Common Ground

Common Ground

Common Ground

Common Ground

All share common ground at the very beginning of life—alive in these extraordinary times—due to acts of two others—your mother and father.

The Source says there are only two things that are certain—birth and death.

Human Life Cycle - Land Of The Rising Son

After entering the atmosphere, indoctrination starts in earnest, and more often than not, there is the promise of eternal life contained with in these fantastic stories.

Well over half of the world’s population believe in a spiritual afterlife, which in principle is not such a bad thing, who doesn’t want to live forever?

The crux of the issue lies in giving up a splendid life here on earth today, for a mythical promise of a better tomorrow in heaven.

地蔵 - Land Of The Rising Son

But as is known—tomorrow never comes—today.

Here the flock must worship, pray, and pay for long dead ideas and corrupted deities, and it is particularly clear the three desert dogmas no longer serve the needs of the human condition.

One only has to look around to see the abject hypocrisy being played out all over the global as the charlatan and false prophets prey upon the gullible and wretched for riches, glory, fame, and power.

Jimmy Swaggart representing fraudulent Christians - Land Of The Rising Son
An extreme examples of intentional evil via religious indoctrination would be those encouraging vulnerable youth to don a suicide vest, and along with the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven, vaporize themselves while murdering and destroying innocent lives.

72 virgins waiting in heaven - Land Of The Rising Son

Any fraudulent cleric spewing doctrine of hatred towards other enticing them to perpetrate acts of evil, have by their own edicts and commands solidify the invalidity of their tenets, revealing themselves to be the enemy of humanity, and all the promises it holds.

Ages ago life was short and unpleasant—thus, the duplicitous oracles promise of eternal life, and this is where the control protocol sets in to appease the wretched masses with the false promise of milk and honey in Nirvana.

The Concept of Heaven - Land Of The Rising Son

One the other hand, those who dare to think original thoughts will suffer a much more nasty fate, which certainly does not include virgins or worshipping a stranger from millennia ago and his unholy father for eternity.

Remember, those who have anointed themselves as oracles while presenting false gods for personal and organizations gain, also refer to the group as a “flock” and the individuals as sheep.

Never forget, sheep are used to harvest wool and when that mission is complete, the last step is lamb chops.

Lamb Chops - Land Of The Rising Son

Alternatively, there is a much more pragmatic way to go through life while moderating one’s own behaviour.

This is through the more realistic protocol of ancestor veneration.

One finds deeper calmness in the practicality of ancestors veneration as opposed to obsolete dogma demanding rejection of one’s own family, clan, and community.

ロレンス氏神の神棚 - Land Of The Rising Son

The ancestors forged incredible pathways for the descendants who are now privileged to live in this magnificant world.

A world that was forged with blood, sweat, and tears, sprinkled with the fortitude and perseverance of the men and women who came before.

Now with this realization, it is prudent to dismiss the abject nonsense of doctrine demanding loyal to false gods in far away land who only have money and power as the driving motivation—certainly not some stranger’s salvation.

Warmonger Obama And The Unholy Pope - Land Of The Rising Son

Salvation only exists when one looks in the mirror and seeing one’s ancestors inside.

Here one can profoundly understand—the only reason for your existence is because of one’s ancestors.

Be released from the chains of the past and the obsolete dogma of one’s initial indoctrination.

Replace despotic idols and their mendacious minions who create the suffering and division of this modern day.

War Criminals George W Bush - Donald Rumsfeld - Dickwad Cheney - Land Of The Rising Son

Here one can look to one’s own ancestors and know that morality and ethics comes from the fact that really great grandmother and grandfather are watching over your every step of the way.

One’s action are guided by the innate desire to do the right thing—venerating those who came before, and recognize their suffering during their journey through history to lay the foundation for one’ own family, clan, and community.

Clarity Over Time - cybersensei - Land Of The Rising Son

Be Japanese

Be Japanese

Be Japanese

Be Japanese

The Japanese are born and raised in an ancient culture based upon kata.

Under strict conditioning of kata over centuries, each Japanese naturally developed a sixth sense as to aesthetics in a strictly Japanese Way.

Form, order, and process are the three pillars of Japanese society and the foundations of their ancient system.

From centuries past, the Japanese were acutely aware of the aesthetics of design, extending into the sublime Japanese societal protocol of form, order, and process, which are critical for a successful life in Japanese society.

Japanese Rock Garden - Land Of The Rising Son

Island people are isolated by circumstance and over centuries of living within the kata system the Japanese were rarely exposed to other customs, behaviour, or habits.

This naturally led the Japanese to become acutely sensitive to any deviation from the Japanese way of doing things.

Even with the introduction of industrialism into Japan in the 1860s, the disappearance of the samurai class did not end Japanese kata culture.Industrial Japan - Land Of The Rising Son

The way of kata has been carefully nurtured and thoroughly curated over millennia and is an ingrained part of the Japanese spirit reaching into the very fiber of what it means to be Japanese.

The core philosophy of shi kata (way of doing) is evolutionary, and an integral part of the Japanese psyche.

The way of kata is expressed not only inside the nooks and crannies of the Japanese language, but is also deeply embedded in the habits and customs of the Japanese.

