Japanese Shintoå : an Interpretation of a Priestly Perspective

JAPANESE SHINTOÅ : AN INTERPRETATION OF A PRIESTLY PERSPECTIVE

James W. Boyd and Ron G. Williams Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University

Introduction

Since World War II there have been major English language studies of Japanese Shrine ShintoÅ.1 Not only isthe diversityof thistradition being documented, but researchers are approaching the subject from a variety of disciplines. Especially productive have been those studies that analyze the historical, social, and political role of Shrine ShintoÅ.2 In this article we wish to take a humanistic approach to the subject, and will focuson an interpretation of the experiential/religiousmeaning of thisrich tradition as taught usprimarily by the priestsatTsubakiGrand Shrine, Suzuka, Mie Prefecture. 3 What followsisour attempt to build someconceptual bridgesbetween the Shinto Å tradition and Western thought, a goal consonant with the lifework of the priests of thisimportant ShintoÅ shrine.4 It wassaidof Yamamoto Gu Åji (``GuÅji'' meanschief priest of a shrine) of Tsubaki Grand Shrine that he ``worked extremely hard to find a context [for ShintoÅ] which other people outside Japan can appreciate.''5 In this essay we will suggest lines of comparison between the thought and practice of the Tsubaki priests and two Western philosophical/religious writersÐthe Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and the French philosopher Georges Bataille. We say ``suggest'' lines of comparison, for the hope is that some of these ideas are worthy of further research and may assist other scholars who are interested in articulating the experiential dimension of the ShintoÅ priestly tradition.6 It is also important to emphasize the centrality of ritual in the following discussion. Because ShintoÅ is first and foremost a ritual tradition, ShintoÅ liturgical practices and festivals must be given their proper place in any interpretive endeavor. But that is not an easy task. In our opinion, new tools of analysis have yet to be forged for dealing adequately with the unique contributionsof ritual to religioustraditions.As an initial move, however, we will discuss three kinds of ShintoÅ ritualsÐshrine liturgies, ascetic practices, and community festivalsÐand use them as the standard by which to evaluate the relevance of our interpretive categoriesto the meaning of priestly Shrine ShintoÅ. The sequence of topics will be as follows. We begin with a sketch of the basic ShintoÅ worldview, highlighting three essential insights of this ritual tradition, relying on the general scholarship available to us as well as our fieldwork at Tsubaki Grand Shrine. Thiswill be followed by a brief descriptionof our interpretive categories, namely those of Martin Buber and Georges Bataille. In the final sections we will apply our interpretive categoriesto the ShintoÅ worldview and selected ritual practices.

Philosophy East & West Volume 55, Number 1 January 2005 33±63 33 > 2005 by University of Hawai`i Press The ShintoÅ Worldview

By ``worldview'' we do not mean some merely conceptual, abstract system of beliefs or opinions. Rather the phrase is meant to designate the way in which the people of a religioustradition understandthemselvesand their world. 7 The ShintoÅ worldview, in other words, is the way many Japanese (and non-Japanese) construe and construct meaning in their lives; it refers to the interpretive value-world that they are invested in intellectually and emotionally and that provides the standards for assessing life. What followsisin part an introductory, generally accepted description of the ShintoÅ worldview, one that is consonant with the basic outlook of the priests at Tsu- baki Grand Shrine. At the same time, this discussion initiates our project of interpreting a ShintoÅ priestly perspective, since, for example, it emphasizes immanence and the ongoing processes of creation over transcendence and questions of origination. That is, it both sets the stage for interpretation and is an example of it. We will focus on three essential insights. First, in the human encounter with the world, nature and humanity are understood as manifestations of a creative and life- giving power (musubi and kami). Second, the tradition recognizesthat both natural eventsand human actionscan temporarily obstructor destroythiscreative potency; such circumstances are understood as ``polluting.'' Third, ShintoÅ affirmsthat humans have the means to overcome these misfortunes and reestablish the life-giving power, that is, a condition of purity.8

Musubi and Kami The first insight is of central importance in the ShintoÅ worldview. Humans, like all aspects of nature, are manifestations of a life-giving power, a generative, creative force that isthe basisofall life. The Shinto Å term for thiscreative principle permeating all formsof life is musubi. Thisterm alsocarriesthe connotationsof ``combination,'' ``joining,'' and ``binding together.''9 Thus, musubi refersto the harmoniouslycreating and connecting force that manifests itself in all of Great Nature (Daishizen).10 In the classical myths of the ShintoÅ tradition thiscreative bonding force isdi- rectly associated with various kami. In the mythology of the Kojiki, for example, musubi is associated with the names of some of the first kami, for example Taka- mi-musubi-no-kami and Kami-musubi-no-kami, from which the world and humanity evolve.11 These kami ``are comprehended asbeingsin and through whom life is generated, growsand advances.'' 12 The classical myths, in other words, give a par- ticularistic thrust to the notion of musubi. The life-giving, life-promoting powersrefer to the ``possibilities inherent in concrete forms of existence.''13 The name given these particular, concrete instances of musubi is kami. Although it is difficult to state a completely satisfactory definition of the term kami, what is essential to its meaning can be stated. Tsunetsugu Muraoka says:

Among the elementsthat made up the content of ancient ideasabout KamiÐ etymologically ``Kami'' isthought to have been identical with ``superior'' (kami)Ðthe most powerful was the worship of the natural objects of heaven and earth (such as heav-

34 Philosophy East & West enly bodies, mountains, rivers, fields, seas, rain, and wind), but also of birds, beasts, insects, trees, wood, grass, and minerals. The next most important element was the worship of great men, heroes, or leaders. The two types were often fused. Aside from Kami that were identified with concrete objects, there were cases of a deification of the power that resided in nature or men.14

In essence, ``unusual'' and ``superior'' aspects of both nature and humanity are given the name kamiÐa spectacular waterfall, a particular tree that has an imposing presence, or a great leader who inspires othersÐand are ``conceived of as possessing awesome potency,'' namely musubi.15 In addition, the vital power of musubi itself isreified and given a conceptual emphasisofitsown. 16 As is suggested above, the term kami isconceptually fluid. Not only isit a word that is at once both singular and plural, but on the one hand it can signify particular and unusual ``potencies'' that humans specifically encounter in the world, and on the other hand can refer to life-giving and life-promoting powersthat are universal in scope.What isimportant to note, however, isthat kami are not to be understood asmetaphysicallydifferent in kind from either nature or humanity. TakeshiMatsu- mae states:

The standard translation of kami is ``deity,'' a word suggesting the Western concept of a transcendental divinity such as in the Judaeo-Christian God. But the gulf between divinity and humanity found in the Judaic religionsdoesnot existin Shinto. Even though the Shinto kami are given credit for creating variouspartsof the universe,kami are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and unlike the ancient Greek gods, they are not necessarily immortal.17

Kami are superior instances of the generative forces of musubi in which all existence, including that of the kami, are grounded. Fundamentally everyone and everything are kami, or have kami potential.18 Kami are not countless gods, but countless phenomena that stimulate a sense of wonder and possess a kind of awesome potency.19 This sense of awe and wonder may be invisible to one's physical sightÐ hence kami are often spoken of as belonging to the concealed worldÐbut this meansthat they belong to another order of nature, not that they belong to a supernatural order.20

Pollution and Purity The second major insight in the ShintoÅ worldview isthat although we are grounded in thisvital, generative processof musubi and kami, we can also be disrupted and disjoined from it. That is, there are powers and events that can temporarily obstruct or pollute the unfolding of the creative principle. The Kojiki refersto the ``bend- ing'' (magatsubi-no-kami), the ``rough'' (araburu-kami), and the ``crooked'' kami (yokoshima-no-kami) that obstruct the life-giving process.21 Kami, consequently, need not be associated solely with that which is morally goodÐas the terms ``deities'' or ``gods'' usually connote. A destructive storm or volcanic eruption may also elicit thisdesignation. 22 The Kojiki, however, also refers to ``straightening'' kami

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 35 (naobi-no-kami) who help restore the creative conditions. Hence, the musubi process itself is perceived as involving both disruptive and corrective powers.23 The disruptive conditions are understood as polluting (tsumi), a concept that is fundamentally death-relatedÐa corpse being the most extreme example. More generally, anything that isa condition that leadsto or isin the proximity of death is also polluting, whether resulting from natural causesÐsuch as accidental firesÐ or abnormal things like contagious disease.24 In the Great Purification Ceremony (OÅ harai), for example, polluting conditions (tsumi) specifically refer to a broad and heterogeneous range of circumstances and actions: destroying agricultural works, inflicting injury or death, scattering excrement, engaging in indiscriminate sexual relations, bestiality, leprosy, the falling of lightning, damage done by harmful birds, and the use of magic.25 Generally speaking, all of this can be seen as involving obstructions or distortions of the unfolding creative process of musubi and includes actions and events for which human beings are morally responsible. In experiential terms, pollution, whether moral or natural, diminishes our sense of participation and involvement in thiscreative power inherent in all life. In the case of human actions and motivations, pollution is like the dust that collects on a mirror; it inhibits our ability to see clearly the fact that we are instances and reflections of the ground of vitality itself. In Japanese terms, our kokoro, our unique set of personality traits, dispositions, and sensibilities, hardens and becomes opaque.

Ritual Practices Thisbringsusto the third insight of the Shinto Å worldview. Some kind of action that can overcome these obstructing, polluting conditions is called for.26 Our kokoro needs to have the dust wiped off, so to speak, in order for us to manifest the superior and unusual potencies of the creative process itself (kami and musubi) and live with a pure and cheerful heart (akaki kiyoki kokoro).27 Central to the ShintoÅ tradition are the variety of ritual meansfor achieving this``straightening'' action. 28 They range from formal shrine liturgies to ascetic practices (misogi) and major public festivals (matsuri). But more of thislater. Before elaborating on these ritual practices and their connection to the concepts of pollution and purity (kiyoi or harai),29 we must first extend and deepen our interpretation by identifying heuristic Western categories fit for illuminating the ShintoÅ worldview and itsritual tradition. To that end, we proposethree interpretive catego- riesborrowed from recent philosophy and theology. Thiswill allow a more detailed analysis of the worldview and an application of our interpretive categories to ShintoÅ ritual practices and will provide, we hope, a richer account of these practices, which we take to be the touchstone of the tradition.

