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Chanting Guides

The Power of Chanting

The Power of Chanting

In this short video, you will hear about a Shumei America member’s practice of daily chanting and the spiritual benefits she has received from it. 

At the start, it is customary to take one shallow bow, then two deep bows, rise, and clap hands three times.

While performing the chants, bold lines of type are chanted only once by the leader.

While performing the poems, the bold lines are first chanted by the leader, and then by those in attendance. The remaining lines are chanted by both the leader and attendees. Additionally, some conventions have been used to indicate cadence and sound. A dash ( –– ) indicates a sustained tone from one syllable to the next. An ascending slash (ノ) is also a sustained tone but with a rise in pitch. Three periods ( … ) indicates that the last sound of a line slowly diminishes into silence.

Phonetic transliteration is used throughout to give the chants and poems a close version of original sounds. Their text is unique to this publication and not based on the Romaji method of writing Japanese in Roman characters.

The Significance of Kototama – “Word Spirit”

While each chant is unique in purpose, all carry purifying energy within their sounds. This concept is known as kototama, which means “word spirit.”

The idea of kototama, that there are special powers in the sounds of words, is also closely related to the traditional role chanting has played in all cultures. The spiritual purity of the person reciting the chants affects the degree of power emitted by the words. As the clarity of a person’s spiritual tone is refined, his or her ability to influence the world increases. Words spoken with virtuous intent are more effective at dispelling spiritual impurities, whereas words spoken crudely, without feeling or awareness, do the opposite. Chanting can align us with the purpose, power, and rhythm of nature. It can bring us into harmony with God. Just as a musician tunes his or her instrument before playing, chanting harmonizes one’s inner tone.

The same idea of kototama holds true for Meishusama’s 273 poems contained within the Miakarishu. Composed between 1931 and 1954, these verses were written in the tanka style, which was little used at that time. He mostly followed the syllabic count of five, seven, five, seven, and seven within each of five lines. To preserve the poems’ literal meaning in this English edition, the text has been translated into prose verse, rather than strict tanka form, which was felt too limiting in both meaning and sound when rendered in English. The experience of kototama is reserved for when the poems are recited in their original Japanese, as they are during all Shumei observances.

The Amatsunorito

Amatsunorito Chant with Subtitles
History and Significance

The Amatsunorito is a Shinto ritual prayer, or norito, that originated in a text entitled Harae-kotoba, which literally means Words for Purification. The origin of the Haraekotoba is ancient and obscure, the author or authors are unknown. It was used mainly for purification rites and was orally passed down in different forms to various Shinto shrines and schools. In the early 19th century, Shinto scholar Atsutane Hirata re-composed the text based on his extensive study of the Harae-kotoba and renamed it Amatsunorito.

Shumei’s founder, Meishusama, believed that this chant was a particularly powerful means of purification, and going by the principle of kototama, as well as his own spiritual insights, he slightly refined this prayer to make it more potent. With its unique arrangement of sounds, it is used to purify the spiritual realm, the condition of which will affect the physical world. To understand the Amatsunorito’s literal meaning some background in Japanese mythology is necessary. 

The demigod, or kami, Izanagi, defiled himself by entering the underworld to bring back his dead wife, who died after giving birth to the kami of fire. Izanagi wanted to bring his wife, Izanami, back to the world of the living so they could continue to create the land in which they and their descendants were to live. When he found her on the other side of the gates of the hall of the dead, she told him with remorse that he had come too late, as she had already eaten the food of the underworld and could not return to the land of the living without permission. She made him promise to wait for her and not follow or even look at her until she safely returned to him. Then she left to plead with the rulers of the underworld to release her. Izanagi waited. A very long time passed. He continued to wait, and wait.

Finally, impatient, he broke his pledge and entered the hall of the netherworld to find his wife. When he did, he looked at her and saw that her flesh was putrefied and consumed by maggots, and the sounds of every kind of thunder were born from her head and limbs. She cursed him for his betrayal and sent hoards of demons to pursue him. He picked up three peaches imbued with divine power and threw these at the demons, chasing them away. On reaching the hall of the dead, his wife appeared a final time on the other side of death’s gates.