Japan’s ancient kata culture continued to evolve after the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate as the unwritten protocol of the kata system were naturally infused into the industrialized economy of Japan starting from the Meiji restoration in 1867.

Those who did not conform to the traditional way of kata in both attitudes and behaviour were rejected by the higher levels of the evolving Japanese system.

Companies and organizations weeded out candidates who did not conform to the national mold.

Japanese fans cleaning up the stadium after soccer match - Land Of The Rising Son

One can still observe meticulously structured elementary and secondary education with very specific kata this very day in modern Japan.

From the start of Japanese compulsory education, protocol such as identical uniforms and bowing, strict routines for classroom performance, and serving fellow pupil’s lunch are all protocol of societal form, order, and process.

The system is designed to mold its citizens into a homogenized product of Japanese culture, shaping them into what it means to be Japanese.

The overall result of all Japanese being subjected to this strict molding process during childhood and their teen years was a strengthening of a common set of “Japanese” characteristics.

Bowing in Japan society protocol Form Order Process - Land Of The Rising Son

These unified characteristics play an innovative role in Japan, and even more so now, as the kata system applies to everyone, not just those of the privileged class.

One could almost say the Japanese are forerunners of the equality and diversity protocol due to the Meiji restoration, and those from any class who could conform to these strict societal edicts could be successful inside the “System.”

These characteristics included:

1. A compulsion to work together in clearly defined exclusive groups.

2. A fierce loyalty to their group and to Japan.

3. A highly developed sense of balance, form, order, and process.

4. An intuitive feel for precision, accuracy, and correctness.

5. Extraordinary manual dexterity and the ability to work especially well on small sophisticated things.

6. A predisposition to apply themselves with single-minded dedication to the task at hand.

7. An overwhelming desire to excel and to be as good as or better than anyone else.

Discipline, patience and loyalty - Land Of The Rising Son

On an important cultural note: Even if one excels, it is imperative to downplay the talent behind a mask of humility in order to maintain internal harmony.

Ponder this reality: An entire nation physically and mentally conditioned in form, order, and process have a significant advantage over people who are less trained, and work from a state of individualistic egotism as opposed to Japanese groupism and community.

Admirable qualities are also accompanied by negative characteristics as well.

1. Inability to think and act independently.

2. Stereotyping everyone in terms of family, education, university, company size, and position.

3. A tendency to do nothing rather than cause any kind of friction.

4. A tendency to maintain the status quo until pressured from the outside.

5. Inability to identify themselves with other nationalities and races.

The foundation of Japanese society is firmly rooted in kata culture, and embodies the spirit of form, order, and process of the Japanese Way.

Ise Jingu Banner - Land Of The Rising Son

 

Godless

Godless

Godless

The ancient traditional Japanese values and behaviour differ fundamentally from those raised in Christianized cultures in the most extraordinary Ways.

In 1543, a Chinese junk with several Portuguese traders was blown off course into Japan.

Here the first ever recorded encounter between Westerners and Japanese occurred on Tanegashima off the coast of Kyushu.

種子島 地図 - Land Of The Rising SonIt was here the Japanese were first introduced to firearms, gun powder, and tobacco.

Indeed the lord of the island was so impressed with the Portuguese matchlock instrument of death, he ordered his craftsmen to set up a foundry and duplicate them.

Here is evidence of the innate Japanese trait of taking novel items from other worlds and crafting the object into something uniquely Japanese, and more often than not, superior in all aspects.

Japanese Tanegashima Matchlock Arquebus - Land Of The Rising Son

In spite of these brilliant displays of craftsmanship and understanding, in the eyes of the Westerners, the Japanese had no sense of morality or ethics.

Imagine the shock of the first puritanical foreign missionaries arriving in Japan, in what Koizumi Yakumo describes as “fairyland.”

The attitude and behaviour of the Japanese in most practical matters, including those of a sexual nature, are in fundamental alignment with nature, as is indicative of an agrarian island nation.

Japan Satellite Map - Land of The Rising Son

Even today the Japanese do not regard nudity or sex as sinful or something shameful.

This was made evidently clear as one enjoyed a leisurely outdoor bath in one of the ubiquitous hot springs sprinkled throughout Japan.

The cleaning lady was chatting with stark-naked male patron in what could only be described as a surreal scene in a peculiar movie.

She was also kind enough to mention the lovely day while checking the bath temperature, as one was soaking solo in the outdoor taru buro.

外たる風呂 - Land Of The Rising Son

No issues, as one was able to overcome the Occidental Christian shame and punishment protocol concerning nudity, which also happens to be a reflection of the beauty and divinity of our common body and soul.

These criticisms of the Japanese was to continue for the next 400 years.

Exposed here is the Occidental Christians protocol of projecting superiority over Japanese culture and way of life, where they advocates detachment from the natural ebb and flow of life, and one’s own ancestors.

A more practical understanding of the difference between Western and Japanese morality only really came to light the mid-1900s

The difference between these two distinct minds is directly bound to the religious systems dominating the two cultures.

Keep in mind, the Japanese are not, and never have been “religious” in the mythological sense of Christianity.

In the West, Christianity and its dogma is based upon the absolute principles of good and bad, right and wrong.

