Totoro as a Religious Experience?

I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't identify myself as being of any religion, yet I do find some value in trying to study up on religious ideas a bit. I've come to be of the opinion that religion seems to occur in every society because being a human is difficult. You face problems and stress and difficulties throughout life and religion in its most virtuous forms tends to offer advice and parables and philosophy for coping with these difficulties.

It's with this insight, and with what little I know of Shinto, Tao, and Buddhism that I believe there's a certain eastern philosophy/religion exposition going on in My Neighbor Totoro. Shinto shrines appear throughout. There's a fox shrine at the bus stop where Satsuki first encounters the big Totoro, king of the forrest. There's also a shrine of figures that are the protector of children at the site where Mei's found. I get the sense that Totoro is a very Shinto-ish animistic figure. The encouragement from the adults in the film tends to further this observation. In class we mentioned that western parents tend to discourage non-scientific thinking, but we forget that many western parents do in fact encourage their children to believe the supernatural stories told in the bible (i.e. imaginary friends are fine as long as it's the biblical God or Jesus). Totoro offers comfort to troubled children that are missing something, that are internally conflicted, and who we see try to be stronger than they actually are throughout most of the film.

I argue that Mei and Satsuki do a pretty good and realistic job of not letting the audience, and maybe even themselves realize how much trauma they've experienced at the absence of their mother (though recall the mother isn't fooled as she mentions how sensitive Satsuki is near the end of the film). There's definitely tension building because we see it come to fruition in the exchange when Satsuki tortures Mei about her own fears that their mother might actually die. And still later, in a much more healthy and vulnerable release Satsuki finally allows herself to cry at the water pump to the granny. There are also clues to the tension throughout the first part of the film. The girls act strong and unafraid of the haunted house, but it's revealed that Mei still can't go to the bathroom on her own at night, and Satsuki seems genuinely disconcerted by Kenta's affirmation of the house being haunted! But supposedly she likes haunted houses, right???

This internal conflict within the sisters is the real primary conflict for the film, which is all too subtle yet more powerful than the tension Miyazaki adds with Mei's disappearance and possible drowning. I almost suspect that Mei getting lost was a device added because Miyazaki believed that the primary conflict wasn't overt and suspenseful enough for the movie to work as a conventional film. Also, could Mei being physically lost be a metaphor for her being spiritually lost?

Once you get the idea that the protagonists are themselves the real antagonists (internal conflict), I think the rest of the eastern religious philosophy starts to reveal itself. Such as the ideas in Buddhism that "irrational desire" causes suffering. The mother's illness isn't the antagonist, that's just a fact of life. Rather, the antagonist is the natural human resistance to these facts of life within Mei and Satsuki. The scene in the bathtub also seems to explore Buddhism's enlightened state of being 'awake' or 'lost in the moment.' I get the sense that Buddhism teaches that striving to enjoy life is futile...  such a longing for some abstract perfect life would just make you miserable - rather all you can do is simply enjoy the moment, enjoy now. And in the center of the storm the family manages to enjoy the moment even with the obvious absence of the mother in the bathtub (hence the awkward yet cute/charming shot of Mei's head barely obscuring the father's penis highlighting the fact that it should be the mother in the bathtub). They manage to enjoy the moment so much that it chases the soot spreaders out of the home and into the wind...

The wind is also very important which brings me to the Tao. Tao kind of means "the way." Sort of having a flexibility to go with the flow and adapt and remain in balance and harmony. I believe that the wind kind of represents the way in the film... Such as when Satsuki is interrupted by the wind in her task to collect fire wood. This might show how she's conflicted and again resistant to the facts of life. In that scene she's at odds with "the way." But then in the religious experience of taking flight upon Totoro's belly on the magic top they say "we are the wind" i.e. we are the way. At that moment they are going with the flow, are at peace, and have found release.

They also find release at the very end when the corn is delivered and they run into granny's embrace..  But like the previous releases of laughing in the tub or becoming the wind as they soar through the air with Totoro..  the process of becoming enlightened is an ongoing thing that they are sure to endure more of.

Miyazaki might assure us in that he says that's the last time the girls see Totoro. As Confucius said, "it's actually a troubling day when people need religion."