So, he rolled a boulder over the maw of Hades and closed its entrance. Man and wife, Izanagi and Izanami, stood at opposite sides of the boulder, she respectfully threatening to kill all his descendants, and he, with due courtesy, pledging to produce more progeny than she could ever manage to kill. Done with her, he left. Although escaping death, he had entered the kingdom of the dead and was impure, and so he washed himself in the waters near the small mouth of a river at Himuka Tachibana (also pronounced Tachihana) in Tsukushi. And as Izanagi bathed, from the river waters sprang the newly born spirits of purification. Although the story is fantastic, it has universal implications that echo in legends and myths throughout the world.

Westerners might recognize similarities between Izanagi’s story and that of the primal father Adam and his first wife Lilith or the myth of Orpheus who follows his love, Eurydice, into Hades. All these stories are meant more to captivate and fill the listener with wonder than to be literally believed. Yet, as legends and metaphors, they express more than a little truth. As all of Izanagi’s children eventually would stand on one side or the other of the portals of life and death, so would all humanity’s children. And we all are capable of breaking pledges, going against the natural order of things, as Izanagi did by venturing into the realm of the dead while still alive. We are all liable to be soiled by circumstances beyond our control. And we all need purification from time to time. As such, chanting this prayer is a great way of being made clean and pure.

The poem opens with an image of Kamurogi and Kamuromi on the heavenly plane. Shinto scholars often identified Kamurogi and Kamuromi as collective nouns representing two distinctive spiritual aspects of kami, the former signifying a male–masculine, fire aspect, the latter a female–feminine, water aspect. Kamurogi and Kamuromi can be thought of as a universal principle, like yin and yang. They are universal forces that constantly purify the world.

Loose Translation of the Amatsunorito

Prayer of Heaven (Amatsunorito)

High on a heavenly plateau
Primeval Kamurogi and Kamuromi live.
In accordance with them,
The sovereign kami Izanagi
Bathed at the mouth of a clear stream
In Ahagihara of Tachihana
In the region of Himuka in Tsukushi.
As he splashed, purifying kami were spawned.
Thus now we plea to these kami that all
Spiritual impurities be washed away.
Please, heavenly and earthly kami,
Just as the dappled horses of heaven
Perk their ears at the slightest rustle,
Listen to our pleas.
Thus, we humbly pray.

Miroku Omikami, God of Light,
Protect us, bless us with great happiness.

Meishusama, our spiritual father,
Protect us, bless us with great happiness.

(Pause for silent prayer)

God, in accordance with Your Will,
Bless our souls so they grow abundantly.

The Amatsunorito Chant

(One shallow bow, two deep bows, three handclaps, and one deep bow)

Tah kah ah mah hah lah nee

kah mm zoo mah lee mah soo

kah moo loh ghee kah moo loh mee noh––

mee koh toh––moh chee teh

soo meh mee oh yah––

kah moo ee zah nah ghee noh––

mee koh toh

tsoo koo shee noh hee moo kah noh

tah chee hah nah noh

oh doh noh ah hah ghee hah lah nee

mee soh ghee hah lah ee tah moh––toh kee nee

nah lee mah seh loo

hah lah ee doh noh oh––kah mee tah chee

moh loh moh loh noh

mah gah goh toh tsoo mee keh gah leh oh

hah lah ee tah mah eh

kee yoh meh tah mah eh toh

mah oh soo koh toh noh yoh shee oh

ah mah tsoo kah mee koo nee tsoo kah mee

yah oh yoh loh zoo noh

kah mee tah chee toh moh nee

ah meh noh foo chee koh mah noh––

mee mee foo lee tah teh teh

kee koh shee meh seh toh

kah shee koh mee

kah shee koh mee moh mah oh soo…

(Bow deeply)

mee loh koo oh oh mee kah mee

mah moh lee tah mah eh

sah kee hah eh tah mah eh

mee loh koo ohノoh mee kah mee

mah moh lee tah mah eh

sah kee hah eh tah mah eh…

(Bow deeply)

oh shee eh mee oh yah noo shee noh kah mee

mah moh lee tah mah eh

sah kee hah eh tah mah eh

oh shee eh mee oh yah noo shee noh kah mee

mah moh lee tah mah eh

sah kee hah eh tah mah eh…

(Bow deeply and pause for silent prayer)

kah mm nah gah lah

tah mah chee hah eh mah seh

kah mm nah gah lah

tah mah chee hah eh mah seh…

(Bow deeply, rise, and three handclaps)