Sections 41–6041~60단

On the fifth day of the fifth month I went to see the horse races at Kamo. Common folk stood in front of my carriage and blocked the view, so we all got down and went up to the palings. But the crowd was unusually thick, and there was no way to push through.

Just then, in a chinaberry tree across from us, a priest had climbed up and was sitting astride a fork of the branches, watching. He held on, and yet he dozed so heavily that each time he was about to fall he opened his eyes again, and this happened over and over.

The people who saw it sneered and marveled. "What a fool the world has here. How can he doze so easily on a branch as dangerous as that?" As the thought rose in my own heart I said, "The coming of our life and death may be this very moment. We forget it and pass our days looking at shows. The folly is the greater on this side." Then the people in front of me said, "It is truly so. We are foolish indeed," and they all looked back and said, "Please come here," and made room and called me in.

Who could not think out so plain a truth as this? But the moment being what it was, the feeling came unlooked for and struck home. A person is not a tree or a stone, so when the moment comes there are times when something moves him.

The son of a man known as the Middle Captain of Karahashi was a monk named Gyoga, of the rank of sozu (僧都), who taught kyoso (教相) to others. He had an illness in which the breath rose upward, and as the years gradually told on him the inside of his nose closed, so that it became hard even to breathe.

They treated it in many ways, but it only grew worse. His eyes and brows and forehead all swelled up and covered his face until he could see nothing, and he came to look like a Ninomai (二の舞) mask. He turned simply into a fearful demon's face. His eyes moved up toward the crown of his head, and the place of his forehead became his nose.

In the end he shut himself away, out of sight even of those within his own quarters, and after many years he grew worse still and died. So there are illnesses even of this kind.

Late in spring, under a calm and lovely sky, there was a house of no mean sort, deep within and old in its trees. The flowers fallen and withered in the garden were hard to pass by, so I stepped in to look. The lattices on the south side were all lowered and the place seemed lonely, but a hinged door facing east stood open just enough.

Looking in through a tear in the blind, I saw a man of clean features, about twenty years old, at ease in his dress yet with a quiet and graceful air, sitting with a book spread open on the desk before him, reading.

What sort of person was he? I should have liked to ask and know.

Out from within a rough bamboo lattice gate came a very young man. In the moonlight his colors were not clear, but he wore a glossy hunting robe and deep-dyed sashinuki, and looked most elegant.

He had one small boy with him, and they made their way along a narrow path in the middle of distant paddies, wet with the dew of the rice leaves. He played his flute as he went, beyond all praise. Thinking there could be no one here to hear it and know its beauty, I wished to learn where he was going, and followed him with my eyes as I walked. He stopped playing and went in through a main gate at the foot of the hills.

Even a carriage standing on its shaft-rest caught my eye more than it would have in the capital. I asked a servant, who said, "It is the season when such and such a prince is here. Perhaps there is a Buddhist service." Priests were going in toward the Buddha hall.

The scent of soradakimono (空薰物) carried on the cold night wind seemed to soak into me. Even the ladies-in-waiting who went back and forth from the main hall to the gallery of the Buddha hall took care for the fragrance they left behind them. They did not say this was a mountain village with no one to see, and gave it their thought all the same.

The autumn fields, grown thick as they pleased, were buried under more dew than they could hold. The voices of the insects sounded as if they had some grievance, and the garden stream ran with an easy sound. The clouds seemed to come and go faster than in the sky over the capital, and there was no telling when the moon would clear or cloud over.

The elder brother of Kinyo (公世) of the Second Rank, known as Ryogaku Sojo (僧正), was a man of a terribly bad temper.

Beside his quarters stood a great hackberry tree, so people called him "the Hackberry Sojo." Holding that this name would not do, he had the tree cut down. Its stump remained, so they called him "the Stump Sojo." Angrier still, he dug the stump out and threw it away, and the place where it had been became a great pond, so they called him "the Pond Sojo."

Near Yanagiwara there was a monk called the Robber Hoin. They say the name was given him because he had met with robbers again and again.

