Sunshine Through the Rain

For the Shinto blog, I chose to watch Sunshine through the Rain. Out of all of the sections of Kurosawa’s film “Dreams”, I liked this one the most. The scene began with a small boy walking out into the rain. He stands there without saying anything. Soon his mother comes out and talks to him. She tells him that as it is raining, the sun is still out and that this is the type of weather that foxes have their wedding processions in and that they do not like it when someone watches them. In Part 2, the same boy is shown walking silently in the forest as it continues to rain with the sun shining. Suddenly, he sees fog in the distance. People are then shone walking out of the fog. The people are marching in unison as music is played. This appears to be the foxes wedding procession, which the young boy’s mother warns him not to watch. At the end of the clip, the boy returns back to reality where he meets his mother again. She is not pleased with him because he disobeyed her. His mother refused to let him back into the house and told him that an angry fox had come looking for him. The angry fox had given his mother a weapon for the boy to kill himself since he brought shame and dishonor to himself.

 This section from the film “Dreams” relates a lot to the Shinto religion. In Shinto, foxes are considered to be spiritual and wise creatures and everything in the world revolves around spirituality. The clip expressed how important foxes are in society and it also signifies how wise they are. At the end of the clip when the boy returns home after dishonoring his mother, this relates to the fact that there is an emphasis placed on actions. One of the Shinto ethics states that there is an emphasis placed on actions that create harmonious relationships in home & society. When the boy disobeyed his mother, he did not act in a way of honor and he caused tension, instead of harmony, between himself and the foxes. Lastly, this clip also related to Bushido, which believes that dishonor is worse than death and for this reason ritual suicide is expected if dishonor occurs. Because the boy caused himself dishonor it seemed only right in his mother’s eyes as well as the fox’s eyes that he commit suicide.

Tao of Pooh

Prior to reading The Tao of Pooh, I found it amusing that we were going to read a book about Winnie the Pooh. Growing up, I loved watching Winnie the Pooh on the Disney Channel. He was one of my favorite characters. I never realized how someone could correlate the story of Pooh bear with Taoism. When I bought the book, I decided to read the back of the book, just to see what the author had to say. As I read the writing in red, “While Eeyore frets…and Piglet hesitates…and Rabbit calculates…and Owl pontificates…Pooh just is,” I started to understand how Pooh is an example of a Taoist. I found the book to be easy to comprehend. The stories that the author used helped especially because it was easier for me to visualize the different concepts that were discussed, including the topic about the Bisy Backson’s. When discussing what exactly a Bisy Backson is, the author stated that they are people who are “almost desperately active” and he also mentions that “if you want to be healthy, relaxed, and contented, just watch what a Bisy Backson does and then do the opposite”. I agree with the author when he refers to American culture as being full of Bisy Backsons. Americans are always on the go; it is seldom that most of us take breaks, because we are always busy and place work first. Even the Puritans were Bisy Backsons. “The Puritans practically worked themselves to death in the fields without getting much of anything in return for their tremendous efforts. They were actually starving until the wiser inhabitants of the land showed them a few things…now you plant; now you relax”. I think that it’s necessary to have an equal balance of work and relaxation in order to have a successful and enjoyable life. In my opinion Taoist views can be used as a solution to the problems that are found in American culture and in Americans. Throughout the book, and in the story of Winnie the Pooh, Pooh is always the character that is carefree and is never worried or stressed about life, he just is. This is completely opposite from our culture. However, if everyone followed the Taoist views, it would be harder to get things done if everyone had a carefree and a “go with the flow” attitude. So I think that there are certain times when Taoist views can be used in American culture.