The heart of Kojiki (7) 2017/06/10
Christianity begins with the original sin of Adams and Eva, Buddhism suffers from four distresses, namely life, death, illness and aging through the whole life. Both religions teach people how to conquer difficulties or distresses during their lives.
On the contrary, Japanese Shinto stands by the belief that human nature is fundamentally good. The life is full of joys and hopes.
Thanks to gods, Japanese Islands have been rich in foods and free from cruel battles from Stone Age, therefore Shinto can believe in good nature of humans. Shinto can find blight, warm and hopeful aspects in human acts. Those who believe in Shinto consider that they see dark and ill human acts only when their hearts are covered by their personal interests. Although people’s nature is clean, it is often contaminated with personal lust. Therefore they think the most important matter is to keep exorcising their personal interests and lusts.
There is no similar theory in Shinto as “the end of world” belief in Christianity and Buddhism, but Shinto believes Royal family and people together will prosper forever as far as people keep exorcising their personal interests which may cover their pure clean hearts.
Kojiki tells human has a good nature but at the same time it tells human makes errors easily when his heart is contaminated by his own lust. However Kojiki encourages us to keep exorcise so that we can get back to original good nature by ousting our own lusts and personal interests.
Kojiki is telling Japanese Shinto is warm and merciful religion.