Good and Evil - Land Of The Rising Son

This is the dominant philosophical and spiritual force of Christianity which embodies a detailed code of thought and behaviour that was drummed into Westerners from childhood.

Even all the more unpleasantly so, every thought and action was prescribed and judged by a single, all-powerful, all-knowing god.

The Holy Trinity - Land Of The Rising Son

Westerners were conditioned to pass judgment on every aspect of life, labeling every thought and action as good or bad, moral or immoral.

All precepts pertaining to life were expressed in these absolute terms.

These canons of Mammon were created to serve generation after generation of morally bankrupt religious parasites sucking the spirit and soul from our common humanity.

Mammon and the Greed of the Christian Church - Land Of The Rising Son

Life in the West was ruled by absolute principles, starting with the Ten Commandments.

The indoctrinated Christian Occidentals were conditioned to suffer emotional and spiritual pain if they broke any of these commandments, even when their “misbehaviour” was unknown to others.

Catholic Nun Corporal Punishment - Land Of The Rising Son

For this omnipresent Western style god, or more realistically, what has now morphed into the “State,” wants to knows if you have been naughty or nice, and will for certain exact its pound of flesh and revenge as it sees fit, jury, judge, and executioner, all in the name of the lord.

The prime directive of Western culture was that everyone should be conditioned to automatically distinguish between right and wrong as
prescribed by the Church.

However, this has never guarantee “good” or even humane behaviour, and much of the evil committed by the West is still done in the name of religion.

Jesuit Tyranny - Land Of The Rising Son

In Japan, on the other hand, there is no single omnipotent god whatsoever.

The Japanese have their own constitution handed down from Taishi Shōtoku in 604 CE, which takes a much more pragmatic approach to carry oneself throughout life.

Taishi Shōtoku - Land Of The Rising Son

There are no religious texts teaching absolute truths.

The roots of the Japanese are in the detailed guidelines concerning form order, and process.

These are matters of social status, position, gender, relationships, and the like, and has nothing to do with religious tenets whatsoever.

Among the Japanese, ultimate power is not in the hands of a god, but in the hands of their group.

Japanese fans cleaning up the stadium after soccer match - Land Of The Rising Son

What the Japanese fear the most is the opinion and judgement of the individual member of their group, and they must do their best to conform to the majority opinion and wishes of their superiors.

In cultural context, when circumstance were peaceful, what was true and moral was determined by the majority of the group.

This consensus mentality is deeply embedded in the psyche of the Japanese, and is a fundamental protocol to which the Japanese innately adhere.

In times of conflict and chaos, when the center of power changed, truth and morality also changed to conform to the new circumstances.

In other words, the virtuous Japanese were those who stayed in harmony with their fellow group members, and obeyed all etiquette rules demanded by their social system.

土下座 - Land Of The Rising Son

There is no such thing as absolute good or bad in the psychological make up of the Japanese.

There is only the immediate needs of the many.

Whatever serves the needs of the majority is good, whatever does not is bad.

By extension of this situational morality, whatever benefits group leaders in Japanese society is also good for that group’s members.

Certainly, the first Westerners in Japan who were indoctrinated into the absolutist Christian principles of right or wrong were shocked when encountering the circumstantial and human-centred morality of the Japanese.

The foundation of the Japanese Way and our harmonious society is a divine blend of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Tao.

神道・儒教・仏教・道教 - Land Of The Rising Son

The Japanese need not, nor want a dogmatic desert deity passing subjective eternal judgment upon the Japanese race, or the clans of Japan.

Not only are the ancestral clans watching over the decedents from the Shinto god-shelfs and Buddhist alters, the Japanese must deal with the rigours of our “tate shakai” society and must adhere to the form, order and process of their group.

Japanese Symbol of Peace and Harmony - Land Of The Rising Son

Regardless, each Japanese has plenty to live up to in this strict hierarchical society, and one can plainly see the moral code of the Japanese imbedded into the DNA.

True to their nature, the Japanese have now folded the democratic principles introduced by the United States in 1945 into their ancient moral code into what can simply now be referred to as “The System.”

香取神宮 - Land Of The Rising Son

Sword – Jewel – Mirror

Sword – Jewel – Mirror

Sword – Jewel – Mirror

Sword – Jewel – Mirror

All cultures have meaningful symbolism strewn throughout the spectrum of their respective religions and cultures.

BuddhaGreat Buddha of Japan - Land Of The Rising Son

ShivaShiva - Land Of The Rising Son
Christ
christ hanging on the cross- Land Of The Rising Son

As well as countless other symbols represented in the mythology of ancient times.

religious symbols in peace - Land Of The Rising Son

Many of these old stories remain very much alive, continuing to influence countless masses of adherents, immersing generational obedience to deep dogma of long gone but not forgotten distant times.

A major industrial nation and world power, the roots of Japan, and what the Japanese believe as the moral tenets and foundations of Japanese society can be accurately described based upon the three foundational symbols of Japan.

These three sacred symbols of the Japanese accurately reflect the three fundamental necessities connected to the human condition, and can be looked upon as the three pillars of a meaningful life.

Sword – Jewel – Mirror

Three Sacred Symbols Of Japan - Land Of The Rising SonSword
As harsh life lesson are taught to all, the importance of being a good judge of character can not be underestimated.

