, renewal and purification” (Sargent).
Many strictly Buddhist practices have become Shinto practices as well, and they merged successfully into an entirely new thing. The concept of merit is an important part of Mahayana Buddhism, and, called riyaku in Japanese, merit was applied to the kami as well. The Japanese began to use mantras as chants “to eradicate evils and purify all things” (Reader 35), Buddhist tradition thus becoming a means to a Shinto goal. The mandala, a painting derived from Buddhist origins, “…was used in the Shinto-Buddhist cults to assist the mind in worship…an excellent example of how Shinto and Buddhism accommodated each other’s legends, mythology, and symbolism as a part of the Japanese transformation of Buddhism” (Picken 71). Many celebrations include both Buddhist and Shinto elements, such as the New Year, when “…many Japanese make the year's first visit to a Shinto shrine, and often to a Buddhist temple as well, to seek purification from the defilements of the past year and good fortune for the coming year” (McFarland). Even the idea of purification from defilements comes from a Shinto perspective, and yet the Japanese incorporated Buddhism into this ritual, perhaps thinking of karma and their desire to escape bad karma as well as “defilements”.
Buddhism tended to have more pessimistic views about reality in its doctrines about enlightenment and karma. Although according to Mahayana tradition, anyone could achieve Nirvana, Buddhism still portrayed enlightenment as difficult to achieve, and the cycle of karma, which one could only exit by attaining enlightenment, had a certain pessimistic view. Such ideas as these “…seem hardly congenial to the social psychology of the Japanese people, and it is not surprising that the emphases which emerged in Japanese Buddhism tended more and more to simplify the process leading to enlightenment and to make enlightenment available to all” (Picken 73). Thus the optimism of Shinto allowed for a softer Buddhism to emerge in Japan, one in which enlightenment was a noble and perfectly attainable goal, giving the layperson hope and contentment.
Shinto plays a vital role in Japanese Buddhism in history through the present day, so vital that one could say Buddhism plays a role in Shinto. The synchronization of these two religions was vital for the existence of both on the same island, the indigenous presence of Shinto blocking the possibility of full integration. Had Buddhism not been so willing to adapt to Shinto and allow its presence to play a part in traditional Mahayana practices, Buddhism would have been rejected from Japan like other missionary religions. However, Buddhism allowed for Shinto integration, and while Shinto retained its strength and purpose, the new religion of Shinto-Buddhism was formed and lives to the present day. For “even in the midst of the most stringent adherence to Buddhist monastic traditions the Shinto-Buddhism fusion remains strong” (Reader 39).
Thus one can see the significance of the synchronization of Shinto and Buddhism in the lives of the Japanese and in the development of both religions on this small archipelago. Both religions played important roles in each others development, and while they exist in harmony today, they continue to have their places in the yin yang religious life that exists in Japan.
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Works Cited
1. Sargent, Danny. “Religion and Ritual in Japan: The Dance of Shinto and Buddhism.”
1990-1993.
2. Watt, Paul. “Shinto & Buddhism: Wellsprings of Japanese Spirituality”. Asia
Society’s Focus on Asian Studies, Vol. II, NO. I. (1982): pp. 21-23.
3. Reat, Noble Ross. Buddhism, A History. Fremont California: Jain Publishing
Company, 1994.
4. Reader, Ian. Religion in Contemporary Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1991
5. Shigeyoshi Munakami, translated by H. Byron Earhart. Japanese Religion in the
Modern Century. Tokyo: Univerity of Tokyo Press, 1968
6. Picken, Stuart D. B. Shinto: Japan’s Spiritual Roots |
