Lecturer: Kenji Nanasawa, Representative Director of General Incorporated Association Shirakawa Gakkan
Editor: Parole Editorial Section, Yasushi Ohno, supervisor

Q:
Now we are doing old and new things at the same time. The former is to leave the wisdom of the traditional Shirakawa Shinto to posterity, and the latter is to show the evolved form of Chinkon through the G-code seminar. I would like to ask how we should create new things while preserving old things.

A:
We are currently learning three things at the same time: Harai, Chinkon, and Genrei (*1). Each of these has been developed throughout a long history, in keeping with the spread of knowledge and awareness of each era. Truth is said to have already existed when this world began. However, it can be said that this world has evolved with the evolution of mankind, the accumulation of knowledge, and experience, which are all interrelated.

It is inevitable during this era that we are now facing an important phase in which mankind is being forced to evolve consciously as these three teachings have been brought about in an integrated fashion. We, therefore, have no choice but to express “the creation of a new civilization”.

In this situation, it will become important for future policies to convey the wisdom of Shirakawa Shinto in expressions suitable for the new era. Of course, in the past, this wisdom was reserved in a manner that best suited each era. However, the times are constantly changing. We cannot continue to express things from the past in the same manner.

I once learned the art of warfare of the Takeda family, a warlord in the Sengoku period, with the most outstanding expert of Qi Men Dun Jia (*2) in East Asia. I was greatly puzzled when this person told me, “The teachings of Shirakawa Shinto are the teachings of truth, so they will disappear in due course”. What he was trying to say was that revealing the truth of Heaven to the world causes the sin of escape. There have been such legends in China for many generations.

Fortunately, however, here in Japan, my mentor Hiroshi Takahama did not express the same sentiments. He said that even if the words seemed to have been forgotten and deleted from people’s minds, the teachings truly necessary would appear again. And even if we didn’t hand it down to future generations, the inevitability of the times would necessarily bring the teachings back to life. From the perspective of DNA, it is not surprising that the work of ancestral gods suddenly appears as knowledge within us.

Given that, it can be said that we are just confronting “the time”. Looking at the history of computers during the last 70 years, it began with pre-war cybernetics and has evolved rapidly through computing. Subsequently, as computers evolve even more dramatically, we are about to enter the world of quantum computers. With this shift in knowledge taking place dramatically, a learning system based on digital knowledge is essential as a methodology.

In addition to this, we are now undergoing great challenges, such as pandemic viruses, locust plague, and earthquakes. Since mankind is living in this rapidly changing era, it is important to have a sense of experiencing each day anew. Moreover, it is important for each of us to live with the determination to constantly change ourselves.

*1. The basic Shinto rituals from Shirakawa Shinto consist of two parts:
- Harai: a series of prayers to cleanse oneself of the past and the future and bring one’s consciousness to the present moment.
- Chinkon: a meditation method to return life force energy to the dan tien area under the navel and bring the mental body into a zoning state.
Genrei represents the spirit of words.
*2. An ancient form of divination from China which is still in use in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia

Japanese Version

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Kenji Nanasawa
Born in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture in 1947. After graduating from Waseda University, he completed a Doctoral Program in the Graduate School of Letters at Taisho University. He developed an information processing system based on knowledge modeling of traditional medicine and philosophies and is a researcher of religious studies. He is involved in developing a next-generation system for digitizing language energies. Mr. Nanasawa re-established the Shirakawa Gakkan as a research institute for the study of the court rituals and ceremonies carried out by the Shirakawa family of Kyoto, a noble family that oversaw the Jingi, an office for religious rituals, for 800 years from the mid- Heian period to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. He currently serves as the representative director of Shirakawa Gakkan and CEO of the Nanasawa Institute, among other positions.

He has written and served as the editorial supervisor for a number of books, among them Why Do Things Go Well with Japanese? Knowledge Modeling Inherent in Japanese Language and Culture (Naze nihonjin wa umakuikunoka? Nihongo to nihon bunka ni naizai sareta chishiki moshikika gijutsu) (Bungeisha). Also, he is the supervising editor of Three Works on the Study of Hebrew from a Shinto Perspective (Shinto kara mita heburai kenkyu sanbusho) (by Koji Ogasawara), and co-author with Koji Ogasawara of Princess Otohime of the Dragon Palace and Urashima Taro (Ryugu no Otohime to Urashima Taro).