This is where the sword comes in and ruthlessly cuts away everything that does not serve the purpose of one’s own family and greater community.

Indeed, the sword can be used in many ways.

To slice away one’s slavery to a chosen addiction (the mirror is for discovery).

Can be used to vanquish the fear of the unknown as you leave your house for the very last time after getting divorced.

One can not choose their relatives, but one can slice them away into distant unpleasant memories now long forgotten. 

Here one can also use this new and precious empty space to recommit to one’s own life, family, and community.

日本刀 - Land Of The Rising Son

Jewel
Building a stable family and community takes a mature understanding of wealth and how it can be prescribed to build a rock solid foundation upon the shifting sand and turning tides in the Age Of Corona.

Here and now, we have the opportunity to connect our common lives while globally building likeminded communities, wherever those communities may be under our shared sun.

Sharing Prosperity - Land Of The Rising Son

Mirror
Is this the same person today as yesterday.

Or was one timeless day lost forever and wasted away, by somebody else?

Inside this mirror one can view the souls of all creation.

Indeed the world surrounding us is the mirror.

Here it will reflect back the truth, regardless of the mask each wear every day.

mirror into the soul - Land Of The Rising Son

The Japanese, for all intent and purpose, live life pragmatically, according to the rules of the dead, who still sway Japan up until this very day. 

One could almost say the Japanese are religious by nature just without the “religion.”

Why not make sure and check on the status of one’s own family’s Sword – Jewel – Mirror, for this is the compass to guide one along the way.

Clarity Over Time - Land Of The Rising Son

Reflections

Reflections

Reflections

Reflections

In this historic work, Japan, An Attempt At Interpretation, Patrick Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) endeavoured to suggest a general idea of the social history of Japan, and a general idea of the nature of those forces which shaped and tempered the character of the Japanese people. 

Japan, An Attempt At Interpretation - Land Of The Rising Son

But the fact that Japan can be understood only through the study of her religious and social evolution has been sufficiently indicated. 

She affords us the amazing spectacle of an Eastern society maintaining all the outward forms of Western civilization using, with unquestionable efficiency, the applied science of the Occident.

Accomplishing, by prodigious effort, the work of centuries within the time of three decades, yet sociologically remaining at a stage corresponding to that which, in ancient Europe, preceded the Christian era by hundreds of years.

But no suggestion of origins and causes should diminish the pleasure of contemplating this curious world, psychologically still so far away from us in the course of human evolution. 

The wonder and beauty of what remains of the Old Japan cannot be lessened by any knowledge of the conditions that produced them. 

The old kindliness and grace of manners need not cease to charm us because we know that such manners were cultivated, for a thousand years, under the edge of the sword. 

Common politeness almost universal, and the rarity of quarrels, should not prove less agreeable because we have learned that, for generations and generations, all quarrels among the people were punished with extraordinary rigour, and that the custom of the vendetta, which rendered necessary such repression, also made everybody cautious of word and deed. 

Japanese Bowing To Each Other

The popular smile should not seem less winning because we have been told of a period, in the past of the subject-classes, when not to smile in the teeth of pain might cost life itself. 

What remains of this elder civilization, Old Japan is full of charm, charm unspeakable, and to witness its gradual destruction must be a grief for whomsoever has felt that charm. 

However intolerable may seem, to the mind of the artist or poet, those countless restrictions which once ruled all this fairy-world and shaped the soul of it, he cannot but admire and love their best results.

The simplicity of old custom.

The amiability of manners.

The daintiness of habits.

The delicate tact displayed in pleasure-giving.

The strange power of presenting outwardly, under any circumstances, only the best and brightest aspects of character. 

Are we really charmed by the results of a social discipline that refused to recognize the individual? 

Enamoured by a cult that exacted the suppression of personality?

Japanese Woman of Dignity and Honour - Land Of The Rising Son

No.

The charm is made by the fact that this vision of the past represents to us much more than past or present, that it foreshadows the possibilities of some higher future, in a world of perfect sympathy.

After many a thousand years there may be developed a humanity able to achieve, with never a shadow of illusion, those ethical conditions prefigured by the ideals of Old Japan.

Instinctive unselfishness, a common desire to find the joy of life in making happiness for others, and a universal sense of moral beauty. 

And whenever men shall have so far gained upon the present as to need no other code than the teaching of their own hearts, then indeed the ancient ideal of Shinto will find its supreme realization.

Old Japan came nearer to the achievement of the highest moral ideal than our far more evolved societies can hope to do for many a hundred years.

秋の霧の朝の橋での日本のカエデ木 - Land Of The Rising Son

No people so ruled by altruism as to lose its capacities for aggression and cunning could hold their own, in the present state of the world, against races hardened by the discipline of competition as well as by the discipline of war. 

The future Japan must rely upon the least amiable qualities of her character for success in the universal struggle, and she will need to develop them strongly.

The veritable strength of Japan still lies in the moral nature of her common people, her farmers and fishermen, artisans and labourers, the patient quiet folk one sees toiling in the rice-fields, or occupied with the humblest of crafts and callings. 

At no time was the ancient faith stronger than in this hour of struggle, and Russian power will have very much more to fear from that faith than from repeating rifles or Whitehead torpedoes.

