Religion

[[Since I have rather limited experiences with both religion in Japan and world religions, please take everything here as personal opinions about personal observations that most likely don't count for much.]]

Thoughts about religion in Japan: most secularized approach to religion that I've encountered so far. What I think I mean by that is that what I might consider the religious aspects of Japanese life have become so normalized/internalized/??? that they have become habit rather than religion and no one consciously remembers that they were religious to begin with.

People are aware that there are 2 main observed religions in Japan, Buddhism and Shinto. And Japanese people are very good at separating them and explaining the division but they can't every really tell you why. Temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto. Temples are visited for births and deaths and major anniversaries associated with each (1,3,5,7 years etc.) and shrines are visited for more everyday concerns like relationship problems, study worries, etc. - the mundane worries that everyone has. HOWEVER no one seems to know why. Why is Buddhism the entrances and exits so to speak but Shinto is everything in between including “I can't pay my rent this month so 仕事を見つかれますように? People who study religion in Japan can probably answer the question but the average Japanese person (that I've asked) doesn't seem to be able to. The reasons were probably once common knowledge but the practices have become such a normalized part of daily life that the reasons have been forgotten.

And the shrines, well, especially the shrines, are often found seemingly randomly in the middle of a residential street and manage not to look out of place at all. So the location of religion seems to have also become normalized and a part of the community – not set apart so much as is my experience with religion. (You go to a specific, special place on specific days for specific reasons and everyone knows all those reasons. )