Precursor to an enormous Japan post...

Due to the fact that my holy-shit-I-just-spent-five-days-in-Japan post hasn't been written yet (out of sheer procrastination - it will be LONG), I figured I could post a paper I had to write comparing two religious spaces for my World Religions class. So here it is. A comparison of the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto with the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.



Over the course of my five day stay in Japan, I managed to visit a number of different temples and shrines: the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, the Daibutsu Buddha in Kamakura, and the Yasaka Shrine, Heian Shrine, and Kinkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto.  However, despite the balance of both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the most interesting comparison I can make involve the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo and the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto.

Admittedly, I took more notes at the Meiji Shrine than I did at Yasaka.  However, I believe that I felt a deeper connection to the shrine at Yasaka than I did in Meiji, and thus did not feel the need to try and precisely define what it was that I was feeling.  In the Meiji Shrine, I wrote that the shrine itself was not what I expected.  There were trendy Tokyo-ans speaking loudly and children running around and screaming.  The cleansing process was explained in English above the area and I didn’t feel very purified after it. Additionally, although I did try to calm myself and meditate a bit on the whole experience, I found the overall shrine a little jarring and almost at odds with what I had thought Shinto was.  I couldn’t decide whether or not this was my Western perspective interfering or not, but ultimately, I had expected that the shrine itself would be just as quiet as the city seemed to be, a place to sit quietly and calm the mind.  Perhaps it was because I went towards the end of the day when people were stopping by after work.

Aside from these negative impressions, I also found a great deal interesting about the shrine.  I felt like the openness of the floor plan really seemed to reflect on the spatial aspects of existence (this is also true of the Yasaka Shrine).  To be clearer, because Shintoism emphasizes the interconnectedness of all beings, the fact that there was space for these connections to be made seemed very important, that perhaps this space could strengthen the ties between people through its openness.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the dark wood of the shrine itself, as well as the white detailing in the rafters.  I believe that this incredible contrast in colors may reflect the Shinto ideal of purity versus pollution in that the colors seemed very reminiscent of the Daoist ideals of yin and yang.  In fact, even though the Yamata Shrine and the Heian Shrine were both very ornate and beautiful, I felt that the Meiji Shrine was almost more in line with Shinto values, as it seemed to fit right into the environment it was set in.  The park surrounding it, combined with the smell of wood, truly captured the natural essence of the shrine as well as the tradition itself.

The Yasaka Shrine represented an entirely different side of Shintoism for me.  In my field notes, I wrote that it was very ornate and almost unnaturally colorful, but for some reason, I felt that most people who went there were there for religious reasons instead of tourism.  This was interesting because the shrine itself is located in the Gion area of Kyoto, so I had expected it to be far more touristy than most other shrines.  I also wrote a lot about the bells being rung in this particular shrine, followed by a quick clap and a prayer.  I found this incredibly interesting because I had not seen this specific tradition practiced in any other shrine I visited!  Unfortunately, when I had tried to ask someone what it signified, no one knew English, but I later found out that it is a process used to both awaken the self, as well as the kami to one’s presence.  This seemed very in line with the Shinto value of being truly awake in one’s life, which is why it is so surprising that I did not find this particular practice in every shrine I visited!

As I mentioned before, I did not take many field notes in this shrine because I felt more inherently connected to it.  During the course of my stay, I found a miniature shrine hidden away from the main one, and was able to stand quietly under the torii and just listen for a while.  I heard children screaming and tourists speaking in loud, happy Japanese.  However, unlike at the Meiji Shrine, it did not bother me.  Instead, I felt like this was an example of the connecting life force that permeates Great Nature and that the people being disrupting were really just the straw in the shimenawa.  It was indescribably peaceful and I’ve had a very hard time describing it to others, which I suppose is the point.

In terms of the tradition’s worldview, I suppose that the Meiji Shrine seemed to be more in tune with nature and the importance of shrinking into the backdrop of the natural world, whereas the Yamata Shrine provided more opportunities for meditation and thoughtfulness.  Otherwise, both shrines featured the typical characteristics of Shinto shrines: many shimenawas, sporadic purifying stations, ema and prayer strings, little shops to buy good luck charms, and horizontal roofs on all buildings.  I think I should also mention that the fact that there was a place to donate coins and have prayers answered through the use of ema was very surprising to me.  I had expected that Shinto shrines would be more like a natural space in which people would sit quietly and observe nature, and not really reflect institutionalized religious structures.