WHITEHEAD TORPEDO - Land Of The Rising Son

Shinto, as a religion of patriotism, is a force that should suffice, if permitted fair-play, to affect not only the destinies of the whole Far East, but the future of civilization. 

No more irrational assertion was ever made about the Japanese than the statement of their indifference to religion.

Religion is still, as it has ever been, the very life of the people, the motive and the directing power of their every action.

A religion of doing and suffering, a religion without cant and hypocrisy. 

And the qualities especially developed by it are just those qualities which have startled Russia, and may yet cause her many a painful surprise.

Before the Russian menace, the Soul of Yamato revives again. 

Japan Russia - Land Of The Rising Son

Japan has incomparably more to fear from English or American capital than from Russian battleships and bayonets. 

Behind her military capacity is the disciplined experience of a thousand years, behind her industrial and commercial power, the experience of half-a-century. 

She was able to keep strong because, under the new forms of rule and the new conditions of social activity, she could still maintain a great deal of the ancient discipline.

But even thus it was only by the firmest and shrewdest policy that she could avert disaster, could prevent the disruption of her whole social structure under the weight of alien pressure. 

It was imperative that vast changes should be made, but equally imperative that they should not be of a character to endanger the foundations.

It was above all things necessary, while preparing for immediate necessities, to provide against future perils. 

Never before, perhaps, in the history of human civilization, did any rulers find themselves obliged to cope with problems so tremendous, so complicated, and so inexorable.

And of these problems the most inexorable remains to be solved.

It is furnished by the fact that although all the successes of Japan have been so far due to unselfish collective action, sustained by the old Shinto ideals of duty and obedience, her industrial future must depend upon egoistic individual action of a totally opposite kind!

Commodore Perry Black Ship - Land Of The Rising Son

What then will become of the ancient morality and the ancient cult?

It seems certain that there will be a further gradual loosening of the old family-bonds, and this would bring about a further disintegration.

By the testimony of the Japanese themselves, such disintegration was spreading rapidly among the upper and middle classes of the great cities, prior to the present war. 

Among the people of the agricultural districts, and even in the country towns, the old ethical order of things has yet been little affected. 

And there are other influences than legislative change or social necessity which are working for disintegration. 

Old beliefs have been rudely shaken by the introduction of larger knowledge.

A new generation is being taught, in twenty-seven thousand primary schools, the rudiments of science and the modern conception of the universe. 

Under any circumstances a religion decays slowly, and the most conservative forms of religion are the last to yield to disintegration. 

It were a grave mistake to suppose that the ancestor-cult has yet been appreciably affected by exterior influences of any kind, or to imagine that it continues to exist merely by force of hallowed custom, and not because the majority still believe. 

No religion, and least of all the religion of the dead, could thus suddenly lose its hold upon the affections of the race that evolved it.

神棚- Land Of The Rising Son

There is indeed a growing class of young men with whom scepticism of a certain sort is the fashion, and scorn of the past an affectation, but even among these no word of disrespect concerning the religion of the home is ever heard. 

Protests against the old obligations of filial piety, complaints of the growing weight of the family yoke, are sometimes uttered, but the domestic cult is never spoken of lightly. 

As for the communal and other public forms of Shinto, the vigour of the old religion is sufficiently indicated by the continually increasing number of shrines.

In 1897 there were 191,962 Shinto shrines, in 1901 there were 195,256.

It seems probable that such changes as must occur in the near future will be social rather than religious, and there is little reason to believe that these changes, however they may tend to weaken filial piety in sundry directions will seriously affect the ancestor-cult itself. 

The weight of the family-bond, aggravated by the increasing difficulty and cost of life, may be more and more lightened for the individual, but no legislation can abolish the sentiment of duty to the dead. 

When that sentiment utterly fails, the heart of a nation will have ceased to beat. 

Belief in the old gods, as gods, may slowly pass, but Shinto may live on as the Religion of the Fatherland.

香取神宮へようこそ - Land Of The Rising Son

A religion of heroes and patriots, and the likelihood of such future modification is indicated by the memorial character of many new shrines.

It has been much asserted of late years that Japan is desperately in need of a Gospel of Individualism, and many pious persons assume that the conversion of the country to Christianity would suffice to produce the Individualism.

This assumption has nothing to rest on except the old superstition that national customs and habits and modes of feeling, slowly shaped in the course of thousands of years, can be suddenly transformed by a mere act of faith. 

Since the declaration of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there has been a remarkable softening in the attitude of safe conservatism which the government formerly maintained toward Western religion. 

But as for the question whether the Japanese nation will ever adopt an alien creed under official encouragement, I think that the sociological answer is evident. 

Any understanding of the fundamental structure of society should make equally obvious the imprudence of attempting hasty transformations, and the impossibility of effecting them. 

For the present, at least, the religious question in Japan is a question of social integrity, and any efforts to precipitate the natural course of change can result only in provoking reaction and disorder. 

Jesuit Tyranny - Land Of The Rising Son

I believe that the time is far away at which Japan can venture to abandon the policy of caution that has served her so well. 

I believe that the day on which she adopts a Western creed, her immemorial dynasty is doomed, and I cannot help fearing that whenever she yields to foreign capital the right to hold so much as one rood of her soil, she signs away her birthright beyond hope of recovery.