A certain person was going to worship at Kiyomizu, and an old nun went along with him. All the way she kept saying, "Kusame, kusame," so he asked, "Reverend nun, why do you say such a thing?" She did not answer, and she did not stop saying it.

Asked again and again, she grew angry and said, "Now then. They say that when someone sneezes, he will die unless one blesses him in this way. The young master I raised is at Mount Hiei as a page, and when I think that he may be sneezing at this very moment, that is why I say it."

It must have been a rare devotion.

When Lord Mitsuchika was serving as officer of the Retired Emperor's Saishoko, he was called before him, and food was brought out and given him to eat. He pushed the tray, with the food eaten and scattered on it, in through the blind, and withdrew.

The ladies-in-waiting said to one another, "How filthy. Who is meant to take this away?" But the Retired Emperor admired it again and again, saying, "It is the bearing of one versed in court usage (有職). A most excellent thing."

Do not wait until old age comes to begin practicing the Way. Old graves are for the most part those of young people.

Only when one falls ill unlooked for and is about to leave this world all at once does one first come to know that the road behind was a mistake. And the mistake is nothing else. It is the regret of having gone on putting off what should be done quickly, and hurrying what could be done slowly. What use is it to repent then?

A person should only fix it fast in his heart that impermanence has drawn near this body, and not forget it for a moment. Then how should the muddiness of this world not grow thin, and the heart that practices the Buddha's Way not become true?

A holy man of old, when someone came and spoke to him of pressing affairs of his own or of others, answered, "I have now a matter of great urgency. It is already upon me, morning and evening," and he stopped his ears and said the nenbutsu, and in the end he attained rebirth in the Pure Land. This is in the Juin (十因) of Zenrin.

A holy man called Shinkai thought so much on how fleeting this world is that he never once sat quietly at his ease, but was always crouching.

Around the Ocho era word went about that a woman who had become a demon had been brought up from the province of Ise. For some twenty days at that time the people of the capital and of Shirakawa went out day after day, wandering about to see the demon. They said to one another, "Yesterday it went to Saionji. Today it is to go to the Retired Emperor's. Just now it is at such and such a place."

There was no one who said he had truly seen it, and no one who said it was a lie. High and low, they would not stop talking of nothing but the demon.

About then I was going from Higashiyama toward Angoin, and from Shijo upward the people were all running north. They were shouting to one another, "There is a demon at Ichijo Muromachi." Looking out from near Imadegawa, I saw that around the Retired Emperor's viewing stand the crowd stood so thick that there was no getting through at all.

Thinking it could not be a thing with no ground at all, we sent someone to look, but there was no one at all who had met it. They surged about like this until dark, and at last quarrels broke out and there were shameful scenes.

About that time people everywhere fell ill for two or three days, and there were some who said, "That lie about the demon was showing this for a sign."

Wishing to draw the water of the Oi River into the pond at Kameyamadono, the Retired Emperor commanded the country people of Oi to make a water wheel. Much money was given them, and after some days they finished it and set it in place, but it would not turn at all. They repaired it this way and that, but in the end it never turned, and stood there to no purpose.

Then the villagers of Uji were summoned and set to make it, and they put it together with ease and presented it, and it turned as one would wish and drew the water up splendidly.

In all things, one who knows that road is a person to be honored.

At Ninnaji there was a priest who had grown old without ever worshiping at Iwashimizu. He felt this as a sorrow, and one day he made up his mind and went on foot, all alone, to worship. He worshiped at Gokurakuji and Kora and the like, took it that this was all there was, and went home.

Then he met someone beside him and said, "I have carried out what I have thought of for years. It was even holier than I had heard. But I wondered what it could have been that made every worshiper climb the mountain. I should have liked to know. Yet I thought that to worship at the shrine was my true purpose, so I did not go so far as to see the mountain."

Even in a small matter, one wants a guide who has gone before.

