第一の宿題

第一の宿題
Kami are the object of worship in Shinto.

What is meant by "kami"?

Fundamentally, the term is an honorific for noble, sacred spirits, which implies a sense of adoration for their virtues and authority.

All beings have such spirits, so in a sense all beings can be called kami or be regarded as potential kami.

However, because the term is an honorific, it is not customary to apply it to ordinary individuals or beings.

We do not use honorifics in referring to ourselves, or to persons of our own group, whether that group be large or small.

Thus, while Shinto teaches that people should be worshiped as kami, they are not in fact usually called kami.

Among the objects or phenomena designated from ancient times as kami are the qualities of growth, fertility, and production; natural phenomena, such as wind and thunder; natural objects, such as the sun, mountains, rivers, trees and rocks; same animals; and ancestral spirits.

In the last-named category are the spirits of the Imperial ancestors, the ancestors of noble families, and in a sense all ancestral spirits.

Also regarded as kami are the guardian spirits of the land, occupations, and skills; the spirits of national heroes, men of outstanding deeds or virtues, and those who have contributed to civilization, culture, and human welfare; those who have died for the state or the community; and the pitiable dead.

Not only spirits superior to man, but even same that are regarded as pitiable and weak have nonetheless been considered to be kami.

It is true, that in many instances there are kami which apparently cannot be distinguished from the deities or spirits of animism or animatism, but in modern Shinto all kami are conceived in a refined sense to be spirits with nobility and authority.

The kami-concept today includes the idea of justice, order, and divine favor(blessing), and implies the basic principle that the kami function harmoniously in cooperation with one another and rejoice in the evidence of harmony and cooperation in the world.

Sokyo Ono, in collaboration with William P. Woodard, Shinto: The Kami Way.(Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1962)