Ceremonies and Festivals
Ceremonies are long and complex. In some temples, it takes ten years for the priests to learn them. The priesthood was traditionally hereditary. One temple has drawn its priests from the same four families for over a hundred generations. Not uncommonly, the clergy may be priestesses. The priests may be assisted by miko, young unmarried women dressed in white kimono. Neither priests nor priestesses live as ascetics; it is common for them to be married, and they are not traditionally expected to meditate. Rather, they are considered specialists in the arts of maintaining the connection between the kami and the people.
Examples of festivals that occur within the Shinto shrines are the New Year, Autumn Festival, and the Annual Festival. The first one, the New Year, is when families purify and clean their houses in preparation for the upcoming year. Offerings are also made to the ancestors so that they will bless the family in the future year. Additionally, the Buddhist temples ring the gongs 108 times in order to divest oneself of the 108 kinds of passions. The second holiday, the Autumn Festival, is when the harvest is dedicated to the kami. The Annual Festival, the third holiday, is a yearly festival in which the statues of the local kami are carried around the town in a mikoshi which is a chair. This celebration of the kami takes place at a shrine and usually includes music and dancers.
As there are many festivals that occur within the shrines, ceremonies like rites of passages are performed within the shrines. Two examples of these types of ceremonies are the birth of a child and the Shichi-Go-San. When a child is born he is brought to a shrine so that he can be initiated as a new believer and that the kami can bless him and his future life. The Shichi-Go-San, the Seven-Five-Three, is a rite of passage for five year old boys and three or seven year old girls. It is a time for these young children to personally offer thanks for the kami’s protection and to pray for the continuance of healthy growing.
Many other rites of passages and festivals are practiced by Shinto believers. And the main reason of these ceremonies is for Shinto followers to appease the kami in order to reach magokoro, or a pure sincere heart. To receive magokoro can only be done through the kami. This is why ceremonies and festivals are long and complex because they need to be perfect for the kami to be satisfied with. If the kami are not pleased with these ceremonies, they will not grant a Shinto believer magokoro.
Read more about this topic: Kami
Famous quotes containing the words ceremonies and, ceremonies and/or festivals:
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—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)