Peach Orchid

For the Shinto blog assignment I watched the film The Peach Orchard. In this film a young boy is taking a tray to his sister, it appears tat they are having some sort of a Japanese tea ceremony in honor of the dolls in the room (later it is stated that it is Doll Day). He brings the tea and notes that there are only 5 girls in the room, and there were 6 when he left. He notices that the other girl is walking down the hall way. The boy follows the girl to an old peach orchard that has been cut down. There he meets the dolls tat state that they are the spirit of the peach trees but his family has cut them down so they will now longer visit. The boy cries and states that you can always buy peaches but you can not buy the beauty of the orchard in bloom. The dolls perform a ritual dance to allow the boy to see he orchard in bloom ones more, when the trees appear the boy marvels at them and then he sees the girl again. After following her the trees disappear, then the boy notices that the spot where the girl stood is a new peach tree that is growing and blooming. Who doe this story relate to Shinto? Most forms of Shinto practice different rituals so the rituals in the story relate to Shinto rituals. Shintos hold a lot of faith in Kami (gods) and the spirits of the dolls revealing themselves to the boy is a major aspect of this story. The greatest sins in the Shinto tradition is to destroy a shrine, and based upon what the dolls said to the boys, the peaches were a somewhat shrine to the dolls, they were sacred. The boy cried when he realized that they were destroyed with the knowledge of sin. It was also important for the boy to not cry because of selfishness and to be crying because of the beauty 

Tao of Pooh

I loved the Tao of Pooh! I’m currently taking VCU’s Taoism class with Brian Deane, who used to use this book for his class but stopped using it for some reason and I’ve really wanted to read it so I’m glad I found an excuse to fit it in wit all my school readings. After learning most of what was presented in this book earlier this semester I really enjoyed looking at it through another lens. When the book refers to the American Culture as the Busy Backson, I believe that this is a perfect interpretation of western culture. As the Taoist believe in Wu Wei they do view Americans as going against the way of nature by keeping their minds constantly preoccupied with constant tasks, this is concept is also presented in The Writings of Chuang Tzu in Book One, Section Three called “Nourishing the Lord of Life” This view is correct, as if the westerners were to go with the way of nature and become one with the Tao they would be happier with life. Taoism does appear to be the solution to the problem of American life. Americans spend way to much time worrying, ad a very small amount of them actually appear to be happy as we are programmed to be obsessed with work and money. Taoists don’t worry about these things. While Americans fight with nature, trying to control where they go, their lives and how everything works, Taoist work with nature, they go with the flow of things. If something in a pan for the day goes wrong, to Americans the day is ruined but to the Taoist the day is still awesome because obviously it wasn’t meant to happen that day. If more Americans adopt the Taoist point of  view and way of approaching life they would be happier with their lives and wouldn’t consume their lives with work, which when you die is pointless. Americans could be so much happier with their lives if they were to sit back and allow things to happen naturally instead of trying to control everything and everyone around them.