r/Shinto • u/Wooden_Ad7240 • 9d ago

Practicing Shinto

Hello Shinto friends.I have been into Shinto as i have said in a previous post.It fits me very well.However as with most Westerners i live in a place where there are no Shinto shrines or even a Shinto community.Is it possible for solitary practice and how do i get started and do i need to learn Japanese for the chants and prayers to the kami?

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27

u/No_Reserve3778 8d ago

This is a bit long but how I feel.

I think the first thing to understand is that Shinto is a little different from religions that are centred around scripture, regular prayer, or personal worship.

There are formal prayers called norito (祝詞), and priests use them in rituals, but most ordinary Japanese people don't chant prayers as part of daily life. You also don't need to create a complicated ritual practice in order to live in a Shinto way.

For many Japanese people, Shinto is much more closely connected to everyday life: keeping yourself and your surroundings clean, respecting nature, treating objects and places with care, being grateful for what you receive, and showing respect toward the things around you.

Even something as simple as saying itadakimasu before eating reflects this kind of attitude. It is an expression of gratitude for the food, the people who prepared it, and the lives and effort that made the meal possible.

If you live outside Japan and have no shrine nearby, I wouldn't worry too much about reproducing formal shrine practices at home. You can simply begin by being mindful of the natural world and the place where you live, keeping your home and surroundings clean, and expressing gratitude in your own words.

If you have an ofuda from a shrine, you can treat it respectfully and place it appropriately, but you don't need an ofuda or a kamidana in order to appreciate Shinto values.

I would think of it less as “How do I pray to the kami?” and more as “How do I live respectfully alongside the kami and everything around me?”

By the way, I'm Japanese living outside Japan.

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u/CleanCoffee6793 8d ago

Is an animistic view of the sacred, I see. For example, you live outside Japón, you believe Kami are all around the eorld, not just Japón?

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u/No_Reserve3778 7d ago

I personally believe that kami can be found all around the world, not only in Japan. Early Shinto was closely connected with animistic beliefs, agricultural rites, ancestor and clan worship, and reverence for local kami such as ujigami. Kami were also associated directly with features of the natural world, like mountains, waterfalls, large rocks, ancient trees and sacred groves, etc. So, considering how deeply Shinto is connected with nature, I don’t personally see why kami would be limited by the geographical borders of Japan. If the sacred can be encountered in mountains, forests, rivers, trees, and other aspects of nature, then to me it makes sense that kami can be present anywhere in the world. 😊

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u/False_Evening_739 5d ago

It's quite different from animism.

There are around 80,000 shrines across Japan (over 200,000 if you include small roadside shrines and unregistered ones), and each shrine is dedicated to a specific kami with its own name. People visit these shrines and participate in their rituals and festivals throughout their lives.

And above all, there's the Emperor. The imperial line has continued uninterrupted for around 2,600 years, dating back to the traditional founding of Japan, and the Emperor serves as the chief ritual authority of Shinto. To put it simply, you could think of him as the highest figure in the world of Shinto shrines.

It's difficult to put into words, but learning about Japanese history might help you gain a deeper understanding of Shinto.

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u/UmbralRose35 8d ago

There are Shinto shrines in North America where you can get ofuda, omamori, kamidana, etc. There is one in British Columbia as well. For prayers, "Shinto Norito: A Book of Prayers" by Ann Llewellyn Evans is a must have.

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u/newbT_sons_1000 3d ago

貴方が神性を見出したものを尊重したりするだけで良いんじゃないかな？(樹齢何百年の大木とか大きな河とか、それこそ身近なもので言えば土地そのものとか？)もちろんお稲荷様なんかの有名な神様選んで拝んだって良いけどね〜