Paul McCarthy
The two acolytes were only two years apart in age—thirteen and fifteen. The elder was called Senjumaru, the younger Rurikōmaru. Each had been entrusted by his parents at an early age to Mt. Hiei, the great Buddhist monastery to the northeast of the capital, where no women were permitted access. There, an eminent monk took charge of the two boys’ upbringing. Senjumaru had been born into a prosperous family in the province of Ōmi, but circumstances arose that led to his being brought to the monastery when he was four. Rurikōmaru was actually the son of a Lesser Councillor at the Imperial Court; but he, too, for certain reasons, was taken to the holy mountain—the spiritual protector of the imperial capital—at the tender age of three, soon after being weaned from his wet nurse’s breast. Of course, neither of the boys had any clear memory of what had happened, nor any reliable evidence of their own families; there was merely talk and rumors from here and there. They had neither father nor mother, only the monk who had so carefully reared them. They relied on him as a parent and felt sure it was their destiny to enter the Way of the Buddha.
“You should regard yourselves as very lucky boys. If ordinary people yearn for their parents and long for their hometowns, it’s all the result of worldly passions and karmic attachments. But you two have known nothing of the world beyond this holy mountain and have no parents, so you’re free of the suffering that comes from worldly passions.” The monk often told them this, and indeed they felt grateful for their situation. Why, even the good holy man himself, before retreating to Mt. Hiei, had known the pangs of all kinds of desire in the world outside. He had engaged in meditation for a very long time before he was able finally to cut the bonds of attachment, it was said. And there were many among his present disciples who, although they listened to his lectures on the sutras each morning and evening, were still unable to conquer their passions, and mourned the fact. But the two of them, not knowing anything of the world, had been immune to the dreadful sickness of desire. They had learned that, once the passions were overcome, the fruit of enlightenment was one’s eventual reward. And here they were, free of those temptations from the very start! They eagerly looked forward to having their hair shaved off and taking the precepts of a monk, and in due course becoming true followers of the Way, just like their teacher. They were sure of it and spent their days in that hope.
Nonetheless, they had a certain innocent curiosity about the perilous outside world of passion and pain. Neither ever wanted actually to try living in such a sinful place, but they did think about it and imagine it from time to time. Their teacher and other elders told them that, of all the places in the defiled world, only the holy mountain where they now were gave some hint of the glories of the Pure Land to the West. The vast expanse of land stretching in all directions from the foothills of the holy mountain beneath the blue sky dappled with white clouds—that was the world of the five defilements so vividly described in the sutras. The two of them would stand on top of Mt. Shimei and look down toward where, they’d been told, their old homes were; they couldn’t help fantasizing, indulging in childish dreams.
One day Senjumaru, gazing toward the province of Ōmi, pointed at Lake Biwa shining beneath a faint purple haze and said to Rurikōmaru in the confident manner of an elder brother to a younger, “Well, that’s the ‘fleeting world’ everybody talks about, but what do you suppose it’s really like?”
“They say it’s a horrible place, full of dust and dirt, but when you look at it from here, the surface of that lake looks as clear as a mirror. Doesn’t it seem that way to you too?” said Rurikōmaru a bit timidly, as if afraid of being laughed at by his older friend for saying something stupid.
“Oh, but under the surface of that beautiful lake lives a dragon god, and on Mt. Mikami on the shore there’s a giant centipede that’s even bigger than that dragon! I’ll bet you didn’t know that. The world outside looks very pretty from up here, but if you once go down, you’d better be careful! That’s what our Master says, and I’m sure he’s right.” A knowing smile played about Senjumaru’s lips.
Another time Rurikōmaru was looking at the sky over the distant capital. He pointed at the ripples of gray roof tiles there in the lowlands, spread out before them like a landscape scroll. Wrinkling his brow in wonder, he said, “That’s part of the world outside, too, Senjumaru, but look at those wonderful halls and towers! They’re just as grand looking as the Hall of the Healing Buddha and the Great Lecture Hall here, don’t you think? What do you suppose those buildings are?”
