SHINTO: BACK TO THE FUTURE

In March this year, I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to the Setsubun, a Shinto ceremony to welcome

the coming of spring. This colourful, life-affirming event took place not in Japan, the home of Shinto, but in

Amsterdam, organised by the Japanese Dutch Shinzen Foundation and presided over by Paul de Leeuw. Paul is a

Kannushi - Shinto master or priest - and in this role is unique in Europe. He has undertaken intensive study and

practice in Japan and is committed to bringing to Europe the rituals of Shinto, to reconnect urban men and women

with nature and the spirit world (which in Shinto are not separate entities but extensions of each other).

More than ritual, however, Paul wishes to introduce to Europeans Shinto ways of thinking and being. Through

Shinto, we can rediscover our own suppressed spiritual energies, attuned to the seasons and reflecting the

patterns within nature. It is the form of spirituality represented by the Green Man images that adorn English

cathedrals and country churches, or the horn dances, well-dressings and folk festivals that (whether they are 'truly'

ancient or revivals) give us memories of our roots. Shinto unites these fragments into a coherent whole and links

them to the modern world, restoring the continuity between past, present and future.

Shinto is the indigenous spiritual tradition of the Japanese people. This is a fact, but taken on its own it is trite and

incomplete. This is because in Shinto we find the earliest spiritual impulses and intuitions, common to all humanity,

the point of origin of the spiritual quest, the earliest sense of the sacred in trees, rivers, waterfalls and rocks, as

well as within every living being. There was no word for Shinto in Japanese until the introduction of Buddhism in

the 5th and 6th centuries CE.

It was merely the way people lived, thought and felt. Paul de Leeuw says that Shinto is essentially the same as the

Celtic and Germanic spiritual pathways of old Europe. It is also the same as the Native American and Australian

Aboriginal paths that are beginning to revive today after a long night. All are local manifestations of the same

underlying truth.

At the same time, one of Paul's favourite phrases is 'Nature is the City'. In other words, a modern, technologically

advanced civilisation need not be detached from the rest of nature. True progress involves integrating technology

with nature, rather than placing them in opposition. It involves integrating tradition and modernity, so that one

enriches the other. The Shinto perspective does not ask us to renounce the world, but to live responsibly within it,

understanding that a simple life is more socially and ecologically just and at the same time healthier for us

spiritually, psychologically and physically.

Shinto represents an unbroken stream of thought and feeling that is as vital to modern humanity as it was to our

forebears. In Japan, Shinto imagery was put to perverse use by a despotic and expansionist regime in the 1930s

and 40s, much as in Europe the swastika, an ancient symbol of life, was besmirched by the Nazi agents of death.

Yet the real Shinto has shown a subtle strength. Today, it fulfils a powerful and resurgent need for a nature-centred

spirituality, as we seek a more balanced and co-operative relationship with our environment.

The other term for Shinto is Kami-no-Michi, the Way of Kami.* Kami is an idea that is central to Shinto and

operates on several layers of consciousness, of which I shall mention three. At one level, 'the Kami' are the deities

of the Shinto pantheon, such as the sun goddess Amaterasu, who is the source of all life. At another, Kami are the

'nature spirits' embodied in mountains, trees, rocks – all living things. And at another level, Kami is the life force

that permeates and connects everything in the cosmos. Modern science tells us that all life is interconnected,

confirming the primal awareness of the power of Kami.

                                                                                                                         Aidan Rankin

Aidan Rankin's book Many-Sided Wisdom: a new politics of the spirit is published by O Books later this year.

(Anyone who would like to review this for the newsletter please contact the editor.) He is also working on a book

called Shinto: a celebration of life. Japanese Dutch Shinzen Foundation website: www.shinto.nl

*The word Shinto also means 'Way of the Kami', the character 'Shin' being synonymous with Kami and 'To',

meaning Way, as in the Chinese 'Tao' or 'Dao'.

Issue 386   NEWSLETTER   Nov/Dec 2009