The universal attitude of Shinto as expressed
in the Shinto sect Kurozumikyo
Willis Stoesz
Journal of Ecumenical Studies
Vol.29 No.2 (Spring 1992)
pp.215-229
COPYRIGHT Journal of Ecumenical Studies 1992 Introduction
Dialogue between Christians and followers of Shinto has been scanty
up to now. Further, most scholarly studies of Shinto have not been
of a dialogical character, not of a sort to engage people in mutual
self-disclosure in awareness of their respective traditions.
Exceptions are few. The work of the Nanzan Institute in Nagoya,
Japan, where a conference a few years ago led to a published record,
is an important step forward, though so far accessible only in
Japanese. A set of exchange meetings held between the Omoto sect of
Shinto and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York
produced some notable worship occasions.(1)
Another, furnishing the occasion for this article, has been the
opening to the English-speaking world by Kurozumi Muneharu, Chief
Patriarch (Kyoshu) of the Shinto sect known as Kurozumikyo.(2) It is
the oldest of the "Thirteen Sects of Shinto" as defined in Meiji
times (1867-1912 C.E.) and has about a quarter-million members
today, with headquarters in Okayama in western Japan. The Rev.
Kurozumi was the featured speaker at a conference on Kurozumi Shinto
held in Dayton, Ohio, in 1985. The conference had a distinct
dialogical component that carried over into the resulting book,
which in part used conference materials. More recently, the Kurozumi
organization, along with the Global Forum, co-sponsored a Shinto
International Workshop on Global Survival and Peace.(3)
Representatives of Shrine Shinto also made presentations, along with
scholars speaking from a non-Japanese point of view.
Though dialogue between Shinto and other religions is still in its
infancy, it is not too soon to begin examining its resources for
that purpose. Is Shinto so preoccupied with the agricultural cycle
of the land of Japan and with other proximate concerns, and with
Japanese national identity as symbolized in the role of the Emperor,
that it has no resources for potential dialogue with those of other
worldviews? Does it have a view of human nature adequate to the
complex conditions of modern life? How broad a horizon of attention
do its own resources of ritual, thought, typical attitudes and
feelings, ethics, and forms of social relationship allow it to have,
and does it have ways of generalizing its understanding of itself
for interaction with others? In short, is it meaningful to consider
Shinto a universal religion capable of dialogue with other universal
religions?
My thesis is that there is, in fact, a clear, universal intention
and capability in Kurozumi Shinto. Consideration of Kurozumikyo
provides a way into understanding Shinto generally, since its center
is found in the cult of Amaterasu Omikami, prominent in Shinto
mythology as the Kami of the sun and, as featured in the former
State Shinto, ancestress of the imperial line. Since its founder, a
Shinto priest on whose life and example the thought and practice of
the group is based, lived before the rise of State Shinto with its
anti-Buddhist program, its characteristics in many ways represent
the broad tradition of Japanese culture and of Shinto generally.
Though it has some unique features, these are not out of keeping
with that tradition; hence, study of the Kurozumi group is a step
toward dialogue with the rest of Shinto tradition.(4) Demonstration
of Kurozumikyo's resources for universality opens the way to
exploring the presence of this quality in the broader stream of
Shinto.
In taking universality as a quality of attitude rather than a matter
of geographical distribution, I focus on the inner intention of
Kurozumi Shinto experience and on the conceptual resources it brings
to its envisionment of human interaction. Its founder, Kurozumi
Munetada (1780-1850 C.E.), was enabled by his religious experience
and by his resources of thought to "turn to the all as One." The
turning expresses an intention to be related to all possible
experience and leads to revaluing existing social boundaries; it
enables new ways of understanding relationships applying, at least
putatively, to everyone.(5) The concepts and rituals in which its
fundamental insights and attitudes are expressed are putatively
universal and sufficiently generalized to supply a basis for mutual
understanding with people of other religious traditions. The sect
that is shaped by the memory of his teaching and example continues
this universality.
I. The Shinto Tradition
Before taking up the distinctive character of Kurozumikyo, some
general observations about Shinto will be useful. In broadest terms,
"Shinto" refers to the "divine way" of interaction of the Japanese
people with each other from before the time of recorded history. Not
only the people, but also the land itself -- the mountains, the
hills, the rocks, and the trees that inspire awe -- are all
considered part of a reverential interaction. The invisible
presences as seen in mythology, in ancestors, and in heroes of the
past -- and especially in the powers understood to give life to the
growing rice -- are part of this interaction. The term "folk Shinto"
refers to the expression of these beliefs at the level of the daily
life of ordinary people.(6) All these interacting powers are called
"kami" and are regarded as worthy of ritual veneration.(7)
In a narrower, more manageable sense, "Shinto" refers to the cultus
of these kami, making use of sacred spaces, buildings, and priests
and, in its shrine and sect forms, organizing many aspects of
community life. This cultus is carried out in the many shrines
collectively referred to as "Shrine Shinto" and in a number of sects
centering around the work of founding figures.
We should note also that "Shinto" carries a comparative implication.
