Hokkaido Highway Blues

world is pregnant with them, rich in life and charged with energy. Historical figures have been elevated to kami, and so have abstract nouns and animals.
    You will find Shinto shrines throughout Japan. Some are crumbling, some are well-tended. A few are lavish; most are small and humble. The object of veneration is often a polished silver mirror, a surface that reflects—and contains—the world around us. These mirrors, polished to a sheen, yet still clouded, are both reflective and obscure—a perfect symbol for the numinous nature of the religious impulse. Mirrors and local gods, the universal and tribal.
    You approach Shinto shrines through torii gates, and the entrances are usually guarded by a pair of stone lion-dogs. Like so many things Japanese, these lion-dogs came to Japan from China through a Korean intermediary When they define themselves, the Japanese tend to skip Korea, the middleman, and claim a connection to China that is direct and overemphasized. But here, in the shrine grounds of the gods, the Korean connection is acknowledged: the guardians are called koma-inu, “Korean dogs.” That Korean icons should protect the repositories of all that is Japanese in spirit—the Emperor’s Church in a sense—that Korean dogs should be given such a high-ranking position is something rarely commented upon by the Japanese. These stone guardians provide a telling clue about the ancient Korean roots of the Japanese Imperial Family.
    The lion-dogs were originally a lion and a dog, and were very different in appearance, but over the years stonecutters found it easier to carve them to the same proportions. The two figures grew more and more alike, until their features blended. One lion-dog has a mouth that is always open, the other has a mouth that is always closed. The open-mouthed lion-dog is named Ah , the other is named Un, or more properly, nn. ‘Ah,” is the first sound you make when you are born, “nn,” the last sound you make when you die. ‘Ah” is the breath inhaled that begins life, “nn,” the exhale of release, the breath that allows life to escape. Between the two lies all of existence, a universe that turns on a single breath. Ah is also the first symbol in the Japanese alphabet, n the last. And so, between these two lion-dogs, you also have the A and Z, the Alpha and Omega. In the original Sanskrit, ah-un means “the end and the beginning of the universe; infinity unleashed.”
    In Japan, people who are in perfect tune with each other, such as a pianist and a violinist playing in duet, are called ah/un-no-kokyù. Kokyū means “breathing,” and the phrase has the nuance of perfect, exquisite harmony: ah/un-no-kokyū , two or more breathing as one. If self-actualization is the ideal to which the Western world aspires, then common breath is the ideal to which Japan—and indeed, much of Asia—aspires. The word harmony in Japanese has the same cachet that the word freedom has in the West.
    In Japan, the word for freedom, jiyū, carries with it the nuance of selfish or irresponsible behavior. Group harmony is a higher value. This doesn’t make the Japanese a nicer people. There are thieves and cheats and nasty characters in Japan, as there are anywhere. But the values that Japanese society subscribes to are starkly different from those of the West. If you had to embody the ideals of the West it would be the Statue of Liberty, or the Goddess of Jiyū as she is known in Japan, standing defiantly, the torch raised: a singular, powerful, one-of-a-kind presence. This is not the type of thing you would choose if you wished to give form to Japanese ideals. The ideals of Japan are captured instead in a thousand small stone guardians, in a thousand shrines, big and small, across Japan. A dog and lion so near in spirit that they have blended into one. Ah/un-no-kokyū.
    On a less esoteric level, ah-un also refers to old married couples (or even old friends) who have been together for so long that they no longer have to finish their sentences. One begins with, “Ah...” and the other agrees with “Nn...” (which is the Japanese equivalent of “uh-huh”) and the entire meaning is understood.
    As you enter a shrine ground, beyond the lion-dogs, you will find a fountain and a dipper. If you are planning to approach the gods you must first rinse your hands and mouth with water. Having made yourself presentable, you may now step up. You toss in a coin, bow, clap your hands once, and ring the bell.