“There’s a palace there where the emperor of all Japan lives. It’s the grandest, noblest place in the whole outside world. But for someone to live there, to be born as a Ruler with the Ten Virtues, he’d have to pile up an awful lot of merit in his former lives. That’s why we have to practice so hard on the mountain here and let the roots of goodness grow deep down inside us.”
Senjumaru did his best to encourage the younger child. But neither the encourager nor the encouraged found his curiosity to be easily or fully satisfied by this kind of exchange. According to their Master, the world outside was nothing but delusion. The scenes they viewed from the mountaintop, though they might seem lovely, were like moonlight reflected on the surface of the water, mere shadows, or foam on the sea. “Look at the clouds above the mountaintop,” their Master would say. “Seen from afar, they seem as pure as snow, as bright as silver; but if you were in the midst of them, you’d find they aren’t snow or silver but just dense mist. You boys know what it’s like to be wrapped in the clouds of mist that rise from the valleys here on the mountain, don’t you? The world outside is just like those clouds.”
The boys felt almost convinced by their Master’s helpful explanations, but not quite. Their greatest source of unease was the fact of never having actually seen the creature they called “a woman”—some sort of human being that lived in the outside world and was held to be the source of almost every calamity.
“They say I was only three when I came to the mountain, but you were out in the world until you were four, weren’t you? So you must be able to remember something about it. Never mind about other women—you can remember something about your own mother, can’t you?”
“Sometimes I try to remember how she looked, and I’m almost at the point of being able to, but then a kind of curtain seems to come between us. It’s so frustrating! I just have some vague impressions of the way her warm breasts felt against my tongue and the sweet smell of her milk. Women have these soft, full, rounded breasts, completely different from anything on a man’s body—that much I do know. Memories of those things keep coming back, but the rest is vague, remote, like things that happened in a former life . . .”
At night, the two boys had whispered conversations like these as they lay side by side in the room next to their Master’s.
“If women are supposed to be devils, why should they have such soft breasts?” wondered Rurikōmaru.
“You’re right . . . How could a devil have nice, soft things like that?” echoed Senjumaru, bending his head a little to one side, as if starting to doubt his own memories.
Both of them should have been well aware, from the sutras they’d been studying since early childhood, of what ferocious creatures women were, but they were quite unable to imagine what form their ferocity took. There were the lines from the Sutra of King Udayana: “Women are the worst workers of evil. They bind men and lead them through the gates of sin.” And in the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra: “One can take up a sword against an enemy and conquer him, but much harder yet is it to prevent the tribe of women from harming one.” So, then, women must be like robbers who bind men’s hands behind their backs and drag them off to some sinister place. Then again there was the passage in the Nirvana Sutra: “Woman is the Great Demon King, capable of devouring men in their entirety.” So perhaps women were monstrous beasts, larger and more fearsome than lions or tigers. And if the words of the Great Treasure Store of Sutras were true, where it says “One glance at a woman can mean the loss of all innocence in the eye. Better to look at a great serpent than on a woman,” then the latter must be some kind of reptile that spits out poison from its body, like the huge pythons that lived in the depths of the mountains. Senjumaru and Rurikōmaru sought out fresh passages concerning women in many different sutras, then compared notes and exchanged opinions.
“You and I had two of these ‘evil women’ for mothers—they even cradled us on their laps! Yet we managed to come through it all right. So maybe women aren’t like wild beasts and huge snakes that swallow people whole and spit out poison, after all.”
“It says in the Treatise on Consciousness Only that ‘Women are messengers from Hell,’ so they must be even more terrifying than wild beasts and snakes to look at. We were very lucky not to have been killed by them!”
“But do you know the rest of that passage?” interrupted Senjumaru. “‘Women are messengers from Hell, in whom the seeds of the Buddha have long since been destroyed. Their outward appearance is like unto a bodhisattva, but their inner nature is like unto a demon.’ Well, then, even if inside they’re demons, they must have beautiful faces! The proof is that a merchant who came to worship here the other day was staring at me in a kind of trance and muttered to himself that some of these acolytes were as pretty as any girl.”
