Kamidana

My kamidana (perched above the sundry information a real estate brokerage must by statute display in its head office)

I love having a kamidana.

I am not a devout anything in particular, as far as being a religious adherent the way a lot of Americans or Europeans might envisage. My observation after 23 years in Japan is that people here are less religious and simultaneously more spiritual than the people of many modern societies. The more that strict adherence to inflexible rules is part of a faith, the more suspicion with which that faith is viewed by the majority of people in Japan. To their great benefit, in my opinion.

But the majority of people here engage in various spiritual acts, of Buddhism (ex: offering shoko incense at a funeral) and Shinto (ex: hatsumode prayers at the beginning of the year), with decent regularity. These spiritual acts have a generally understood form, but are not dogmatically enforced. Do an internet search such as “焼香の作法” and you will find (to your great relief, if you feel insecure about not knowing) that many Japanese people are also unsure of how to do these acts. (The best emergency method to find out how to give incense at the basic Japanese Buddhist funeral: Watch and imitate the people ahead of you in line.)

Quite a long time ago (that baby face 😭), I underwent ascetic waterfall training at one of the three waterfalls of Mount Takao, Jataki Fall—for which I named my company when living near it in 2009. The experience was part of filming an episode as a reporter on one of those walk-around-and-pretend-to-discover-shops-and-attractions-in-an-area TV shows, on a local cable channel.

It was a great experience. The ritual started with donning the white garb pictured. Next I was tasked with cleaning the area around the fall with a broom and dustpan. Basically picking up fallen leaves and sand. Then I had to wash my entire person with cold water. Then I had to cleanse my entire person with large handfuls of salt. Next, I approached the fall and its pool, thrice prostrating myself with knees and face pressed to the jagged rock. Finally I could enter the fall, where I chanted “南無飯綱大権現 / namuizunadaigongen,” which is an expression of devotion (namu) to the primary figure (Izuna Daigongen) worshipped on Mount Takao. I did this a number of times until the monk called it good.

A tangent: A large portion of Mount Takao, where my beloved Jataki is located, is the precincts of a Buddhist temple called Yakuoin. However, its spiritual contents are a thorough mix of Shinto, Buddhism, mountain asceticism, and folk religion. The aforementioned 飯綱大権現 Izuna Daigongen is in turn a manifestation of the deity of 山伏 / yamabushi / mountain ascetics, Fudo Myo-o, who is considered a protector and guide. This Fudo Myo-o is further associated with the famous tengu. (I would die of strain to try and explain what little I do know about all of this, and die again of further strain if asked about any of the myriad aspects that I do not know about.)

The monks of Yakuoin on Mount Takao are yamabushi (practitioners of mountain asceticism), which includes fire-walking and waterfall training, as well as journeying on foot in their robes and sandals from Mount Takao to the top of Mount Fuji—which is in turn the revered object of innumerable religions, cults, and folk belief systems. The taxonomy of all this is complex and confusing.

This excellent explanation provided by Yakuoin maintains a generally Buddhist line, but senior monks of the temple tell me that it only became a “Buddhist” temple when the pre-WWII government of Japan was bullying such temple/shrine conglomerates into officially picking the persuasion to which they would thereafter strictly belong.

I digress. My biggest takeaway from this waterfall training experience was the conversation I had with the young monk pictured with me (who is now a bigwig amonkst the monks). In my innately American need to understand the dogma of what I had just performed, I asked “What is the meaning and intent of 水行 / suigyo / waterfall training?” He answered: “Everyone gets their own thing(s) from it.” No further explanation was forthcoming. I felt a bit betrayed that he had not imparted unto me the Secrets of the Waterfall. (I could have sold myself as a great knower of the Mysteries of The Orient to credulous Americans. Shucks.)

Next I felt a pang of suspicion, that this was all a fraud if it could not be explained by hard-and-fast doctrines. Later I grew to like the answer, and the internal security of its practitioners that it implied: They didn’t need to have a whole set of dogmatic meanings assigned to every aspect of what they did. Instead, it has been done across centuries because the people who do it get good things from it.

Mind you, the particular strain of religion (Buddhism > Shingon sect > Chizan branch) on Mount Takao does have dogma, and is surely at loggerheads with other strains, and so forth, because humans are humans and egos get into everything. But they aren’t admonishing me to cast my lot with or devote myself to their doctrine. Rather, they’re telling me about their thing only when I have literally climbed the mountain to ask them, not the other way around. I like that.

So in the same frame of mind as was explained to me after the waterfall training, I have not become a Buddhist or a Shintoist. I am a person who derives good feelings and benefits from the rituals and settings of each, and of lots of other sources. I still enjoy singing some hymns of my native-born religion, because they are a wonderful thing that the religion featured prominently, but did not by any means originate. Take the good from everything and eschew the bad.

I think about my reasons for having a kamidana, and one preliminary thought, on top of which to consider the main takeaways, is that there do not need to be deeply held convictions underpinning the act of having one, or paying respects to it sometimes. To me, religions and spiritualism and whatever else you might call such things are ultimately just mechanisms that focus the very real power of human will toward a particular desire or end. They also impart the goods that I mention above.

