Sections 21–4021~40단

All things are consoled only when one looks at the moon. One person said, "There can be nothing so delightful as the moon," and another argued back, "It is the dew that moves the heart." That was amusing. When the moment touches us, what is there that does not move the heart?

The moon and the blossoms go without saying, and it is the wind above all that seems to take hold of a person's heart. The look of water breaking on the rocks and running clear is splendid in every season.

When I read the poem "The Yuan and the Xiang flow away eastward day and night, and for the grieving man they do not stay even a little while," it moved me. Ji Kang too said, "Roaming among mountains and marshes, seeing the fish and the birds, the heart takes joy." There can be nothing that consoles the heart like wandering far from people, where the water and the grasses are clean.

In everything it is only the old world that I long for. The fashions of today seem to grow utterly mean. Even a beautiful vessel made by a master of the woodworker's craft looks pleasing only in the ancient shape. As for the wording of letters, the old scraps of paper are splendid. The words we merely speak are becoming regrettable as well.

In old times people said, "Raise the carriage," "Lift up the light," but people of today say, "Take it up," "Draw it up." Where the Tonomoryo (主殿寮) should say, "Set out the full number of men," they say, "Make the torches bright"; and where the place of attendance at the Saishoko should be called "the hut of the imperial lecture (御講)," they call it "the lecture hut (講廬)." Regrettable, an old person said.

Though this is called a declining age at the end of the world, still the awesome aspect of the ninefold palace stands apart from the common world and is splendid. Words such as the Rodai (露臺), the Asagarei (朝餉), some hall (殿) and some gate (門) sound truly grand.

Even a small shutter window, a small plank floor, a tall sliding door, things that might be found in a shabby place as well, sound splendid there. "Make the night preparations at the guard post (陣)" is grand to hear. And of the night hall they say, "Quick with the lamps," and that too is splendid.

The way the senior noble (上卿) conducts affairs at the guard post goes without saying, and the underlings of the various offices, going about it with practiced, self-satisfied faces, are amusing as well. Through a night so cold, to see them dozing here and there is amusing.

"The sound of the bells at the Naishidokoro is splendid and graceful." So the Chancellor of Tokudaiji said.

The way the Saigu (齋宮) dwells at Nonomiya seemed to me the very height of grace and delight. It is charming too that they shun words like sutra (經) and Buddha (佛) and say "nakago" and "somegami" instead.

The shrines of the gods above all are hard to turn away from and full of grace. The look of an ancient grove is already out of the ordinary, and with a jeweled fence drawn around it and mulberry cloth hung on the sakaki, how could it not be splendid?

The finest of all are Ise, Kamo, Kasuga, Hirano, Sumiyoshi, Miwa, Kifune, Yoshida, Oharano, Matsunoo, and Umenomiya.

Since this is a world where the deeps and the shallows of the Asuka River are never the same, times shift and things pass away, joy and sorrow come and go; places once splendid become fields where no one lives, and houses that have not changed have changed their people. The peach and the plum do not speak, so with whom shall one talk of the old days? How much more fleeting are the traces of a noble past one never saw.

To look at Kyogokudono and Hojoji is moving: the will that raised them remains, but their form has changed. Midodono, Fujiwara no Michinaga, had them built and polished and had many estates attached to them, and he settled it in his mind that his house alone would be the guardian of the emperor and the pillar of the age, on into the far future. Could he have thought that in any age they would fade away as utterly as this?

The great gate and the golden hall stood until not long ago, but around the Showa years the south gate burned. The golden hall has lain fallen ever since, and no one takes it up again. Only the Muryojuin remains in its old form. Nine images of the Buddha, sixteen feet high, stand there side by side, most holy. The plaque of the Major Counselor Yukinari and the doors written by Kaneyuki can still be seen clearly, and that is moving. The Hokkedo and the rest seem to be standing yet. How long will these last?

In places that keep not even this much of a trace, sometimes only the foundation stones remain, but no one knows for certain whose they were. So it must be a vain thing to reckon and settle, in all matters, even the world one will not live to see.

