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These stories about Kurozumi Munetada (1780-1850) show us a spirituality for everyday living. He was a Japanese priest, poet and healer who looked to the needs of all humankind. We see in them Shinto affirmation of life, for he was a healer of both spirit and body. He was a teacher, showing people of all walks of life the Confucian emphasis on sincerity as the principle of true life. The key to both sincerity and health is overcoming egoistic attachment, a basic teaching of the Buddhist side of Japanese culture. Making it all possible is devotion to Amaterasu the Kami of the sun, who entered his life in a moment of ecstatic unity and who may be realized in each moment of anyone's life as the source of happiness and vigor. His ability to show how that is so drew thousands to his side in his lifetime, sparking a movement that continues to this day in the Kurozumikyo Shinto denomination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Stunning, Simply Stunning.
I read this book after actually staying in the Kurozumi shrine in Okayama. I think my review title say it all... ... Read more

Product Description
Responses to 101 Questions on Religions of China and Japan packs a great deal of information about three major East Asian faith communities--Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto--into a series of brief, thematically arranged sections, all in the popular question and answer format. Major areas include origins and early sources. Designed as a companion volume to the author's other volumes on Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam in this series, this book is perfect for high school and college courses, adult/continuing education groups as well as inquiring minds. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, reliable basic information
In "101 Questions and Answers on Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto" author John Renard organizes the 101 questions into nine different sections.These nine sections are Beginnings and Early Sources, Development and Spread, Doctrines and Practices, Authority, Law, and Ethics, Spirituality and Popular Piety, Religion and Artistic Expression, Internal Diversity and External Relations, Women, Family, and Society, and Chinese and Japanese Traditions Here and Now.The author does an excellent job of bringing the reader a basic understanding of each tradition using a Frequently Asked Questions format.The answers are well thought out and well written so they are as clear as possible.If you are looking for a basic understanding of any or all of these traditions and how they are both similar and different you can't go wrong with this book."101 Questions and Answers on Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto" is a recommended read. ... Read more

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Discusses the history of the Shinto religion in Japan, describing its origins, basic beliefs, rituals, and festivals, and its place in Japanese society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Covering the basics
This book did a great job of covering the history of this ancient and simple religion.Easy to read and understand, it covers both the original pure Shinto and the merging with other religions. ... Read more

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Illustrates the beliefs of Japan's oldest religion, its ceremonies, rituals, and festivals, and its connection with Japannese art, history, Buddhism, and even sumo wrestling. ... Read more

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It would be hard to imagine Japan without Shinto ...
Examines how the Shinto gods still cooperate with man at every stage of his life, and depicts actual Shinto ceremonies as performed today at births, weddings, rites of passage, festivals, and even sumo wrestling tournaments. Over 70 vivid color photographs take the reader into nature and the city to witness th changeless Shinto spirit. ... Read more

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This is the only book to date offering a critical overview of Shinto from early times to the modern era, and evaluating Shinto's place in Japanese religious culture. In recent years, a few books on medieval Shinto have appeared, but none has attempted to depict the broader picture, to examine critically Shinto's origins and its subsequent development through the medieval, pre-modern and modern periods. The essays in this book address such key topics as Shinto and Daoism in early Japan, Shinto and the natural environment, Shinto and state ritual in early Japan, Shinto and Buddhism in medieval Japan, and Shinto and the state in the modern period. All of the essays highlight the dynamic nature of Shinto and shrine history by focusing on the three-way relationship, often fraught, between local shrine cults, Shinto agendas and Buddhism. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Unfortunate Typos....
I found the thesis of the book exciting, a perspective that has not been studied much: interpreting the imperial throne through legal documents.The book traces and illustrates well how one interpretation became dominant in broad academic discourse and people behind it.Such investigation responds, in one way, to a long-standing question of the role of intellectuals in 1930s and 40s Japan.While I agree with the previous reviewer in many respects, the book certainly brought about an overlooked insight about the wartime Japan and its intellectual history.

What ticked me off was rather petty---typos, yet became grave---throughout the book---to the extent that some of them certainly confuse readers.For example, Minoda Muneki is introduced as "Minoda Kyôki" then switched to "Muneki," and returned to "Kyôki."Similarly, on page 233, Tô Katsuaki is misspelled as "Fuji" Katsuaki, while Kajikawa Hikaru as "Kajiwara Hikaru.""Konuma Tadashi" on p. 236 is usually referred as Onuma Shô.Some names miss macrons while other names have extra macrons.Especially, the book does not contain "Kanji," such misspelling can be fatal.

Despite an exciting thesis, I was very much distracted by typos.... which is very unfortunate.

A gag-inducing neoconservative screed with no basis in reality
I am mystified as to why this book was published by an academic press. The theory Skya provides is so patently ludicrous that any Japanologist would have dismissed it before he finished the introduction, and probably recommend that Skya get fired from whatever sad-sack institution he teaches at. Every page of this book has the words "radical Shinto ultranationalism" on it, in that order. Why he chose this phrase is never explained. Why are all these writers "radical"--were they not influential figures in contemporary Japanese society? What is the difference between friendly, familiar Western nationalism and Japanese "ultranationalism"? What makes it "ultra"? Does it provide twice the nationalism of an ordinary nationalist, like concentrated laundry detergent? And finally, most importantly, what the heck does he mean by "Shinto"? He seems to be relying on the theory of D.C. Holtom, a now discredited 1930s missionary who claimed that Japanese nationalism was religious in tone. But the Japanese government, importantly, considered its fascist techniques to be secular.

