Blog / Culture
From centuries past, the Japanese were acutely aware of the aesthetics of design, not only of craftsmanship, but extending into the conceptual and sublime societal protocol of form, order, and process, which are critical for a successful life in Japanese society.
Here is something that is universally applicable to ponder, no religion necessary: Do not judge a book by its cover.
The chasm between “East” and “West” has never been as volatile since the enslavement of the Chinese nation with massive opioid addiction in the early 20th century. Let us refresh our collective memories as to why this historical inflection points has now set up a showdown between these two civilizations, and why the nation of Japan has always represents the third pillar of modern civilization.
Hey hey mama said the way your move it's gonna make you sweat it's going to make you groove. Nothing can replace a memory of an eccentric older cousin passing through our small rural town in British Columbia, and stopping by to take me to a record store to buy Led Zeppelin IV.
The importance of trust of each other, and trust in one’s own community is embodied in the spirit of this magnificent ideogram. 互
Using the philosophy of ichi go ichi e, it is always best to take each encounter as an extraordinary moment in time, regardless of the tone, timbre, or hue contained within the encounter.
All cultures have meaningful symbolism strewn throughout the spectrum of their respective religions and cultures. 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.
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. But the fact that Japan can be understood only through the study of her religious and social evolution has been sufficiently indicated.
For the Japanese, the ringing-in of the New Year is the most important holiday in the Land Of The Rising Son, along with Obon where the ancestor worshiping Japanese honour their dead. For the most part, the Japanese celebrate this special occasion in a solemn and reserved manner.
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. Everywhere the course of human civilization has been shaped by the same evolutional law.
In the Occidental world, the repressive part of moral training begins in early childhood. The European or American teacher is strict with the little ones, we think that it is important to ingrain the duties of behaviour. The "must" and the "must not" of individual obligation, as soon as possible.
It has often been asserted by foreign observers that the real power in Japan is exercised not from above, but from below. What cannot be denied is that superior authority has always been more or less restrained by tendencies to resistance from below.
After the reconstructions of the Meiji period, after the abolition of the feudal fiefdoms, and the suppression of the military class, it still maintained its former shape, just as the tree would continue to do when first abandoned by the gardener.
The slow weakening of the Tokugawa Shogunate was due to causes not unlike those which had brought about the decline of previous regencies. The race degenerated during that long period of peace which its rule had inaugurated. The strong builders were succeeded by feebler and feebler men.
During two hundred years of peace, prosperity, and national isolation, the graceful and winning side of this human nature found chance to bloom. The multiform restraints of law and custom then quickened and curiously shaped the blossoming, as the gardener's untiring art evolves the chrysanthemum flowers into a hundred forms of fantastic beauty.
The second half of the sixteenth century is the most interesting period in Japanese history for three reasons. First, because it witnessed the apparition of those mighty captains, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu.
The history of the Japanese people strongly exemplifies these truths. Among no other people has loyalty ever assumed more impressive and extraordinary forms. Among no other people has obedience ever been nourished by a more abundant faith, that faith derived from the cult of the ancestors.
Although everything prior to the seventh century remains obscured for us by the mists of fable, much can be inferred concerning social conditions during the reigns of the first thirty-three Emperors and Empresses. Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), completed in 712 CE, and the Nihon Shoki contain records of fact, but fact and myth are so interwoven, it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other.
Its original unit was not the household (Domestic), but the patriarchal family, that is to say, the clans. These clans consisted of a body of hundreds or thousands of persons claiming descendant from a common ancestor, and so religiously united by a common ancestor worship; the cult of the Ujigami.
Intolerance of ancestor worship would have long ago resulted in the extinction of Buddhism; for its vast conquest have all been made among ancestor worshipping races. Everywhere it made itself accepted as an ally, nowhere as an enemy, of social custom.
Ethics were not different from religion, religion was not different from government, and the very word for government signified “matters-of-religion.” To obey was piety, to disobey was impious, and the rule of obedience was enforced upon each individual by the will of the community to which he belonged.
Ancestral ghosts, considered more or less alike when primitive society had not yet developed class distinctions of any important characteristic. Subsequently these ancestral ghosts became differentiated, as a society itself differentiates into greater and lesser.
Like the “religion” of the home, Domestic, the religion of the community, Communal is also based upon ancestor worship. What the household shrine (kamidana 神棚) represents to the immediately Japanese family, the Shinto parish-shrine represents to the greater community.
Three stages of ancestor worship are to be distinguished in the general course of religious and social evolution, and each of these can be found in the history of Japanese society.