It already recognizes that the way of life it refers to exists as an
option, a choice that may be made in preference to another possible
choice. The word "Shin-to" originated in the need to speak about the
way of the indigenous deities as compared to "Bukkyo-do," the
Buddhist way of understanding and living life. Only when Buddhism
was introduced in the sixth century C.E. was a name needed for
already existing forms of religious expression. Though the word has
changed in meaning considerably from the earliest days to the
present, this comparative implication has always been present.
This outward reference point was sometimes welcome and sometimes not
so welcome. Buddhism helped shape the expression of Shinto during
many centuries when kami, the divine powers based in the land and
the people, were widely considered merely outward expressions of
Buddhas and bodhisattvas. According to the honji-suijaku theory, the
Buddhist divinities were considered the "original source" and the
kami their localized, manifest expression. During a long period of
the assimilation of Buddhism, lasting through the Heian (794-1185
C.E.) and Kamakura (1185-1333 C.E.) periods and beyond, the Buddhist
divinities were understood to be a more fundamental level of reality
than the kami who lived close at hand to the lives of the people.
That Buddhist rituals and beliefs brought the divine way of the kami
into a broader perspective was generally a welcome thought during
this time, at least among the leadership elite.(8)
At some point the balance began shifting the other way. During the
troubled times of the Ashikaga period (1338-1573 C.E.), the Shinto
reformer Yoshida Kanetomo (1435-1511 C.E.) promoted the view that
the initiative lay with the kami and not with the Buddhas.(9) In his
view, and in the view of an increasing number of others who followed
his lead, true power in life comes from those spirits that are
native to the land of Japan. Yet, under his leadership the cultus of
kami continued to make full use of Buddhist ceremonies and Buddhist
ways of understanding life in order to express the power of those
kami. He continued to assume that kami and Buddhas are part of an
interacting web of relationships that includes all the people of the
land.
Only later, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, did the
leaders of Restoration Shinto move the balance further, discussing
ways to purify Japanese religious life of Buddhist elements, which
were unwelcome to them because they were originally from outside the
sacred land. The work of Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane told
the story of the Japanese people in a way that placed Buddhist
influences in a decidedly negative light.(10) True national
identity, they said, lay with a pure reliance on kami. They promoted
a nativist way of thinking that began to gain respect from some
sectors of Japanese society.
This call for reliance on native sources of spirituality fit in with
the plans of Meiji-period government leaders as they began to build
an expanded Japan that would find its destined place in world
affairs. While they led Japan in making an outward movement, seeking
from foreign countries new ideas and new ways of doing things that
would help their own country gain the most modern ways of managing
its practical affairs, they considered it necessary at the same time
to make a corresponding inward movement in promoting native Japanese
identity, so that the nation would remain on an even keel during the
great changes taking place.
The important educational and administrative movement that we know
as State Shinto was a determined effort to focus Japanese reliance
on inner sources of identity, purged of influences considered
foreign, such as Buddhism.(11) In the hands of those who led this
movement, this inward turn promoted a sense of loyalty and
dedication to the nation. An educational program, billed as moral
and not religious, was installed in large numbers of shrines. Though
it was not always received enthusiastically at the local level, it
worked well enough to affect Shinto shrines significantly throughout
the country. It was designed to promote an efficient modern society
oriented toward national development; however, it also had a
negative character in seeking to purge the country of values
considered foreign. In this way it stood in contrast to the looser
and generally more broad-minded religious patterns of the pre-Meiji
period.
The relative success of State Shinto involved a corresponding
retrenchment in important aspects of traditional religious resources
in most Shinto institutions.(12) However, since the removal of State
Shinto in 1945, Kurozumikyo has been unhindered in turning again to
the memory and record of its founder as a guide to its life. The
figure of Munetada thus affords a way into seeing the broader,
historic religious resources of the Japanese people.
II. The Shinto Character of Kurozumi Munetada, the Founder
Kurozumikyo is directly in continuity with historic Shinto,
developing from its founder's status as priest of a shrine in
Okayama where his family had served for many generations. Its cultus
today continues to focus on Amaterasu and makes full use of familiar
Shinto ritual vocabulary. Its central shrine (Daikyoden) in Okayama
contains three altars: the central one to Amaterasu Omikami; on the
left, an altar for reverencing the yaoyorozu, the "800 million
myriads" of kami that represent the spiritual heritage of Japanese
life; on the right, an altar for reverencing the founder Munetada as
Kami,(13) along with the spirits of his successors as patriarchs
(Kyoshu).
Worship of Amaterasu takes place in two contexts in Kurozumikyo.
Formal veneration at the central altar takes place in a way similar
to the worship of principal kami of shrines throughout Japan. Closer
to the heart of Kurozumi religious experience, however, is the daily
worship (nippai) of Amaterasu at the moment of sunrise. At the main
shrine in Okayama this worship is done on a hilltop so that the
whole circle of the horizon is visible, supplying prototypal meaning
for all other places at which nippai is practiced in
Kurozumikyo.(14) In this cultus we may see the way in which
Munetada's experience provided a source of reformulation of Shinto
tradition. For instance, in neither context is much made of the
Japanese myths of origin available in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki,
though the Kyoshu finds the story of Amaterasu's emergence from the
rock cave valuable.(15) The two contexts mutually support one
another and are by no means contradictory.