Interpretive Categories

Asnoted, the ShintoÅ worldview focuses on the generative, connecting force (musubi) inherent in the natural world rather than postulating transcendent heavenly deities. To implement the strategy of employing ideas that have a close affinity to

36 Philosophy East & West the experiential dimension of the ShintoÅ priestly tradition, we suggest as a start that some central concepts in the works of Martin Buber and Georges Bataille are suitable.30 Both Buber and Bataille want to contrast our relatively stable life as social beings with experiencesor modesof being that are more rare, but fundamental, and are encountered as profound, sublime, and ecstatic or even dismembering, dangerous, and vertiginous. Roughly put, these two thinkers both want to distinguish the profane from the ``sacred.'' Their ways of making this distinction overlap but also signifi- cantly contrast. We will begin with Buber's view, move to Bataille's, and then com- bine them into a set of interpretive categories that we hope will provide ways of interpreting more accurately the ShintoÅ priests' experience of kami and the subtle and multilayered meaning of musubi.31

Buber on Our Typical Life: I-It Experience The I-It Experience. Buber differentiatesbetween ``experience'' and ``relation'' in his discussion of how we live our lives. Most of us normally live in a world of individuals and things. We perceive ourselves as subjects disposing of a world of objects in accordance with our needs and purposes, the experiential character of which he calls I-It. The individual ``I'' basically tolerates the presence of others, knowing or experiencing them as objects discontinuous with itself and sometimes finding them interesting or useful. The I-Thou Relation. In spite of the prevalence of I-It experiences, our lives do not remain contained within the field defined by them. There come moments, says Buber, when the other (i.e., the It) ceases to be merely a thing present to me. Rather, I find myself in the presence of the other, which like me, takeson the full reality of a subject. In those moments of I-Thou encounter rather than I-It separation, life streams between the two, each modified by the presence of the other. Distinctions remain, to be sure, but there is no sense of separating boundaries. The relation is one of mutuality, each living in the other. The I-Thou relation is not confined to other human beings. Buber also extends the world of I-Thou relationsto spiritual beingsand to nature. When, for example, one comes upon a majestic tree, or stands beside (or under) the cataract of a waterfall, the relation may not be to an experienced thing (an It) but rather to another subject, a Thou in mutual relation. Buber offersthisexample:

I consider a tree. I can look on it as a picture . . . as a movement. . . . I can classify it in a species. . . . I can subdue its actual presence . . . and dissipate it and perpetuate it in number, in pure numerical relation. In all thisthe tree remainsmy object, occupiesspaceand time and hasitsnature and constitution. It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it. The tree isnow no longer it. I have been seized by the power of exclusiveness. . . . Everything belonging to the tree is in this: its form and structure, its colours and chemical composition, its intercourse with the elements and with the stars, are all present in a single whole. The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no value depending on my mood; but it isbodied over againstme and has

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 37 to do with me, asI with itÐonly in a different way. Let no attempt be made to sapthe strength from the meaning of the relation: relation is mutual.32

Involvement rather than spectatorship, concrete-lived-presentness rather than instrumental observation and calculation, characterizes the dynamics of the relation.33

Bataille's Two Realms GeorgesBataille isarguably concerned with mapping the same territory explored by Buber. But Bataille's method of exploration is quite different, and it is not surprising that his results differ also. Bataille on Our Typical Situation: The World of Project. Believing that the most fundamental features of civilized existence are those present at the birth of culture, GeorgesBataille approachesthe general descriptionof our normal way of being in the world by offering a speculative investigation of our cultural evolution from animals to persons. His is an a priori conceptual accountÐa thought experimentÐ about what must have occurred in consciousness in order for human life to have emerged from animality. He beginswith the common claim that the advent of the manufacture of stone tools must have formed and been formed by a fundamental change in consciousness. To make and then further amend tools requires ``the positing of the object as such.'' This entails both the recognition that the tool is ``a nascent form of the non- I'' separate from the maker and that it exists in duration.34 Furthermore, since the tool is typically modified in order to better serve its purpose, we come to conceive of ourselves as transcending the tool, and this introduces considerations of utility, the distinction between means and ends, and that between subjects (the maker) and objects(the tool). In short, we come to live in a world of separate things enduring through time, a discontinuous, divided world mediated by toolsand other external things,and ulti- mately by language. This opens the possibility of seeing ourselves as objects and of turning a subject (another living creature) into an object (a thing). We bend the world to our purposes even to the point of transforming persons and animals into things by subjugating or enslaving them. The gains are great, of course; we become people of project, inhabiting a world of things that can be molded to our ends. Bataille sees no possibility of retreat from this condition; it characterizes who we are as human beingsÐpeople of project in a world of things. Bataille on the Immanent Immensity. Bataille'scharacterization of our life in project follows from his description of what preceded it; that is, he begins by inquir- ing into that from which we emergedÐthe state of animality. Poetically speaking, ``animalsare in the world aswater in water.'' 35 That is, rather than the toolmaker's transcendence of the tool, for example, the prior state is one of immanence. It is unbounded, not circumscribed conceptually or viewed as a unified totality; it can exhibit violence rather than controlled stability, casual and abrupt destruction in place of production of the useful, which requires delayed gratification. It is also immediate, existing in the present rather than in duration, and unmediated by either toolsor lan-

38 Philosophy East & West guage. Bataille sometimesrefersto thisstateof reality asthe immanent immensity. As creatures of project, we can only glimpse the immanent immensity; to live in it would be to ``fall back into animal slumber.''36 The price of glimpsing it is the temporary dissolution of the self. Nevertheless, this, too, is what we are; that is, we are of the immanent immensity and we have a foot in both camps: one in the unbounded world of intimate immediacy and the other in the stabilized, organized, individuated world of things. In that sense we are paradoxical creatures, and are a mystery to ourselves. Bataille resorts to metaphorical descriptions of the prior world, since it is ``outside'' conceptual distinctions. First, he portrays us caught up ``in the vast flow of things'' like one wave among manyÐwater in waterÐand urges us to become ``pre- cisely aware of this anguishing position.''37 To ignore thisimmanence meansthat we simply continue to see ourselves only as things among other things in the compara- tively stable but fragmented world of project. If that is the case, he says, we ``have been deprived of the marvelous.''38 He continues:``The glories,the marvelsof your life are due to thisresurgence of the wave which was tied in you to the immense sound of the cataract of the sky.''39 ``What is intimate in the strong sense [i.e., the immanent immensity] is what has the passion of an absence of individuality, the imperceptible sonority of a river, the empty limpidity of the sky: [even so] this is still a negative definition from which the essential is missing.''40 These ideas will be further clarified in the fourth and fifth sec- tionsof thisessay,in which we apply Bataille'scategoriesto the Shinto Å worldview and ritual practices.

Bataille and Buber Compared In order to develop interpretive categoriesapplicable to ShintoÅ, we must first bring out some similarities and differences between the views briefly outlined above. The World of Project and I-It Experiences. First, for the purposes of the analysis to follow, we can treat Bataille'scharacterization of the realm of project asroughly equivalent to or including Buber'snotion of the I-It experience. Both refer to our association with the world as one of separation and discontinuity; we as subjects confront a world of objects that we put to our own uses. The Two pairs: I-It versus I-Thou and Project versus Immanent Immensity. Unlike Buber, however, Bataille'spositionisthat there isa definite disjunction between the immanent immensity and the world of project. There is a sense, of course, in which the immanent immensity characterizes all of existence; but the realization of the immensity is ours only on condition that the structures of project have been somehow temporarily disarmed or subverted. We have a foot in both camps, and therein lies both the paradox and anguish of being human and the sense of the marvelous available to us. Buber sees the relationship between I-It and I-Thou differently. Although there is a difference between the experiential world of I-It and the mutual encounter of I-Thou, the latter doesnot exclude the former. The I-Thou relation isinclusive of all the knowledge gained in the I-It experience. Buber sees the I-Thou asthe deepest

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 39 `àct of my being''; hence, the world of I-It is`ìndivisibly united'' in the I-Thou event. In an I-Thou encounter, there `ìsnothing from which I would have to turn my eyes away in order to see, and no knowledge that I would have to forget.''41 Furthermore, the I-Thou relation intimatesa deeper world of more primal relation that has``cosmic and metacosmic origins.''42 Bataille's Radical Conception. Thus, the differences between the immanent immensity and the I-Thou relation are these: first, one's experience (in the nontechnical sense that Buber requires) of the immanent immensity cannot be an I-Thou relation, since the immanent immensity puts every dimension of self (I) into question. Second, there is no characteristic of the world of project that cannot be put into question by the immanent immensity. About it there can be ``no story told in advance,'' no a priori claim about itsrelational structure,for exampleÐno enclave of featuresim- mune to contingency. Lastly, the immensity itself is pre-individual, pre-personal, and pre-social. It does not exhibit the traditional featuresof totality or unity. But that isnot to saythat it is featureless or homogeneous. Bataille sometimes speaks of experiences of the immanent immensity as `ìnner experience,''43 but he doesnot want to constrainit in any way. He says, `Ì wanted experience to lead where it would, not to lead it to some point given in advance. And I say at once it leads to no harbor. . . .'' Theological concepts are inappropriate in this context: `Ìf I said decisively Ì have seen God,' that which I see would change. Instead of the inconceivable unknownÐwildly free before me, leaving me wild and free before itÐthere would be a dead object and the thing of the theologian.''44 In experiencesof the immanent immensity,``the mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy coexist.''45 In short, the immanent immensity is not another subjectivity with whom I can relate.46