Consider a few general remarks upon the religion of the Far East, in its relation to Occidental aggressions, this attempt at interpretation may fitly conclude.

All the societies of the Far East are founded, like that of Japan, upon ancestor-worship.

This ancient religion, in various forms, represents their moral experience, and it offers everywhere to the introduction of Christianity, as now intolerantly preached, obstacles of the most serious kind. 

Attacks upon it must seem, to those whose lives are directed by it, the greatest of outrages and the most unpardonable of crimes. 

A religion for which every member of a community believes it his duty to die at call, is a religion for which he will fight. 

His patience with attacks upon it will depend upon the degree of his intelligence and the nature of training. 

None the races of the Far East have the intelligence of the Japanese, nor have they been equally well trained, under ages of military discipline, to adapt their conduct to circumstances. 

The East has been tolerant of all creeds which do not assault the foundations of its societies.

Great Buddha of Japan - Land Of The Rising Son

And if Western missions had been wise enough to leave those foundations alone, to deal with the ancestor-cult as Buddhism did, and to show the same spirit of tolerance in other directions, the introduction of Christianity upon a very extensive scale should have proved a matter of no difficulty.

That the result would have been a Christianity differing considerably from Western Christianity is obvious.

The structure of Far-Eastern society not admitting of sudden transformations, but the essentials of doctrine might have been widely propagated, without exciting social antagonism, and much less race-hatred. 

Today it is probably impossible to undo what the sterile labour of intolerance has already done.

The hatred of Western religion in China and adjacent countries is undoubtedly due to the needless and implacable attacks which have been made upon the ancestor-cult. 

To demand of a Chinese that he cast away or destroy his ancestral tablets is not less irrational and inhuman than it would be to demand of an Englishman or a Frenchman that he destroy his mother’s tombstone in proof of his devotion to Christianity.

Montmartre-Cemetery - Land Of The Rising Son

From old time these attacks upon the domestic faith of docile and peaceful communities have provoked massacres, and, if persisted in, they will continue to provoke massacres while the people have strength left to strike. 

How foreign religious aggression is answered by native religious aggression, and how Christian military power avenges the foreign victims with tenfold slaughter and strong robbery, need not here be recorded. 

It has not been in these years only that ancestor-worshipping peoples have been slaughtered, impoverished, or subjugated in revenge for the uprisings that missionary intolerance provokes.

From the sociological point of view the whole missionary system, irrespective of sect and creed, represents the skirmishing-force of Western civilization in its general attack upon all civilizations of the ancient type, the first line in the forward movement of the strongest and most highly evolved societies upon the weaker and less evolved. 

The conscious work of these fighters is that of preachers and teachers; their unconscious work is that of sappers and destroyers. 

Yet Christianity does not appreciably expand. 

They perish, and they really lay down their lives, with more than the courage of soldiers, not, as they hope, to assist the spread of that doctrine which the East must still of necessity refuse, but to help industrial enterprise and Occidental aggrandizement.

The real and avowed object of missions is defeated by persistent indifference to sociological truths, and the martyrdoms and sacrifices are utilized by Christian nations for ends essentially opposed to the spirit of Christianity

Needless to say that the aggressions of race upon race are fully in accord with the universal law of struggle, that perpetual struggle in which only the more capable survive.

Inferior races must become subservient to higher races, or disappear before them.

And ancient types of civilization, too rigid for progress, must yield to the pressure of more efficient and more complex civilizations. 

Tokyo from SkyTree with Fuji San - Land Of The Rising Son

Human progress has been achieved by denying the law of the stronger, by battling against those impulses to crush the weak, to prey upon the helpless, which rule in the world of the brute.

All virtues and restraints making civilization possible have been developed in the teeth of natural law. 

Those races which lead are the races who first learned that the highest power is acquired by the exercise of forbearance, and that liberty is best maintained by the protection of the weak, and by the strong repression of injustice.

Unless we be ready to deny the whole of the moral experience thus gained, unless we are willing to assert that the religion in which it has been expressed is only the creed of a particular civilization, and not a religion of humanity, it were difficult to imagine any ethical justification for the aggressions made upon alien peoples in the name of Christianity and enlightenment.

The plain teaching of sociology is that the higher races cannot with impunity cast aside their moral experience in dealing with feebler races, and that Western civilization will have to pay, sooner or later, the full penalty of its deeds of oppression.

War Crimes Unpunished - Land Of The Rising Son

Nations that, while refusing to endure religious intolerance at home, steadily maintain religious intolerance abroad, must eventually lose those rights of intellectual freedom which cost so many centuries of atrocious struggle to win. 

Perhaps this book will convince some thoughtful persons that the constitution of Far-Eastern society presents insuperable obstacles to the propaganda of Western religion.

These obstacles now demand, more than at any previous epoch, the most careful and humane consideration, and that the further needless maintenance of an uncompromising attitude towards them can result in nothing but evil. 

Whatever the religion of ancestors may have been thousands of years ago, today throughout the Far East it is the religion of family affection and duty, and by inhumanly ignoring this fact, Western zealots can scarcely fail to provoke a few more Boxer uprisings.

