Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (Asia-Pacific) by Gerald Figal

Author:Gerald Figal [Figal, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2012-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

While the forms depicted in pictures gradually change, the notion that an invisible spirit exists here does not. My kokugaku teacher Matsuura Shuhei would say that if it ever happened that this belief were stripped from our notions of Japan, Japan would be ruined. He said that even when we are speaking together like this and we think that only two people are conversing — and may say some inappropriate things — an other unseen entity is present. Moreover, because of the belief that this unseen entity is passing judgment on us, we cannot be imprudent. This entity, who possesses all the same observational powers and the same above-mentioned judgmental powers as humans, is invisible to our eye and yet exists here incorporeally If we think that the hidden world and the phenomenal world adhere closely we cannot do things that are inappropriate. He [Matsuura] would repeatedly say that to put it in Chinese Confucian terms, this would be an example of a person of inner discipline. It seems that this notion exists even now in the Japanese view of life.85

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