Interpretive Categories and Levels of Apprehension The discussion above suggests three notions that we will employ as interpretive categoriesto highlight certain featuresof the Shinto Å priestly perspective: (a) the world of project (or I-It experiences), (b) I-Thou relations, and (c) intimations of the immanent immensity. Although, aswe have noted, there are certain incompatibilitiesbetween the viewsof Buber and Bataille, combining the three categoriesisneverthelessproduc- tive. Bataille already acknowledges that we are paradoxical creatures, mysteries to ourselves. It will not be surprising if a religious tradition seeks to mirror such fundamental paradox. Furthermore, we want to suggest that if the simultaneous attribution of Bataille and Buber to ShintoÅ isparadoxical, thisisbecauseShinto Å itself cultivates these different voices, which may in turn reflect the paradoxical nature of being itself. This internal contradiction may reflect three levels of apprehension of Great Na- ture: the instrumental relations among humans and kami, the ``religious'' encounters of mutuality with kami, and intimationsof Great Nature asthe creativity of musubi from which all individuation emerges. Evidence to support this position is found, we maintain, in the central featuresof the ShintoÅ priestly tradition, namely shrine rituals and festivals. But first, we will apply the three interpretive categories to the ShintoÅ

40 Philosophy East & West worldview noting how the meaningsof kami, musubi, pollution, and purity shift in the process.

The Interpretive Categories Applied to the ShintoÅ Worldview

It is difficult to convey the whole context of our conversations with the priests at Tsubaki Grand Shrine, and the brevity of the quotes in the foregoing and following sections do the priests a disservice. But given the nature and length of this article, we have chosen to develop the philosophical implications of their worldview and ritual practices rather than give a fuller account of the interviews themselves. Likewise, we are aware that certain aspects of our interpretive schema are derived from ``intimations'' of meanings rather than explicit statements by the priests themselves. Such intimations, we would maintain, are an important dimension of any heuristic device that endeavorsto ``move imaginatively'' from one culture to another, even at the risk of misunderstanding.

The World of Project and I-It Relations in ShintoÅ What has been said so far about project is compatible with much of what goes on in religiouspracticesgenerally and Shinto Å particularly. Kami. First, if we look at the ways in which ShintoÅ practice isembedded in the social/political milieu, it is clear that its aims include establishing and maintaining the stability necessary for human project and creating an optimal set of circumstances in which I-It relationships can flourish. Most ShintoÅ practitioners, we sur- mise, and many Western interpreters of ShintoÅ, understand the meaning of this tradition in pragmatic, instrumental terms. A large proportion of its rituals and symbolic referencesare arguably about gaining advantage from appropriate relationsto the kami. For example, in a special service (Go KitoÅ) the priests read from registration forms filled out by those in attendance; these include the following types of request from the kami: avoiding bad luck, passing exams, becoming healthy, safety in trans- portation and the home, and the purification of land. Thisaccordswell with the Shinto Å cosmogony as expressed through its rich kami mythology. As we have noted, in the classical myths musubi is directly associated with various kami, who are ``to be understood in terms of particularity''47 even when referring to more abstract principles.48 In termsof ontological status,the kami are often understood as discontinuous, albeit invisible entities that must be appealed to, managed, or otherwise made helpful. In certain ceremonies both inside and outside the shrine, for example, there is a section in which the priests call upon the kami to descend (koÅ shin) and later, after the offeringsare removed, to ascend (shoÅshin). The kami are called to aid people in their projects because both persons and kami are understood to live in this world. To this extent our relation to the kami isof the I-It variety. AsYamamoto GuÅji put it: ``Ceremoniesaccomplishthree things:[they] (1) cast away bad fortune and impurity; (2) pray for good harvest; [and] (3) bring good health.''49 Musubi. Our life in project isgenerated through relationsamong kami who are specific manifestations of the ``joining, binding together, combining'' character of

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 41 musubi. At thislevel, musubi is best characterized diachronically via such meta- phorsfor connection aslineage, or parentage. That is,one'slineage can be traced back to certain kami. Yamamoto GuÅji, for example, affirmed that he wasthe ninety-sixth generation of the Yamamoto family to serve as high priest of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, and that Gyoman, the successor of Sarutahiko Okami, was the ances- tor of the Yamamoto priests.50 Synchronically, we are connected to present family and wider community. All of this, of course, is understood in the social context or world of project. AsYamamoto GuÅji put it: ``ShintoÅ is mainly composed of vertical relationships: kami±ancestors±parents±yourself±children±descendants; and horizontal relationships: society±friends±neighbors±yourself±neighbors±friends±family.''51 Likewise, the large twisted rope (shimenawa) above the doorsof a ShintoÅ shrine ``is hung up horizontally, which means. . . musubi . . . [and] you are the center with your brothers and sisters and other people linked horizontally, hand in hand, around the world.''52 Pollution and Purity. Pollution is tied not only to the commonsense notions of dirt, decay, death, and the metaphor of dust on the mirror, but also to the idea of complication. Not only is there complexity, but it increases. In traditional Japanese culture, ``there does seem to be a sense that accumulating history increases complexity, and with it the opportunity for pollution.''53 Temporal irreversibility and growing complexity can give rise to anxiety, which in turn diminishes our energetic participation in life. What ismostinterestingabout thisnotion isthat it treatspollu- tion as an inevitable side effect of the processes of musubi. Asthe world evolves, generating the new in every direction, harmful aswell ashelpful encountersare to be expected. Complication infectsGreat Nature ascosmos,nature aswe experience it, and human society. Its harmful effects are tied to the existence of crooked kami, who on this account can be viewed as ``built in'' to reality, so to speak, and not in need of further explanation. So, rather than centering on good versus evil and asking after the perhaps transcendent origins of both, ShintoÅ iscontent to focuson the presentunfolding of the world and the good and bad encountersthat occur within it. 54 Thisisa view perhaps closer to the principle of entropy than to the Western concept of evil. As Yamamoto GuÅji cautioned, ``It isclear that there isno clear concept of morally good and bad in ShintoÅ . . . ; the concept of morality should be carefully studied.''55 A world of good and bad encounters, we are suggesting, is one that, in principle, can be organized for the better (project), provided we have the necessary energy. Pollution shows itself in persons, therefore, as reduced vital energy. Entangled in complication, we may lose or waste energy and fall into impotent patterns. Purity, in contrast, is cleanliness, health, empowerment, efficacy, the capacity for forceful action, and the capacity for organization. That is, as one increases in purity, one's capacity for action in the social realm is increased. Such action promotes harmonious social relationships in a hierarchical order. Yamamoto GuÅji stated it concisely: ``Co-existence and co-prosperity, this is kannagaraÐthe way of the kami . . . asper- ceived by the Japanese spirit.''56

42 Philosophy East & West I-Thou Relations in ShintoÅ Neither Buber nor Bataille wishes to denigrate the world of project, nor our habit of relating asan I to an it. But at the same time neither takes this typical reality as setting the limits of possible experience. Kami. Kami can be conceived as that which evokes in us a sense of wonder, a superior instance of the vital potency of Great Nature. Yamamoto GuÅji expressed this relational encounter in thisway:

The spirit of Great Nature may be a flower, the beauty of the mountains, the pure snow, the soft rains or the gentle breeze. Kannagara [the way of the kami] meansbeing in communion with these forms of beauty. . . . When people respond to the silent and provoca- tive beauty of the natural order, they are aware of kannagara.57

``This awareness,'' Yamamoto GuÅji explained, isnot only an aestheticperception, it ``isa meeting of the spiritof Great Nature. . . . [I]t iscalled shinjin-goÅ itsu . . . a uniting of the kami to the human spirit.'' Such a harmonious union requires a ``sincerity and purity of heart (makoto).''58 The relational character of thiskind of I-Thou communion with nature isevoca- tively conveyed in Yukio Mishima's novel The Sound of Waves. In one episode he describes a young man named Shinji looking out over the sea that surrounds his is- land fishing village:

His prayer finished, Shinji gazed out over the Gulf of Ise, already shining in the moon- light, and breathed deeply. Cloudswere floating above the horizon looking like ancient gods. The boy felt consummate accord between himself and this opulence of nature that sur- rounded him. He inhaled deeply, and it was as though a part of the unseen something that constitutes nature had permeated the core of his being. He heard the sound of the waves striking the shore, and it was as though the surging of his young blood was keeping time with the movement of the sea's great tides.59

Such a direct and intense I-Thou relation to the kami presence of the sea has an in- effable and liminal quality about it, different from the normal everyday world of projects and things. Notions of utility, means and ends, and hierarchical structures are absent from this kind of relation. No hidden agendas are operative; rather there is a deep sense of mutual relation and being in the presence of the other. Musubi. In ShintoÅ terms, the nature of an I-Thou encounter isone of ``joining,'' and ``bonding together'' in a more extended sense. That is, it is a full participation in the creative ``combining'' vitality of musubi itself. When two particulars meet in an I-Thou relation, asYamamoto GuÅji stated above, one is momentarily in harmony with the ``way of the kami (kannagara),'' and, by extension, in harmony with the whole of Great Nature (Daishizen). There is a sense of joining with everything and with everyoneÐneighbors, friends, parents, ancestors, children, and descendantsÐ aswell asa bonding with the myriad of kami surrounding one's own being. The point is that the relation presupposed by musubi (``connection'') haschangedÐit is not the normal interpersonal social relation but communitas (a community of I-Thou

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 43 relations) or ``the sentiment of humanity'' (the a priori tendency toward community, prior to actual social structures).60 Pollution and Purity. In sum, as we move from I-It to I-Thou, kami become pre- sences, not useful things; musubi becomescommunion, not utilitarian connection; and impurity and purity shift their senses as well. Pollution is apparent in a dimin- ished self. We have discussed this already in terms of the hardening of the heart/ mind (kokoro). The opaque kokoro cannot establish I-Thou relationswith persons or nature. Purity, at thislevel, isindistinguishable from entering into I-Thou relations and isgenerally understoodin ShintoÅ by the concept of makoto (``sincerity'' or ``gen- uineness''), a term that implies not only an individual's interior state but also ``a unity with things.''61 AsYamamoto GuÅji said, ``a powerful kokoro isvery important. In a sound, bright mind, we have no negatives, no impurities and no destructive energy; [rather] we have the capacity for communion with the kami.''62