In order to appreciate the nippai experience, a brief review of the
founder's life is necessary. He was born in 1780, the youngest of
three sons. Circumstances led the two older sons out of the normal
succession to family headship, leaving Munetada eventually to step
into his father's position as priest.(16) He was an unusually filial
boy, deeply sensitive to others' feelings, especially those of his
parents. At the age of nineteen, he vowed he would become a living
kami (ikigami), a divinely human being who would purely and
completely live a life of service to others. By this means he
expected to bring great honor to his parents. However, when he was
thirty-three (by Japanese reckoning), his mother and father died
unexpectedly and in quick succession; he was shattered and began
wasting away with tuberculosis until, at the beginning of 1814, he
was at the point of death.
His recovery went through three stages, marked by three occasions of
sunrise worship of Amaterasu. On the first, he had prepared himself
for death, vowing that after death he would be a kami devoted to
bringing healing and help to any who had disease or were in trouble.
His earlier vow thus was broadened in its intention, now taking in
and transcending the factor of death. Yet, when he did not
immediately die, it dawned on him that his parents would be more
honored by his continuing to live than by his dying. He resolved to
take a positive (yoki) attitude to life, based on cultivating
gratitude to Amaterasu. He now understood that his physical life was
a gift of the Kami of the Sun (displacing his parents as the
ultimate source and sanction of life). He continued improving until
the third occasion of worship, at the winter solstice in 1814, which
was also his birthday. As he gazed at the sun's disk at its
appearing on the horizon, and while venerating Amaterasu, he
experienced the sun/Amaterasu rushing toward him and into his open
mouth as he drew in the morning air. He experienced a complete and
ecstatic obliteration of his personal identity, becoming completely
one with Amaterasu.
This experience became the norm by which the rest of his life was
guided, as he thereafter sought to bring every moment up to the
level of this pure, joyful identity with Amaterasu Omikami. It is
referred to in Kurozumikyo tradition as the Direct Acceptance of
Divine Mission (tenmei jikiju). The story of it is the foundational
myth of Kurozumi Shinto, and the regular practice of nippai by its
members constitutes their access to transformative power for daily
living. Nippai is, in this functional sense, closely comparable to
the eucharist in Christian tradition.
Soon, he discovered that he had the ability to heal other peoples'
diseases, and he rapidly became famous in the region. More
importantly, he became active as a preacher and teacher, and his
sermons were attended by growing crowds. This preaching must to some
degree be seen as a local expression of the Ise cult of pilgrimage.
By the age of thirty-five in 1814, Munetada had gone once on
pilgrimage to Ise, the central shrine of Amaterasu in Japan, and was
to go five more times. The Ise pilgrimage cult played an important
role in spreading a broadening societal consciousness in Japan in
the closing decades of the Tokugawa period (1600-1867 C.E.), based
on devotion to Amaterasu Omikami.(17)
Some of those attending these meetings or receiving private
instruction made a vow (shinmon) by which they undertook to follow
his example as devotees of Amaterasu. Those members who had taken
this vow were the nucleus of the Kurozumikyo organization. Among
them were numbered many talented and well-educated people who
provided strong leadership. The founder died in 1850, but before the
end of the Shogunate in 1867 the movement was established in Kyoto;
by the end of the Meiji period the number of vowed members was
increasing toward the half-million mark.(18)
The Shinto character of Kurozumikyo is not in doubt and has never
been challenged, except by government leaders in the early Meiji
period who were on a general hunt to eradicate Buddhist elements in
Japanese culture, part of the "State Shinto"-oriented
nation-building going on at that time. Some delay in official
recognition of the organization resulted. However, recognition was
granted in 1876.
III. The Broader Cultural Resources of Munetada
The conceptual and ritual resources of Kurozumikyo, as articulated
in the teaching of Munetada, indicate the broad character of
pre-Meiji Shinto tradition. Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist elements
were incorporated into his thinking.
The Buddhist affinities or elements of Kurozumikyo were at one time
a bone of contention. However, recent studies have confirmed their
presence clearly enough. As Alan Miller has shown, Munetada's vow,
developing in two stages at the ages of nineteen and thirty-five,
makes use of a concept and act originating in Buddhism. The
bodhisattva vow to aid all beings so that all can gain enlightenment
was familiar in Japanese tradition, and his vows are quite congruent
with it. Other types of religious personality known in Japanese
culture, such as that of the shaman and the sage, do not fit
Munetada's actions or the way he is understood in Kurozumi
tradition.(19)
A similar employment of an element originating in Buddhism is his
unmistakable sense of compassion for suffering. A story in
Kurozumikyo tradition about his teen-age distaste for hunting
animals illustrates this point. It is a theme going beyond the
feelings of solidarity of a group expressed in Shinto tradition and
beyond the ethics of loyalty to one's family group as expressed in
Confucianism. At the same time, it is completely Japanese -- as is
understandable since Buddhism had become so completely a part of
indigenous Japanese culture.