Never will the East turn Christian while dogmatism requires the convert to deny his ancient obligation to the family, the community, and the government and further insists that he prove his zeal for an alien creed by destroying the tablets of his ancestors, and outraging the memory of those who gave him life.

香取神宮 - Land Of The Rising Son

Industrial Danger

Industrial Danger

Industrial Danger

Industrial Danger

Everywhere the course of human civilization has been shaped by the same evolutional law.

The earlier history of the ancient European communities can help us to understand the social conditions of Old Japan, so a later period of the same history can help us to divine something of the probable future of the New Japan.

The history of all the ancient Greek and Latin communities included four revolutionary periods.

  • The first revolution had everywhere for its issue the withdrawal of political power from the priest-king, who was nevertheless allowed to retain the religious authority. 
  • The second revolutionary period witnessed the breaking up of the gens, and the enfranchisement of the client from the authority of the patron, and several important changes in the legal constitution of the family.
  • The third revolutionary period saw the weakening of the religious and military aristocracy, the entrance of the common people into the rights of citizenship, and the rise of a democracy of wealth, presently to be opposed by a democracy of poverty. 
  • The fourth revolutionary period witnessed the first bitter struggles between rich and poor, the final triumph of anarchy, and the consequent establishment of a new and horrible form of despotism, the despotism of the popular tyrant.

World War 2 Allied Powers - Land Of The Rising Son

To these four revolutionary periods, the social history of Old Japan presents but two correspondences.

The first Japanese revolutionary period was represented by the Fujiwara usurpation of the imperial civil and military authority.

After which the aristocracy, religious and military, really governed Japan down to our own time (Meiji Era).

All the events of the rise of the military power and the concentration of authority under the Tokugawa Shogunate properly belong to the first revolutionary period.

At the time of the opening of Japan, society had not evolutionally advanced beyond a stage corresponding to that of the antique Western societies in the seventh or eighth century before Christ.

The second revolutionary period really began only with the reconstruction of society in 1871.

But within the space of a single generation thereafter, Japan entered upon her third revolutionary period.

Already the influence of the elder aristocracy is threatened by the sudden rise of a new oligarchy of wealth, a new industrial power probably destined to become omnipotent in politics.

Tanaka Kakue With Richard Nixon - Land Of The Rising Son

The disintegration of the clan, the changes in the legal constitution of the family, the entrance of the people into the enjoyment of political rights, must all tend to hasten the coming transfer of power. 

There is every indication that, in the present order of things, the third revolutionary period will run its course rapidly, and then a fourth revolutionary period, fraught with serious danger, would be in immediate prospect.

Consider the bewildering rapidity of recent changes, from the reconstruction of society in 1871 to the opening of the first national parliament in 1891. 

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the nation had remained in the condition common to European patriarchal communities twentysix hundred years ago.

Society had indeed entered upon a second period of integration, but had traversed only one great revolution.

Then the country was suddenly hurried through two more social revolutions of the most extraordinary kind.

Japan had not even approached that stage of industrial development which, in the ancient European societies, naturally brought about the first political struggles between rich and poor. 

Japan’s social organization made industrial oppression impossible.

And under the new order of things, forms of social misery, never before known in the history of the race are developing.

Prior to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority there was never any such want in any part of Japan, except as a temporary consequence of war.

The early history of European civilization supplies analogies.

Early European Civilization - Land Of The Rising Son

In the Greek and Latin communities, up to the time of the dissolution of the gens, there was no poverty in the modern meaning of that word.

Slavery with some few exceptions, existed only in the mild domestic form.

Under any patriarchal system, based upon ancestor-worship, there is no misery, as a consequence of poverty, except such as may be temporarily created by devastation or famine.

If want thus comes, it comes to all alike. 

In such a state of society everybody is in the service of somebody, and receives in exchange for service all the necessaries of life.

There is no need for any one to trouble himself about the question of living.

Also, in such a patriarchal community, which is self-sufficing, there is little need of money.

Barter takes the place of trade.

物々交換 - Land Of The Rising Son

In all these respects, the condition of Old Japan offered a close parallel to the conditions of patriarchal society in ancient Europe. 

While the uji or clan existed, there was no misery except as a result of war, famine, or pestilence.

 Throughout society, except for the small commercial class, the need of money was rare, and such coinage as existed was little suited to general circulation. 

Taxes were paid in rice and other produce.

As the lord nourished his retainers, so the samurai cared for his dependents, the farmer for his labourers, the artisan for his apprentices and journeymen, the merchant for his clerks. 

Everybody was fed, and there was no need, in ordinary times at least, for any one to go hungry.

It was only with the breaking-up of the clan system in Japan that the possibilities of starvation for the worker first came into existence. 

Hotaruno No Haka - Land Of The Rising Son

And as, in antique Europe, the enfranchised client-class and plebeian-class developed, under similar conditions, into a democracy clamouring for suffrage and all political rights.

And so it is in Japan where the common people developed the political instinct for self-preservation.

It will be remembered how, in Greek and Roman society, the aristocracy founded upon religious tradition and military power had to give way to an oligarchy of wealth.

At a later day, the results of popular suffrage were the breaking up of the democratic government, and the initiation of an atrocious struggle between rich and poor. 

After that strife had begun there was no more security for life or property until the Roman conquest enforced order.

