Shinto

Executive Briefing: The Architecture of Perpetual Rebirth Every twenty years since 690 CE, the Grand Shrine of Ise is completely dismantled and rebuilt identical in … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: Cleansing the Mirror of the Heart Shinto theology replaces the Western concept of original sin with Kegare (spiritual stagnation, pollution, and contact with … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Eight Million Kami (Yaoyorozu no Kami) Shinto does not conceive of God as a transcendent external sovereign; the sacred (*Kami*) is the … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Imperial Mythological Canon Compiled in 712 CE, the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) narrates the churning of the primordial ocean by Izanagi … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: A Millennium of Fusion For over a thousand years until the Meiji restoration’s forced separation (*Shinbutsu Bunri*), Shinto and Buddhism coexisted under the … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Sacred Recharging of the Neighborhood A Matsuri is the somatic and energetic climax of Shinto communal life. Parading the Kami through town … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Regalia of Japanese Monarchy The Imperial Regalia of Japan (Sanshu no Jingi)—the Yata no Kagami (mirror of wisdom), Kusanagi no Tsurugi (sword … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Deep Sigh of the Heart Articulated by 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga, Mono no Aware is the melancholic aesthetic sensitivity to the fleeting, … Lire plus

Executive Briefing: The Political Flashpoint of Memory Established in 1869 to enshrine war dead, Yasukuni Shrine was central to pre-1945 State Shinto (*Kokka Shinto*). Its … Lire plus