Another aspect is the teaching of nonduality that Munetada employed
to articulate the character of his ecstatic experience of Amaterasu.
Munetada and Amaterasu are not-two; in his consciousness, she is the
indwelling universal spirit transcending his sense of his own
identity. This is a theme running through his poetry, which, as Gary
Ebersole has shown, is fully in keeping with a religio-aesthetic
tradition expressed also, for example, in the medieval poet Saigyo
(1118-1190 C.E.).(20) We know that Munetada read the work of the
Ashikaga period Zen poet Ikkyu (1394-1481 C.E.), for traces of both
his style and his thought are discernible in Munetada's writing.
The teaching of nonduality was available also in Neo-Confucian
writers with whom Munetada was undoubtedly familiar. In many ways
Munetada made use of the Shingaku thought of Ishida Baigan
(1685-1744 C.E.),(21) as is seen in the concept of egolessness (ware
nashi) that is so prominent in his poetry. Though Munetada's
self-understanding was probably keyed to the concept of vow more
than to any other concept, he also made use of techniques of
self-cultivation toward sagehood made available in Japanese culture
by Neo-Confucian teachers.
The Confucian element is exemplified also in the strong filial piety
he displayed as a child, setting the terms in which his development
toward mature identity proceeded.(22) Kurozumikyo draws on Confucian
ethical teaching in phrasing its understanding of the web of
relationships in which people should stand, in keeping with Japanese
culture generally. Such teaching had been promoted with special
energy in the Okayama area by its feudal lords.
Most notably, for present purposes, the Neo-Confucian element is
expressed in the Kurozumi understanding of Amaterasu Omikami, its
central deity. She is the universal creator spirit, present
everywhere. She is present in every human heart as the fundamental
animating principle of human life at all its levels.(23) This inner
animating principle is the "divided" portion (bunshin) of the
universal cosmic spirit (honshin); an agenda of personal cultivation
is set by this structure, enabling development into an ever more
egoless yet animated and affirmative life. In Munetada's hands the
universal presence of Amaterasu in everyone's inner spirit results
in equalitarian social attitudes: honoring the inner Amaterasu as
strongly as he did places differences in social rank in relativized
position. For instance, samurai attending his sermons had no
reserved or preferred seating. This was an especially important
point in Tokugawa Japan with its strongly enforced fourfold ranking
of social classes, with samurai firmly in control.
Two further aspects of Neo-Confucian influence must be noted. The
concept of sincerity (makoto) is the cardinal ethical value. From it
flow such other values as loyalty, human-heartedness (jen),
truthfulness, and yieldingness, informing the social nexus at all
its levels. Johannes Laube has shown, however, that for Munetada the
naturalism or horizontal reference often dominating Confucian ethics
is altered as a result of Amaterasu devotionalism. Constancy of
attention to Amaterasu is the source of the stability of
relationships that makoto implies.(24) Since Amaterasu is
omnipresent, makoto is the value to be sought in all human
relationships. Everywhere, integration of inner life and outer
social life in a stable social nexus is sought.
Finally, the Confucian term "tenmei jikiju" is used to express the
implication of Munetada's foundational experience of Amaterasu for
his life's mission. This term is often translated "mandate of
heaven" and is used to refer to the sanction for an emperor's
headship of Chinese society. It is a concept with a rich history in
Chinese and Japanese cultural tradition, but for him and for
Kurozumikyo it refers to their mission to "... lead the people who
are suffering to enlightenment and ... to save them."(25) While
Kurozumikyo members retain a respectful, patriotic attitude toward
the government, it is apparent that the fundamental understanding of
deity by which it is guided does not require nationalistic
attitudes.
Taoist elements, for a long time not separated as such from the
complex of traditional beliefs, center particularly around the
concepts of yin and yang. These are the natural oscillations in the
processes of nature and of human life between its recessive and
assertive tendencies. Ideally, they should balance one another. The
distinction and the search for such balance are regarded as natural,
manifesting themselves everywhere. Kurozumi Muneharu, for instance,
makes use of them in setting forth his concept of international
peace.(26)
It is noteworthy, however, that this Taoist concept is altered
insofar as it conflicts with the effect of Amaterasu-centeredness.
When Munetada lay at death's door, he resolved that his yin attitude
of weakness and doubt would give way to the yoki (yang) or divine
energy (toku; virtue) of Amaterasu, the universal cosmic principle.
It is another instance of a move away from naturalism toward a more
universally oriented frame of mind. That is, the yin-yang concept is
in one sense universal in being believed to apply everywhere as a
structure of actions, but the new attitude -- as a matter of spirit,
not of concept -- is in a more fundamental sense universal as an
intentional source of actions. It holds the benevolence of Amaterasu
as a constantly positive (yang) attitude -- and with the all as One
in view. A turning beyond immanent nexuses and toward a unitive
basis of the all has occurred.
