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Every culture has rituals and ceremonies that mark the key stages of life – usually birth, marriage, and death. In many cases, these rituals have a religious significance. The baby of Catholic parents, for example, will probably be baptised in church. At a Jewish wedding the groom will break glass, and a Muslim is likely to be buried according to Islamic customs. What’s surprising for many Westerners is how most Japanese freely mix and match their religious ceremonies…
Attitudes to religion in Japan
The Japanese religious worldview is very open and inclusive. For a Japanese person it is completely normal to bring a newborn baby to a Shinto shrine for a blessing, have a Christian-style wedding and a Buddhist funeral. The reason is that in Japan, religions are often seen as being defined by their rituals and practices, not so much by their doctrines. Therefore, it could happen that a Japanese person, if asked for their religious belonging, might say that they don’t belong to any religion – but they will nevertheless visit a Shinto shrine on the first day of the year or ask a Buddhist monk to perform a memorial ceremony for their parents.
When Buddhism arrived in Japan in the 6th century, it did not suppress or replace the existing worship of local spirits, which later became known as Shinto. In fact, the two religions co-exist in Japan peacefully to this day. What did happen was that the two religions influenced and stimulated each other. They even merged to a certain degree when Buddhist scholars started to interpret the Shinto deities as manifestations of the Buddhas in the Heian period (794-1185).
In addition to this, Confucianist and Taoist ideas have also had an immense influence on Japanese thought and major religious institutions. As such, mixing religions has always been a normal part of the Japanese religious worldview – especially among commoners, who were not so concerned with doctrinal matters, and more interested in the practical application of religion in their daily life.
Shinto is about living in harmony with our surroundings and showing gratitude for the life-forces that nurture us. Buddhism’s main goal, on the other hand, is to eradicate suffering by giving up egoistic views and developing inner peace. Shinto’s focus is more on this-worldly blessings, whereas Buddhism is more transcendental. Because of these differences, some important life-cycle rituals are more commonly done at a Shinto shrine and some more commonly done at a Buddhist temple in Japan.
Childhood rituals
The birth of a child is a very happy occasion – a new life begins, and the parents want happiness and good health for their baby. About one month after birth, many parents will bring their baby to a Shinto shrine to get a blessing. For this occasion, a colourful kimono is draped over the baby and tied behind the back of the person holding it, like a baby sling. A Shinto priest will say a prayer in front of the main altar, announce the name of the baby and parents to the Shinto spirit, and then bless the baby.
A popular festival for children is Shichi-go-san, which literally means “seven-five-three”. Each year, on the 15th November (or the nearest weekend), boys who are aged three or five, and girls who are aged three or seven, are dressed in beautiful little kimono and go to visit a shrine. Here, their parents will take hundreds of pictures of them – and they get a special candy called chitose ame as a reward. This festival originated from three different rites of passage that were conducted during the Heian period by court nobles. In later centuries, they merged into one festival, which was then adopted by commoners during the Meiji period (1868-1912), including the modern ritual of visiting a shrine.
Although it’s less common, some parents will take their children to a Buddhist temple for their first formal temple visit. About six years ago, a Buddhist priest invited me to come to his temple in Hyogo prefecture, where they held the first temple visit festival for a group of children. The ceremony started in the main hall of the temple with a service and a short dharma talk, in which the priest explained the significance of this day to the children. Then, they all received Buddhist prayer beads and we had a big meal together, which was prepared by the priest’s family and some lovely elderly ladies from the temple community.
Weddings in Japan
Over the last few years, I have also been invited to quite a lot of weddings in Japan. All of them followed some common “modern Japanese wedding” rules. First, you have the wedding ceremony, which is often only attended by family members and close friends.
Traditionally, most weddings used to be held at a Shinto shrine. However, nowadays over fifty percent of Japanese couples opt for a Christian-style wedding. This is pretty high considering less than one percent of Japanese people are Christian – another sign of Japan’s laissez-faire attitude to religious segregation. These Christian-style weddings aren’t conducted by a Christian priest in a consecrated church, but by an actor wearing priestly robes, in a purpose-built hotel chapel. In Japan this is no problem. For the couple this isn’t about making vows in front of god and the community of the church, but about having a beautiful ceremony with the romantic flair of a Western wedding.
Then there’s the banquet, which is usually held at a big hall in a hotel, with exquisite (and rather expensive) food. Unfortunately, the bride and groom don’t often have much time to enjoy the meal – they’re usually busy going from table to table to talk to their guests and thank them for coming. It’s also common for the newlyweds to leave the banquet room a few times to change clothes. During the banquet, the bride might change her dress two to three times – starting with a western (or traditional Japanese) white wedding dress, then changing to a kimono, and finally a modern evening gown.
Of course, there are also speeches. The bride reads a letter that she wrote to her parents, in which she thanks them for everything they have done for her so far. This is the most emotional and tear-jerking part of the wedding, so naturally it’s the bit that everyone looks forward to most! In the evening, there’s an after party, the most relaxed part of the day. Games are common at after parties – and one of the most popular, believe it or not, is bingo.
Japanese funerals
Once life comes to an end, Buddhist rituals become important. The role of Buddhist priests in funeral rites is so prominent in Japan that many Japanese will associate Buddhism only with funerals. In some cases, people have no idea to which school of Buddhism their family temple belongs until the death of a family member.
The historical reason for the close association of Buddhism and funerals in Japan stems from the Edo period (1603-1868). In order to control the spread of Christianity, and to help the shogunate government keep an eye on the population, every family had to register at a Buddhist temple. At the same time, it was ordered that all funerals had to be conducted by the temples, the only exceptions being made for important Shinto priest families. The system of registration at a Buddhist temple led to a lack of competition for new members among the different schools, and the stable income through funerals made the temples concentrate on this task.
During a wake, a Buddhist priest will read sutras, while the guests come to the front, one by one, to offer incense. The funeral proper is usually held the next day. The procedure is similar to that of the wake, but on this day the monk will ordain the deceased posthumously and give her/him a Buddhist name.
In Buddhism it is believed that our actions are the causes for various effects, good and bad. Even after death, this causal chain is not broken. The purpose of the funeral rituals is to help the deceased gain merit to bring her/him closer to the ultimate goal of enlightenment. When this part of the funeral is over, the family and guests place flowers in the casket around the deceased’s upper body, before the casket is sealed. If the deceased is wearing a traditional kimono, the front is crossed right side over left side. Usually it is done the other way around – so if you walk through Japan in a kimono or yukata and don’t want people to think you are a ghost, you better cross left over right!
After the cremation, relatives will pick up the bones from the ashes with special chopsticks and put them inside an urn. During this ritual, two people will eventually hold one bone together with their chopsticks. (In fact, in Japan it’s considered rude to pass something from chopstick to chopstick during a meal, or for two people to hold something with their chopsticks at the same time, because this reminds people of funerals.) The urn is then put inside the family grave, which is often at a temple.
After the funeral, a plate with the Buddhist name of the deceased is placed inside or next to a Buddhist altar in the family’s home. Since there’s no place for a Buddhist altar in most modern homes, many Japanese people purchase a small altar just for this purpose. A Buddhist priest will conduct regular memorial services at the home altar for the deceased.
As we have seen, Japan’s religious world is rich and diverse. People are free to participate in rituals of different religions (if family tradition doesn’t dictate otherwise). This can seem a little confusing – even for Japanese people, believe me – but in our globalised world, where people from different cultural and religious backgrounds come closer and closer together, Japan can be an example for religious openness, while at the same time respecting and preserving old traditions.