Some Shinto Priests
A Dutchman has become the only (?) non-Japanese Shinto master in Europe.
His house, which includes the Dutch Yamakage Shinto Shrine, incorporates a "kami-dana" household Shinto shrine and a "shime-nawa" (sacred rope). It is also home to the Dutch Shinto Association.
"When I was approved as a Shinto priest by the Rev. Yamakage, I was told to apply Shinto to Dutch society," de Leeuw said. "So in that sense I decided to change the interior of the shrine a little bit from the interior I knew from Japan.
Coincidentally, I was just reading a book by his teacher, Motohisa Yamakage, The Essence of Shinto. Yamakage seems interested both in explaining Shinto to the West and revitalizing it within Japan. He is old enough (81) to remember what happened when this decentralized practice was co-opted by the imperial government in the late 19th century.
Yamakage quotes one priest with approval:
Shrines should gather parishioners together and not teach them, I believe. We should not give any lectures to those who come to pay respect at the shrine or to visit the office of the shrine. We have to respect their positions or ideas. We should neither criticize them nor force them to follow our ideas. For the shrine is the public facility, and we don't ask which religion or sect they belong to. The shrine is not the place we give more education. It is the place where they freely feel and learn something in their own way.
With so much pressure on contemporary Paganism to follow the "Protestant mode," with designated leaders, "congregations," and so forth, we might want to consider Shinto as a model in some things instead, particularly the idea of a priest serving a shrine instead of a congregation--which was true in ancient Paganism as well.
His house, which includes the Dutch Yamakage Shinto Shrine, incorporates a "kami-dana" household Shinto shrine and a "shime-nawa" (sacred rope). It is also home to the Dutch Shinto Association.
"When I was approved as a Shinto priest by the Rev. Yamakage, I was told to apply Shinto to Dutch society," de Leeuw said. "So in that sense I decided to change the interior of the shrine a little bit from the interior I knew from Japan.
Coincidentally, I was just reading a book by his teacher, Motohisa Yamakage, The Essence of Shinto. Yamakage seems interested both in explaining Shinto to the West and revitalizing it within Japan. He is old enough (81) to remember what happened when this decentralized practice was co-opted by the imperial government in the late 19th century.
Yamakage quotes one priest with approval:
Shrines should gather parishioners together and not teach them, I believe. We should not give any lectures to those who come to pay respect at the shrine or to visit the office of the shrine. We have to respect their positions or ideas. We should neither criticize them nor force them to follow our ideas. For the shrine is the public facility, and we don't ask which religion or sect they belong to. The shrine is not the place we give more education. It is the place where they freely feel and learn something in their own way.
With so much pressure on contemporary Paganism to follow the "Protestant mode," with designated leaders, "congregations," and so forth, we might want to consider Shinto as a model in some things instead, particularly the idea of a priest serving a shrine instead of a congregation--which was true in ancient Paganism as well.
posted by Chas S. Clifton at 1:23 PM Permalink
7 Comments:
My copy of Yamikage's book arrived yesterday; I'm looking forward to digging in to it next week on the plane!
I've been interested in Shinto as a "teacher" for modern Western pagans for some time; just last week we had an interesting discussion on this on the ShintoML Yahoogroup. (I'm currently working on a post for my own blog on the areas of similarity between Shinto and Hellenism...)
Yamakage... pardon the typo...
Me again... you can see a short video clip of a visit with Rev. de Leeuw here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRz35XDmrno
Thanks, Erik, I will take a look at the video.
… we might want to consider Shinto as a model in some things instead, particularly the idea of a priest serving a shrine instead of a congregation--which was true in ancient Paganism as well.
Very well put, and thanks for this post.
Edward Butler
this idea of sacred jobs serving shrines instead of congregations excites me. And, I'm just going to say it, is more financially viable. I would have no problem leaving an offering to those who tend shrines, and those who help pilgrims make the most of their visit through the interpretation of the dreams they have while sleeping "in the god's house"and other services. But the protestant model of a congregation tithing at each "service." um. no.
Edward, Rosewood:
Yes indeed. I hope that contemporary Pagans will look beyond Protestant Xity (or any monotheism) for ideas of what "religion" looks like.
But let's not borrow those weird Shinto priest hats.
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