ShintoÅ and Immanent Immensity Since ShintoÅ is oriented toward persons, community, and pragmatic considerations, it may seem unnecessary to invoke Bataille's more radical vision. Discussion of the immanent immensitymovesusaway from connectednessandpersonal relations;we confront that which isnot amenable to human conceptsand interpretationÐin the mode of `ànguish and ecstasy.'' We are warranted in such a move, however, because there are ShintoÅ festival practices, symbols, and experiences that do not remain within the bordersof individuals-in-relation and stableorganization; rather they suggest the immanent immensity. For example, the very notion of Great Nature (Daishizen) hints at the human encounter with the immensity of musubi through singular manifestations, as in the `ìmperceptible sonority of a river.'' These moments of kami presence need not be conceived of as encounters with individuated ``persons,'' but as reminders of our deep embeddedness in the awe-inspiring process of musubi. ``This vast cosmic setting into which we are born,'' stated Yamamoto GuÅji, means that ``we are part of the restless movement of Great Nature itself.''63 So, there are hintsin ShintoÅ that point to the experience, and artful expression, of that which is immanent, immense, and unreduced by structure and thought. Musubi. From the perspective of this third interpretive category, the meanings of musubi, kami, pollution, and purity will be transformed once again. Given the ShintoÅ view that we are grounded in the generative vitality of musubi, Bataille'sinti- mations of the immanent immensity are suggestive of the incomprehensible depth and mystery of this process. In other words, musubi can be discussed from two per- spectives: (a) as the relational character of ``creative combining'' so evident in the kami cosmogony and highlighted by Buber's discussion of I-Thou relations, and (b) asan intimation of the underlying processof musubi itself, so immediate in its primordial immanence asto be beyond ``knowing.'' We are part and parcel of these creative forces that make up all of Great Nature, that potency prior to any personal endeavors, goals, or projects that constitute most of our life's activities. All of life is caught up in its vast flow; thus, there can be times when there is a resurgence in us of what Bataille called the `ìmmense sound of the

44 Philosophy East & West cataract of the sky''Ðoccasions that the ShintoÅ tradition speaks of as extraordinary encounterswith kami. ``The essence of ShintoÅ,'' Rev. Ochiai asserted, `ìs to follow the infinite movement of great natureÐwhich we call kamiÐas we are part of that endless and dynamic power of renewal (musubi).''64 Asthe creative principle, however, musubi, like the immanent immensity, can only be alluded to indirectly, because it is `òutside'' conceptual divisions. `Àfter all,'' Rev. Ochiai continued, ``kami isjusta word; nobody knowswhat the real kami isÐthe mystery of that is most important.''65 Kami. With the discussion of I-Thou we already embarked on a path leading away from stability, and organization, and the comforts they promise, since utility must be set aside. But I-Thou retains the personal and thus stops short of Bataille's claims about ecstasy and anguish. Since it is prior to all delineation, the immanent immensity cannot be described in terms of individuality, identity, personhood, relation, being, unity, or totality. Nor is it the primordial repository of essences. But insofar asit can be `èxperienced,'' it isnot a homogeneousexpanse;on the contrary, it varies in qualitative intensity and is, so to speak, the unmediated `èxperience'' of musubi-in-action. It should perhaps be related to the chaotic sublime encountered in certain ShintoÅ festivals (matsuri), about which we will say more later. Likewise, glimpses of the immanent immensity are to be distinguished from awe in the face of excellence such as one might experience at Mt. Fuji or the Golden Pavilion. Rather, it strikes us as spontaneous, new, heterogeneous, and vertiginousÐthe ``celestial bacchanalia.''66 Following thisinterpretation, then, we mustapproach the nature of kami in ways that recognize what is outside conceptual categorization and quantitative measure- ment. It is better, perhaps, to speak of pre-personal intensities and singularities rather than of subjects and objects, persons and things. Consider, for example, water coming to a boil. Asit heatsup, it varieslocally in intensity(one part being ``hotter'' than another) and it exhibits singularities such as reaching the ``boiling point'' (when its behavior changes drastically). These intensities and singular points, while notice- able, are not to be confused with the concepts, scales, and measuring devices (e.g., mercury thermometers) that allow us to speak of them quantitatively. The latter ap- proximate the underlying changes, but are secondary to them. Our suggestion is that kami might well be viewed assingular intensitiesinthe continual unfolding of the generative, creative force of musubi as manifest in Great Nature. Objects, persons, and conceptual schemes come later; they are products of the immanent processes of musubi, which precede these manifestations.67 So kami, in this third instance, are singular intensities that tend to elicit awe in human beings attentive to the immanent immensity. Perhaps the mysterious `èmpty,'' box-like feature of the inner shrine alludes to the idea that the pure immanence of musubi can be encountered in the immediate present but cannot be described without invoking the ``measuring'' devices of persons and things. One may revert in such situations to ritual and poetic expression. For example, Yama- moto GuÅji speaks of the kami presence as `à sense of the infinite in the middle of the now (naka ima).''68 Note also that the ontological ambiguity of kami, commonly

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 45 viewed asa problem, isin our view essentialin order that the realm of project, I- Thou relations, and experiences of the immanent immensity can be accommodated within one set of basic concepts. Pollution and Purity. And what about pollution and itscontrary, purity, socentral to ShintoÅ belief and practice? We have portrayed pollution so far in terms of decay, the dusty mirror, complication, reduced capacity for concerted action, and inability to establish I-Thou communion. With respect to the immanent immensity, pollution isperhapsbestviewed asthe inability to be mindful or attentive. The immanent immensity undermines the duration necessary for the world of project, and can only be experienced in the moment and in process. But typically we are disrupted from being ``in the middle of the now'' (naka ima), that is, experiencing the ``Ultimate Reality of Presentness'';69 our attention slips away toward future and past. This may even be the result of immersion in the world of project. We sense a need for some kind of ``straightening'' action that can restore our sense of creative participation in life. We might say that purity, then, is the momentary dissolution of self, a form of living in the present. In Bataille's words, it has the ``passion of the absence of individuality,'' or, asYamamoto GuÅji asserted, ``purification . . . means becoming nothing. . . . This nothingness will create something out of nothing, and new spiritual ki, or energy, will emerge.''70 He further remindsus:

The life of man is located in Daishizen, Great Nature, the vast cosmic setting into which we are born, where we live, and within which our livesfind any meaning. . . . People learn to see, in the flow of life and in the processes of nature, promptings from the creative originsof the world. 71

Application to ShintoÅ Ritual Practices

It remainsto apply the three interpretive categoriesto what isthe central aspect of the ShintoÅ tradition: ritual practices. Rituals are complex assemblages, akin to art- worksand effective on many levels. 72 Asmentioned, they are a meansof ``straightening.'' That is, rituals are not only reflective of the vision of musubi and kami but are intended to be efficaciousin removing pollution, that is, productive of purity.73 In addition, practitioners of shrine liturgies would say that when one encounters a kami presence, a formal, well-articulated celebratory response is appropriate. Those moments and places of wonder and fascination, such as standing in a grove of five- hundred-year-old cypress trees on a mountainside, call for a well-formed gesture or clearly voiced evocation of respect and awe.74 Hence, the first thing we can say about the ShintoÅ ritual tradition isthat it is aimed, at least in part, at purification and the proper acknowledgment of the wonder of Great Nature. From the side of the practitioner, it is because we are capable of continually cultivating our mind, will, and emotionsthat it fallsupon each of usto cultivate a bright, powerful, clear-minded disposition and attitude toward life (akaki kiyoki kokoro); ritualsare a major meansto thisend. In termsof our interpretive categoriessuch cultivation entailsthat we become effective in the realm of project and open to I-Thou relationsand the immanent immensity.In what follows,we can

46 Philosophy East & West only begin to suggest some possible avenues of analysis. We will discuss three kinds of ShintoÅ rituals: shrine liturgies, ascetic practices, and community festivals.

Shrine Liturgies A Shrine Liturgy Example: The ChoÅ Hai. The ChoÅ Hai isthe daily morning service.75 Without rehearsing the details of the ceremony, we can summarize it as follows.It beginswith cleansing;participantspurify themselveswith water, and the ritual precincts are energetically scrubbed; and the shrine area is carefully arranged and prepared with offerings. The chief priest and the participants intone an ancient liturgy in a respectful and sonorous manner; it is an invocation of the kami and a call for harmony. This is followed by brief recitations by the priest and a short drumming- and-flute sequence. The accompanying gestures and movements are solemn, delib- erate, and graceful. The assistant priest then concludes this brief service by purifying the offerings, the chief priest and the audience using a wand covered with paper streamers (haraigushi). Following this, there may be a ceremony in which written petitions addressed to the kami are read aloud; these have been collected before- hand from the participants. This is sometimes preceded by a dance performance by a female assistant (miko). Then the participantsretire to an inner sanctuary,where an offering is made. Subsequently, they partake in a ceremonial drink of consecrated sake (naorai), which celebrates the establishment of a good relationship among the participantsand the kami. In sum, this is a ceremony of invocation of the kami and petitioning for their blessings. The priests act as mediators between the people and the kami. Shrine Liturgies and the Realm of Project. Many ShintoÅ practitionersunderstand the meaning of the tradition largely in pragmatic, instrumental terms. It is not surprising, then, that the most obvious feature of Shrine liturgies is their connection with the realm of project. At the level of project and I-It experience, the ceremony involves petitions from humans to separate and superior beings whom we need to mold to our ends(cf. above, ``Kami,'' under ``The World of Project and I-It Relations in ShintoÅ''). The ontological status of the kami remainsunderdetermined, but in the words of one commentator, they are treated as ``social beings with clear social obligations.''76 Sometimes, as in the case of rice-planting rituals, the rituals directly concern important human projects. Others are transformative rituals such as coming-of-age ceremonies, again with obvious social reference.77 Aesthetically, shrine rituals are carefully enacted visions of beauty and order, presenting the participants with a model of harmoniousbehaviorÐa model that can be analogically extended to social relationships and the smooth functioning of society.78 Shrine Liturgies and I-Thou Relations. Perhapslesscentral, but certainly not neg- ligible, are the opportunitieswithin the ritualsfor I-Thou relationsto emerge. For example, recitationsof norito (ancient Japanese ritual chants) are understood as spoken forms of paying respect and expressing gratitude to the vital generative forces, exem- plified by the kami. Norito are poetic in form and often composed for the occasion. When correctly recited they are powerful artistic expressions and can provide

