Today, I decided to go out of my way to discuss the "work" of one person in particular, and not just one instance of bad eastern philosophy found somewhere randomly. Incidentally, I wrote in my previous high effort post that I planned to write more on the /r/shinto faq. Well, it happened to be on this subject (here's the link to the faq, for reference purpose). Really though, he should just stop spitting at my religion's face so heavily, that gives me so much kegare I'll have to go to the shrine every day if that goes on. You can also notice, in the faq, that he expanded his views regarding the kami as spirit and not as god. My position has been made well known in my previous post (to sum it up, I think we should forget god and spirit and whatnot and just use kami), so I will not discuss that any longer for I find debating that kind of stuff a waste of time. If he insists, then good for him.

Anyway let's start.

I read some Tibetan tantras, but Shingon is heavily influenced and tied to Shinto. I switched to it from a pure Zen belief because it and Tendai incorporate Shinto, which I practice, into their practices.

Is it right ? Yes, as a matter of fact Shingon developped an important understanding of Shintoism ... Well, it would have been right, if he hadn't written, in another post :

I wrote the FAQ, and the reason I refer to them as spirits is because I personally believe it to be a better representation of their nature and the rituals involved

Which makes everything wrong. So now let's discuss early Buddhism .

Introduction to the history of Japanese Buddhism and Shinto (Yes, that is full of approximations, I know, it is just to give some context)

When Buddhism arrived in Japan, there was a problem which was that, as a matter of fact, there already was a religion that nobody really wanted to give up. This religion, let's call it Shinto. (even though it was very different from contemporary Shinto, so much as some scholars refuse to call it Shinto, even though I personally disagree with them)

Buddhists monks had to find a way to make the Kami and the Buddha coexist. In the early days of Japanese Buddhism, it was made simple, by claiming that the kami were the gods of Japan, while Buddha was a foreign god whose worshipp was authorized, like the gods of the Chinese immigrants were considered foreign gods. That worked well until the Emperors decided to make Buddhism the state religion. Various solutions were found and the one that sticked the longest, and that was also incidentally the one followed by Shingon, was that the kami were manifestations of the Buddha (it is a system call 神仏習合 shinbutsu shugou). Shingon pushed it to the extreme by associating the kami and the shrines to the mandala, but it still operates under this framework, and not the idea that the kami are "spirits".

The other view existed, that it is to say that the Buddha were manifestations of the kami in foreign lands, but it goes without saying that it was not very popular amongst the other Buddhists of Japan ... You could defend this idea and say that you are this kind of Buddhist, but then you are not Shingon anymore, just your own stuff. Besides, considering that he, on /r/Shinto has a flair that states "Mikkyo-Shinto" (Mikkyo being the Esoteric Buddhism), we can assume that he follows a Mikkyo understanding (so a Shinbutsushugou understanding) of Shintoism, and not a Shintoist understanding of Buddhism because that would make no sense considering the flair and his messages in /r/buddhism.

Aside from that, I am honestly very skeptical of his mixture of Zen and Shingon, because Shingon considered zen heretical, and zen is focused on the liberation through one practice (mostly zazen) as opposed to the complex rituals of Shingon. But, hey, I'm not a specialist of Buddhism so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

So, now we have discussed my problem with his vision of the kami in a Buddhist context, let's see the other parts of the faq that I find problematic.

Do the dead become Kami? Depends on who you ask. As for the author of this FAQ, he believes no, as he believes in the Buddhist concept of Samsara and rebirth, as do a majority of Japanese Shintoists.

It is true that it sort of depends to who you ask, whether the deads become similar to the most "famous" kami or another type of spirit, but rebirth is not one of the possibilities, at least in the type of Shinto that will be explained to you if you ask a priest at your local shrine, so your average Shinto, which is what Shinto usually refers to when it is called 'Shinto' in a contemporary context and is the kind of Shinto theology that is taught to you if you study to become a Shinto priest at an approved university / school organized by a shrine.

Aside from that, I don't know where he foun his 'Majority of Japanese Shintoists' from, because clearly, this is not how it works, and if we're in anecdotal evidence (which apparently the author of the faq likes, since I've not seen any source for his claim), asking my average Joe friends, all confirmed that in their understanding of Shintoism, the dead could 'become' kami. This view that there is no reincarnation has also been confirmed by a kannushi, and by the encyclopedia of Kokugakuin university. (link in the sources) Maybe I live in a microcosm of experts in Shintoism, or he made up his majority of Shintoists to justify his view, I don't know which one is more likely, considering that the basis of Shintoism is taught in school (or at least in some, Mrs. Kegaha clearly remembers having learnt at school that in Shinto thought there is no Samsara, and so do I). We can consider that Shintoism is not a centralized religion like the Catholic Church is, and so that there are many views, which is something I have no problem with, but the idea that in Shintoism the dead are reincarnated is the majority view, that's pushing it a bit too far. Besides, anedoctal evidence for anecdotal evidence, if you go to google.co.jp and type 神道　輪廻転生 (Shintou rinnetensei, meaning Samsara) most results agree on the fact that there is no reincarnation in Shinto. Seems like most Shintoists don't browse the internet.

