A Brief History of Japanese Religion
The Buddha is said to have been born in India around 500 BCE. During his life time, he preached the benefits of the Middle Path, the road between the two extremes of a decadent life style and severe austerities. Soon after the death of the founder, Buddhist missionaries began to travel through out Asia, finding their way along the Silk Roads to China, first arriving around 100 CE. The climate there was hospitable to the teaching of the Buddha, and soon Buddhism was counted along with Taoism and Confucianism as one of the major religions of the period. The Chinese interpreted the Buddhist texts in a new light, and Chinese Buddhism began to take on its own distinctive character. Around 600 CE, Chinese Buddhist missionaries made their way through Korea to Japan. Thus, around one millennium after the founding of Buddhism, the Japanese were first exposed to its teachings and philosophies. The Japanese, who were eagerly assimilating the high culture of the T'ang dynasty into their own, adopted the Buddhist schools that had grown in both power and prestige in China. However, coexisting with this new foreign religion was the native Japanese religion of Shinto ("The Way of the Kami"). Both religions influenced the thoughts and actions of the Japanese people, and both remain active in Japan to this day, coexisting peacefully.
SHINTO
"In their world myriad spirits shone like fireflies and every tree and bush could speak."
At first, it is difficult for a Westerner to comprehend the religion known as Shinto. Shinto has no founding father, no all powerful deity, no holy scriptures, no moral code, no single practice or goal. In its beginnings there was not a unified priesthood or community, but in...
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With the dawn of the Modern Period there came a new regime of rulers. These rulers attacked Buddhism and pushed Shinto as the true religion of the Japanese people. It became illegal for Buddhists to teach that the kami were manifestation of the buddhas (they were to be seen as far superior to the buddhas), and Buddhism in general was blamed for the problems that faced Japan. Many temples were destroyed. Shinto (often called State Shinto) was declared non-religious, but rather the "duty" of every loyal Japanese person. This nationalistic movement helped push Japan into WWII, and defeat by the Allies was crushing. State Shinto was outlawed, and the related shrines were made independent. Yet, to this day, both Buddhism and Shinto play an active role in the lives of the Japanese people. The two have come into equilibrium, serving the Japanese people's needs together.
Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” conveys a story about the terrors of the future and how man eventually will lose their personality. Leonard Mead, a simple man, walks aimlessly during the night because it is calming to him. “For thousands of miles, [Mead] had never met another person walking, not once in all that time,” but on one fateful night, a mechanical police officer sent Leonard away because of his odd behavior (Bradbury, Ray). This story shows what the future will bring to mankind. During the time of Bradbury, 1920 to 2012, technology began evolving from very simple mechanics to very complex systems that we know today. Bradbury feared that some day, technology will take over and send mankind into a state of anarchy and despair. Bradbury, influenced by society, wrote “The Pedestrian” to warn people about the danger of technology resulting in loss of personality.
Shinto is the traditional religion of Japan. It means “the way of the kami”. Shintoism is mainly focused on beliefs in, and worships of Kami. Kami are spiritual or divine beings. They are sometimes referred to as the ‘gods’ in Shinto. But rather than the powerful and supernatural beings seen in Western religion, Kami is more like a mystical and sacred spirit that exist in the creative forces of nature. Shintoism follows the belief of animism, which is the belief that natural, material objects possess souls. These sacred spirits, called Kami are able to take the form of different things in nature. Kami not only exists as spiritual beings, but also takes the form of plants and animals, mountains and seas, and all natural phenomena.
The Dao is the prescriptive doctrine or way; conceived as the void out of which all reality emerges, beyond time and space, so vast it cannot be described. The Dao spontaneously generated the primal energy (QI) and the contemporary yin and yang. Laozi believed that social harmony would come if people tuned themselves to The Way (The Dao). To be content, one must accept that change is the absolute reality, and that all things and transformation are unified in the Dao. The best way to achieve understanding of The Way is through meditation, seeking quietude in nature, dropping out of society and living the life of a hermit — going into the mountains and getting drunk or high on various substances. Many daoists would retreat to the Boshan mountains that are located on the isle of immortals in the Eastern Sea. There is a daoist myth that the Boshan mountains give ac...
The first part of the journey begins; five thousand years ago with the tribal people who established residence along the shores of the Yellow River in China. (Wong 404). The tribal people believed that their chieftains had extraordinary powers, such as the powers: to control the elements, move the rivers, communicate with plants and animals, travel across the sky, and beneath the earth. (Ibid, 409) Initially, it was due in part to the tribal people’s belief, in the ability of particular individuals to possess inconceivable abilities, that shamanism came into practice in Ancient China. In fact, according to Eva Wong, “In ancient Chinese society, there was a class of people, called the wu.” (Wong 436). As a result, over the centuries, the importance of the wu or shaman continued to develop and by the twelfth century, the rulers of the land employed shamans as an integral part of their advisors. Thus, the shaman held political positions and were able to influence the governing of the nation. An equally important aspect of the ancient religion in China was the reverence of their ancestors’.
Taoism is an ancient Chinese religion, a religion of peace focused on universal balance. The religion itself, though generally surviving today, was almost entirely wiped out in ancient times. Taoism’s primary symbol is still visible on the global market in modern times, though it tends to carry somewhat different meanings then it necessarily did previously. An incredibly life-structure oriented religion, it has permeated through society and is more easily understood through analysis of Taoism’s historical origins and leaders, its types and beliefs, ethics, and the modern influences of Taoism on society.
