In Kyoto, and in my body

[imomus]

Driving in Japan is just like driving anywhere else, except more expensive. This afternoon Hisae and I jumped into the Daihatsu Naked (we were wearing clothes) and pointed it in the direction of Kyoto. Osaka suburbs seemed to go on forever. I snapped a cassette into the deck; an evangelical tape in Korean (Hisae's mum is a Korean Christian).

It was odd to hear the words 'Abraham' and 'Israel' popping up in the Korean spiel. What right does this Middle Eastern religion have to be as far from its home territory as Korea? Then again, what right do I have to be 'Japanising' the world?

I do feel evangelical about Japanese values, and I do feel they're universally applicable. This morning there was a news story on the BBC about an alarming increase in brain diseases in all developed countries -- except Japan. Japan is almost always the exception to such trends, and it seems to me to be related to the Japanese attitude to the body.

I give Hisae my big anti-Christian speech as we drive towards Kyoto. Christianity is worse than what came before it (various animistic folk religions revolving around plantation, vegetation, incantation) and what came after it (pragmatic materialism). It's a religion which invests everything in the metaphysical instead of the physical. The thing about the metaphysical is that it's about what's absent rather than what's present. Of what's absent, we can only make assertions. Whereas what's present can be tested and tasted. Christianity is one of those religions that pulls back from life and forces people to make untestable assertions. If you disagree with my assertion about the ultimate values in life, and there's no way to settle the matter by testing what's tangible, we'll probably come to blows. That's why Christianity has engendered such violence.

We got to Kyoto and the atmosphere lifted as we ascended little roads towards Ohara. There, in the gathering dusk, we climbed a temple path through the forest to the 'mute waterfall'. It wasn't mute; it made the rushing, crashing sound of all waterfalls. But Hisae explained that a Buddhist monk had come here to play music, and one day had noticed that the sound of the music and the sound of the waterfall had become one sound. Therefore, he said, there was no longer any separate waterfall sound. It was 'mute'. All was music. Now that's a religion for me!

We drove back into town, stopping to eat and watch the annual illumination by fire of the huge Chinese character on the mountain overlooking the town -- apparently the character just says 'BIG', which is what it is. (Tonight is the Daimonji Okuribi Festival, or Farewell Fire Festival; a shinto ritual designed to send the ancestral spirits back to the other world. Five fires, shaped as kanji characters and symbols, are set on five mountainsides. The fires burn from east to west in the shape of the characters, "dai" (large) , "myo", "ho", boat, and a torii gate.)

Now I'm at a place called Club Ichi Maru Maru in central Kyoto. It's something we don't have in the West: a huge complex where you can walk in off the street, have a sauna, surf the net, read mangas, relax in a vibro-massage chair, play video games, watch TV, even go fishing in an artificial rockpool... A place you can take your body and your mind, and know they'll both come out refreshed. I just had a scorching sauna and a shower, and I feel totally embodied. I feel I'm in a non-Western, non-Christian society which sees body and mind as one and the same thing, and truth as something completely tied up with the here and now. No wonder kids in yukatas by the banks of the river seem relaxed and happy. No wonder Japanese people live longer than anybody else in the world, and get fewer brain diseases. Christianity may have reached nearby Korea, but -- thank God -- it doesn't yet seem to have made much of a dent in Japan.

Comments

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Your thoughts on Christianity are disengenuously simplistic. Despite my personal stance as agnostic, or even atheistic, I think one should not so quickly dismiss such an impressive human mythology.

Christianity was not so simple a stepping stone as you describe it. Animism to Christianity involved many stops along the way including most obviously and majorly Paganism, and Judaism. To examine the epistemological evolution of man is to acknowledge Christianity as a major influence. Religion is a matter of humanizing objective reality. Animism claims everything is chaotically and sporadically spiritual. Paganism claims major human-like Gods influence different forces. Judaism united the world into a kingdom under which we were subjects. And Christianity made us citizens with God rather than subjects under him.

Before the advent of Christianity we had prohibitive morality. And much of the prohibitive laws were as much about religious competition with Pagan rituals as they were about social behavior. Though Christianity has all the same political faults and more, it was a move forward.

That's not to say I think it should remain the dominant view of things, but I think it's unfair to completely dismiss it's value. Even now the allegories Jesus told, and his fights with the Pharisees are excellent ethical reading. Even some of the lesser-known chapters like Thessalonians offer interesting thoughts on alcoholism and general soul-subduing debauchery.

I understand what you mean about Japanese religion, however. I was lately reading on Tenryki (Lord, is that how it's spelled?) and was quite impressed with it. Despite keeping roots in somewhat anarchonistic creation myths the message of the Joyous Life -- living for the sake of being good, and being good for the sake of life -- is further advanced even than the moral constructs of Christianity.

But then, that's probably not what you were referring to, is it? This reliance in the body I understand it's the only sure thing in life. I can't recall who wrote this, Coisteau? something like that, he wrote about our obliviousness to the plodding reliability of our bodies. Maybe we have ignored them because in modern times we hardly use them for labor, or so often get disease, etc etc, or maybe we are more away of decay?

I could really go on forever about this, but I will leave you with this thought. Is it your body that allows you appreciation for the cosmos, or is it your consciousness that does?

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Oh, as a post-script, the Japanese live so long and so healthily because of their diet. The whole raw food trend was largely influenced by findings on the Japanese lifestyle... I read those studies, hmm, a year or two ago I guess? I don't know if more findings have been made...

[niten.livejournal.com]

I've spent some time amongst adherents of Tenrikyo, and I must say that although their temples looked impressively buddhist-esque, the feeling that I got off them was essentially christian. More in the sense of their eagerness and perhaps zeal if you get what I mean. It had a very different feel from the at-ease that I seem to pick up from Japanese buddhism and shinto.

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Well, their is a religion of moral obligation, not ease. But then, Shintoism is rather a racist religion, isn't it? I've heard that basically it worships Japan and the Japanese. I've even heard the word jingoist thrown around some...

[niten.livejournal.com]

I probably wouldn't say that. State Shinto, organised around the emperor was certainly used as another mouth for state propaganda prior to the country's defeat in WWII. If you strip that away, it seems to have more in common with animism, with offering to the local gods, etc. That's what the average citizen would likely relate to in any case.

[(Anonymous)]

shinto is just like hinduism- you can be only born into it- hare krishna is not really treaten seriously in india....