10 Ways to Be Happy

Good advice from A Buddhist Perspective.

10 WAYS TO BE HAPPY.

Tokugawa Ieyasu and Nikko Shrine

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Ieyasu Tokugawa was born in the warring states period. He survived the chaos, defeated his rivals and unified the entire nation. Ieyasu was assigned the title Seii-taishogun (Great generalissimo) in 1603 by the Emperor and established the Tokugawa Shogunate (Bakufu) in Edo (Tokyo). In 1605, Ieyasu retired and his son Hidetada became shogun. However, Ieyasu watched the nation closely even after he retired.

Prior to his death, Ieyasu left a last instruction for after he passed. "Enshrine my dead body in Mt. Kuno (His hometown in Shizuoka prefecture) for the first year after my death. Then, build a small shrine in Nikko and enshrine me as a God. I will be the guardian of Japan."

Ieyasu was dead on April 17th, 1616, when he was 75 years old. The Shrine was constructed in Nikko and the divine designation "Tosho-Daigongen" was given to it by the Imperial court. He was enshrined in accordance with his last will.

Ieyasu aimed to be the guardian of Japan. Nikko is located north of Edo and the north was considered as a taboo direction, where demons would come from. Therefore, Ieyasu wanted to place himself in the taboo direction in order to protect Japan from the evil things. He hoped for a long life of the Tokugawa government and for eternal peace.

Although, Ieyasu wanted "a small shrine," the third shogun Iemitsu, Ieyasu's grandson, reformed the shrine into today's opulent buildings. Most of the existing buildings were built in this period of reformation. According to the Tokugawa government reports, it cost 40,000,000,000 yen in the equivalent of today's currency. It took tens of thousands of artisans approximately two years to complete construction. Thirty-five buildings were reformed in that period which ended in 1636.

Yomeimon Gate

Ieyasu's remains are enshrined in this bronze pagoda.

The Original Kamikaze

Pretty much everyone has heard of the name Kamikaze and of the suicide pilots of World War II that went by that name. Many people also know that the name Kamikaze, which means divine wind, comes from the typhoon that destroyed the Mongol fleet in 1274 and 1281. The Mongols were attempting to invade Japan but their massive fleets carrying tens of thousands of warriors were destroyed by typhoons. The Japanese came to call these miracle winds the "Divine Wind".

However, the suicide pilots of WWII were not the first suicide attackers to use that name. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, many samurai were angry with how the new Meiji government was acting. The government had abolished their privileged status under the old feudal order, eliminated their financial stipend, and created a conscript army of commoners.

The final and ultimate insult for most samurai came when the government outlawed the wearing of swords. The wearing of swords was probably the most sacred symbol of the samurai. These acts lead to several minor and major rebellions against the new imperial Meiji government. One of the most famous and bizarre was that of the Shimpuren Rebellion.

The Shimpuren was an extremist and xenophobic political society of ex-samurai led by Otaguro Tomoo. The group also was called "The League of the Divine Wind". They wanted to not only halt the changes in the country, they wanted to turn back the clock and eradicate everything western such as western clothes, the western calendar, and even the use of western weapons.

The group believed that they were givin divine authorization to lead an uprising. On October 24, 1876, Otaguro led 200 men in revolt. They attacked the government garrison at the Kumamoto castle and showing no mercy to the new conscript government soldiers, the Kamikaze slaughtered some 300 men of the garrison using only their samurai swords. Another group attacked and killed the governor of the prefecture.

However, after the remaining garrison soldiers overcame their surprise at the attack, superior numbers and the superior firepower of the defenders modern weapons turned the tide. The rebels were decimated and Otaguro was badly wounded. He asked one of his followers to cut off his head. Many of Otaguro's followers followed by committing seppuku.

Many of the rebels that died were in their teens or early twenties, indicating that their devotion to samurai traditions was based more on a romanticism of an imaginary past rather then on actual experience. The same could also be said of the last Kamikaze in 1945 who also based their ideals on the romantic images of bushido and the samurai from centuries before.

