Shinto Blog

Kurosawa’s film titled Dreams is based on several dreams the director had throughout his life. The part of the film I watched was “The Peach Orchard”. The Peach Orchard begins with a young boy bringing a tray of food into the other room where his sister and four of her friends are. Upon entering the room, the young boy stares at all the dolls that are on display up against the wall. He then has an argument with his sister about how many friends she has over. He insists that she had five friends over while she is very adamant to the fact that she only has four friends over.  The younger brother then looks out the door and sees another girl standing there. Trying to prove his sister wrong he opens up the door all the way to show her that there was in fact another friend over at the house. When he does this the girl has then disappeared.  He then goes around the house in search of this girl. He sees her run out of the front door, so he runs out after her. The girl runs out through and forest and then out into an empty field, all while the young boy follows her. As soon as they get to the empty field a large group of people appear and the young girl disappears again. The group tells the boy that they will not come to his house again. The reason being the boy’s family has chopped down all the peach blossoms in the orchard. The large group of people are essentially the dolls who he had previously been staring at come to live. The dolls are used in a festival each year celebrating the arrival of the peach blossoms.  They are the spirits of the trees.  They accuse him of not caring, and he begins to cry. At first they are not sympathetic to him but then realize that he was upset that all the peach blossoms were gone. They said he was just upset because he likes peaches. The boy argues that you can buy peaches but you can’t buy a whole orchard in bloom.  They then realize that he is just a good boy and decide to let him see the orchard in bloom one last time.

The Peach Orchard can be related to Shinto in few ways.  One of the Shinto ethics is an emphasis on actions that create harmonious relationships in home and society. By the boy’s family cutting down the peach blossoms, it did not make for a harmonious relationship within society.  Another way that this can be related to Shinto is that everything is spiritual and there is a continuity between humanity, nature, and the spirits/gods. The spirits of the peach blossoms were communicating with the boy (humanity) their displeasure with what his family has done. In Shinto they also believe that what is powerful or amazing in nature is kami. The boy believed that the peach blossoms were kami because he felt that they were amazing. 

The Tao of Pooh

I was actually pleasantly surprised by reading Benjamin Hoff’s “The Tao of Pooh”. I was very happy that it did not seem like your typical religious studies book. By having it not be the typical religious studies book, it made it very easy to understand. I was also very happy that it was a fast read! I thought it was a great idea to relate religion to something that generally most people have heard of, Winnie the Pooh. Relating Taoism to Winnie the Pooh made the concepts of Taoism very easy to understand. For the most part I really enjoyed this book, but in some parts towards to end I felt a little bored while reading it and kept zoning out.

My reaction to the critique of America as a culture of “Busy Backsons”, was that I can definitely see Hoff’s point of view with his argument. “Let’s put it this way: if you want to be healthy, relaxed, and content, just watch what a Bisy Backson does and then do the opposite…he makes you feel tired just looking at him. The chronic Backson always seems to have to be going somewhere, at least on a superficial, physical level. He doesn’t go for a walk, though; he doesn’t have time.”(Hoff 95-96) This quote can definitely be used to describe many Americans. Our culture is very materialistic and superficial. We want others thing think that we are a certain way or live life as upper class citizens. A lot of Americans are constantly working and keeping busy that they do not take the time to enjoy the little things in life. Another quote from the book I found interesting was how he says that the “Bisy Backson Society” is obsessed with youth, which our culture is. “Now one thing that seems rather odd to us is that the Bisy Backson Society, which practically worships youthful energy, appearance, and attitudes have developed no effective methods of retaining them, a lack testified to by an ever-increasing reliance on the unnatural False Front approach of cosmetics and plastic surgery.”(Hoff 106) Americans tend to think that being more youthful is always better, when that is not always the case. In Taosim it is a good thing to be old. It means you are wiser. In other cultures there is a lot of emphasis on respecting their elders.

        

    Having Taoism be a “solution” to the “problem” of American culture and Americans as individuals in theory sounds like it could work. However, I do not think that this would ever happen. If we truly wanted to change and practice the principles of Taoism, then I think we could solve many of the problems in our culture. Everyone would need to realize that being a “Bisy Backson” isn’t always better.