Leaving Home, and the Hut One Jō Square出家と方丈の庵

I inherited the house of my grandmother on my father's side, and lived there a long while. Afterward the ties were broken and my body grew weak, and there were many things I longed for, so in the end I could not keep that place, and past the age of thirty I built a hut of my own will.

Compared with the dwelling I had before, it was a tenth of it. I contrived only a room to live in, and could not build a proper house. I managed to raise a wall of earth, but I had no means to set up a gate. I made pillars of bamboo and used the space to shelter a cart. Whenever snow fell and the wind blew, it was not without danger. The place lay near the riverbank, so the trouble of the water was deep and the fear of the waves was loud.

For thirty-odd years I bore with a world that went altogether against my wishes, and my heart was harried. In that time, at each point where things went wrong, I came of myself to understand how short my fortune was. So, meeting the spring of my fiftieth year, I left my house and turned my back on the world. From the first I had no wife and no children, so there were no ties hard to abandon. I had no office and no stipend, so what should I cling to? Idly I lay in the clouds of Mount Ōhara, and how many springs and autumns did I pass there again?

Now, come to the time when the dew of sixty years is about to vanish, I have built once more a lodging like a last leaf. It is as if a hunter were making a shelter for a single night, or an old silkworm were spinning its cocoon. Compared with the dwelling of my middle years, this does not reach even a hundredth part.

While things went on so, my years leaned lower one after another and my dwelling grew narrower each time. The shape of this house is not like the usual sort. Its breadth is barely one jō square (方丈), and its height is under seven feet. Since I did not fix on a place, I did not claim ground and build there. I framed the base and thatched the roof, and at every joint I set a hook. This was so that, if anything should not suit my heart, I could easily move it elsewhere.

When I build it again, what trouble is there in it? What must be carried is barely two cartloads. Apart from paying for the cart, there is no other expense at all.

Now that I have hidden my traces deep in Mount Hino, I have put out a temporary awning on the south side and laid a veranda of bamboo, and to the west of it I have made an akadana (閼伽棚), a shelf for offering water. Inside, against the west wall, I have enshrined a painted image of Amida, and it takes the setting sun and makes it the light between his brows. On the doors of that hanging I have hung images of Samantabhadra and of Fudō Myōō. Above the paper screen on the north I have fitted a small shelf and set there three or four cases of black leather, holding selections of waka, of music for strings and winds, and of such works as the Ōjō yōshū. Beside them stand a koto and a biwa, one of each. These are what are called the folding koto and the jointed biwa.

Along the east side I have spread bracken shoots and laid straw matting, and made it my bed for the night. In the east wall I have opened a window, and here I have set out a desk. By my pillow there is a hearth, and it serves me as the means to break and burn brushwood. North of the hut I have claimed a little ground, fenced it with a rough low hedge and made it a garden, and there I have planted all sorts of medicinal herbs. Such is the state of this temporary hut.

To speak of the look of the place: on the south there is a bamboo pipe, and I have piled up rocks to hold the water. The wood is near the eaves, so there is no lack of brushwood to gather. The name of the place is Toyama (外山). Masaki vines bury the tracks. The valley is thick with growth, but the west is open. It is not without help for contemplating the Western Land.

In spring I look at the waves of wisteria. They are like purple clouds, and they give their scent in the west. In summer I listen to the cuckoo. Each time it calls, it makes a promise to go with me over the mountain road of death. In autumn the voices of the evening cicadas fill my ears. They sound as though they were grieving over this world, empty as a cicada's shell. In winter I look tenderly on the snow. The way it piles up and melts away may be likened to the burden of our sins.

When the calling of the Buddha's name grows wearisome to me, or the reading of the sutras is not done in earnest, I rest of myself and grow idle of myself, and there is no one to hinder me, nor any friend before whom to feel shame. Though I take no special vow of silence, living alone I come to govern the sins of the mouth. Though I do not resolve that I must keep the precepts, there is nothing around me to break them with, so with what should I break them?

Or on a morning when I give myself to the white waves left behind, I gaze from the hill at the boats coming and going and steal the mood of Man Shami (滿沙彌); or on an evening when the wind in the katsura trees sets the leaves sounding, I think of the Xunyang River and follow the manner of the Minamoto Commander. Or when the mood runs over, I often match "Autumn Wind" to the sound of the pines, and play "Flowing Spring" to the sound of the water. My skill is poor, but I do not mean to please the ears of others. I play alone and chant alone, and only nourish my own heart with it.