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 47 momentsof genuine I-Thou encounter. This requires a certain poise and presence of mind on the part of the priest. Yamamoto GuÅji spoke of this relational attitude and posture in terms of ``growth in tsutsushimiÐa careful, circumspect, elegant attitude of consideration for others.'' Such a receptive relation can be realized, he continued, only if one has``a quiet heart . . . in harmony with others'' during the conduct of the ceremonies.79 Turning our attention to the audience, ShintoÅ priests seek to create an occasion for liminal experience for all participantsattending the ritual. Thisisaccomplished in part by meansof aestheticallyrefined, dramatic performance, creating moments when the usual conventions, demands, and distinctions of daily life recede into the background and there arises a sense of the interconnectedness with the world around us.80 These moments are ritually symbolized at the conclusion of a full service when all participants drink consecrated sake (naorai). Shrine Liturgies and the Immanent Immensity. The immanent immensity receives muted expression in most shrine liturgies. It is more a matter of subtle suggestion, more symbolic than experiential. In order to recognize ritual expressions of the immanent immensity, we should look for shifts: from the beautiful and well-ordered to the sublime and awesome; from self-interest to ecstatic experience; from organization and predictability to spontaneity, chance, and chaos.81 There are singular moments in shrine ceremonies that point to sublime experience. A partial list of such moments includes: the ``empty'' black box in the inner- most sanctuary; the sound of its creaking doors at the focal points of some rituals;82 the related falling or rising sighs of the priests indicating the ``coming down'' and the ``return'' of the kami; the swishing sound of the haraigushi, like wind through the pines; and the haunting music accompanying the miko dance. These are emotionally expressive, artful images accompanying otherwise project-oriented phases of the rituals.

Ascetic Practice An Example of Ascetic Practice: Misogi. There are a number of ascetic prac- ticesassociatedwith Shinto Å. We will take asour example the practice of misogi at Tsubaki Grand Shrine. On the eleventh day of every month, including the winter months, participants stand under the forceful impact of a cold mountain waterfall while exclaiming prescribed chants. The ritual is preceded by strenuous exercises and concludeswith a communal drink of sake. Some participantsengage in thiscer- emony daily, over a period of years.83 Ascetic Practice and Project. Of course, ascetic practices, insofar as they are energizing or health-giving, will aid project by promoting more effective community action and organization. In fact, improving one'shealth isa project in itself.On the subject of the health-giving power of misogi, Yamamoto GuÅji said, ``Misogi hasther- apeutic aswell asspiritual effects.The impact of the waterfall on the back of the neck is a source of removing stress.''84 Ascetic Practice and I-Thou Relations. Perhaps ascetic rituals are most effective, however, at moving the practitioner from I-It experiencesto I-Thou relations. This

48 Philosophy East & West practice, when regularly enacted, isclaimed capable of transforming and purifying one'sperception of Great Nature. The world becomesa Thou, or, aswe were told by one ShintoÅ practitioner, ``when I do misogi, I can feel the stars breathing.''85 This accords with a larger aim shared by some ShintoÅ practitioners. Regarding his com- mitment to ShintoÅ, one priest spoke of his desire to hear the voice of Great Nature.86 The focus of the ritual is the waterfall itself, a singular kami presence. Yamamoto GuÅji pointed out that ``since the waterfall . . . is a kami, there isneed for purification before entering [the water].'' Hence, ``the practice openswith a purification ceremony [wherein] the limitationson [human] development are lifted and restoration can take place.''87 Such ``restoration,'' as we noted above, ``is called shinjin-goÅ itsu ..., a unifying of the kami to the human spirit.'' At the very least, misogi fosters in the practitioner attention to the present moment, which is one of the characteristics of liminal experience. Ascetic Practice and the Immanent Immensity. In some shrines, the daily practice of misogi isencouraged and isclaimed to have life-changing effects.The misogi experience is both meditative and something of a ``shock.'' It may, therefore, be productive of ecstatic experience affording glimpses of the immanent immensity. Again, quoting Yamamoto GuÅji, ``Misogi is efficacious in restoring the natural greatness of soul of which man is capable. . . . [P]eople of old [who devised such practices] had intuitive insights. . . . They caught the spirit of the cosmos.''88 These ``intuitive insights'' into the ``spirit of the cosmos'' intimate, possibly, a glimpse of the immanent immensity.

Festivals Festival Examples: Hadaka Matsuri and Mikoshi No O-tabi. KoÅnomiya Shrine in Inazawa City, northwest of Nagoya, has held a festival that dates from the thir- teenth century. In the year 1997, one of the authors witnessed this ``Naked Festival'' (Hadaka Matsuri). A reported nine thousand men wearing only loincloths partici- pated. Groupsof them carried long bamboo poleswrapped with stripsof cloth on which people had written variouspetitionsto the kami. The men were noisy and inebriated, and the level of frenzy intensified as each group careened toward the shrine. Their goal was to bring the pole with its petitions to the shrine and allow the priests to place them before the kami. In other festivals, groups of men carry large and heavy portable shrines (mikoshi no o-tabi) through the streets of the community. Often each group represents a certain section of the community, and races are set up to determine which group isfastestin carrying the mikoshi over a prescribed route in the area of the shrine. Given the weight of the portable shrine and the uninhibited condition of the men carrying it, the festival has some very dangerous moments, and people may be injured or killed.89 Festivals and Project. Developed festival traditions, wherever they occur, typically require some form of transgression and may involve considerable risk, violence, and other forms of excess. It is not surprising, therefore, that just as the sublime receives a more muted expression in shrine rituals, project is of more re- mote concern here. But it is not absent, as the examples above illustrate. In the

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 49 anthropological literature, festivals are often claimed to be mechanisms for ``letting off steam,'' and thus indirectly helping to maintain the world of project.90 One way in which festivals aid project is by loosening ``the bonds of workplace, social or familial obligationsand [allowing] a brief, well-bounded, but neverthelessliminal stage of social existence.''91 Furthermore, many festivals, even the most disruptive, build a sense of community spirit among the participants, lessening competition in ordinary life even while requiring competitive struggle within the ritual itself. Such eventsmay thereby empower individualsfor more effective action in the community. Yamamoto GuÅji said that ``it is in the festival, the matsuri, that the greatest cel- ebration of life can be seen in the world of ShintoÅ,'' and it isthe ``people of the community . . . [who] attend festivals as a group, as a whole village,'' who are seeking to ``unlock the human potential aschildren of kami.''92 Festivals and I-Thou Relations. It is well known that festivals tend to share certain more-or-less universal features. They can be physically demanding and dangerous, often requiring concerted action, cooperation, or even competition. Hence, they have some of the aspects of athletics or even combat. In such circumstances we can expect, for example, the creation of liminal situations that suspend many of the rules of normal social interaction and, as noted, can lead to a deepened sense of communitas that Victor Turner linked to I-Thou. Insofar asthere isan emphasisoncommunity action within the festival,thiscan go beyond project since the usual utilitarian rewards and projected goals are subor- dinated. There may be, then, a sense of play, which, insofar as it is spontaneous and unstructured, lies outside project. This is an example of the layered multiplicity of ritual actions, since cooperative, concerted struggle may at once be a model of project and an opportunity for communion, which transcends project. Festivals and the Immanent Immensity. We have seen that both shrine rituals and ascetic practices contain elements that allow for a spontaneous awareness of those aspects of life that lift the human spirit out of the world of project. Further, as Bataille points out, all such effects, if intended, are paradoxical. Any efforts to accomplish somethingÐincluding authentic relation with kami, or glimpses of the immanent immensity, belong to the world of project. Apparently, this is a paradox that must be endured. Certain typesof ShintoÅ festivals, particularly, seek the momentary surfacing of an unmediated, unbounded dimension of experience that calls into question even I-Thou relations. Festivals such as the Hadaka Matsuri are wild and frenzied events that verge on being dangerous and out of control. We are suggesting that these events can provide the occasion or serve as a medium for being momentarily caught up in the immediacy of the ``vast flow of things . . . like water in water,'' or ``becoming nothing,'' asYamamoto GuÅji put it, and released from the world of project and individuality. The character of such a festival is dramatically evoked by Yukio Mishima when he recounts his childhood experience witnessing a portable shrine (mikoshi) festival.93 Through the eyesof a young boy, Mishimadescribesasummerfestival that reachesa high degree of chaosthrough a kind of massraptureand intoxication.

