Shinto Beliefs

In modern day Japan, Buddhism and Shinto, practices have merged so seamlessly that the people of Japan barely notice the differences. However, it is the Shinto religion that has immeasurably shaped what is considered the Japanese modern day culture through it’s myths, deities, and practices. The practice of Shinto is said to be “the way of the kami,” the belief that all objects have a deity dwelling within in them, the spirits of nature, ancestor spirits, or a supernatural power. Shinto was an unorganized worship of spirits. “It was rooted in the instinctive being of human nature feeling itself in its communion with the living forces of the world,” Shinto originally began as a religion for the agriculture of Japan as famers believe these kami …show more content…
“It is the highest expression of respect to the Emperor and to all that is best in the culture, history, and racial consciousness of the Japanese people,” to visit the Ise shrine. Each year thousands of Japanese travel to the Ise shrine as a moral obligation and pass through the torii gate which marks sacred ground of the Shinto shrine and the separation between the mundane and spiritual world. In Japan’s past, shrines were often recognized by the torii, but also by “straw ropes from which were suspended small strips of paper.” These papers acted as protection of objects of worship in the shrine. Before entering a shrine specifically, visitors must purify themselves by luring water over their hands and rinsing their mouths. Earlier Japanese traditions of the shrine still continues today as it involves the spring and fall festival to mark the planting and harvesting of rice fields. Also, twice a year—during midyear and New Year’s—the shrine priests hold ceremonies to “wash away physical and spiritual ‘pollutions’ or ‘defilements’ of the previous year.” Most often, these defilements include