Standing under a waterfall, or in the sea or a river at dawn, the practitioner lets cold water carry away pollution: Shinto's most austere devotion.
Tagged: Prayer Purification Silence Shinto
How It Is Practiced
Before entering the water the practitioner prepares with exercises and chants (furutama, shaking the spirit awake), having fasted or abstained as the school requires. Then, in a white garment, he stands under the falls — or enters the sea at sunrise, or a mountain river — reciting the misogi prayer (harae kotoba) while the water strikes the shoulders and back. The classic sites are waterfalls, and the classic hour is dawn in the cold months. Misogi-shugyō is also kept, under teachers, as a discipline of days, with the water rite at its center.
Purpose and Meaning
In Shinto, pollution (kegare) is not sin but contamination — death, blood, disease, and misfortune cling — and purity is restored by washing, as the god Izanagi washed after visiting the land of the dead and, in washing, generated the sun goddess herself. Misogi extends the myth into the body: the worshipper does not confess the dirt away; he stands in the river until it is gone. Its teachers add that the cold is the point: the spirit is polished by enduring it.
References
- Misogi — Wikipedia Free / open access
Related Practices
- Jinja Mairi — Visiting the Shrine — To visit a shrine is to call on the kami of the place: through the torii, up the gravel path, to the offering box, the bell, two bows, two claps, one bow.
- The Kamidana — Household Altar — High on a wall of the home sits a miniature shrine: each morning it receives fresh water, rice, salt, and a bowed head with two claps.
- Pratikramaṇa — The Rite of Repentance — Morning and evening, and climactically once a year, the Jain turns back over the day's harms — in thought, word, and deed — and asks forgiveness of every living being.
Related Across the Site
- Eucharistic Adoration Devotion — In Eucharistic adoration the consecrated host is displayed and the faithful pray in its presence in silence.
- Jinja Mairi — Visiting the Shrine Devotion — To visit a shrine is to call on the kami of the place: through the torii, up the gravel path, to the offering box, the bell, two bows, two claps, one bow.
- Mettā Bhāvanā — Loving-Kindness Devotion — The systematic cultivation of goodwill toward oneself, benefactors, the neutral, the difficult, and all beings: devotion practiced as the training of the heart.
- Sāmāyika — The Meditation of Equanimity Devotion — For forty-eight minutes — one muhūrta — the Jain layperson sits in renunciation: no harm, no business, no distinction between friend and stranger.
- Tahajjud — The Night Vigil Devotion — The voluntary prayer of the last third of the night, risen to after sleep: the devotion Islam reserves for its most intimate hour.
- The Kamidana — Household Altar Devotion — High on a wall of the home sits a miniature shrine: each morning it receives fresh water, rice, salt, and a bowed head with two claps.
- The Prayer Rule Devotion — A prayer rule is a fixed daily pattern of prayers, readings, and prostrations kept under a spiritual father's guidance.
- Norito Prayer or Creed — Formal ritual prayers in classical Japanese, recited by priests to the kami at shrine festivals and rites.