50 Philosophy East & West The boy sees wild groups of young men carrying a large, heavy portable shrine approach hishome, where the front garden gatesstandopen. Suddenly, the crowd of young men shouldering the black, cube-like shrine and chanting rhythmically to the drums, uncontrollably comes surging through the gate. At that moment, he says:

My heart was beating so suffocatingly that I could scarcely stand. . . . The perfect cube of empty night ceaselessly swaying and leaping, to and fro, up and down, . . . drew closer and closer. . . . From time to time the shrine would tilt crazily. ``Look out!'' someone shouted. . . . I rushed up to the second floor with someone and out into the balcony. From there I looked down upon the scene, breathlessly. Just at that moment they . . . [came] swarming into the entry garden, bearing their black shrine. . . . They took delight in wanton destruction of the plants. The entry garden . . . was suddenly transformed into a different world. The shrine was paraded over every inch of it, and the shrubs, ripped apart crashingly, were trampled underfoot. . . . It seemed . . . as though my ears were being struck by recurrent waves of frozen silence and meaningless roaring. Through it all there wasonly one vividly clear thing, a thing that both horrified and lacerated me, filling my heart with unaccountable agony. This was the expression on the faces of the young men carrying the shrineÐan expression of the most obscene and undisguised drunkenness in the world. . . . The casual violence, caprice, and intoxication that often occur take the participants, and perhaps the onlookers, beyond the world of project, and may momentarily break through to that level of being that paradoxically dissolves all individuality and distinctionÐthe immanent immensity. Participation in such festivals can occasion a momentary erasure of the discontinuity we all experience between ourselves and the world. In such festivals, according to Minoru Sonoda, there is a general ``expectation of a thorough liberation of mind and body, a destruction of the existing order.''94 He cites Bataille as offering a helpful philosophical way of interpreting the ``disobedient and paradoxical nature of festival,''95 and refersto thistype of matsuri asa form of ``sacred transgression.'' Bataille, for his part, connects festivals generally with sacrifice. And for him, sacrifice at its most profound aims at removing things or living beings from the world of project, symbolically restoring them to immediacy while plunging the practitionersinto the vastflow of things. 96 It ispartly for thisreason that we connect certain aspects of the festival tradition in ShintoÅ to experience of the immanent immensity. Further confirmation of thisdimensionof Shinto Å comesfrom a conversation with Yamamoto GuÅji. After we had discussed musubi in termsof production, connection, and creativity, he also urged us to attend to ``the ultimate mystery [of musubi], beyond measure [Yamamoto's emphasis] ...; it is[something we] can't understand.''97 It is this type of festival activity that seems to warrant an augmented interpretation of the process of the musubi principle itselfÐas a level of being and apprehension that is beyond individuation, particularities, and relations. There is an intimation of a prior state from which we emerged but of which we are a partÐimmanent,

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 51 intimate, immediate, unbounded, and uncircumscribed conceptually. The excesses of these types of festivals may momentarily reveal our deep embeddedness in the immense process of musubi itself.

Conclusion

Humanistic Approach We began by stating that ours is a humanistic approach to ShintoÅ, and we sought to highlight aspects of the experiential dimension of priestly ShintoÅ. Our emphasis can now be stated more clearly. With respect to human life and practices, is there anything outside project? We have clumsily called that which goes beyond instrumental social concerns ``religious.'' It was Bataille, in Theory of Religion, who suggested that momentary glimpses of the immanent immensity lay at the limits of human social- ized experience, and that all expressions of project were a reduction, although a necessary one, from the immanent immensity that is also our home. Bataille wanted an expanded social science that could take into account the diverse, marvelous, and terrifying encountersof that which escapeslimitsÐexperiencesthat undermined project, good sense, and common sense, and thus could not rightly be subsumed under project. It isno doubt the casethat Shinto Å, like other religioustraditions,functionsmore to shape social beings than to provide lines of flight from social consensus, that its center of gravity is pragmatics, not the marvelous or the vertiginous. Even Western talk of deitieswasfor Bataille but a mythic mirror of the world of project, not to be confused with the immanent immensity. But we have argued that immanence and immeasurable immensity are among the multileveled concerns of the ShintoÅ tradition, as evidenced particularly by its ascetic practices and festivals.

In the Middle of the Now Further, we have interpreted the focusof the ShintoÅ tradition to be the present, this- worldly unfolding of Great Nature, which occurs within history, not outside it. Rather than understanding kami, for example, as supernatural deities, we emphasize an immensity that is immanent, of musubi asthe creative and complex evolution of the cosmos in which we are all presently implicated, and of kami assingular instances of life force, eliciting awe. Such a vision, of course, does not feature questions of absolute beginnings, primordial unity, and ultimate goals; rather it places us in wonder at finding ourselves in a world already here and inexorably changing. In Deleuze'sphrase,we find ourselves``alwaysin the middle [of becoming].'' 98 This, we believe, is one reason why our Japanese informants stressed that we are all kami, and even referred usto Berg- son's process philosophy and his concept of eÂlan vital. This vision also sets aside speculation about the origins of good and evil in favor of a relative, contingent notion of good and bad encounters, crooked kami and pollution, and the possibilities of purification and creative, energetic problem solving.

52 Philosophy East & West Ritual and Future Agendas Lastly, we acknowledged our wish that ways be found to put ritual in its rightful place, at the center of the Shrine ShintoÅ tradition. It isonly a little exaggeration to say that ShintoÅ isa purely ritual tradition, or, in wordsborrowed from another faith, that ``the real coherence [of the tradition] liesin ritual.'' 99 In the present essay, we have provided only a beginning discussion, which shows how different rituals connect with project, I-Thou, and immanent immensity. We have developed a set of interpretive categories with the rituals in mind and have systematically applied the categories to illuminate the practice. This mutual adjust- ment between ``theory'' and ``data'' istypical of theoretical understanding, of course. But it does not entirely satisfy us. One reason we are engaged in the study of ShintoÅ isthat ritual playsan unusually central role in thistradition. 100 Ideally, we would like to forefront ritual'sprimacy with argumentsthat flow from a closedescriptionof ritual practice to a set of appropriate conceptsÐrather than imposing concepts whose originslie outside the tradition. In the course of describing differences between the rationalist tradition and contemporary empiricism, Deleuze says:

One starts [in the rationalist position] with abstractions such as the One, the Whole, the Subject, and one looksfor the processbywhich they are embodied in a world which they make conform to their requirements. . . . Empiricism starts with a completely different evaluation: analyzing the states of things, in such a way that non-pre-existent concepts can be extracted from them.101

The next step, one that does better justice to the centrality of ritual in the ShintoÅ tradition, would be to find a way to extract non-preexistent concepts from a close study of the practices. This might amount to a new hermeneutics of ritual. In addition, it might put us in position to demonstrate how some ShintoÅ ritual practicesnot only represent or express purity, but produce it.

Notes

1 ± Throughout this essay we will use the term ``ShintoÅ'' asshorthand for Shrine ShintoÅ, which is to be distinguished from State ShintoÅ, a nationalistic movement largely invented by the Japanese government during the period 1868± 1945, and from Sect and Folk ShintoÅ. See Helen Hardacre, ShintoÅ and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), and IchiroÅ Hori et al., eds., Japanese Religion: A Survey by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1990). 2 ± The disciplines range from mythology and comparative religions to the history of Japanese thought. Cf., for example, M. Ashkenazi, Matsuri: Festivals of a Japanese Town (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1993); Helen Hardacre, KurozumikyoÅ and the New Religions of Japan (Princeton: Princeton

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 53 University Press, 1986); Nobutaka Inoue, et al., eds., Matsuri: Festival and Rite in Japanese Life (Tokyo: Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, 1988); John K. Nelson, A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine (Seattle and London: Uni- versity of Washington Press, 1996), and Enduring Identities: The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2000); Ian Reader, Religion in Contemporary Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1991). In addition, the new initiative being undertaken by the University of Califor- nia, Berkeley, with additional funding from the International Shinto Founda- tion, is presently providing online English and Japanese versions of the Nihon Shoki that are marked for interactive research. The Kojiki and the ShintoÅ vol- umesof the Engi Shiki will soon be online. All these texts will be registered with the California Digital Library. See http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JHTI/.

3 ± The authorslived at TsubakiGrand Shrine for a month in 1996, 1998, and 2000, observing and documenting the New Year's Rituals and discussing with English-speaking priests the religious meaning and significance of their ritual tradition. See JamesW. Boyd and Ron G. Williams,``New Year'sRituals at Tsubaki Grand Shrine,'' video documentary (Fort Collins, Colorado: Colo- rado State University, 1997). Much of our conversation turned on the precise meanings of key terms, such as musubi (# ), kami (^), harai (SD) and tsumi (j). Both our questions and the chief priest's responses were written in Japanese and English. In addition to our work at Tsubaki Grand Shrine, we also witnessed festivals conducted at a number of other shrines and inter- viewed Rev. Shigeru Handa at Ueno Tenmangu Shrine, Nagoya, and Rev. Kusaba Shoji at Saga Shrine, Saga City. However, we are especially thankful to the late Rev. Dr. Yukitaka Yamamoto and his associate priests at Tsubaki Grand Shrine for dedicating so much time to us and offering insights into the religioussignificance of the ``way of the kami'' (kami no michi ^nS).

4 ± The Jinja HonchoÅ (a voluntary association of ShintoÅ shrines) has designated Tsubaki Grand Shrine as a beppyoÅ-jinja (%h^>), a special independent shrine. The shrine's own account claims that Tsubaki was established one year after the establishment of JinguÅ, that is, the Ise Shrine. See Yukitaka Yamamoto, Kami no Michi: The Way of the Kami (Stockton, California: Tsu- baki America Publications, 1999), pp. 54, 56. Perhaps one indicator of its importance isthat during the New Year'speriod in 1996, it wasestimatedthat over three hundred thousand visitors came to the shrine for hatsumoÅde (the initial visit to a shrine in the new year).

