Robyn Lebron In Shint , human beings are believed to be born pure, with a gentle and clear disposition and sharing in the divine soul adness, impurity, or sin are things that come later in life, and that can usually be removed by simple cleansing or purifying rituals Purity is at the heart of Shintō’s understanding of good and evil (impurity) in Shintō refers to anything that separates us from kami and from the creative and harmonizing power The things which make us impure are pollution or sin This pollution includes physical, moral, or spiritual effects T h is co ncept is similar to sin, except that it includes things that are beyond the control of the individual and are believed to be caused by evil spirits In ancient Shintō, tsumi also included disease, disaster, and error Anything connected with death or the dead is considered particularly polluting To be pure is to approach godliness; indeed, it is to become one with the state of the divine It is Shintō’s prayer, Shintō’s heart, to return to that original human state and live a daily life, which is at one with the kami, indigenous folk deities of Japan Special Doctrine Is Shintō a religion? The nature of Shintō as a faith can be easily misunderstood Shintō has been called Japan’s religion because of its influence on Japanese culture and values for the last two-thousandplus years But the heart of Shintō is ritual rather than belief Japanese people don’t usually think of Shintō as a religion in the traditional sense—it’s simply the way things are done and have been for centuries; it’s the Japanese way of looking at the world This has enabled Shintō to coexist happily with Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and even Christianity for centuries Shintō is involved in every aspect of Japanese culture It has had an effect on e very a spect o f J apanese l ife from ethics, politics, family life and social structures, art, drama, and even sports, to say nothing of the spiritual lives of the Japanese people ~ 300 ~