To my Buddhist viewers: Pull up a chair, we'll get started with what you probably have on your mind.
1. What exactly is the relationship of Shinto and Buddhism?
Shinto is a native faith of East Asia, specifically Japan. After Chinese missionaries brought Buddhism and the resulting clan wars, Shinto became marginalized in the worst of times, and relegated to a "side dish" in others, where it was forced to conform to the expansive Buddhist cosmology.
By our logic, Islam is for Arabs primarily, just as Shinto was a faith for the Japanese.
2. Does Shinto believe in Samsara?
No. Rebirth and samsara aren't part of traditional Shinto beliefs. Traditionally an underworld, known as Yomi-no-Kuni or Ne-no-Kuni in the Kojiki and sometimes conflated with Tokoyo-no-Kuni (The relationship is unclear) is the ultimate fate of the dead. In the Kojiki, Izanami-no-Mikoto (the first kami to die) speaks of consuming the food of Yomi. Yomi is not a hell, but an underworld akin to the Yellow Spring of Daoism.
3. Are Buddhist deities revered as kami?
This practice is often called Yoshida Shinto or Ryobu Shinto. It's not common today for a variety of political and cultural reasons.
4. Why only Shinto if so many Japanese practice Buddhism as well?
This is mostly a misunderstanding. While Japanese are reluctant to identify as religious on surveys and census data, most may not enter a temple until a loved one dies. A Buddhist only when someone dies is kind of... a weird paradox. The truth is, Buddhist temples are glorified funeral homes for between 40-60% of the population that aren't religiously Buddhist, and Buddhist temples have far less attendance than 50-60 years ago.
Shinto is less commital and more ingrained into the culture vs Buddhism. It's a community feature, something Buddhists have less successfully copied.
5. The morals of Shinto are unimpressive and do not lead to benevolent society.
Buddhism, like Confucianism, is often legalist and caught up with a prohibitive set of rules that define the boundaries of what people can't do. Shinto offers a virtue-based approach: It provides virtues and positive morals and otherwise follows the general culture.
6. Why do you write so polemically against Buddhism?
SWIthout getting into my past too much, I have extensive firsthand experience with Buddhism. I found the Amitabha worship very much in the same realm as worship of Christ. I feel Buddhism has serious corruption problems in all branches and anti-intellectualism. In the West, it's fetishized and made as if it an't do any wrong... but that's objectively wrong, see 969.
7. Why didn’t Shinto develop scriptures like Buddhism?
Buddhism has scripture that cover all ranges of things -- from things the Buddha did, said and used as parables, to stories of bodhisattva and other beings encountering various moral or divine dilemmas, to monastics commentating and writing at length. We have some of this but not to the same degree. There's a few reasons:
8. Doesn’t Shinto lack a doctrine of salvation, making Buddhism superior?
We fundamentally reject dukkha, samsara, original sin, maya and other religion's concepts that humans are somehow trapped, impure or otherwise need something profound to find meaning. Rather, we believe through a combination of virtues, the guidance of the kami, honorable living and contributions to society that we can find greater meaning in our lives; all without the need for asceticism or "the Middle Way" or abstinence, as Christians and Muslims do, from many of life's fundamental pleasures.
9. If Shinto is about purity, why are Buddhist funerals considered acceptable for Shinto families?
This is a question I feel quite qualified to answer, actually. Shinshoku/Kannushi (priests) do not handle the dead. Handling the dead is bad luck and spreads kegare (pollution). Along came Buddhists, who were used to handling the dead and well, a commensalist relationship took shape. We benefited from not being forced to come into contact with the dead, and Buddhists incurred the pollution for us, not caring. To this day, Buddhist temples derive a lot of revenue from funerals.
10. Why do Westerners often see Buddhism as “philosophy” but Shinto as “superstition”?
You can separate Buddhism from the cultures behind it. You cannot fundamentally do the same with Shinto. Shinto is a cultural memory in addition to a faith. Because Buddhism has such a long intellectual history, it's easier to pigeonhole it as a philosophy. We lack the same intellectual traditons of faith. So it's way easier for us to be dismissed in that manner. In both cases, it's orientalism at work.
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