Skya is either unaware of State Shinto's claim to secularity or purposefully omits it. Instead, he parallels Japanese nationalism to Mark Juergensmeyer's "ethnic-religious nationalisms", in contrast to "Western-style secularized nationalisms". (3) Obviously, Skya is rooting for the allegedly nonsectarian and Western side of the clash of civilizations rather than the "religiously bound" rebels. He's a plain old neoconservative. But what makes Japanese values more religious than our own? This is not directly answered, but an answer is alluded to: their strangeness and foreignness. For Skya, kamikaze attacks in World War II were not just an example of a different set of wartime values, despite their historical precedent, but were rather a "fanatical" and possibly "mentally deranged" expression of "State Shinto ideology", as opposed to sane, sober, and secular Western tactics like remote-controlled missiles and atomic bombs. (7) Because he is so committed to searching for some hidden philosophical narrative being exploited by the state, he makes bizarre historical errors like attributing hakkou ichiu to ancient "Shinto doctrine" rather than recognizing it as an invention of late 1930s ideologues, (25) or claiming roughly everything Japanese ideologues wrote about the state to be a product of "Shinto", including an article on Amida Buddha. (201)

Use this book as toilet paper. ... Read more

Product Description
Despite what some scholarship has suggested, Shint[trademark] does exhibit a unifying cognitive integrity. Employing a comparative approach, "Spirit Tree" blends two theoretical orientations, cultural anthropology and Jungian psychology, to interpret Shint[trademark] ritual at the Hakozaki Hachiman Shrine in Fukuoka, Japan and situate the cosmological organization of this practice within the larger context of ritual in East Asia. ... Read more

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Shinto, the national indigenous religion of Japan has supplied Japan with the basic structure of its mentality and behaviour. Although its classical texts have been translated into English this volume was the first major study of this important religion. The book is a complete picture of Shinto, its history and internal organization, its gods and mythology, its temples and priests, its moral and worship. The volume also describes the metaphysics, mystic and spiritual disciplines and overall is one of the most authentic and authoritative surveys of Shinto of the twentieth century.

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This thorough and meticulous study of Japanese architecture is based on thirty years of field research by the architect and urban planner, Gunter Nitschke. A major anthropological survey, it traces the imperial, religious and domestic architecture in connection with the rituals and rites of Japanese society from Shinto to the modern day in the form of architecture by the renowned Tadao Ando. This collection of essays explores two threads of the evolution of Japanese architecture: the styles and the rituals which have perservered through the centuries, maintaining a traditional stronghold, and the styles and rituals which have adapted to the times and the influence of the Western world, whilst still employing a lesser degree of tradition. The focus of all the essays is upon the Japanese concept of space making and space understanding. Alongside this overriding theme, Nitschke investigates time, the element which complements space. Examines the work of Japan's leading architect, Tadao Ando. An anthropological study of space and time. A concise and fascinating history of Japan's architecture and rituals.A comparison of the architecture and society of the two leading nations of the world, America and Japan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An outstanding book on Tadao Ando's design method
This book is an extremely informative study on the Japanese concepts of space making. It demonstrates how Shinto beliefs are manifested in the traditional work of architecture as well as the work of one of the world's most reknown Japanese modern architect Tadao Ando. Unlike other books onAndo, this book emphasizes on the experiential aspects of Ando's work andhis ingenious ways of manipulating sequences of space with light. Thesesequences are described meticulously and analyzed with a lot of penetratinginsights. A truly enlightening book. ... Read more

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A concise and accessible introduction to the world of Shinto, its development and key principles. Shinto, or "the Way of the Gods", is the indigenous religion of Japan. To understand Japan it is essential to have some knowledge of this faith's history, theology and ritual practices. Shinto explores the sacred texts, persons and spaces as well as beliefs on death and society. Shinto practices now live side by side with Buddhism in Japan, yet Japan has remained distinct. Concepts such as the importance of groups over the individual, as well as customs of cleanliness, offer a fascinating glimpse into this unique culture. ... Read more

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Shinto is a remarkably complex and elusive phenomenon to which Western categories of religion do not readily apply. A knowledge of Shinto can only proceed from a basic understanding of Japanese shrines and civilization, for it is closely intermingled with the Japanese way of life and continues to be a vital natural religion. This companion to Picken's first volume, Essentials of Shinto: An Analytical Guide to Principal Teachings, provides a selection of important and pivotal documents in the history of the Shinto tradition. ... Read more

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Despite its relative simplicity, which is one of its virtues, Shinto is a sophisticated religion with many aspects that deserve study. The Dictionary entries not only identify the principal historical and mythological names that are central to the Shinto tradition but also demonstrate the relationship of Shinto to Japanese culture as a whole: the relationship of Shinto to Buddhism, Shinto and Sex , Shinto and Death, Ethics and Shinto, Noh drama and Shinto, Shinto and Folk Religion. Entries are included on New Religions that have a clear basis in Shinto culture and the new development of Shinto's growing internationalization. Leading figures are identified as well as some of the principal beliefs of these groups.The overall goal of this book is to provide a comprehensive but convenient guide to the key words and names of the Shinto tradition that would assist researchers, students and the general reader to gain deeper insight into its nature and workings. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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THIS 30 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Religions of Japan From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji, by William Elliot Griffis. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 076617686X. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Intro to Shinto
If you are looking for a introduction or a pre-read for some of the harder texts this is certainly worth the money. ... Read more