Your boy’s first kamidana, circa 2014

My main reason for having a kamidana: It is a thing that Japanese companies have. My company is a Japanese company, so we have a kamidana. When I moved the company into its first office (that was not a prefabricated shed from a home center), I installed a kamidana. I had a Shinto priest come put god into it. We held a ceremony with the four employees of the company at the time. It was nice. Thereafter, I would do the usual Shinto shrine routine in front of the kamidana at irregular intervals, when the spirit hit me: Bow twice. Clap twice. Bow once again. Maybe focus my thoughts on a thing. Maybe feel some gratitude. Maybe feel like a dork.

People who visit the office for the first time sometimes make predictable and positive remarks that more or less boil down to “you have a kamidana despite being an American.” It’s understandable. I don’t know a lot of non-Japan-born company founders in Japan, and whether or not they have a kamidana. But I do know from many experiences being in the headquarters and offices of company presidents that Japanese companies have a kamidana. They can be as agnostic and worldly and publicly traded and even nefarious as you like, but they usually have a kamidana. (My life science company clients have kamidana in their headquarters, and also have a small shrine on the property of each factory.) I am a person who is living the life of a Japanese company president. I’m gonna have a kamidana. It’s one tiny part of the life experience here.

A fun kamidana story: I once helped a local politician’s campaign. He was running for Tokyo Assembly. He is Japanese and also Catholic. His name is Leo. His brother’s name is Lui. Popey stuff. Like all the dozens of political campaign offices I have been in, Leo’s office had a kamidana. One key campaign event, in fact, is to have a Shinto priest come and put god into the campaign office kamidana—this is called 事務所開き / jimusho-biraki / office-opening ceremony. Leo had this event at his temporary office for his campaign. One day, at a moment of downtime during the campaign, I looked up at the kamidana. On it were the miniature Shinto shrine building and accoutrements; 護摩 / goma from the Buddhist temple Yakuoin on Mount Takao, where the Leo and posse had prayed for election victory; and lo, candles with Catholic saints and the Virgin Mary. This sight brought me great joy.

My current kamidana, pictured at the top of this post, was purchased and used for yet another election campaign office. I was preparing to move into my current office. I had discarded our first kamidana with due respect upon leaving the old office. Then later, I needed a new one at approximately the same time as a city assembly candidate friend needed his for the upcoming election. I bought one at a home center, lent it to him until the (victorious) election, and then installed it in my office. I inquired to the local Shinto priest as to whether he needed to come put god in the kamidana again, after it had moved to a new place. He said it was fine without another ceremony. I liked that—he had me over a barrel for the customary 30,000 yen if he would only say I needed another round of god-putting.

When I do the bow-bow-clap-clap-bow in front of the kamidana, it is a quick meditation to focus my desires or gratitude or both on things that deserve them. It transports my thoughts away for that moment. I have the thing set up with the prescribed salt, rice, sake, water, and (fake, from Rakuten) sakaki branches, which are the ceremonial offerings that conventional kamidana practices and internet-searched guidance recommend. On it I also place the few goma I acquire annually from Yakuoin, which, again, is the temple whose waterfall’s name I have borrowed for many years without formal permission, but with the head monk’s smiling approval. One is for our business success and safety, and another we receive for donating to the reforestation funds of Mount Takao that are also administered by Yakuoin.

I have also placed on the right side of the kamidana a 札 / fuda from Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. I am doing a big project in that city this year, and thought it would be nice to pay respects to the local shrine. I might pick up further goma or fuda when visiting other temples or shrines in the course of a year. They’re a lovely souvenir to remind of places one’s been and the good feelings the shrine or temple gave.

At the end of the year, I remove these from the kamidana and burn them in the dondo-yaki our neighborhood association holds. My shobodan squad guards and puts out the fire at this activity, after residents have roasted delicious dango over the fire. All the little life things connect up.

I can be confident that if I like all the other things that I have had the patience to understand and embrace about Japan, which I think is overall an excellent society, I will find things to enjoy about having a kamidana. This is not to say that I like everything about Japan. Rather, it is to say that since I like the way society functions here better than any other place I have experienced, it is fine for me to set aside the need to understand and accept everything before trying it out. The goodness of society here has earned it the benefit of the doubt. If I try something and it sucks, I can desist from participating in it. (I have indeed done this with some local organizations, that I just found weren’t for me.)

Obviously, this is not just about kamidana, but also about a thousand other details of life here. Each was a mystery at the outset—the ADHD brain’s dream of constant stimulation and solving—and gradually became a normal aspect of life.

“This dork is trying to be Japanese.”

Haha, fine. If living in Japan my whole adult life and engaging organically in the customs and practices that I like is “trying to be Japanese,” I suppose I am. But the way I see it is that I am participating in the society where I live the way a normal person does. Whatever I may have been in the past, I don’t seek to have any identity except that of me, a person who does the things he does, is engaged in life where he is living, and derives joy from all the humans around him.

I started out kind of just wanting to tell you about my kamidana. Funny how thoughts evolve. Thanks always for reading.