5 ± Interview with Mr. Yuji Inokuma, January 2, 1996. Rev. Yukitaka Yamamoto was vigorous in pursuing this goal. Under his leadership a new shrine was built in the state of Washington named Tsubaki America (originally established in Stockton, California), and priests were sent to the United States to learn English, conduct ceremonies, and offer instruction on ShintoÅ to inter-

54 Philosophy East & West ested persons. Yamamoto GuÅji was also very active in the International Asso- ciation for Religious Freedom (IARF) and served as president in 1999. He and his successor, Yukiyasu Yamamoto GuÅji, would take exception to what Thomas Kasulis considers one of ShintoÅ'simportant values,namely ethno- centrism; see Kasulis, ``Intimacy: A General Orientation in Japanese Religious Values,'' Philosophy East and West 40 (4) (1990): 440±442. 6 ± In the words of Thomas Kasulis, we are resorting to a heuristic: ``A heuristic is a tool for interpretation . . . that can help usmove imaginatively from our culture into Japanese culture. Eventually, as we come to know Japan better, the heuristic will undergo continuous modification'' (ibid., p. 434). 7 ± In speaking of the ShintoÅ Tradition, we are not suggesting that ShintoÅ isa uni- form or monolithic tradition that did not undergo change and influence. Nor are we suggesting that it is a purely indigenous Japanese tradition, or that it always was identifiable by the institutional character one sees today. Like- wise, as Hardacre points out, it should be noted that the word ShintoÅ itself was ``not widely used in ordinary speech before the advent of National Learn- ing'' (Hardacre, ShintoÅ and the State, p. 18). We are affirming the position, however, that the underlying worldview and central religiouspracticesare enduring characteristics of this long-lived tradition (cf. also Nelson, Enduring Identities, p. 176). Finally, we are addressing the ethical and philosophical dimensions of ShintoÅ in this essay, and not speaking to the political aspects that a fuller account would necessarily have to address. 8 ± Tsunetsugu Muraoka, in Studies in Shinto Thought, trans. D. M. Brown and J. T. Araki (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), states that, in general, the ancient outlook on life and the world was essentially one of unsophisticated opti- mism. Nature, as a manifestation of life-giving power, was undisguisedly good. There could be no better world than thisworld. There were powersthat obstructedand destroyed life-giving power, but in the end they would be overcomeÐ``straightening'' (naobi) action would be directed against these misfortunes. . . . As a result of such ``straightening'' action, life-giving power wasperpetually winning. Thiswasbecause good fortune was dominant. Possibly creativity (musubi), because of this, was a fundamental world principle. (p. 59) In many essential ways, the character of ancient ShintoÅ continuesto permeate contemporary priestly ShintoÅ.

9 ± See Andrew N. Nelson, The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, 2nd rev. ed. (Rutland and Tokyo: CharlesE. Tuttle, 1992), p. 705, and Stuart D. B. Picken, Essentials of Shinto: An Analytical Guide to Prin- cipal Teachings (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 61. 10 ± Yamamoto states: ``The concept of musubi, the power of creativity, isshown asa central aspectof Shinto'' ( Kami no Michi, p. 65). Picken notes: ``In modern Japanese religious parlance, the term `Great Nature' (Daishizen) ['ê6]

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 55 is used with a cosmic or metaphysical flavor to describe the total context of human physical and spiritual life and that of the world itself'' (Essentials of Shinto, p. xxiii). 11 ± Donald L. Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1995), pp. 47 ff. 12 ± Hori et al., Japanese Religion, p. 39. 13 ± Ibid., p. 40. 14 ± Muraoka, Studies in Shinto Thought, p. 55. 15 ± Ibid. 16 ± This generative principle is referred to by some historians as ``vitalism,'' a term that seeks to identify `àt the very base of Japanese culture . . . a set of old and lasting beliefs.'' D. M. Brown, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1 : 10. See also J. C. Takai et al., eds., Basic Terms of Shinto (Tokyo: Kokugakuin University, 1985), p. 40; Phil- ippi, Kojiki, p. 596. 17 ± Takeshi Matsumae, `Èarly Kami Worship,'' in The Cambridge History of Ja- pan, 1 : 317. Norman Havens, in `Ìmmanent Legitimation: Reflections on the Kami Concept,'' in Kami, ed. Nobutaka Inoue (Tokyo: Kokugakuin Univer- sity,1998), p. 231, mentions that Joseph Kitagawa, in Religion in Japanese His- tory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), argued for more careful translations of the term kami back in the 1960s: ``The ambiguous meaning of the term kami alone demandsrigorousand multidimensionalanalysisand research. Its usual translation as ``spirit'' or ``god'' is quite unsatisfactory and misleading.'' More recently, Ashkenazi dealt with this problem of definition in the following way. After referring to the ``Shinto godhead'' as``polytheis- tic,'' he goeson to define kami as``powerful nonhuman moot entities.'' A kami is a moot entity, as we understand it, because the term signifies a ``social persona lacking demonstrable empirical referents.'' For purposes of his discussion, he states that ``kami, like their worshippers, are social beings with clear social obligations'' (Matsuri, pp. 18, 36). 18 ± Yamamoto speaks of `Ò'harai as a way to become kami'' (Shinto in the U.S.A.: Tsubaki News [Stockton: California: Tsubaki America Publications, 2000], p. 1), and Rev. Hitoshi Iwasaki affirmed that `ìf one gets rid of impurities, you can become kami, and when everything exists in perfect order and harmony, all are kami'' (interview, January 6, 1996). He also stated that this was not a typical theme of the Jinja HonchoÅ (see note 4 above). 19 ± See Havens, `Ìmmanent Legitimation,'' p. 235. 20 ± The classic definition of kami isthe one advanced by Motoori Norinaga (1730±1801), a distinguished scholar of Japanese history and literature. See Matsumae, `Èarly Kami Worship,'' pp. 317±318. For an excellent discussion

56 Philosophy East & West of the kami concept and its translation history, see Havens, ``Immanent Legit- imation,'' pp. 227±246; see also Robert S. Gall, ``Kami and Daimon: A Cross- Cultural Reflection on What isDivine,'' Philosophy East and West 49 (1) (1999): 63±74. 21 ± Muraoka, Studies in Shinto Thought, pp. 24, 57. 22 ± Rev. Tetsuji Ochiai gave this explanation: ``Both aspects of natureÐstorm and blossomÐare very important; kamisama, for example nature, typhoon, [and] flood, sometimes kill people, but later bring good, for example [they] bring good soil; how terrible and [yet] helpful nature is'' (interview, January 7, 2000). 23 ± Yamamoto explained that ``[talk of kami] includesnegative kami; . . . the basic idea of nature in Shinto is to also accept the awful and destructive power of nature aspart of the ceaselessmovement of Great Nature'' (interview, January 9, 2000). 24 ± Jun'ichi Kamata says that the term kegare (b) generally refersto those impediments that are the result of natural causes (``Pollution and Sin in Shinto,'' in Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of the Association for the History of Religions [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968], pp. 183±184). But types of kegare are also referred to in definitions of tsumi, which includeshuman actionsof moral import. Examplesfrom the Great Purification Ceremony are cited in the text. 25 ± Donald L. Philippi, trans., Norito: A Translation of the Ancient Japanese Ritual Prayers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 45±49. 26 ± Yamamoto explained: ``the reason [why harmonious relations do not always happen] isthat man often makesmistakesthatlead to hisbecoming impure. When people become impure in this sense, they stray from themselves and they have to find themselves again. . . . The manner by which that purity is restored is purification, or oharai'' (Kami no Michi, pp. 68±69). 27 ± ``I would say that a bright, radiant, powerful kokoro isvery important to have a sound mind. In a bright mind, we have no negatives, no impurities, and no destructive ki [energy source]'' (Yamamoto, interview, January 9, 2000). 28 ± ``The actsof purification are performed by priestswhoact asintermediaries when they are purified, speaking to the kami on behalf of people they will in turn ceremonially purify. There are many formsof oharai'' (Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 69). 29 ± The term kiyoi (purity) as such is not usually ritually invoked (as is the term harai) and appearsto be a rather late usage.The authorsare indebted to Dr. Delmer Brown for thisclarification. 30 ± Martin Buber, I and Thou, 2nd ed. (New York: CharlesScribner'sSons,1958); GeorgesBataille, Inner Experience, trans. Leslie Anne Boldt (New York: State

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 57 University of New York Press, 1988); Bataille, Theory of Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1992). Buber has been a rich source for the interpretation of Asian thought; cf. Jonathan R. Herman, I and Tao: Martin Buber's Encounter with Chuang Tzu (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), and James W. Heisig, ``Non-I and Thou: Nishida, Buber, and the Moral Conse- quencesof Self-Actualization,'' Philosophy East and West 50 (2) (2000): 179±207. Buber, however, hasnot been applied to ShintoÅ thought and ritual practice in any thorough way, nor hasGeorgesBataille, to our knowledge. 31 ± In what followswe are not offering either a unified or a final model of interpretation of ShintoÅ. We are aware that the interpretive categories we bring to the ShintoÅ priestly perspective are both Western and likely to be controversial. What we firmly maintainÐbased on our conversations with the priests at Tsu- baki Grand ShrineÐisthe need for fresher and better ways of understanding this tradition, and the present work simply offers examples of the kind of project we have in mind. 32 ± Buber, I and Thou, pp. 7±8. 33 ± Buber further claimsthat in each I-Thou relation we `àddress the eternal Thou'' (ibid., p. 6). This introduces issues we will not explore. 34 ± Bataille, Theory of Religion, pp. 18, 27. 35 ± Ibid., pp. 23±25. 36 ± Ibid., p. 53. 37 ± Bataille, Inner Experience, p. 95. 38 ± Ibid. 39 ± Ibid. 40 ± Bataille, Theory of Religion, pp. 50±51. 41 ± Buber, I and Thou, p. 7. 42 ± Buber'spositionisthat the true mutuality of an I-Thou encounter is`ìnborn'' in every human being, and that this sense of the other as Thou ``reachesout from the undivided primal world which precedesforms,out of which the bodily individual who isborn into the world . . . hasfully emerged'' (ibid., p. 28; italicsours).Although Buber ishinting at an originative primal world that underliesor precedesindividuation, much like Bataille, the nature of this primal world is still fundamentally relational. Buber says, `Ìn the beginning is relation (italicsours)Ðascategory of being ...; itisthe a priori of relation, the inborn Thou'' (ibid., p. 27). James Heisig states that this ``latent possibility of two individualsmeeting one another asI and Thou [isnot] a metaphysical a priori but [is] . . . a process in time'' (``Non-I and Thou: Nishida, Buber, and the Moral Consequences of Self-actualization,'' Philosophy East and West 50 [2] [2000]: 191). Thisview iscertainly applicable to our understandingof