“Me too! There’ve been lots of times when the older monks teased me for looking ‘just like a girl.’ I thought they meant I looked like a devil and got so upset that I started crying once. But then someone said I shouldn’t cry, they just meant I had a bodhisattva’s face. I’m still not sure if I was being praised or blamed.”
The more they talked to each other like this, the less they could grasp what sort of being a woman really was. Even on the holy mountain, sacred as it was to the memory of the founder, Dengyō Daishi, there were poisonous snakes and powerful wild animals. It was just like the world outside in that when spring came the bush warblers sang and flowers bloomed, while in winter the trees and grasses withered and snow fell. The only difference was that there was not a single woman anywhere. But if the Buddha disliked women so much, how could they look like bodhisattvas? And why were women more dangerous than great serpents if their faces were so beautiful?
“If the world outside is an illusion, then women must be beautiful illusions too. And because they’re illusions, ordinary, unenlightened men are led astray, like travelers in deep mountain country who get lost in the mists.” Having thought about the matter carefully, the two boys came to this conclusion. A beautiful illusion, a beautiful nothing, that’s what a woman was. This was the only conclusion that could satisfy them and calm their minds.
Now the younger Rurikōmaru’s curiosity was a passing, whimsical thing, like the fancies of a young child about some fairyland. But something much stronger than mere curiosity lay coiled in his older friend’s breast. Night after night Senjumaru gazed at the innocent face of the boy lying fast asleep across from him and wondered why he alone had to undergo such torments. He couldn’t help envying the other his innocence. And when he did manage to close his eyes, images of women of every kind floated before him so vividly that his whole night’s sleep was disturbed. At times they appeared as buddhas with the thirty-two signs of sanctity and seemed to embrace him in a purple-golden radiance; at others, they took the form of demons from the Aviçi Hell about to burn him up with tongues of flame that blazed from the tips of their eighteen horns. Sometimes, covered in a cold sweat, he would be wakened from his nightmares by Rurikōmaru and would start up from his bed in terror.
“You were moaning and saying strange things in your sleep! Were you being attacked by some evil spirit?”
When Rurikōmaru asked him this, Senjumaru would bow his head in distress and say, his voice shaking a little, “I was being attacked by women in my dreams.”
As the days passed, the look on Senjumaru’s face, his gestures and movements, gradually lost any trace of a child’s natural liveliness and simplicity. Whenever he had the chance of doing so unobserved by Rurikōmaru, he would stand in the inner sanctuary of the Great Lecture Hall and gaze dreamily at the lovely faces of the bodhisattvas Kannon and Miroku, lost in his own thoughts.
At such times a line from the Treatise on Consciousness Only, “Their outward appearance is like unto a bodhisattva,” would fill his mind. Even if their inner selves were fiendish, even if their appearance was unreal, if there lived in the world human beings like the bodhisattvas worshiped in the many halls and pagodas of the holy mountain, what a grave sort of beauty they must possess! As he thought this, he found his fear of women fading; all that remained was a strange kind of longing. He spent his days dreamily wandering among the sacred halls—the Hall of the Healing Buddha, the Lotus Hall, the Chapel of the Ordination Platform, the Chapel of the Mountain King—gazing at the holy images, the central ones with their attendant statues and the host of carved angels that flew along the beams. He no longer indulged in speculation about women with his younger friend. The word woman came to Rurikōmaru’s lips as easily as before, but now, for him, such talk had come to seem strange, and deeply sinful.
“Why can’t I treat the whole business of women innocently, like Rurikōmaru? Why do evil fantasies of women come to mind even when I worship the sacred images of the buddhas there in front of me?”
Perhaps this was what was meant by “worldly passions” . . . The very thought made his skin crawl. He had been relying on the Master’s assurance that there were no seeds of passion to be found on the holy mountain, yet had he himself not become a prisoner of the passions? All the more reason, then, to reveal his troubles to the Master. But a voice whispered over and over in his ear, “Do not reveal yourself so easily!” His troubles were painful, but at the same time sweet. He wanted to keep them all to himself, somehow.