When I think back on the years of long intimacy with the flower of a person's heart, which changes before the wind has even blown, I cannot forget a single word that once moved me; yet that one passes out of my world by the common course of things, and this is sadder than parting from the dead.

So there must have been those who grieved that white thread would take the dye, and who lamented that the roads part at the crossway. Among the hundred poems of Horikawa In:

The hedge of the one I saw long ago has gone to ruin / only violets remain, mixed with the thatch grass flowers

A lonely scene. Such a thing must indeed have been.

When the ceremony of yielding the realm is held, and the sword, the seal, and the Naishidokoro are handed over, the heart is lonely beyond all measure.

In the spring after the new retired emperor had stepped down, he composed this, they say.

The garden keepers and the servants in their train treat it as none of their affair / and in the unswept garden the blossoms fall and lie heaped

Buried in the many affairs of the present age, no one goes to wait upon the retired emperor, and that is desolate. It is at such a time that a person's heart shows itself.

There can be nothing so moving as the year of imperial mourning (諒闇). The look of the mourning lodge, with the plank floor set low and blinds of reed hung up, the cloth valance rough and plain, the furnishings sparse, and the dress of everyone, the long swords, even the sword cords, all unlike the usual, is solemn.

When I think quietly, it is the longing for all that has passed that I can do nothing about.

After the household has settled to sleep, to pass the long night I gather up odds and ends of household things; and among the scraps of paper I mean not to leave behind and so tear away, I come upon the writing practice or the idle drawings of one who is gone, and at once I feel just as I felt in those days.

Even a letter from someone now living, once it has grown old, makes me wonder on what occasion and in what year it was written, and that is moving. Household things worn by a familiar hand, which stay unchanged and last long without a heart in them, are deeply sad.

Nothing is so sad as the time after a person dies. Through the days of the middle state (中陰) the family moves out to a mountain village or the like, and crowded together in a cramped and awkward place they hurry through the rites that follow, their hearts restless. The way the days go by is like nothing else.

The last day is heartless. They say nothing to one another; each with a knowing look gathers up his things, and they scatter and go their separate ways. Only on returning to the house where the dead one lived do the sad things come in number. When someone says, "Such and such a thing you must by all means avoid, it is forbidden for the sake of the departed," one thinks, what does that matter at a time like this, and a person's heart seems pitiful indeed.

Years and months pass and one does not forget in the least, yet as the saying has it, "Those who are gone grow distant day by day." Even so, it seems it is no longer as it was at first, for people speak of idle things and laugh.

The body is laid away deep in a bleak mountain, and going there only on the proper days one sees that before long the stupa has grown moss, that fallen leaves have buried it, and that only the evening wind and the night moon are left to speak with it.

While there are still people who remember and long for the dead, it is well enough. But they too die before long, and the later generations, who only hear of it, will they be moved? And when even the visits to the grave have ceased, no one knows so much as the name of whose grave it is; only the spring grasses remain year after year, though one with a heart in him would look on them and be moved.

In the end the pine that sobbed in the wind is split for firewood without waiting out its thousand years, and the old grave is turned over and becomes a field. That even its shape should vanish is sad.

On a morning when the snow had fallen beautifully, I had something to say to a certain person and sent a letter, saying nothing at all about the snow. The reply came: "Am I to listen to what is said by one so perverse as not to write me a single line asking how I find this snow? Over and over, a regrettable heart you have." That was amusing.

That person is dead now, and even so small a thing as this is hard to forget.

Around the twentieth of the ninth month, I was invited by a person of rank, and we went about looking at the moon until daybreak. There was a place they remembered, and they had themselves announced and went in.

The garden was overgrown and heavy with dew, and a scent that had not been burned on purpose drifted quietly about; the air of someone living hidden away was deeply moving. They came out after a fitting while, but the manner of the place still seemed graceful to me, and I stayed a little to watch from the shadow of something. Then the door was pushed a little further open, and the one within seemed to be looking at the moon.