Originally from Japan, Soyen Shaku was the first Zen master to arrive in America. His followers urged him not to come to a nation that was so ill-mannered and uncultivated and that the Japanese were facing extreme discrimination. Shaku’s countrymen Hirai Ryuge Kinzo “offered pointed examples: the barring of a Japanese student from a university on the basis of his race; the exclusion of Japanese children from the San Francisco public schools; the processions of American citizens bearing placards saying ‘Japs Must Go!’” (Eck 185). After several decades, there was a Zen boom of the 1950s and that was how Buddhism affected western culture, especially in regards to entertainment. “‘Zen’ is “the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character "chan," which is in turn the Chinese translation from the Indian Sanskrit term "dhyana," which means meditation’” (Lin).
Compare And Analysis The Japanese Buddhism And Indo Buddhism Buddhism is a religion and philosophy founded by Siddhartha Gautama in northeast India during the period from the late 6th century to the early 4th century BC. Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played an influential role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of much of the Eastern world. It is the prevailing religious force in most of Asia (India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Tibet). ‘Buddhism’ is reformulated and re-expressed in different cultures and at different times, adopting and redefining aspects of the cultures in which it has taken root. Today, there are about 300 million followers. (Yamplosky) The Indian religion Buddhism, founded in the sixth century BC, is one of the common features of Asian civilization, and Buddhist institutions and believers are found all over East, South, and Southeast Asia. While Buddhism is now just a minority belief in the country of it’s founding, it remains a significant religious and cultural force in Japan today. Buddhism started in India and made its way to China and Korea. From there, it ended up in Japan. Buddhism went through several different periods before it became Japan's national religion. In indo Buddhism, the temple is the main sanctuary, in which services, both public and private, are performed but Japanese Buddhism is mainly hub of individual activities and services. Similarly to Japanese Buddhism, in Indo Buddhism the monastery is a complex of buildings, located usually in a spot chosen for its beauty and seclusion. Its function is to house the activities of the monks. Images are important features of temples, monasteries, and shrines in both Indo a...
Japan has been a home for Shinto and Buddhist religions for centuries. The Christian missionaries during the 16th, 19th and 20th centuries worked hard to evangelize the Japanese nation but could not get desired success. There efforts in past failed partly due to sanctions imposed by the local rulers. The Jesuits missionaries traveled with Spanish and Portuguese traders to many areas of America and Asia-Pacific and established their churches and religious missions. They were funded, sponsored and trained by their respective governments in order to spread Christianity. At several places they preached the Christian faith by force but the aboriginal population did not accept it wholeheartedly. Initially the Jesuits targeted the elite class of the country and a large number was converted. The rulers also forced their subject to embrace the same faith. About 300,000 Japanese were converted in the first phase. Later on, Christianity was prohibited as the rulers started seeing them as a threat to their authority. Following a change of regime, the ban was lifted and missionaries were again allowed to enter Japan. Like many Native American tribes, the Japanese also resisted the new religion. As a result, presently Christians form only 1% of the total population in Japan. This paper is focused on how the Christian religion was introduced in Japan, the evolution of evangelism, establishment of churches, the restrictions and hurdles faced by the missionaries and priest of the new religion and the response of Japanese nation towards an alien faith. All these queries are answered in detail given as follows.
In his article, “Can You Be Education from a Distance?”, James Barszcz effectively weighs the pros and cons of online education compared to the traditional method, while effectively supporting his position with factual information and statistics. While distance education proves to be convenient for students, Barszcz asserts that it eliminates valuable experiences necessary in order to get the most out of the material being learned.
Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan. Founded in 660 B.C., it traces back to the very first people to settle in Japan. Shinto focuses on ancestral worship and is deeply immersed in Japanese culture. Even though it is as ancient as Japan itself, Shinto is still very widely practiced by Japanese people today. However, over the years, it gained some influence from Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Over 50 percent of the Japanese population still practice Shinto.
...Macbeth’s evil deeds. Macbeth, like a ripe apple, has had the last of his killings/ growth and must be shaken from the top of his tree (throne), and killed, as an apple is when taken from its tree. This quote ties the idea that Banquo represents (good triumphing evil), and puts in into action.
No discussion of evil in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth would be satisfactory without considering its’ most famous symbols of evil: the coven of witches whose interactions with Macbeth play such a vital role in his thinking about his own life. Banquo and Macbeth recognize them as something supernatural, part of the landscape but not fully human inhabitants of it. They have malicious intentions and prophetic powers. And yet they are not active agents in the sense that they do nothing other than talk and offer visions and potions. The witches have no power to compel. If we are to explore the significance of these witches we must do so by treating them as vital poetic symbols in the play, essential manifestations of the moral atmosphere of Macbeth's world.
Online education has increased significantly due to flexibility that’s offered to students. Online education is beneficial to students because “course material can be accessed 24 hours a day.”...
Today’s generation is like no other. The nation as a whole has completely evolved from past times, with technology being one of the greatest improvements. Traditionally, schooling takes place in a classroom setting, but, with the many modifications in our world’s system, we are able to assimilate more modern means of education, such as online learning. However, with many changes comes differences and requires adjustments. The online learning system has proven to be just as effective as traditional learning, with some minor differences, however, nothing of great significance. A few of those insignificant differences include online learning being convenient, especially for the non-traditional students,
People have a lot of options in educating themselves online in today’s time and technology. Online education has improved a lot in the past twenty years. Even though it has had its setbacks, it continues to show promising results. Online education has many benefits with little to no disadvantages. It provides flexibility in scheduling and offers various options in educational online programs. In the past decade, education has evolved into a more technological-driven world.