Shinto A Celebration of Life

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 First published by O-Books, 2011
O-Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station
Approach,
Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
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Text copyright: Aidan Rankin 2010

ISBN: 978 1 84694 438 3

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews,
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the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Design: Tom Davies

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Printed in the USA by Offset Paperback Mfrs, Inc
 Tomoe: The Sacred Swirl
The Tomoe, often referred to as Mistu-Tomoe, is one of the most visible
symbols of Shinto today. Tomoe (pronounced ‘Toh-moay’) can be
translated as ‘comma’, with Mitsu-Tomoe as ‘three commas’ or ‘triple
comma’. The word also has the connotation of ‘swirl’ or circular motion,
sometimes rendered as eddy or whirlpool.
Each comma shape represents an aspect of the cosmic life force and the
circle uniting them represents the interaction and interdependence of the
processes that give rise to life. In Shinto, the concept of life includes both
the material and spiritual dimensions, between which there are no fixed
boundaries.
The three commas depict the ‘visible’ manifestations of the soul: its
creative, calm and turbulent aspects. The spaces between the commas
signify that which is hidden, mysterious and abstract in the universe. They
mark the meeting point: the place where the different aspects of the soul (or
the universe) interact and overlap. The circle represents perpetual motion,
the constant cycles of life, death and renewal that govern all aspects of the
universe, including divine forces.
Therefore it follows that the Mitsu-Tomoe also represents the High Plain
of Heaven, the Earth and the Underworld. The spaces between them denote
contact and overlap between these three levels of existence. The circle the
process of interaction, and the center is the eternal source of creativity and
wisdom, the point of origin for all life. In Shinto, the heavenly plain and the
shadowworld, or Underworld, can be interpreted as aspects of
consciousness, or as parallel universes.
The Tomoe has profound roots in Japanese culture. It is a development of
the Magatama (‘curved ball’ or benevolent force, soul or spirit), a comma-
shaped ornament found in burial mounds as early as 13000 BCE. The
Magatama was a talisman of good fortune and the banishment of evil,
possibly connected to similar Korean symbols for the embryo in the
mother’s womb, thus representing blessings and life. The Magatama
became associated with Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, who is the
ancestor of humanity and the source of life on Earth.
The Tomoe can itself be seen as a solar symbol, related to the svastika of
the Hindus and Jains, with its many European and Native American
counterparts. The Mitsu-Tomoe closely resembles three-headed Celtic
variants of the svastika. Tomoe images also exist in four-headed form, very
similar to the Basque Lauburu, which signifies prosperity and health. Two-
headed versions also call to mind the Yin-Yang symbol of Daoism. The
Tomoe can be seen as the Shinto version of a universal life symbol.
Ultimately, it represents Musubi, the cyclical process of organic growth,
contraction and regeneration that governs everything in the cosmos.

Tomoe image courtesy of the Japanese Dutch Shinzen Foundation.

