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Questioning Myself結び

Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut) 方丈記 · Kamo no Chōmei · 1212 (Japan, 2nd year of the Kenryaku era) · 2 passages · 423 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min

Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut) Complete in one volume "The flow of the river never ceases, and yet the water is not the water that was" — written eight hundred years ago by a man who lived through a great fire, a whirlwind, the moving of the capital, a famine and a great earthquake in Kyoto, one after another, and who then withdrew into a demountable hut one jō square. The record of the disasters becomes, just as it stands, a record of impermanence, and at the end he asks himself whether even the heart that loves that quiet is not a fault. Worth setting beside the Daodejing and the Dhammapada.

1Is even this delight not a fault?

そもそも一期の月影かたぶきて餘算山のはに近し。忽に三途のやみにむかはむ時、何のわざをかかこたむとする。佛の人を敎へ給ふおもむきは、ことにふれて執心なかれとなり。今草の庵を愛するもとがとす、閑寂に着するもさはりなるべし。いかゞ用なきたのしみをのべて、むなしくあたら時を過さむ。

And so the moon's shadow of one lifetime has leaned over, and what is left of my years is near the rim of the mountain. When all at once I face the darkness of the three evil paths (三途), what work of mine shall I complain of then?

The meaning of what the Buddha taught people is that in all things one should have no clinging. To love this hut of grass is a fault even now, and to be attached to stillness and quiet must also be a hindrance. Why should I set out these useless delights and idly spend the precious time that is left?

2A still dawn, and no answer

しづかなる曉、このことわりを思ひつゞけて、みづから心に問ひていはく、世をのがれて山林にまじはるは、心ををさめて道を行はむがためなり。然るを汝が姿はひじりに似て、心はにごりにしめり。すみかは則ち淨名居士のあとをけがせりといへども、たもつ所はわづかに周梨槃特が行にだも及ばず。もしこれ貧賤の報のみづからなやますか、はた亦妄心のいたりてくるはせるか、その時こゝろ更に答ふることなし。たゝかたはらに舌根をやとひて不請の念佛、兩三返を申してやみぬ。時に建曆の二とせ、彌生の晦日比、桑門蓮胤、外山の庵にしてこれをしるす。「月かげは入る山の端もつらかりきたえぬひかりをみるよしもがな」。

In the still dawn I follow out this reasoning and ask my own heart, saying: To flee the world and live among mountains and woods is done in order to govern the heart and practice the Way. And yet your figure is like a holy man's while your heart is steeped in defilement. Your dwelling, you may say, has sullied the traces of the layman Jōmyō (Vimalakirti), but what you hold to does not reach even the practice of Shurihandoku. Is this the recompense of poverty and low birth, which torments you of itself? Or is it that a deluded heart has come to its height and driven you mad?

At that my heart gave no further answer. It only hired the root of the tongue at my side, chanted the Buddha's name two or three times unbidden, and stopped.

It is around the last day of the third month in the second year of Kenryaku, and Renin (蓮胤), a monk, writes this in his hut at Toyama.

"The setting moonlight — even the rim of the mountain it entered was cruel to me / if only there were a way to see a light that never ends"

Contents The Savor of a Quiet Life ›Listen to this piece