Now it seems likely that we will soon witness in Japan a strong tendency to repeat the history of the old Greek anarchies. 

With the constant increase of poverty and pressure of population, and the concomitant accumulation of wealth in the hands of a new industrial class, the peril is obvious.

The Primitive Man, finding that the Moral Man has landed him in the valley of the shadow of death, may rise up to take the management of affairs into his own hands, and fight savagely for the right of existence. 

The absence of individual liberty was the real cause of the disorders and the final ruin of the Greek societies.

Freedom And Liberty Have a Black Eye Today - Land Of The Rising Son

Rome suffered less and survived, and dominated, because within its boundaries the rights of the individual had been more respected.

Now the absence of individual freedom in modern Japan would certainly appear to be nothing less than a national danger. 

For those very habits of unquestioning obedience and loyalty and respect for authority, which made feudal society possible, are likely to render a true democratic regime impossible, and would tend to bring about a state of anarchy.

Only races long accustomed to personal liberty, liberty to think about matters of ethics apart from matters of government, liberty to consider questions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, independently of political authority are able to face without risk the peril now menacing Japan.

For should social disintegration take in Japan the same course which it followed in the old European societies, unchecked by any precautionary legislation, and so bring about another social revolution, the consequence could scarcely be less than utter ruin. 

In the antique world of Europe, the total disintegration of the patriarchal system occupied centuries.

It was slow, and it was normal not having been brought about by external forces. 

In Japan, on the contrary, this disintegration is taking place under enormous outside pressure, operating with the rapidity of electricity and steam.

古い日本汽車 - Land Of The Rising Son

Yet already the danger of anarchy is in sight, and the population astonishingly augmented by more than ten millions already begins to experience all the forms of misery developed by want under industrial conditions.

This immense development has been effected at serious cost in other directions.

The old methods of family production, and therefore most of the beautiful industries and arts, for which Japan has been so long famed now seem doomed beyond hope.

Instead of the ancient kindly relations between master and workers, there have been brought into existence with no legislation to restrain inhumanity all the horrors of factorylife at its worst. 

The new combinations of capital have actually reestablished servitude, under under harsher forms than ever were imagined under the feudal era.

The misery of the women and children subjected to that servitude is a public scandal, and proves strange possibilities of cruelty on the part of a people once renowned for kindness, kindness even to animals.

If the future of Japan could depend upon her army and navy, upon the high courage of her people and their readiness to die by the hundred thousand for ideals of honour and of duty, there would be small cause for alarm in the present state of affairs. 

Unfortunately, Japan’s future must depend upon other qualities than courage, other abilities than those of sacrifice, and her struggle hereafter must be one in which her social traditions will place Japan at an immense disadvantage. 

The capacity for industrial competition cannot be made to depend upon the misery of women and children, it must depend upon the intelligent freedom of the individual.

And the society which suppresses this freedom, or suffers it to be suppressed, must remain too rigid for competition with societies in which the liberties of the individual are strictly maintained. 

While Japan continues to think and to act by groups, even by groups of industrial companies, so long Japan must always continue incapable of her best. 

Japanese fans cleaning up the stadium after soccer match - Land Of The Rising Son

Her ancient social experience is not sufficient to avail her for the future international struggle, rather it must sometimes impede her as so much dead weight. 

Dead, in the ghostliest sense of the word, the viewless pressure upon her life of numberless vanished generations. 

Japan will have not only to strive against colossal odds in her rivalry with more plastic and more forceful societies, Japan will have to strive much more against the power of her phantom past.

Yet it were a grievous error to imagine that Japan has nothing further to gain from her ancestral faith. 

All her modern successes have been aided by it.

All her modern failures have been marked by needless breaking with its ethical custom.

Japan could compel her people, by a simple fiat, to adopt the civilization of the West, with all its pain and struggle, only because that people had been trained for ages in submission and loyalty and sacrifice, and the time has not yet come in which Japan can afford to cast away the whole of her moral past. 

More freedom indeed Japan requires, but freedom restrained by wisdom, freedom to think and act and strive for self as well as for others, not freedom to oppress the weak, or to exploit the simple.

And the new cruelties of her industrial life can find no justification in the traditions of her ancient faith, which exacted absolute obedience from the dependent, but equally required the duty of kindness from the master. 

In so far as Japan has permitted her people to depart from the way of kindness, Japan herself has surely departed from the Way of the Gods.

伊勢神宮 - Land Of The Rising Son

And the domestic future appears dark. 

Born of that darkness, an evil dream comes oftentimes to those who love Japan.

The fear that all her efforts are being directed, with desperate heroism, only to prepare the land for the sojourn of peoples older by centuries in commercial experience.

That her thousands of miles of railroads and telegraphs, her mines and forges, her arsenals and factories, her docks and fleets, are being put in order for the use of foreign capital.

That her admirable army and her heroic navy may be doomed to make their last sacrifices in hopeless contest against some combination of greedy states.

Provoked or encouraged to aggression by circumstances beyond the power of Government to control.

But the statesmanship that has already guided Japan through many storms should prove able to cope with this gathering peril.

Perry's Black Ship - Land Of The Rising Son

Based Upon

Japan,  An Attempt At Interpretation

Published 1904

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn