A new world ahead: Our luggage leaves before us

As I looked at my luggage leaving for Fukuoka, I remember some of the facts our tour guide told us.

Cities in Japan:
1. Tokyo
2. Yokohama
3. Osaka
4. ?
5. Sapporo
6. Kyoto
7. Fukuoka

She told us that the city of Fokuoka was known at this time of the year for the Sumo tournament. I had been made aware of that fact by Mark and Brian watching rounds everytime we were in their hotel room. She also told us that the liter of gas is $1.20.

She told us that we would find many Shinto Shrines in Yanagawa, which is a city in the prefecture of Fokuoka, closed to the city of Fukuoka. The temples were Buddhist and the shrines were Shinto. We would easily recognized the entrance of a shrine due to their gate. The gate is supposed to mentally purify the person. The Shinto religion has many goods.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto

Shinto (Kanji: 神道 Shintō) (sometimes called Shintoism) is a native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. It is a form of animism. It involves the worship of kami, which can be translated to mean "sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility". Some kami are local and can be regarded as the spirit or genius of a particular place, but others represent major natural objects and processes, for example, Amaterasu, the Sun goddess. The word Shinto was created by combining two kanji: "神" shin, meaning gods or spirits (the character can also be read as "kami" in Japanese), and "道" tō meaning "way" or "path" in a philosophical sense (the same character is used for the Chinese word Tao). As such, Shinto is commonly translated as "the way of the gods."

After World War II, Shinto lost its status of state religion; some Shinto practices and teachings, once given a great deal of prominence during the war, are no longer taught nor practiced today, and others remain largely as everyday activities, like omikuji (a form of drawing lots) and Japanese New Year, that few identify with religious connotations.

Types of Shinto
In order to distinguish between these different focuses of emphasis within Shinto, many feel it is important to separate Shinto into four related types of Shinto expression.

Shrine Shinto is the oldest and most prevalent of the Shinto types. It has always been a part of Japan's history and constitutes the main current of Shinto tradition.

Sect Shinto is comprised of thirteen groups formed during the 19th century. They do not have shrines, but conduct religious activities in meeting halls. Shinto sects include the mountain-worship sects, who focus on worshipping mountains like Mt. Fuji, faith-healing sects, purification sects, Confucian sects, and Revival Shinto sects. Konkokyo, although operating separately from modern Shinto, is considered to be a form of Sect Shinto.

Folk Shinto includes the numerous but fragmented folk beliefs in deities and spirits. Practices include divination, spirit possession, and shamanic healing. Some of their practices come from Taoism, Buddhism, or Confucianism, but some come from ancient local traditions.

State Shinto was the result of the Meiji dynasty's restoration and the downfall of the shogunate. The Meiji attempted to purify Shinto by abolishing many Buddhist and Confucian ideals; also, the emperor was once again considered divine. After Japan's defeat in World War II, State Shinto was abolished and the emperor was forced to renounce his divine right.
Characteristics of Shinto

Shinto Characteristics:

The most immediately striking theme in the Shinto religion is a great love and reverence for nature. Thus, a waterfall, the moon, or just an oddly shaped rock might come to be regarded as a kami; so might charismatic persons or more abstract entities like growth and fertility. As time went by, the original nature-worshipping roots of the religion, while never lost entirely, became attenuated and the kami took on more reified and anthropomorphic forms, with a formidable corpus of myth attached to them. (See also: Japanese mythology.) The kami, though, are not transcendent deities in the usual Western and Indian sense of the word - although divine, they are close to us; they inhabit the same world as we do, make the same mistakes as we do, and feel and think the same way as we do. Those who died would automatically be added to the rank of kami regardless of their human doings. (Though it is thought that one can become a ghost under certain circumstances involving unsettled disputes in life.) Belief is not a central aspect in Shinto, and proper observation of ritual is more important than whether one "truly believes" in the ritual. Thus, even those believing other religions may be venerated as kami after death, if there are Shinto believers who wish them to be.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived in northern India between 563 and 483 BCE. Buddhism spread throughout the ancient Indian sub-continent in the five centuries following his death. It continued to spread into Central, Southeast, East Asia, and Eastern Europe over the next two millennia. Adherents of Buddhism are called Buddhists.

There is controversy among scholars of religion concerning whether Buddhism constitutes a religion, discussions which closely follow the problem of "what is religion?" within religious studies. In any case, Buddhism is a major movement, with approximately 700 million followers.

There are estimates which are double that [citation needed], though accurate demographic data are difficult to acquire due to the fact that many Buddhists live in nations with oppressive governments, and because of the growing number of Buddhists in the West.

The aim of Buddhist practice is to end the cycle of rebirth called samsara (Pāli, Sanskrit), by awakening the practitioner to the realization of true reality, the achievement of liberation (nirvana). To achieve this, one should purify and train the mind and act according to the laws of karma, of cause and effect: perform positive actions, and positive results will follow. Accordingly, negative deeds have negative consequences. Eventually, however, (from the Mahayana viewpoint [citation needed]), the conditioned realm of karma needs to be transcended altogether in the attainment of the ineffably blissful and utterly liberated state of Nirvana and awakening.

Some posit that the state of Great Perfection transcends both Samsara and Nirvana.
Buddhist morality is underpinned by the principles of harmlessness and moderation. Mental training focuses on moral discipline (sila), meditative concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (prajñā).

While Buddhism does not deny the existence of supernatural beings (indeed, many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe power for creation, salvation or judgment to them. Like humans, they are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events, and so some Buddhist schools associate with them via ritual. All supernatural beings, as living entities, are a part of the six-part reincarnation cycle.

Buddhism is usually divided into two main branches: Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. The followers of Theravada Buddhism take the scriptures known as the "Pali suttas, vinaya and abhidhamma" (the Tipitaka/Tripitaka) as normative and authoritative; the followers of Mahayana Buddhism base themselves chiefly on the "Mahayana sutras" (sutra/sutta is generally a scripture in which the Buddha himself gives instruction), as well as on various versions of the vinaya. Whereas the Theravadins (followers of Theravada Buddhism) adhere solely to the Pali suttas and their commentaries, the adherents of Mahayana accept both the suttas and the Mahayana sutras as authentic and valid teachings of the Buddha, aimed at different types of person and different levels of spiritual penetration. For the Theravadins, the Mahayana sutras are deviant works of poetic fiction, not issuing from the Buddha himself; for the Mahayanists, the Pali suttas (or "agamas", as such scriptures are also known) do indeed contain basic, foundational (or provisional) teachings of the Buddha, while for those same Mahayanists the Mahayana sutras articulate the Buddha's higher, advanced and deeper doctrines, reserved for the more aspirational Bodhisattvas. Hence the name Mahayana, lit, the Greater Vehicle, which has room for both the general masses of sentient beings and those more developed. Some Mahayanists irreverently refer to Theravada as Hinayana, literally the Lesser Vehicle. This term is now widely seen as either inaccurate or derogatory, although it does actually appear in the famous Mahayana scripture, the Lotus Sutra (amongst others). Other adherents of Mahayana use the term Hinayana in a respectful way referring to several historical Hinayana schools that may or may not include the currently existing Theravada.

An alternative categorisation of Buddhism follows the major languages of the Buddhist canon, which exists in Pali, Tibetan, and Chinese collections. (Some texts exist in original Sanskrit.) This would serve to divide East Asian Mahayana Buddhism from the Vajrayana form of Mahayana found in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Japan (Tendai), Northern India (Sikkim & Ladakh/Leh), and Mongolia. In most works Zen is set out as a distinct category; this is due to the fact that some consider Zen being a unique product of Japan and the island culture: fusion of Bushi ideas, Daoist philosophy, and Theravada Buddhism. Others point to Chinese Chan Buddhism as the origin of Zen.

The Five Precepts
Main article: Pancasila

Buddhists undertake certain precepts as aids on the path to coming into contact with ultimate reality. Hence, they are also known as training rules. Laypeople generally undertake (at least one of) five precepts. The Five Precepts are not given in the form of commands such as "thou shalt not ...", but rather are promises to oneself: "I will (try) ..."


To refrain from harming living creatures (killing).
To refrain from taking that which is not freely given (stealing).
To refrain from sexual misconduct.
To refrain from incorrect speech (lying, harsh language, slander, idle chit-chat).
To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness.

This difference stems from the rationale behind them. While other religion institutes commandments and is based on the wishes or commands of a divine being, Buddhist precepts are based more on common sense that the Buddha highlights to Buddhists. Just as we would not want to be killed, others, cherishing their own life would not want to be killed. Hence we should not engage in harming or killing others. The same rationale applies to the second, third and fourth precepts.

The fifth and last precept involving refrain from intoxicants is unique in that the act of taking intoxicants itself is commonly not seen as an immediate or direct harm towards others. Instead it may serve as the catalyst for further acts of transgression against others in terms of either a single or possible combination of any of the first four precepts. The daily news will ascertain for us that there are daily crimes and accidents around the world that result from the consumption of alcohol or other forms of intoxicants, many of which could have been avoided if this rule was observed.

In addition to the indirect effects of intoxicants is the direct impact that intoxicants have, of dulling the mind. Mindfulness, a central teaching in Buddhism, builds upon the ability to train one's mind and develop it to its fullest potential of enlightenment, whereas the taking of intoxicants runs counter to that and impedes mindfulness by allowing dullness and heedlessness of the mind.

The other distinguishing feature of the Buddhist precepts is that they are wider-ranging in implication than the "commandments" of some other religions. The first precept, against killing, for example, forbids the killing of animals as well as humans (but see Buddhist vegetarianism). Furthermore, in Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha indicates how all-inclusive the injunction against killing is, saying (in The Scripture of Brahma's Net):
"Disciples of the Buddha, should you yourself kill, wilfully cause another to kill, encourage someone to kill, extol killing, take pleasure in seeing killing take place, deliberately wish someone dead, intentionally cause death, supply the instruments or means for killing, cut off a life even when sanctioned by law, that is, participate in any way in killing, you are committing a serious offense warranting exclusion. Pray, do not intentionally kill anything whatsoever which has life."
It should also be noted that the literal, and possibly original, meaning of the third precept covers more than the now generally standard meaning "sexual misconduct" and actually involves refraining from "wrong indulgence in all sensory pleasures". [citation needed]

In some schools of Buddhism, serious lay people or aspiring monks take an additional three to five ethical precepts, and some of the five precepts are strengthened. For example, the precept pertaining to sexual misconduct becomes a precept of celibacy. Fully ordained monks and nuns of the Theravada school also observe 227 and 311 patimokkha training rules respectively