Critical study of Munetada's thought and life thus shows the
presence of several strands of cultural influence, in keeping with
the broad resources of Japanese cultural tradition. Of course, it
scarcely needs to be said that Munetada is not regarded in this
analytic fashion within the life of Kurozumikyo. For them, he is,
first of all, a continuing presence who watches over each
individual, guiding each and interceding to help them. Much
attention is given to his life as a source of homiletic examples
used in Kurozumikyo sermons, and he is an object of veneration in
shrines. He is for them a whole living presence, continuing to serve
them as Kami to be venerated in seeking full, unhindered expression
of the way of Amaterasu in daily life.
IV. The Universality of Kurozumi Munetada
We see then that the religion of Kurozumi Munetada, while fully an
expression of Shinto, includes broad cultural resources. Let us
briefly review their usefulness for supporting a universal point of
view, resuming for the moment an analytic attitude.
The Shinto side is shown in an optimistic attitude toward life. This
attitude is articulated in daily worship of Amaterasu in the
shrines, employing traditional Shinto ritual vocabulary. The Rev.
Kurozumi's argument that Japanese culture is typified by its Yayoi
character also makes this point. Placing confidence in Amaterasu as
the source of the energy supplied by the sun in providing rice makes
only limited use of traditional myths of culture origin, minimizing
those stories that imply forceful action. Her emergence from the
rock cave, bringing light to the world, is what he emphasizes in
those stories. This quite leaves aside the use made in the past of
Amaterasu as divine ancestress of the imperial line, with its
implicit possibility of being exploited for nationalistic ends.
Nippai worship of Amaterasu at the main shrine is carried out in the
open air on a hilltop, so that the whole of nature supplies context
for cultus. The whole circle of the horizon becomes the "container"
of the inner spirit.(27) The Shinto symbolism of circularity is a
potent one, drawn from the sun's disk and from the unbounded
horizon, and the ritual provides a sacramental internalization of
this universal presence as the air carrying the sun's first light is
taken into the abdomen.
Finally, the type of kami Munetada vowed to become after death, at
the time when he still expected to die of tuberculosis, should be
noted. He expected to become a healing kami, helping any who would
call on him, not an ancestral kami tied to subsequent well-being of
only his family line. The difference is considerable.
On the Buddhist side, we note especially the vow concept, carrying
the intention of making salvation universally available. From this
concept (and act on Munetada's part) comes much of the impulse to
propagate the message of Munetada's way. His vow leads him to say:
Let me lead you on over this path of life that knows no end, Through
the countless ages, through the next ten thousand realms.(28)
It is, in fact, a central structuring concept. For instance, though
life in nature is emphasized on Kurozumikyo's Shinto side,
adaptation to nature is not the burden of its teaching, but, rather,
its concern is to bring all of life up to a divine level of
goodness. By contrast, the teaching of Motoori Norinaga, founding
figure of National Shinto, that wisdom consists in suffering
(perhaps in a sad sense of life's shadowy beauty) the evil that
nature brings, is not in keeping with Kurozumikyo.(29) Here, an
ethical criterion is given that supplies a more incisive basis for
social interaction than is given by Motoori and for envisioning a
more inclusive field of interaction than what is already given by
Japanese society.
The effect of the concept of nonduality is striking. It has its
effect, however, not abstractly but as an interpretive criterion for
Munetada's ecstatic experience. By it he understood that he had
achieved complete egolessness, as spoken of by Neo-Confucian
teachers. The effect included not only a deepened capacity for
experiencing the network of social relationships(30) but also,
beyond that, being released into an ability to be attentive to the
particulars of human suffering more generally. His activity as a
faith healer showed his willingness to help any who came, and his
preaching was addressed to any who would listen.
It is noteworthy that his poetry shows a subtle appreciation of the
distinction between form and spirit. To be attached to form is to be
attached to the realm of death and insensitivity, but to use form
with compassion, even to enjoy the passing forms in which life's
experiences are expressed, is to remain close to the heart of
Amaterasu; this is the summum bonum in life. Various stories are
told of Munetada's indifference to the rigid social hierarchy of the
Tokugawa period. The Kurozumi tradition contains examples of the
founder's setting aside the social barriers between groups and,
thus, includes a built-in tendency to want to do so.
The Confucian tradition also supplies resources for universal
thinking. Associating Amaterasu with the universal cosmic principle
attaches to the cult of the Shinto Kami of the Sun the rich
resources of Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethical thinking.
Amaterasu is thus understood to be universally present. The
"separated portion" of her presence within everyone is understood to
give everyone the same potentiality for self-cultivation and the
same pattern of a Way in which to live. Munetada's experience of
ecstatic union with Amaterasu can be seen as an example of "... a
fulfillment of humanity as well as an answer to the Mandate of
Heaven," as Tu Wei-Ming puts this central teaching of Confucianism.
Indications of the impulse to "integrate all levels of the community
(family, neighborhood, clan, race, nation, world, universe, cosmos)
into the process of self-transformation," characteristic of
Confucianism,(31) are clearly visible in the career of Munetada. In
Munetada's case, these concepts and this impulse are energized and
given direction beyond the immediate social nexus by his vow to be a
living kami and to save all beings.
