SHINTO

I watched the “Peach Orchard” section of Kurosawa’s film “Dreams” and I actually thought it was pretty entertaining. Although the actual acting was pretty bad in my opinion (as expected) I thought that the one point that really sold it to me was when the child said to the spirits of the peach trees “Peaches can be bought… But where can you buy a whole orchard in bloom?”

There were a few areas that in which I thought that the video lines up with the lecture in class. The first one was that “Everything is spiritual and therefore there is a continuity between humanity, nature, and the spirits/gods” and this is depicted in the video because the video is about the spirit of the peach trees that were cut down in the orchard and how the spirits and the boy were unhappy about it.

Another area that I saw relation to the lecture and the section in the film was when professor stated: “This is not pantheism (not all of nature is kami), instead this recognizes what is powerful or amazing in nature and that is kami.” I got this idea from when the boy replied to the peach tree spirits by saying “Peaches can be bought… But where can you buy a whole orchard in bloom?” because he recognizes that the beauty of a blooming orchard of peach trees cannot be amounted to money or any other material possession in this world.

Because the orchard of peach trees had spirits I would consider the orchard a sacred object which leads me to the last relation between the lecture on Shinto and this particular section of the film. In the notes Professor Rasnick stated that “Gravest sins are sins against sacred objects or places” which is why in this film the spirits of the chopped orchard trees were so distraught. To simplify my reasoning: the trees had spiritsàspirits are sacredàand because those spirits are sacred the trees should not have been cut down.

Overall I think that this section of the film actually helped explain Shinto in relation to nature very well but I did not really get a big picture of Shinto.

"The Tao of Pooh"

I think “The Tao of Pooh” was a great book for mainly one reason which was: the comparison to Winnie the Pooh was terrific because Winnie the Pooh is familiar with Americans that grew up in the Unites States. Hoff’s comparisons and examples he uses for the different topics like “The Cottleston Pie Principle” (38) and “Wu Wei,” which was excellently described by the pickle jar incident with Tigger (75-76) and the Very Small Beetle (78-80), are examples of some of the simple but effective analogies that he used which is what makes this book so great for people that don’t have any previous knowledge about Taoism.

Hoff describes the lifestyle of Bisy Backsons, which are basically people that are constantly active, as always trying to get “around the next corner” or “above the next step” (99). He also mixes some clever wordplay into the book that you wouldn’t catch on to if you didn’t read the rest of Bisy Backson chapter. Hoff starts off the chapter with a quote “GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON” (92) which is just gibberish but then later in the chapter he switches it to “GONE OUT BACK SOON BUSY BACK SOON” (96) and then says the most accurate version is “BACK OUT GONE SOON BUSY GONE SOON” (97). I interpret this whole issue by thinking that the first quote is a result of the lifestyles of Bisy Backsons in the sense that they are so busy and don’t have enough time to even write a correct note. Personally I believe that Americans tend to have this lifestyle and even being a first generation American I can see that trait in myself.

When it comes to the “solution” of the Bisy Backsons “problem” I think that Taoism could be a possible solution for it but to me it seems a little too extreme because some issues in Taoism, like the lack of exercise, are possibly harmful in today’s society. In my opinion something a little less simple would be a better solution to the problem. One solution of this problem in my opinion could easily be fixed by just taking a certain amount of time each day just for yourself and not really doing anything.