Wikipedia: The Shimpuren Rebellion

Samurai: The World of the Warrior

Palanquin Exhibition at Edo-Tokyo Museum

The Edo-Tokyo Museum is currently holding an exhibition of palanquins from the Edo period.  This coincides with the exhibition of the famous Atsuhime's palanquin at the Sackler Museum in Washington D.C.

This exhibition will display palanquins used in the Edo period, particularly for women. These palanquins of the Edo period go by the names such as “Kago”, “Koshi”.

Palanquins for women had never been collected and displayed together before until this exhibition.  This in spite of the fact that they are also of a large size and artistically outstanding. Ten palanquins, including five from the Edo-Tokyo museum collection, will be displayed in this exhibition.

Not surprisingly, the owners of these palanquins were exalted persons. Parades of these palanquins used to symbolize their owner’s power. This was experienced in all the castle towns throughout the country. However, Edo had much larger numbers of palanquins and the parade of these palanquins is not comparable with the ones at the provincial castle towns.

The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori

The movie of the same name is loosely based on these events from the rebellion that Saigo led.

The book is about one of the most important samurai during the time of the Meiji Restoration. Other than Sakamoto Ryoma, Saigo was possibly the person more responsible then any other for the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Saigo Takamori was a low level samurai from Satsuma domain. He rose to importance and eventually was one of the leaders of the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogun. Saigo led the imperial armies to victory over the Tokugawa forces in 1868. Later, he was one of the top statesmen in the new Meiji government.

Saigo retired in the early 1870's and returned to rural life in Satsuma. Saigo was a proponent of the Confucian philosophy of benevolent and caring governance. He promoted a mix of traditional values and the adoption of the good aspects of modern society from the west.

However, Saigo began to become disillusioned with the new Meiji government. He felt they were not sufficiently preserving the cultural values of Japan in their race to modernize and adopt western cultural practices. The final blow came when the the Meiji government stripped the samurai of all that made them samurai--tradition, honor, glory, and feudal privilege.

When the government outlawed the carrying of swords, many samurai throughout Japan, and especially in Satsuma, could take no more and they rebelled. The largest and last of the rebellions was led by Saigo Takamori in 1877. Saigo's rebels fought the Imperial army throughout the southern Kyushu area.

But their fight was hopeless from the beginning. The Imperial army was to large and to well equipped. Saigo and his last band of holdouts were defeated on a hill outside of Kagoshima city. In true samurai spirit, with defeat certain and Saigo wounded, he had his head cutoff by one of his last samurai fighters.

This was a good book. It not only describes the history of the time but also goes in to some detail Saigo's philosophy.

The book I read about Aizu referenced this rebellion.  Many of the Aizu samurai revelled in the government crushing Saigo's Rebellion.  Many Aizu samurai joined the Meiji Government forces to fight Saigo and his rebels.  They felt that this was their chance to avenge what happened to Aizu.  When in it was announced that the rebellion was crushed and Saigo was dead, there was much celebrating among the former Aizu samurai.

Japanese seek to scrap Google's Street View

A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the US Internet search giant Google scrap its "Street View" service in Japan, saying it violates people's privacy.

Google launched Street View in the United States last year, providing pictures of panoramic all-around street-level views at locations on its online maps.

The service was expanded to 12 major cities in Japan in August and six cities in France in October.

The group said it sent a petition to Google's Japanese subsidiary, demanding an end to the Street View service in Japan.

They wrote that Street View "constitutes violent infringement on citizens' privacy by photographing residential areas, including community roads, and publishing their images without the consent of communities and citizens."

They complained that via the Internet, Street View was distributing private information "more easily, widely, massively and permanently than ordinary cameras and surveillance cameras do."

Local municipalities in Tokyo and Osaka have already appealed to the national government to take action against the site.

The Google Japanese unit earlier said it was blurring the faces of people seen in Street View scenes by special technology and that it would delete the pictures of people and buildings upon request.

Japan has stricter protections on privacy in public than in the United States, with Japanese able to stop their pictures from being used against their will. 

AFP

 Violent infringement on citizens privacy?  A bit extreme I think.  I like the street view.  Since people are out on a public street, it should not matter.  Just don't pick your nose out on a public street, especially if you see a vehicle with a camera on top of it.