The first religion in Japan-Shinto

Shinto is a major religion in Japan alongside Buddhism and it does not have a founder. The literally meaning of Japanese word "Shinto" is "the way of the gods". Also, Shinto has sacred scriptures like the sutras in Buddhism or the Bible in Christianity.

The Shinto gods are called "kami" and they are represented as sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life like wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers etc. Humans become kami after they die. The number of Shinto's gods is about 8 million or even more because everything that is unusual like a really big tree can be a god. The most important "kami" is the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. One of the Shinto myths says that her great-grandson was the first emperor of Japan.

Sun Goddess Amaterasu.



The most important and sacred shrine – Ise Jingu. This shire is dedicated to Goddess Amaterasu.







Komentarze

  1. englishdiary8 listopada 2017 23:53

    Does everyone become a god after death? That would mean there should be many more than just 8 mln gods. Do non-believers have a chance too?

    OdpowiedzUsuń
    Odpowiedzi
    1. Natalia Ciuchta15 listopada 2017 12:40

      Everyone can become a god after death but only their family members believe in them. As for the non-believers, I did not find any information about them. It is probably because people in those days did not consider something like ‘unbelief’.

      Usuń

Prześlij komentarz

Popularne posty z tego bloga

Chadō - “the way of tea”

Obraz
The Japanese tea ceremony, Chanoyu, is a choreographic ritual unique to Japan that features preparing and serving green tea-Matcha. The ready infusion is served together with traditional Japanese sweets to balance with the bitter taste of the tea. During this ceremony preparing tea means pouring all one's attention into the predefined movements. The whole event is not about drinking tea. It is about aesthetics, preparing a bowl of tea from one's heart. The host of the ceremony always performs every movement and gesture with a thought about guests. Even the placement of the tea utensils is considered from the guests' viewpoint, especially the main guests called the Shokyaku. Everything is done in a traditional clothing.   A full-length ceremony takes about 4 hours and includes a meal and two servings of tea. In Zen philosophy, the tea ceremony is a spiritual process during the participants remove themselves from the mundane world, seeking harmony and inner peace. Pla
Czytaj więcej

Would you like to turn vegetarian?

The decision about becoming a vegetarian is not really easy but I think I would comfort it. Knowing that being 100% vegetarian is better for me or our planet would help me stay with this decision. What I mean by "being 100% vegetarian" is that I am a half vegetarian. I gave up eating meat like beef, chicken, pork etc. but I am still eating fish. I just can not stop eating fish. But I would try to do this because of a good of Earth.
Czytaj więcej

The blind signs

When I started using more public transport I noticed something really interesting. It isn't maybe something revealing but this thing is that people pay no attention to signs. Like, maybe not everyone and not to every sign they go by but the majority of them just do it. Where's an example: I go to school by train every day. Once last track was replaced by another one from other train and doors in this track weren't work. There was a sign, at their eyes level, on them with information that doors doesn't work. Even though some people tried to open them. Another example is an everyday situation in the underground. When you go up or down there's always a sign on guardrail which tells you to go by the right side. We just ignore this kind of stuff. Some of us listen to this signs but another half, the bigger one just do what they want. And maybe it is just because they are in hurry but in my opinion, it would be better for them if they just started going on one side. It
Czytaj więcej