We must see these cultural elements as they are given life through
their use in Munetada's life and teaching. Study of his spiritual
development from childhood into his mature point of view shows that
the Confucian values of filial piety and family loyalty were, by
stages, displaced from the center of his thought. During 1814 the
focus of his inner worldview shifted toward Amaterasu (and not his
parents) as giver of benefit, then toward Amaterasu as
nondualistically experienced within.(32) We are enabled to
understand him not only analytically but also synthetically.
As his poetry shows, he then taught that life should be lived in
constant reliance on the presence of Amaterasu as the cosmic
principle animating the universe and each individual in it. This
presence should be cultivated through nippai and through the
practice of ethical principles of interpersonal interaction. The
result is to introduce a relativizing perspective on all particular
contents of consciousness. The form (sugata) in which all these
contents are experienced is not to be the object of attachment but,
rather, is to be received as a gift of Amaterasu in each passing
moment.
The Chief Patriarch makes the point strongly that one's physical
life depends on Amaterasu in each moment. In this way the concept of
favor and return favor (on/ho-on), on which the moral fabric of
Japanese society depends, is relativized so that even the ancestors
find their eternal home under Amaterasu's aegis. Potentially, as
members of Kurozumikyo may become more and more attuned to her inner
presence, they may become more and more universal in their attitude.
Such a result is a consequence of the practice of nippai when it is
done with full understanding.
Even what may appear as an evil should be received as a benefit from
Amaterasu, since an opportunity for broadening of inner perspective
is thereby given. One needs to learn the skill of "making use of
circumstances" as they arise, in order to take advantage of each
moment's fresh opportunity. In this way evil may be converted into
good by being revalued in broader context, making it possible to
relate affirmatively to what had been perceived as negative.
The effect of the cult of Amaterasu (both ethical and ritual) is to
shape individuals whose constant and cheerful demeanor depends on
inner resources and thus can be expressed in a wide variety of
interactional settings. Those interactions can be occasions for
fruition of the sincerity (makoto) that Amaterasu as universal
cosmic principle generates as the omnipresent creator of good.
Munetada's vow to bring benefit (okage) compassionately to all
beings serves as a prototype for the action of all who, in reliance
on Amaterasu, live by the mandate given by his exemplary union with
her. Stories about Munetada serve as a kind of canon of Kurozumikyo
spirituality in sermons and instruction guiding the life of its
members to this end.
Thus, Kurozumikyo has the resources needed to engage in dialogue. It
supplies disciplined guidance to the life of individuals, so a rich
inner life is part of its heritage. A basis is laid for a pastoral
ministry to its members.(33) While its worship patterns use motifs
drawn from the agricultural cycle, as do all occasions of worship in
shrines in Japan, the issues to which its worship speaks --
especially those taken up in nippai -- are keyed to broader patterns
of social interaction, as suggested by its urban origins.
Its intellectual resources are broad. They are in continuity with
traditional East Asian patterns of understanding human experience
and have a proven generalizability, while providing a point of
departure into various currents of Japanese cultural tradition. Most
importantly, Kurozumikyo has the capability of providing a
transformative turn of attitude toward a compassionate regard for
everyone. It is, therefore, universal in its fundamental intention.
Yet, along with the broad resources it employs for expression of its
universal attitude, it remains authentically Shinto. The strategy of
Yoshida Kanetomo in making recourse to kami its fundamental sanction
is the approach taken by Kurozumikyo. The example of its founder and
guiding Kami, Kurozumi Munetada, in turning to the all as One, is
its principal resource for making good on a universal point of view.
For him, as for his followers, the basis of life is in Amaterasu who
is worshipped in the Shinto cultus of Kurozumikyo.
Conclusion
Kurozumikyo is only one of a number of centers of Shinto activity.
Other sects, with their own distinctive shape, also provide entry
into Shinto tradition. Representatives of Shrine Shinto,
particularly at the Ise Shrine and at Kogakkan and Kokugakuin
Universities, may also be addressed as dialogue partners. Yet,
Kurozumikyo is the one that has expressed what is at the moment the
most salient initiative toward dialogue and intercultural
interaction.(34) The initiatives of its leadership have brought it
into view in a spirit of openness and mutuality. By examining the
content of this initiative, we can see that dialogical interaction
and a prospect of broadened insight into Shinto religious experience
and tradition have been made possible.
1 Shinto and Christianity: The Particular and the Universal in
Religion (Nagoya: Nanzan Institute, 1984); A Kiss of Peace (Kameoka:
Omotokyo Headquarters, 1978). These services were followed by
opportunities for study of the traditional arts of Japan in which
the Omoto sect articulates its religious understandings. Important
conferences assessing the current status of Shinto have been held
since World War II, at Claremont, CA, and in Japan, but their intent
has been more scholarly and descriptive than dialogical.
2 Charles Hepner, The Kurozumi Sect of Shinto (Tokyo: The Meiji
Society of Japan, 1935); Nobuhara Taisen, The Brilliant Life of
Munetada Kurozumi, tr. Sakai Tsukasa and Sasage Kazuko, 2nd rev. ed.
