The traditional basic training (known as kegyo) involves doing three such invocations daily, with the abbot privately initiating you into how to do the ceremonies. The Shinto shamanic piece comes prior to each of the three ritual invocations, when the practitioner is required to do cold-water purification. You have to go to a cistern filled with half-frozen water, break the ice on top, fill a huge wooden bucket, and then squat and dump the bonechilling liquid over your naked body. It’s so cold that the water freezes the moment it touches the floor, and your towel freezes in your hand, so you are sliding around barefoot on ice, trying to dry your body with a frozen hand towel.
For me, this cold-water purification was a horrific ordeal. Maybe being a thin-skinned Californian had something to do with it. I did notice, however, that if I stayed in a state of high concentration while I did it, my distress was noticeably lessened. On the other hand, as soon as my attention wandered, the suffering became unbearable. I could see that this whole training situation was a giant biofeedback device designed to keep a person in some degree of samadhi at all times.