58 Philosophy East & West musubi asalwaysin process,but isnot applicable to the immanent immensity, as we shall discuss. 43 ± Bataille adds: ``By inner experience I understand that which one usually calls mystical experience'' (Inner Experience, p. 3). But then he goeson to criticize the assumptions promoted by the latter phrase. 44 ± Ibid., pp. 3, 4. 45 ± Ibid., p. xxxii. 46 ± Throughout, we have spoken of experiences of the immanent immensity. This locution runstogether Bataille'stalk of inner experience with hisdistinction between the realm of project and that of the immanent immensity. Of course, ``experience'' is a dangerous word in these contexts; in fact, as we have noted, Buber refuses to use it even in connection with I-Thou relations. ``Experience'' ismisleading to the extent that it isnormally applied in the context of identity, the subject, personhood, and social consensus. Instead of referring to experiences of the immanent immensity, it is more precise, perhaps, but also too cumbersome, to speak of situations/events that comprise forces that undermine those qualities and structures necessary for persons and their projects, and thus undermine as well the operation of good sense and common sense. Such forces can bring about ecstatic responses that inevitably tempt people to invoke the notion of unsayability. 47 ± Hori, Japanese Religion, p. 40. 48 ± Rev. Tetsuji Ochiai, for example, explained: The five kami enshrined in this garden shrine [Tsubaki America, Stockton, California] are (1) the kami of pioneering and guidance, Sarutahiko; (2) the kami of the sun, Ama- terasu oÅ mi kami; (3) the kami of harmony, Amenouzume no mikoto; (4) the kami of the land of America; and (5) the kami of the source of life, Ukanomitama no kami (interview, November 20, 1995). 49 ± Interview, January 7, 2000. 50 ± Interview, December 16, 1995. 51 ± Interview, January 7, 2000. 52 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 45±46. 53 ± R. S. Ellwood, Jr., ``Shinto and the Discovery of History in Japan,'' Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41 (4): 505. 54 ± In the West, it was Spinoza who insisted on describing the creative production of Nature in termsof an ethic of good and bad encountersamong indi- vidualsand thingsrather than in termsof a morality of good and evil. The latter involved speculation about the origins of evil, notions of a malevolent contesting power, and preordained principles of moral behavior. See Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (New York: Zone Books,

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 59 1990), chaps. 15, 16. Robert J. J. Wargo also raises this issue of what are the appropriate philosophic categories most fitting in elucidating the nature of Japanese ethical and metaphysical values, in ``Japanese Ethics,'' Philosophy East and West 40 (4) (1990): 502. 55 ± Interview, January 9, 2000. 56 ± Interview, January 1, 1996, and Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 124. In the In- terview, Yamamoto GuÅji went on to say: Religion ishorizontal [which] meansit isa present social relation. [Unfortunately] . . . people come to Tsubaki Grand Shrine for their own individual needs. That was not the way it wasbefore; they came for the benefit of the group. For example, harvesting:to get a good harvest, a group of people had to come to one place; that was the shrine, a place that waspurified, the place for a number of people to communicate with [the] sacred being [for a good harvest]. Individual salvation is not enough, [for it is] not for everyone in the group. 57 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 67±68. 58 ± Tsubaki America, ``Shinto'' pamphlet; Yamamoto, interview, January 2, 1995. 59 ± Yukio Mishima, The Sound of Waves, trans. Meredith Weatherby (New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1956), p. 35. 60 ± See Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), chap. 3. Turner, of course, championed the notion of liminality. Ritualsof transformation typically contain an interim phase that is fluid and ambiguous and thus promotes change by allowing the participant to set aside the old and adopt the new. Since this involves temporarily setting aside or disarming some of society's hierarchical structures, it can create among the participants a sense of nonhierarchical communion. Turner likensthisboth to Buber's I-Thou relation and Hume'snotion of the sentiment of humanity. 61 ± See Paul Reasoner, ``Sincerity and Japanese Values,'' Philosophy East and West 40 (4) (1990): 476, 485. 62 ± Interview, January 9, 2000. 63 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 66±67; interview, January 1, 1996. Yama- moto GuÅji, in his first conversation with us, urged us to read J.W.F. Mason's book The Meaning of Shinto (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1967) because Mason ``was capable of receiving the spirit of Japan. . . . [H]e could be a ShintoÅ priest'' (interview, December 27, 1995). Central to Mason's interpretation of ShintoÅ isHenri Bergson'snotion of eÂlan vital, and of ``existence prece- dent to force and form'' (The Meaning of Shinto, pp. 49±50). Bataille'swork, likewise, overlaps in some respects with Bergson's. 64 ± Interview, January 1, 1996.

60 Philosophy East & West 65 ± Interview, January 7, 2000. 66 ± Bataille, Inner Experience, p. 95. Cf. also Mason, The Meaning of Shinto, pp. 50 ff., on ``chaos.'' 67 ± There isa complicated, alternative metaphysicsatwork here, devisedby Del- euze and building on Bataille, Bergson, and Nietzsche. Cf. Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), and Deleuze, Pure Imma- nence: Essays on a Life, trans. Anne Boyman, introd. John Rajchman (New York: Zone Books), pp. 25±33. Deleuze explores immanence in terms of a radical empiricism that acknowledges a productive reality prior to the con- struction of both persons and things: ``we will speak of a transcendental empiricism in contrast to everything that makes up the world of the subject and object. . . . It can be distinguished from experience in that it doesn't refer to an object or belong to a subject. . . . It appears therefore as a pure stream of a- subjective consciousness, a pre-reflexive impersonal consciousness, a qualitative duration of consciousness without a self.'' Persons and objects transcend this immanent domain. They come later. Deleuze concludes: ``Transcen- dence isalwaysa product of immanence'' (p. 31). 68 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 124; interview, January 3, 1995. 69 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 9. 70 ± Shinto in the U.S.A.: Tsubaki News, p. 1. 71 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 66±67. 72 ± Although we are referring to these ShintoÅ practicesquite straightforwardly as ``rituals,'' Catherine Bell's discussion of ``ritualization'' (Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992]) and Bruce Lincoln's des- ignation of ritualsas``marked categories'' (``On Ritual, Change, and Marked Categories,'' Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68 [3]: 487±510) provide helpful terminology and insights for the broader discussion of ritual theory. 73 ± James W. Boyd and Ron G. Williams, ``Artful Means: An Aesthetic View of Shinto Purification Rituals,'' Journal of Ritual Studies 13 (1): 37±52. 74 ± The Japanese term for this is tsutsushimi (N)Ða careful, circumspect, elegant attitude of consideration for the other. 75 ± Observed and videotaped by the authors at Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Mie Pre- fecture, in 1996, and available from the Office of Instructional Services, Colo- rado State University (see note 3 above). 76 ± Ashkenazi, Matsuri, p. 18. 77 ± See Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 108±113, for a summary of the ritual cal- endar at Tsubaki Grand Shrine.

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 61 78 ± See T. W. Jennings, ``On Ritual Knowledge,'' Journal of Religion 62 (2): 111± 127. 79 ± Yamamoto, interviews, January 2 and 3, 1995, and January 9, 2000. 80 ± These ideas are developed by the authors in ``Artful Means'' and ``Shinto Pu- rification: An Aesthetic Interpretation,'' Center for Shinto Studies and Japanese Culture Web site, University of California, Berkeley, http://sunsite.berkeley. edu/JHTI/. (See also note 2 above.) 81 ± And also, shifts from comfort to anguish, from the individual and personal to pre-personal intensities, from stability to vertigo, from being to process, and from harnessed nature to the unfolding energy of the cosmos. 82 ± For example, during the first ceremony of the new year (Sai Tan Sai). 83 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, pp. 115±122. 84 ± Ibid., p. 117. 85 ± Mr. Yuji Inokuma, interview, January 2, 1995. 86 ± Rev. Tetsuji Ochiai, interview, June 6, 1994. 87 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 117. 88 ± Ibid., pp. 117, 122. 89 ± In the summer of 1995, one of the authors witnessed the festival in Fukuoka, in the northern part of Kyushu. The mikoshi were twenty-five feet high and required about twenty to thirty men to carry each one. The men were continually relieved of their burden by othersfollowing alongside, and asthe race included a sharp, circular route in front of the main shrine some men were thrown to the ground. Ambulances were stationed at nearby street corners. 90 ± Thisisundoubtedly so;it iseven acknowledged by Bataille ( Theory of Reli- gion, pp. 54 ff.), whose focus is elsewhere. 91 ± Nelson, Enduring Identities, p. 172. Although the public face of most matsuri suggests that they are solely a male activity, this is not entirely accurate. There is a growing public participation by women, especially in large urban festivals, according to D. P. Martinez, in ``Women and Ritual,'' in Ceremony and Ritual in Japan: Religious Practices in an Industrialized Society, ed. Jan Van Breman and D. P. Martinez (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 183±200. 92 ± Yamamoto, Kami no Michi, p. 113; interviews, December 26, 1995, and Jan- uary 9, 2000. 93 ± Mishima, Confessions of a Mask, trans. Meredith Weatherby (New York: New Directions, 1958), pp. 28±33. For a wide-ranging and interesting discussion of ShintoÅ festivals, see Inoue et al., Matsuri, especially Minoru Sonoda, ``Festival and Sacred Transgression,'' pp. 33±77.

62 Philosophy East & West 94 ± Sonoda, ``Festival and Sacred Transgression,'' p. 36. 95 ± Ibid., p. 71. 96 ± Bataille, Theory of Religion, chap. 3. 97 ± Yamamoto, interview, January 17, 1996. 98 ± Deleuze and Parnet, Dialogues, pp. vii±x. 99 ± Dastur Firoze M. Kotwal, Zoroastrian High Priest, interview, 1976. 100 ± Our previous work in ritual studies focused on the Zoroastrian tradition. 101 ± Deleuze and Parnet, Dialogues, p. vii.

JamesW. Boyd, Ron G. Williams 63