This too was a priest of Ninnaji. There was a gathering to mark the last of a page's days before he was to become a priest, and each of them made merry. Drunk and carried away with the fun, he took up a three-legged pot that stood nearby and pulled it over his head. It caught, so he pressed his nose flat and pushed his face in, and came out dancing. The whole company was delighted beyond measure.

After he had performed a while he tried to take it off, and it would not come off at all. The drinking party lost all its cheer, and they were at their wits' end what to do. As they struggled with it, the skin around his neck broke and bled, and it swelled and swelled until his breath was stopped. They tried to break the pot, but it would not break easily, and the ringing was more than he could bear.

There was nothing for it. They threw a single-layer robe over the three horns of the legs, led him by the hand and made him lean on a staff, and took him to a doctor in the capital. Along the way there was no end to the people who stared at the strange sight. What a sight it must have been when he went into the doctor's house and sat facing him. Even when he spoke, his voice rang muffled and could not be heard.

"A thing like this is not to be found in the books, and there is no teaching handed down for it," they were told, so they went back to Ninnaji. His close friends and his old mother and the rest sat down by his pillow and wept and grieved, but there was no knowing whether he heard them.

Meanwhile someone said, "Even if his ears and nose should be torn away and lost, why should his life alone not be saved? Only pull with all your strength." They pushed the butt ends of straw in around it to keep it off the metal, and pulled until his neck seemed about to come away, and it came off, with his ears and nose torn open and gone.

He barely won his life back, and lay ill for a long time.

At Omuro (Ninnaji) there was a most beautiful page, and there were priests who schemed how they might lure him out and make a day of it. They brought in some entertainer priests of skill, carefully prepared an elegant lunch box and such, packed it into a thing like a box, buried it at a convenient spot on Narabigaoka, and scattered maple leaves over it so that no one would think of it. Then they went to the palace and lured the page out.

Delighted, they wandered here and there at play, and then sat down in a row on that mossy seat. "How weary we are. Ah, if only there were someone to burn maple leaves for us. You holy priests, try your prayers and see if they have power," they said to one another, and turning toward the foot of the tree where they had buried it, they rubbed their rosaries and made signs with their hands with great show, and carried on grandly, and then brushed the leaves aside. But nothing at all was to be seen.

Thinking they had mistaken the place, they searched the hill until there was nowhere they had not dug, but it was not there. Someone had watched them bury it and had stolen it while they were away at the palace.

The priests had nothing to say. They quarreled and lost their tempers in a way painful to hear, and went home.

A thing one tries too hard to make amusing is bound to turn out dull.

A house should be built with summer in mind. In winter one can live anywhere. A poor dwelling in the hot season is hard to bear.

Deep water does not look cool. Shallow water running by is far cooler. For looking at small things, a sliding door is brighter than the space of a shutter. A high ceiling makes the winter cold and the lamp dim.

"In building, a room made for no use is both pleasant to look at and useful for all sorts of things," people said, as they settled the matter among themselves.

When someone you meet after a long parting tells you everything that has happened on his own side, one thing after another, leaving nothing out, it is dull.

Even with a person one has grown close to without reserve, is there no shyness in meeting again after a time? A person of the lower sort, even when he has only stepped out for a moment, says, "Something amusing happened," and tells it with delight without pausing for breath.

When a person of quality tells a story, though there are many present he speaks to one, and the others naturally listen. A person who is not of that sort throws it out to no one in particular in the midst of the crowd, and makes it sound as if it were before their eyes, so that they all laugh and shout alike. It is most unseemly.

One can measure a person's quality by whether he shows little delight at an amusing story, and whether he laughs heartily at one that is not.

When people are settling the good and bad of another's looks, or a learned person is discussing some matter, to drag oneself into it and speak of one's own case is very sad.

When the poem in a poem-tale that someone brings up is itself a poor one, it is a disappointment. Anyone who knows that road even a little would not tell it thinking it fine.

In general, to hold forth on a road one does not know in the least is painful to sit by and hard to listen to.

"If one has the heart of the Way, one is not bound by where one lives. Though one stays at home and mixes with people, what difficulty can there be in praying for the life to come?" Whoever says this is a person who knows nothing at all of the life to come.