Had the one within barred the door at once, it would have been a pity. How could they know that someone was watching even after the visitor had gone? Such things depend on nothing but the care one keeps morning and evening.

I heard that the person died not long after.

When the present palace (內裏) had been built and was shown to those learned in court usage (有職), they found no fault anywhere, and the day of the emperor's removal was already near. Then Genkimonin looked at it and said, "The comb-shaped opening at Kanin dono was round and had no frame." That was splendid.

This one had been cut in the shape of a leaf and framed in wood, so it was judged an error and put right.

Kaiko (甲香) is the lid of a shell that is like a conch but smaller, with the part around the mouth drawn out slender and long. There was one at an inlet called Kanazawa in the province of Musashi, and the people of the place call it "henatari," I was told.

It is good when a person of poor hand writes letters freely, without holding back. To have another write for him because his own is unsightly is tiresome.

At a time when I had long sent no word, thinking how she must resent me, aware of my own neglect and feeling I had nothing to say, a message came from the woman's side: "If you have a servant to spare, send me one." That was rare and welcome.

"A person of such a turn of mind is good." Someone said this to me, and it is surely so.

When someone who has been close and unguarded morning and evening shows, on some occasion, a certain reserve toward me and seems to compose their manner, there are those who would say, "Why so, after all this time?" But still I feel, what an honest and fine person this is.

And when a person who has been distant speaks with an open heart, that too seems good.

To be driven by fame and gain, with no quiet leisure, and to torment oneself a whole life long, that is folly.

A man with much wealth is poor at guarding himself. Wealth is the go-between that buys him harm and calls down trouble. Though after his death he pile up gold enough to prop up the Northern Dipper, it will only be a burden to others. The pleasure of delighting foolish eyes is worthless as well. The great carriage, the fat horse, the ornaments of gold and jade, one with a heart in him will look on them as wretched and foolish. Gold should be thrown away in the mountains, and jade cast into the deep pool. To be led astray by gain is the mark of a singularly foolish man.

To leave a name unburied to the long ages is a thing one might well wish. But shall we call a man excellent merely because his rank is high and noble? A foolish and clumsy man may be born into a good house and meet his moment, and rise to high rank and carry his pride to the end. And great worthies and sages have often placed themselves in low station, failed to meet their moment, and so ended. To long for high office alone is the next degree of folly.

It is wisdom and heart by which one would leave a name excellent in the world; but thinking it over carefully, to love fame is to delight in what others say. Those who praise and those who slander alike do not remain in the world, and those who would hear of it at second hand will soon be gone as well. Before whom should one be ashamed, by whom should one wish to be known? Fame is moreover the root of slander. A name that remains after death is of no further use. To desire this is the next degree of folly.

Yet if I am to speak for those who insist on seeking wisdom and desiring worth: where wisdom comes forth there is falsehood, and talent is the growth of the passions. What is heard by report and known by study is not true wisdom. What then shall we call wisdom? Right and wrong are one thread. What then shall we call good?

The true man has no wisdom and no virtue, no merit and no name. Who shall know him, who shall hand him down? This is not hiding his virtue and keeping to folly; it is that from the first he does not stand within the bounds of wise and foolish, gain and loss.

To seek the essentials of fame and gain with a deluded heart comes to this. All things are wrong. They are not worth speaking of, not worth desiring.

When someone asked the holy man Honen, "When I say the nenbutsu I am overcome by sleep and neglect my practice. How am I to put an end to this hindrance?" he answered, "Say the nenbutsu for as long as your eyes are open." That was most holy.

Again he said, "As for rebirth in the Pure Land, if you think it is settled, it is settled; if you think it is not settled, it is not settled." This too is holy.

And he said, "Even while you doubt, if you say the nenbutsu you will be reborn there." This too is holy.

In the province of Inaba there was a daughter of a certain lay monk, and hearing that she was beautiful, many men courted her. But this woman ate only chestnuts and would not eat rice or anything of that kind at all, so her parents would not consent, saying, "Such an odd creature is not to be shown to anyone."