(Tokyo: PMC Publications, 1982); Helen Hardacre, Kurozumikyo and the
New Religions of Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1986); Willis Stoesz, ed., Kurozumi Shinto (Chambersburg, PA: Anima
Publications, 1989) (hereafter cited as KS). The Rev. Kurozumi also
participated in the third meeting of the World Conference on
Religion and Peace in Princeton in 1979. He has traveled to the
U.S.A. several other times, as well as to New Zealand and Australia.
3 The Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human
Survival, closely connected to the United Nations, held its first
international conference in Moscow in April, 1988. The November 1-2,
1990, conference at the Kurozumikyo headquarters included only its
executive committee; it was part of the preparation for a second
international conference, planned for Kyoto in 1993.
4 See Japanese Religion: A Survey by the Agency for Cultural Affairs
(Tokyo and Palo Alto, CA: Kodansha International, 1972), for a list
of the various Shinto groups.
5 Note the case made by David Krieger that a middle course may be
taken between deconstructionism and modernism by giving attention to
"conversion," the act by which the worldviews that give structure to
the minds of religious people are opened to broader ways of
understanding themselves and others (David J. Krieger, "Conversion:
On the Possibility of Global Thinking in an Age of Particularism,"
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 !Summer, 1990^:
223-243).
6 Kurozumi Muneharu argues that the values associated with the Yayoi
period (300 B.C.E.-300 C.E.) when rice culture was introduced in
Japan -- not the values associated with the previous Jomon hunting
and gathering period, with its more aggressive ethos -- typify
Japanese culture (Kurozumi Muneharu, "Kurozumi-kyo in Japanese
Culture," in KS, pp. 93-94. For a more naturalistic approach to the
Jomon-Yayoi distinction, see Tange Kenzo, Katsura: Tradition and
Creation in Japanese Architecture (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1960), pp. 16ff.
7 The term "worship" may be used advisedly, if one is careful not to
superimpose Christian assumptions about a single Creator God who is
the Sovereign of History as the object of worship. The ritual
veneration or honoring of an individual kami may be brief, as in
individual prayer, or more extended, as in prayers (norito) or a
longer festival (matsuri). A torii (ritual gate) marks places where
this veneration may take place. For details, see Sokyo Ono, in
collaboration with William P. Woodward, Shinto: The Kami Way
(Rutland, VT: Bridgeway Press, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1962).
8 Cf. Joseph M. Kitagawa, "Some Reflections on Japanese Religion and
Its Relationship to the Imperial System," Japanese Journal of
Religious Studies 17 (June/September, 1990): 129-178. For an
introduction to the honji-suijaku theory, see Alicia Matsunaga, The
Buddhist Philosophy of Assimilation (Tokyo: Sophia University,
1969). The standard work on Japanese religious history remains
Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religion in Japanese History (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1966; paper ed. with new preface, 1990). See also
Joseph M. Kitagawa, On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). The Heian renderings of
Buddhism -- Tendai and Shingon, founded by Saicho and Kukai
respectively -- provided parallel ways of folding indigenous
spiritual experiences into a Buddhist framework. For an overview of
this development, see Daigan Matsunaga and Alicia Matsunaga,
Foundations of Japanese Buddhism, vol. 1 (Los Angeles: Buddhist
Books International, 1974), pp. 139-257.
9 Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene, eds.,
Sources of Japanese Tradition, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1958; textbook ed., 1964), vol. 1, p. 265.
10 Note the discussion by Muraoka Tsunetsugu, Studies in Shinto
Thought, tr. Delmer M. Brown and James T. Araki (Tokyo: Ministry of
Education, Japan, 1964; repr. -- New York: Greenwood Press, 1988);
see also Matsumoto Shigeru, Motoori Norinaga (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1970). It has been argued that both Motoori and
Hirata showed Buddhist or even Christian influences, but in the
present context that is another matter. No available evidence
suggests either direct or indirect Christian influence in the
development of Munetada's experience or of Kurozumikyo.
11 The best, most recent study of State Shinto is Helen Hardacre,
Shinto and the State, 1868-1988, Studies in Church and State
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
12 Helen Hardacre, "Creating State Shinto: The Great Promulgation
Campaign and the New Religions," Journal of Japanese Studies 12
(Winter, 1986): 29-64. See also Hepner, The Kurozumi Sect, pp.
196ff. Shrine Shinto was rather more left in need of postwar
recovery of its identity after the removal of State Shinto. See
Wilhelmus H. M. Creemers, Shrine Shinto after World War II (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1968).
13 We may capitalize the word "kami" when it indicates an object of
sole or central importance, as in Kurozumikyo worship of Amaterasu
and of its founder, Munetada. "Omikami" indicates an honorific for a
female kami.
14 Kurozumi Muneharu, "Following the Way," in KS, pp. 68 and 243, n.
3.
15 Kojiki, tr. Donald Philippi (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press;
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969); Nihon Shoki
!Nihongi^: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697,
tr. W. G. Aston (repr. -- London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1956;
orig. -- suppl. to The Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan
Society !London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1896^).
