Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity
1. Shrine and Temple.
How many of you can tell the difference between Shinto shrine and Buddhist temple? Both shrine and temple are for different religion, shinto and buddhism. To tell the difference by looking at each building and surroundings can be done fairly easy.
Shrine has "Torii", which is normally a red color gateway at the entrance. This is believed to keep evil spirit away from the sacred area.
Templle has buddha statue and tombs in its premises.
2. Shintoism and Buddhism co-existence.
According to one survey, the number of Shinto followers was 107,000,000, Buddhist was 91,000,000, and Christian was 2,600,000 in Japan. This add up to 200,600,000, whole lot more of entire population in Japan. This may be because the survey included foreign religious members as target of the survey.
Anyway, it can be said most Japanese belong to both the Shinto and Buddhist religions. Their co-existence was confirmed from 6th century, when Buddhism was introduced from Korea. I think the acceptance of new religion was partly because Shintoism has tolerant nature.
3. What is Shinto.
Shinto is an indigenous religion based on worshipping the nature. It has no founder, no dogma, no scripture and its most important concept is purity. The greatest impurity is death, and it's always considered taboo in Shinto.
In addition, propaganda and preaching are not common in this religion. This may be because Shinto is deeply rooted and sometimes well understood in Japanese mind and traditions.
Shinto has a god called "kami", as sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts that are essential in people's lives, such as trees, flowers, mountains, rain, wind, rivers, and fertility. So "kami" in the mind of Shinto, everything around you.
There is one thing fare in life is death. Death knocks on your door and says "Hey, it's time to go." and this happens to both rich and poor. In Shinto mind, if you die, you become god, "kami", and revered by your families as ancestral "kami". This explains extraordinary people are enshrined at some shrines.
When compared to monotheistic religions, that is one thing unique about Shinto.
Another is, there is no absolutes in Shinto. There is no absolute right and wrong. Shinto preaches nobody is perfect, very optimistic you might say, all humans are thought to be fundamentally good, and bad actions by humans are caused by evil spirits, not human.
Shinto priests perform Shinto rituals and often live in his Shinto premises. Men and women can become Shinto priests, and allowed to marry, have children.
4. What is Buddhism.
Buddhism, it was originated in India in 6th century BC and imported to Japan via China and Korea. It consists of the teaching of Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha.
Definition of god in Buddhism is "hotoke", and becoming "hotoke" is extremely adversity. Well, theories of Buddhism are really really complexed, so let put it this way, work hard for others and rise above yourself, gain social and fundamental respect, and continue doing that for your whole life.
Another way is, seclude yourself at mountain for 3000 days. This is called "senn nichi gyo", where a monk seclude himself at mountain wearing very thin monk wear, inhabited to use fire, and of course, no alcohol. Many of trained monks died in this training in the past.
Swastika symbols in Buddhist temples.
The symbol "卍" has nothing to with Nazis. This symbol is/ was, in fact, used in Asia, Central America Northern Europe representing regeneration. Also used for weddings in India as auspiciousness.
5. Christianity in Japan.
Christianity was introduced to Japan in 1549 by Saint Francis Xavier, who is a Catholic missionary arrived at Kogoshima, south of Kyushu island, Japan. Saint Fransis was welcomed by local rulers with expectation to teach them new knowledge and tools. Like, firearms were introduced by Portuguese visitors in 1542.
Numbers of Christian followers grew about 750,000 for just about 50 years time. But Tokugawa shogunate ( = the government at the time) banned this religion because he suspected Christianity may have had a ambitions for Japan territory. As well as Christianity would became threat to establishment of feudalism. This situation continued until the end of 19th century but denounced again during the WW2.
Thanks to whom didn't give up, now, there are about 650,000 Protestants, 450,000 Catholics, and 1,500,000 other denominations, which add up 2,600,000.
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