There is a thing though that maybe is implicitly refered to in the writer's claim, which is that most Japanese are considered Shintoists and Buddhists at the same time, according to the religious census organized in Japan. Does that mean that they all follow the Shinto-Buddhist syncretism ? No, that just means that there are cultural Shintoists and cultural Buddhists who don't know / don't care. Still, I think that if we want to discuss what Shinto is and believes in, we should discuss the type of Shinto that will be taught to you by your local priest / the institutes forming priests and shinto scholars, which is exactly what I am doing here. Besides, I have my doubts that most of the people who are considered both Shintoists and Buddhists think that Samsara also exists in Shintoism, which seems sort of confirmed by my 'google poll' of the previous paragraph.

Does Shinto worship the Emperor and ancestors?

Commonly families will worship ancestors in Japan - but this is a purely cultural derivation from Confucianism. The Emperor of Japan was never considered a Kami, but was tasked with certain rituals as well as being the representative for all of Japan among the kami. Since the Pacific War, besides some insensitive comments by Mori, an unpopular PM, this position has been minimized.

Well, I mean, the emperor is a descendant from Amaterasu, the most important kami, so it's a bit more than that.

Anyway, as for the ancestor worship, well, the Jinja honcho (the main association of Shinto Shrines, encompassing most Japanese shrines) considers ancestor worship a Shinto practice, and it happens to perfectly correspond to the shinto understanding of the afterlife, whatever you become specifically. Besides, it is a bit specious to claim so assuredly that it is a derivation from Confucianism, when we don't have anything that proves it is, or isn't. As a matter of fact, it is a part of Shintoism now, has been for as long as we have textual evidence, and does not contradict any Shinto teaching. After all, many aspects of Christianity have been influenced by Greek philosophy, and I don't see myself saying to a Catholic that his church is not Christian but ancient Greek.

Just remember, I'm New Order Shinto, that is, I don't follow the "traditional" Shinto. No creation myth, no emperor worship, no veneration of ancestors or passed people as Kami, etc. Purely I pay respects to the main three kami that pertain to my life. , primarily Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Inari, and to a lesser extent, Susanou, Hachiman and so-on.

:) (it's a gif)

So what do we have here ? We have a guy who mods /r/shinto, who wrote the faq, and who clearly admits that he follows his own version of Shintoism where he handpicked what he wanted to follow and took out what he doesn't like like your average Western Taoist who doesn't want gods so, well, let's take them out and pretend this is what the Taoists have always believed. That would not be a problem if he were always that clear about his own vision of Shintoism, but most of the time he is not. He wrote his nonsense in the faq without notifying anybody that he is not 'orthodox' (as much as there can be an orthodoxy in Shintoism, I'll concede that to them, so at least let's say the Shinto followed by the vast majority shrines), and even insists on the fact that his view corresponds to what most shintoists think! He is unfit to be a mod of /r/shinto and unfin to teach Shinto to anybody, because he doesn't teach, he pontificates his own fringe vision like that sometimes happen on /r/zen. And yes this is a clear personnal attack, and we try to avoid that usually, but in that case I am quite angry that someone tries to turn the fringe into the mainstream, and is given so much influence over a sub that, apparently, is mostly frequented by beginners who don't have the knowledge required to discuss the faq / the posts and put them into context, that's to say consider that they are the thoughts of just one guy who basically created his school.

Also it's written Susanoo.

Some sources :

I used the encyclopedia of kokugakuin university a lot to craft this 'article', if I may say, because it is in English and this university is the most important one when it comes to Shinto studies, so you can find most of my points regarding Shinto there (I might have forgotten one or two links, so if you need a source for something, just tell me and I'll give it to you) : http://k-amc.kokugakuin.ac.jp/DM/detail.do?class_name=col_eos&data_id=23641 http://k-amc.kokugakuin.ac.jp/DM/detail.do?class_name=col_eos&data_id=23642 http://k-amc.kokugakuin.ac.jp/DM/detail.do?class_name=col_eos&data_id=23643 http://k-amc.kokugakuin.ac.jp/DM/detail.do?class_name=col_eos&data_id=23355

Here's the site of the Jinja Honcho I talked about earlier, where basic Shintoism is explained http://www.jinjahoncho.or.jp/en/spiritual/index2.html

For buddhism, I used this book (sadly there is no English translation) : 日本仏教史―思想史としてのアプローチ by 末木 文美士. It's probably the most comprehensive overview of Japanese Buddhism.