Religion in Japan

[sudarshanmakoto]

In the Ancient Days, Japanese worshipped the "Kami"s , what we call Pagan Gods. If you have read Japanese history articles , you would know that the ancient Japanese never believe that the Universe was created by a single person or what ever. They worshipped the Kings as God.

Japanese creation myth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the Passage of time , the Yamato kingdom was in contact with the Chinese and Korean Dynasties. In order to improve trade and relationship with China, the Japanese Yamato kingdom adopted the chinese stuffs which the got from the Korean. Now they have got the New Religion called Buddhism. Buddhism never really bothered about the creation of universe. The aim of Buddhism to save the individuals from the infinite cycle of Rebirth and Death which is caused by the Desire.

During the Meiji Restoration , Japan went a little cultural revolutions. The Buddhism began to wane away. The Japanese government encouraged the worship of the Japanese Emperor "Banzai" !!!!!! They adopted European culture but Christianity could not influence the Japanese society.


To sum up , the Japanese never bothered about the Creator

 

[Azomyr]

yes,as I said before..who created the universe and for what purpose and afterlife..

First of all I apologize for my English which is my second language and I do not master it very well.

In my opinion Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are not so different. From the Buddhist point of view, the purpose of life is to attain nirvana, which is the understanding of the ultimate reality. In the type of Buddhism practised in Japan (Mahayana), all phenomena is emptiness, meaning that in an ultimate level there is no dualistic distinctions between things. As far as I know, it is similar to the Islamic Sufism. As in the Sufi Muraqaba meditation ( مراقبة), the Buddhist meditator tries to go beyond the ego. The Sufis call that Fanaa ( فناء "extinction"): the only way to comprehend the ultimate reality (God) is by supressing the ego.

About the question of the creator of the universe, Mahayana Buddhists think that all phenomena is emptiness and that all phenomena comes from emptiness. In that sense, our conventional truth is the shadow of the ultimate truth, and the one cannot exist without the other (See Two Truths Theory). In my opinion the concept of God is very similar to emptiness: if God is the ultimate perfection, if God is the Absolute, means that its essence has no conceptual conexions with any phenomena, in other words, the ultimate purity is emptiness, and is only attainable through direct experience, not by concepts and dualistic thinking. The concept of God , like the universe, has the property of infinity. Our intelect is finite, so the only way to comprehend infinity is by going beyond concepts. With the rational thinking we can never reach the "top level" or "highest level" of understanding; poetically we came from 1 to 2 and from 5300 to 5301. I also believe that maximum purity is maximum simplicity, and simpler than a color is a non-color.

In regard to the afterlife, normally Buddhists think that reincarnation exists and that we can reborn in a celestial world and attain nirvana there. There is also the possibility to go temporarily to hell and be tortured for centuries. There are also Buddhists that don't bother about afterlife and are looking for "heaven" in the present life.