 Acknowledgements
The writing of this book would not even have been contemplated without
the help and support of the Japanese Dutch Shinzen Foundation. I am
especially indebted to its Chairman and Vice Chair, respectively Professor
Fons Elders and Madeleine Wardenaar, MA, and its Director, Paul de
Leeuw, MA. Their insights, practical support and generous hospitality have
inspired me to explore the Shinto tradition and helped me understand its
relevance to the whole of humanity.
Paul is a Kannushi, a role that has traditionally been translated as ‘Shinto
priest’. However the word ‘priest’ does not convey the true character of his
role. In one sense, it is too much: Paul does not claim that his knowledge
gives him divine authority over others or the right to impose his own
doctrinal version of Shinto. On the contrary, his own experiential training
enables him to act as a conduit for the power of Kami. In Shinto, Kami is at
once the divine presence and the life force pervading and connecting
together everything in the universe.
Shinto’s aim is to awaken us to something larger than our immediate
selves, so that we become aware of our connections–social and ecological –
with the rest of humanity and the natural world. Through this awareness, we
encounter our true selves. Yet another, equally important, purpose is to alert
us to the myriad possibilities contained in the universe, so that we learn to
think, reason and feel for ourselves, have confidence in our thoughts and
feelings and seek to realize our full potential as human beings. Thus in
Shinto there is no division between the individual and social realms,
between our personal responsibilities and our social obligations, which
include obligations to nature, as the creative expression of Kami.
In this sense, the Kannushi has a wider – or at least a very different – role
from that which we have come to ascribe to a priest. He or she enables us to
reach into the unconscious, to integrate the world of dreams with our
waking lives so that we recognize both as aspects or levels of ‘reality’. The
Kannushi helps us to access our social conscience as well, so that we
connect spiritual development with working towards a more just society
and co-operating with the Earth rather than trying to ‘conquer’ it for
ourselves. The integration of our rational and intuitive powers, which is the
Kannushi’s true role, has implications for every aspect of our lives and for
the way we organize our human community. The Kannushi could be said to
be a modern Shaman. Or, to express it less baldly but more accurately, his
role is that of the shaman evolved over the centuries to meet the needs of an
urban and increasingly technological society. Rather than priest (or
shaman), Paul prefers the designation Shinto Master ( Shintomeester in
Dutch) as this conveys better to westerners the experience of being a
Kannushi.
Paul de Leeuw has studied extensively in Japan and introduced Shinto to
the spiritually hungry soil of Europe. I have had the pleasurable and, in the
true sense of the word, educational experience of working with him on the
English version of The Essence of Shinto by Grand Master ( Kanchou)
Yamakage Motohisa, who presides over one of the oldest schools of Shinto
in Japan and is Paul’s initiator. I therefore offer my thanks to Grand Master
Yamakage as the intellectual and spiritual ancestor of this project. And in
the true spirit of Shinto, I would also like to thank my mother and father,
Anne and David Rankin, for their love and encouragement.
John Hunt, my publisher, was as always positive and gently encouraging
throughout as were his colleagues at O Books. I thank all of them for
making this book possible.
Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Brian Scoltock for all
his practical help and moral support, and for putting up with me in both
London and Yorkshire while I was hard at work on this book and probably
talking about it far too much.
I hope that this book will be a worthy reflection of the creative spirit of
Kami, which exists within us all.
 Introduction
It is often said of Chinese and Japanese painting that what is not there is at
least as important as what is. The broad brushstrokes convey with great
sensitivity the idea of the snow-capped mountain, or the mist-shrouded
valley, or the fields, streams and trees below. They give the viewer the
essence of the scene, but the imagination is left to supply much of the
detail. And yet the painting is far more than an outline. It explores the inner
reality.
This book attempts to do the same with Shinto, the native faith of the
Japanese. For in Shinto, as in its better known Chinese counterpart, Taoism
(or Daoism), what is omitted is also as important as what is specifically
included. Shinto is a sensibility before it is a philosophy. It is a way of
looking at the world that allies ethics with aesthetics. The way of nature is
inherently benign and works for our benefit when we understand and
accommodate ourselves to it. Therefore the purpose of all ethics, all
spiritual practice, is to understand the way of nature and work with it.
That philosophy of life is very different from the mainstream western
approach. Over the last five hundred years especially, the west has has
viewed nature as something external and threatening, something ‘other’ that
human beings must confront, suppress or shield themselves from.
‘Conquering’ nature has been seen as an indication of human strength.
However this view is increasingly challenged by the physical and
psychological effects of environmental pollution, evidence of growing and
dangerous climatic instability and a diminution in the quality of life, despite
rising living standards for some. It is realized increasingly that Great Nature
(as Shinto calls it) is stronger and wiser than humanity on its own and that
our ‘conquest’ or mastery of the natural world is a dangerous illusion.