Amaterasu had retired to a rock cave, darkening the whole world, in
protest of disorders caused by her brother. She was induced to come
out again by ritual dancing, so that light returned again to the
whole world; then a rope was tied across the mouth of the cave
insuring that such darkness would not recur.
16 Translation of an authorized biography (Kurozumi Tadaaki,
Kurozumikyo Kysoden, 5th ed. !Okayama: Kurozumikyo Nisshinsha,
1976^) is under way. No critical biography has yet become available
in English.
17 Winston Davis, "Pilgrimage and World Renewal: A Study of Religion
and Social Values in Tokugawa Japan, Part 1," History of Religions
23 (November, 1983): 97-116; idem, "Pilgrimage and World Renewal: A
Study of Religion and Social Values in Tokugawa Japan, Part 2,"
History of Religions 23 (February, 1984): 197-221; Hardacre,
Kurozumikyo, pp. 164ff.
18 Hepner, The Kurozumi Sect, p. 227.
19 Alan Miller, "Internalization of Kami: Buddhist Affinities in
Kurozumi-kyo," in KS, pp. 135-155.
20 Gary Ebersole, "The Doka in Historical Perspective: The
Religio-Aesthetic Tradition in Japan," in KS, pp. 156-171. See
"Kurozumi Munetada's Poetry: The Doka," tr. Harold Wright, in KS,
pp. 102-112. "Doka" is Munetada's name for those waka ("tanka"), in
5-7-5-7-7 syllable form, that he wrote for teaching purposes.
21 Hardacre, Kurozumikyo, pp. 43-46. Perhaps he drew his
understanding of it from Neo-Confucian sources and clarified it by
reading Ikkyu, but we need not settle here the question of the
relative importance of these sources for Munetada.
22 Willis Stoesz, "The Universal Attitude of Kurozumi Munetada," in
KS, pp. 115-133. See the discussions of Confucian values by Ronald
Philip Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1965); and Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The
Cultural Roots of Modern Japan (New York: Free Press, 1957; repr. --
New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1985).
23 Kurozumi Muneharu, "Kurozumi-kyo in Japanese Culture," in KS, pp.
98-99; idem, "Following the Way," in KS, pp. 72-73.
24 Johannes Laube, "Zur Bedeutungsgeschichte des Konfuzianistischen
Begriffs 'Makoto' ('Wahrhaftigkeit')," in Helga Wormit, ed.,
Fernostliche Kultur (Marburg: N. G. Elwert Verlag, 1975), pp.
100-157. Cf. Stoesz, "Universal Attitude," p. 250, n. 18.
25 Kurozumi Muneharu, "The Teaching of Kurozumi-kyo," in KS, p. 52.
26 Kurozumi Muneharu, "The Idea of Peace in Shinto," in KS, pp.
195-212.
27 Kurozumi Muneharu, "Kurozumikyo in Japanese Culture," in KS, p.
99.
28 Doka 57, "Kurozumi Munetada's Poetry," in KS, p. 111.
29 Tsunoda, de Bary, and Keene, Sources, vol. 2, pp. 24ff.
30 See Tu Wei-Ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on
Confucian Religiousness, rev. and enlr. ed. (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1989), for a recent discussion of this
feature of the Confucian tradition.
31 Tu, Centrality, p. 97. See also Irene Eber, ed., Confucianism:
The Dynamics of Tradition (New York: Macmillan, 1986), to appreciate
the vitality of this old tradition as it is currently being
restated.
32 In Robert Lifton's phrase, a recentering of inner images occurred
as a result of Munetada's ecstatic union with Amaterasu in 1814. Cf.
Stoesz, "Universal Attitude," p. 249; and Robert Lifton, The Broken
Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1979), pp. 24-35.
33 See Hardacre, Kurozumikyo, for details. In 1981-84 the Chief
Patriarch conducted an instructional tour of over 120 congregations
in Japan; as a follow-up to its 1990 conference, a similar tour is
being carried out by Kurozumi Munemichi, son of, and eventual
successor to, the current Chief Patriarch.
34 I have offered an initial list of aspects of Kurozumikyo that
bear attention in seeking a beginning in dialogical understanding
(Willis Stoesz, "Kurozumi-kyo in Western View," in KS, pp. 209-225).
However, those engaging in dialogue will make their own decisions in
such matters.
Willis Stoesz is an associate professor of religion at Wright State
University, Dayton, OH, where he has taught since 1970, following
positions at the former Western College for Women (1965-70) and at
Dillard University (1961-65). He holds a B.A. from the University of
Minnesota, an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary (NY), and a
Ph.D. (1964) from Columbia University and Union Theological
Seminary. He did post-doctoral work at McGill University (1967) and
has held N.E.H. summer seminar grants at the University of Chicago
(1977) and Columbia University (1986). He edited and contributed
several chapters to Kurozumi Shinto: An American Dialogue (Anima
Books, 1989). His articles have appeared in various professional
journals. He is currently editing a translation of a biography of
the founder of Kurozumikyo.