Shinto Temple Drum

Powerful pounding pulses through this fully present sound, as soft chanting is recited quietly in the background. No other sound can so thoroughly oust awful thoughts and leave your mind a tenderized mass of meditative material. Shinto is a religion in which practice (actions) and ritual, rather than words, are of the utmost importance. Shinto is characterized by the worship of nature, ancestors, polytheism, and animism, with a strong focus on ritual purity, involving honoring and celebrating the existence of Kami (神?). Kami are defined in English as "spirit", "essence" or "deities", that are associated with many understood formats; in some cases being human like, some animistic, others associated with more abstract "natural" forces in the world (mountains, rivers, lightning, wind, waves, trees, rocks). It may be best thought of as "sacred" elements and energies. Kami and people are not separate, they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity. This sound uses the following sound file from Freesound (http://www.freesound.org): Yoyogi gong.wav by Marec