From Waterfall Austerity to the Daily Rinse

Misogi ranges widely in intensity. At one extreme stands the austere discipline of standing beneath an icy waterfall, sometimes in the depths of winter, a demanding ascetic practice undertaken by priests, practitioners of mountain religion and lay devotees seeking spiritual renewal. At the other, and far more common, is the simple everyday purification performed by every visitor to a Shinto shrine at the temizuya, the water basin near the entrance, where hands are rinsed and the mouth cleansed before approaching the sanctuary, an abbreviated misogi that makes the principle of water-purity part of ordinary shrine visiting.

Misogi belongs to the broader Shinto category of harae, purification rites, which also include cleansing by the waving of a wand and the offering of purificatory prayers. Together these rites express the tradition's characteristic conviction that impurity is not primarily a matter of morality or sin but a condition to be washed away, and that the restoration of purity, of body, place and community, is the fundamental religious act on which right relation with the kami depends.