If one truly holds this world to be fleeting and means without fail to escape birth and death, what pleasure could there be in serving one's lord morning and evening, and in the business of looking after a household? The heart is a thing that is drawn along by its ties and shifts, so without stillness the Way is hard to practice.

One's vessel does not reach that of the people of old. Even going into the hills and woods, one cannot live without some means of keeping off hunger and blocking the storm, so how should there not be things that look like coveting the world, when occasion offers? Yet to say for that reason, "There was no point in turning your back on it. If it comes to that, why did you give it up at all?" is utterly wrong.

Still, one who has once entered the Way and left the world behind is not to be likened to a man of power with his great greed, even if he has desires of his own. A paper quilt and a hemp robe, the getting of a single bowl, a soup of goosefoot — how much cost do these put on other people? What he seeks is easily had, and his heart must soon be satisfied.

And since there is that in his appearance which shames him, for all that, he grows far from evil and close to good in many things.

As a sign of having been born a person, what one should wish for is to escape the world by whatever means. If one labors only at coveting and does not turn toward enlightenment, is there anything at all to set one apart from the beasts?

One who has resolved upon the great matter must let go, just as they are, of the things that hang on his heart and are hard to shake off, without carrying them through to what he meant by them.

"When this is finished, in a little while." "Since I am about it, let me settle that matter too." "Will people not laugh at such and such a thing?" "Let me arrange it so there is no trouble later." "I have gone on this long, so how long can it be to wait for that?" "When things are no longer in confusion." Thinking in this way, the things one cannot shake off only pile up, there is no end to them, and the day of resolve never comes.

Looking at people in general, those with a little sense all seem to pass a whole lifetime on this "someday."

Does a person fleeing a fire close at hand say, "Wait a moment"? To save himself he does not look back at shame, and throws away his goods, and gets clear.

Does life wait for a person? Impermanence comes faster than water or fire bearing down, and is hard to escape. When that time comes, will one refuse to give up aged parents, small children, the favor of one's lord, the kindness of others, saying that they are hard to give up?

At Shinjoin there was a man of high wisdom called Joshin Sozu. He was fond of the thing called the taro head and ate a great many of them. Even in the seat of a lecture he would heap them high in a large bowl, set it by his knee, and read his books while he ate. When something ailed him he would shut himself away for seven days or fourteen days, calling it a cure, choose the best taro heads as he pleased, eat a great many more than usual, and heal every illness. He never gave any to others. He ate them entirely alone.

He was extremely poor, but when his master was dying he left him two hundred kan in cash and one set of quarters. He sold the quarters for a hundred kan, and setting aside thirty thousand hiki in all as taro head money, he left it with a man in the capital and drew it out ten kan at a time, and ate taro heads without stint. Since he put it to no other use, that money came at last to nothing.

"To come by three hundred kan of goods in his poverty, and to dispose of it like this — he is truly a rare man of the Way," people said.

This sozu once looked at a certain priest and gave him the name shiroururi. When someone asked, "And what might that be?" he said, "Such a thing I do not know myself. If there were one, it would look like this monk's face."

This sozu was handsome, strong, a great eater, and surpassed others in calligraphy, in learning, and in speech. He was a lamp of the law for his school, so he was held in high regard within the temple as well. But he was an odd fellow who made light of the world, did everything as he pleased, and never fell in with anyone.

Even when he went out in service and took his place at a banquet, he did not wait for the trays to be set before everyone. As soon as his own was set down he ate it alone, and when he wished to go home he rose alone and went. He did not keep to sai (斎) and hiji (非時) at the same hours as others, but ate when he wished to eat, in the middle of the night or at dawn, and when he was sleepy he shut himself in even by day. However great the matter at hand, he would not listen to what anyone said. Once awake, he would go without sleep for nights on end. He would clear his mind and walk about whistling, and his ways were far from ordinary. Yet people did not dislike him, and everything was allowed him.

Was it that his virtue had reached its height?