More than that, it is sensed that humanity’s attempt to separate itself from
nature is the result of misguided political and religious dogmas. Far from
being set apart from nature, we are a part of it. When we attempt to separate
ourselves, we make ourselves more vulnerable rather than gaining in
strength. True development or progress, we now know, means finding a
new accommodation with the rest of nature and being aware of our limits as
well as our potential. Within this framework, we have the possibility of
living more creative and satisfying – and more ecologically sensitive – lives
than in a society where economic growth and competition (with each other
and with nature) have become ends in themselves. And, ironically, the
science that has been used for so long as evidence for humanity’s special
status and right to dominate nature is showing us the extent to which all life
is interlinked. The destinies of all life forms (including micro-organisms
which have previously been dismissed as primitive and inconsequential) are
bound up with our own fate as a species.
These insights are merely a beginning. They require a change in
philosophy and a change in the way we organize our lives. That includes a
questioning of some of the most basic assumptions we have made about
society, politics, economics and faith. Our civilization has turned full circle
as reasoned science confirms our spiritual intuitions. At the same time, the
obsession with consumption and material possessions, fuelled by
growthbased economics, is proving increasingly to be a dead end.
Dissatisfaction with the over-emphasis on material aspects of life has
induced an increasing hunger for the spiritual dimension. These intuitions,
ecological and spiritual, have not yet been translated into significant action.
We know, or rather feel, that we must change direction, but we are far less
clear about how to do so. Shinto does not provide a blueprint for action or
tell us what to do. But where it can help us, in the west, is in providing a
structure or loose framework that enables us to approach human problems
in a different way. This is so whether the problems are social, spiritual or
environmental. From the perspective of Shinto, these categories have the
same origin. They are not distinct but overlap and shade into each other.
Increasing anxiety about where we are going as a civilization has
prompted a resurgence of interest in the indigenous faith traditions and
spiritual pathways. Throughout the industrialized world, there is widespread
interest in the traditions of Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, in
African traditional traditions and the nature-centered, polytheistic faiths of
ancient Europe. All these hold up a critical mirror to our civilization as well
as profound ecological and social insights. They can teach us much about
where we have gone wrong and what we have lost in our rush towards
technological development and material gain. Yet Shinto has, perhaps, one
advantage over them. The advantage is that it is a living tradition, which has
evolved without interruption over millennia of human existence. Unlike
other indigenous traditions, it has not been destroyed or interrupted. It was
never frozen in time but has become an integral part of one of the most
technologically advanced societies on Earth. Shinto reminds us that society
of its ancient roots and the continuities between urban men and women and
the world of Great Nature. In that sense, it is like the blades of grass that
arise between the cracks in city paving stones, a reminder that everything
made by humans is transient but that the principle of life is constant and
continuous.
Shinto is, in a literal sense, a celebration of life. It has little to say about
death and the afterlife, far less than Buddhism or Christianity, for example.
It is concerned with the processes of life, from the life cycle of each
individual being to the evolutionary cycle itself. If there can be said to be a
founding principle of Shinto, it is the relationship between the two. That is
to say, the individual life form is unique and worthy of respect in its own
right, but it is also a part of the collective life of Great Nature. The same is
true of the relationship between the individual and the rest of human
society. Each human life is sacred, but cannot exist or fulfill itself without
the rest of humanity. There is no distinction or ‘choice’ between individual
freedom and social responsibility, individual fulfillment and the welfare of
the whole. All human beings, like all other living systems, are
interconnected. Human society is itself an ecosystem, which remains viable
only when it is in tune with natural principles.
In the west, we are beginning to grasp more clearly that the workings of
the natural world, including evolution, involve cooperation and
connectedness at least as much as competition or dog-eat-dog struggle. It is
the former that ensures the continuity of the life process, whereas the latter
is usually detrimental. Our present ecological problems are triggered largely
by human beings behaving as if they were in competition with the rest of
nature, and each other. Shinto has always understood this, which is why its
spiritual practice is primarily about aligning humanity with nature. Rather
than preach original sin or induce guilt, it aims to induce a sense of wonder,
humility and openness.
This book is not a history of Shinto. Instead, it seeks to introduce the
reader to three of the most important ideas associated with the Way of
Kami, as Japan’s native faith is more often known. The aim is to present an
alternative way of thinking, from which we can draw inspiration as we
change our social and environmental priorities. It presents a holistic vision
of spirituality in which the sacred is found within and around us, rather than