NATURE, IT IS DIVINE Message from Shinto
In the beginning
Being situated to the east of the Asian Continent, Japan consists of four main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu that stretch long from the northeast to the southwest, together with about seven thousand smaller islands. Compared to its narrowness of the land, the geographical feature has full of variety with seas, rivers, mountains, valleys, and plains. In addition, forests cover nearly seventy percent of the whole land. The climate is generally temperate, having clearly demarcated seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter, though there is a wide gap in temperature between the north top and the south end. These geographical and climatic conditions are considered to have given certain influence on building up people’s mentality, and also on their way of conceiving the divinity as well as on their attitude towards nature.
Background of Japanese Sprituality
Every race of the world has its own mythology and legendary. They transmit the spirituality of ancient ancestors to their ascendants; accordingly mythology and legendary are valued, everywhere in the world, as most important cultural heritage of people.
In Japan, Kojiki is the oldest literature that we presently have. It was compiled in 712 A.D. (the 5th year of the Wado) by the order of the then Emperor as the records of ancient matters. According to this literature, in the beginning of the universe there appeared various kami (deities) from the chaos and a couple of male and female deities appeared at the end gave birth to islands as well as their natural environment and several more deities who became ancestors of the Japanese.
The ancient Japanese considered that all things of this world have their own spirituality, as they were born by the divine couple. Therefore the relationship between natural environment of this world and people was that of blood kin like the one of brother and sister.
The agricultural society based on rice cultivation, like that in Japan, cannot exist without unification and harmony among all things on this earth: mountains, rivers, the sun, rain, animals and plants, not to mention the cooperation among people. So, it was natural that people had developed the idea that they could make their society flourished only when they worked together, fully performing their own role, but at the same time, helping and supporting each other. There, the spirit of revering various Kami, the land, nature, people, and, on top of that, the spirit of appreciation of the harmony among all these things was developed.
Kami of Shinto
With the reverence of Kami, Shinto was spontaneously developed through the way of life of the ancient Japanese. Its has neither written dogma nor teaching book, but people revered numerous deities who are figuratively described as ‘eight million different deities’. A deity of a female figure, Amaterasu Ohmikami, is revered most highly among them, though the idea of absolute one god or hierarchy among numerous Kami had never existed, and still not. Yet, each Kami has an individual character to which people show their worship, believing in that as the virtue of each Kami.
Shinto regards that the land, its nature, and all creatures including the human are children of Kami. Accordingly all things existing on this earth have possibility of becoming Kami. Nevertheless, something revered as Kami is limited to those that are quite extraordinary existence beyond human wisdom or power and give a profound influence, for good or ill, on human beings. As to natural elements or phenomena that have such enormous power, there exist Kami of Rain, Kami of Wind, Kami of Mountain, Kami of Ocean, Kami of River, Kami of Thunder. All these Kami are involved in man’s life of a rice-cultivating agricultural society.
Speaking of the reverence towards Kami of Mountain, it started with peopl’s awareness of the mountain as the important water resource for rice cultivation. Then, people regarded the mountain itself as a sacred object. This mountain faith prepared not only the way to preservation of mountain forests, but also the way to conservation of the cycle of eco-system in the end, knowing the fact that mountain forests give rich nutrition to seas through rivers and support to form a good inshore fishery.
In ancient times, the reverence to a holy mountain was expressed by paying respect directly to the mountain itself. Nowadays, Shinto has a building, or a compound of buildings, where Kami spirit dwells permanently, and people practice their worship by performing Matsuri, a festival to offer prayers to Kami, in these buildings.
There are many kinds of Matsuri performed in each locality throughout a year. Large or small in its scale, these Matsuri are mostly based on the agriculture worship. The spring festival called ‘Kinensai’, a festival to pray for a rich harvest, and the autumn festival called ‘Niinamesai’, a festival to thank for the successful harvest, are the two most important festivals through a year. People of each locality have been carrying out these festivals every year since ancient times. In this sense, it can be said that Shinto consists of reverence and gratitude to the land, its nature, and the life that these natural elements give to human beings.
Environmental Preservation
In recent years, so many environmental problems, such as rise of temperature of the earth, destruction of the ozone layer, exhaustion of natural resources, and massive dumping of waste, have become global issues, and it is strongly required to take effective measures against these problems, as well as measure for natural preservation, amenity improvement, and pollution control. It is a great challenge to human beings how to build up the society, whose economic system minimizes the affects on natural environment, utilizing resources in a sustainable way.
In Japan, ‘the Basic Environment Law’ was established in 1993, which forms the base for Japanese environmental policy. Since then, environmental conservation activities with enforcement of relating regulations as well as with the technical cooperation of various industries are advancing to the right direction. At the same time, people fully aware the necessity of urgent establishment of environment-oriented life style. What is left to us now is that each individual is to find a way to act in a concrete form with strong consciousness for environmental conservation and without being indulged in a modern affluent life style.
There is a pessimistic opinion that the human beings are so unwise that they do not realize critical situation that they are in now, unless a real disaster drives them to the point of the world’s end. On the other hand, an optimistic opinion says that all the problems will be solved in near future with development of techno-science. The most important, however, is to fulfill our own duty that was handed down from our ancestors: each one to do one’s best, in a given situation, cooperating each other, but not waiting in idleness for the future technological development.
Suggestion from Shinto
As repeatedly mentioned, Shinto regards the land and its environment as children of Kami. In another word, Shinto sees that nature is the divinity itself. These days, people often say, ‘Be gentle to nature’, or ‘Be gentle to the earth’. But these expressions sound somehow fault like putting the cart before the horse. We feel it as man’s arrogance. It seems that the human con dominate nature as the master so that people can repair nature, using means of techno-science. But Kami is the origin of all lives, and the life of all things is deeply connected to Kami. Here, awareness for sacredness of life, and appreciation for life given by Kami are born.
From ancient times, Japanese have faced nature and invisible existence with the awesomeness and appreciation. And they used to have a principle ‘to return the thing given to the human as a gift of nature to its original place’. Thus, until the Edo era (1603-1867), the circulation system of the Japanese society had been very well functioned. After that, with the development of the modern industry, the level of the Japanese life was elevated in terms of material life, and now people enjoy the life with no deficiency. But in fact, the Japanese spirituality inherited from the ancient ancestors has been gradually lost or hidden somewhere deep in to unconsciousness. It might not be too exaggerated if we said that not only environmental conservation but also all problems of the modern society have been caused by the lack of awesomeness, reverence, and appreciation for nature that ancient people used to have and taught us about.
Environmental issues, after all, depend on our self-awareness of the problems and determination to take our responsibility. We often say that things look different according to the viewpoint. So, Shinto suggests to shift a point of view and to look our environment with the spirit of ‘reverence and gratitude’, that is, with the spirit of parental care for children or with the spirit of brotherhood. And if we could extend this spirit to our neighbors, to our society members, to our country members, to people of the world, and to nature, too, beyond the difference of thoughts, ethics, religions, then this spirit will be the base to foster criteria and morals indispensable for keeping our human life healthy.
In Conclusion
Nowadays, many countermeasures for environmental issues are presented worldwide. We, Shinto followers, will translate these countermeasures into practice with the spirit of ‘reverence and appreciation to nature’. However small is the action, it would guide us to the right direction if we repeat our practice with this spirit.