mike,
Maybe I should be less obscure.
Being Japanese and since most Japanese have been a combination of Buddhist and Shinto, I would say that it is quite possible that Ohsawa had Shinto beliefs and practices as much as the Buddhist ones.
And it appears that both Buddhism and Shinto have some form of a deist belief and that of the soul:
(
http://www.csuchico.edu/~georgew/tsa..._Glossary.html http://www.religioustolerance.org/shinto.htm ).
Do you play banjo?
Thank you, very much.
Bruce Paine