It happened in the spring of the year that Senjumaru turned sixteen and Rurikōmaru fourteen. The mountain cherries were in full bloom in the five valleys that surrounded the Eastern Precinct, and among the young green leaves that enfolded the forty-six hermitages, the sounds of the monastery bells were muffled by an atmosphere that was somehow heavy and oppressive. One day at dawn the two boys were on their way back from an errand they’d been sent on by the Master to the high priest of Yokawa. They had stopped to rest a while, sitting in the shade of a cryptomeria in a place where passersby were few. Senjumaru let out a great sigh from time to time, gazing intently at the morning mist as it rose from the bottom of Paradise Valley and flowed up to join the clouds above the mountaintop.
“You must think I’ve been acting strangely lately,” he said suddenly, turning an unsmiling face toward his young friend. “Ever since we talked about the world outside, I’ve been worried about this matter of women; I think about it all the time. I don’t want to actually meet a woman, but, to my shame, I find that when I kneel before the image of the Tathagata, no matter how hard I try to pray, images of women keep flitting before my eyes, with hardly a moment when I can concentrate on the Buddha. I’m disgusted with myself!”
Rurikōmaru was surprised to see tears flowing down Senjumaru’s cheeks. It must be serious, he thought, if his friend was so distressed. Still, he couldn’t understand how the problem of women could cause him so much pain.
“You won’t be ordained for another year or two,” continued Senjumaru, “but the Master said that I was to become a monk this year. But what’s the point of taking a vow to follow the path to enlightenment in this shameful state of mind? Even if I practiced the six bodhisattva virtues and kept the five major precepts, this obsession of mine would ensure that I was never released from the round of birth and rebirth, to the end of time. Women may be just a sort of mirage, like a rainbow in the empty sky. But fools like me have to go right into the clouds to see for themselves that the rainbow is unreal; they won’t learn just from listening to well-meaning advice. And that’s why I’ve decided to slip away from the mountain just once before my ordination and see for myself what this creature they call woman is really like. Only in that way can I hope to understand the nature of the illusion. And then the obsession will vanish—in a flash—I’m sure of it!”
“But won’t the Master be very angry with you?”
Senjumaru’s determination to go and discover the real nature of women so as to dispel the clouds of delusion in his mind touched Rurikōmaru deeply. He felt uneasy, though, at letting his only friend face the perils of the outside world alone. What would he do if he encountered the dragon god of Lake Biwa or the giant centipede of Mt. Mikami? Would he not perhaps be bound hand and foot by some woman and dragged into a dark cellar somewhere? And if by chance he should return alive, would he be allowed to stay on the holy mountain after breaking the Master’s strict rule never to leave it without his permission?
Senjumaru’s answer to all this was clear and firm: “Of course I realize that there are all sorts of dangers waiting for me on the outside. But to be caught on the fangs of some wild animal or the blade of a bandit would also be a way of following the Law. Wouldn’t it be better to lose my life than to continue being tormented by these passions? Besides, from what the older monks say, it seems the capital is only a journey of two leagues from here, so if I leave early in the morning, I might be back by a little past noon. And if the capital seems too far, I can just go to Sakamoto at the foot of the mountain. They say you can see women there too. If I can get away for just half a day without the Master noticing, I should be able to see my plan through. And even if I’m found out later, I’m sure the Master will be pleased to learn that these obstacles on the path to my enlightenment have been removed. I appreciate your worrying about me, but please don’t try to stop me. My mind is made up.”
Senjumaru looked at the disc of the sun as it rose, gliding through the dawn mists that hung over the surface of Lake Biwa, spread out beneath them. Laying a hand on Rurikōmaru’s shoulder, he said to him soothingly, “And today is the perfect chance for it. If I leave now, I can be back by two or so. I’ll return safe and sound, you just wait and see, with some interesting tales to tell you this evening.”
“If you really are going, then take me with you,” said Rurikōmaru, weeping. “With luck, you should come back safely, but even if it is only a half day’s journey, something might happen to you. Who knows when we might meet again? You say you’re ready to give your life if you have to: how can I say goodbye to you like this? it’s too unkind! And what if the Master asked me where you went—what could I answer? If I’m going to be scolded anyway, I’d rather leave the mountain with you. If it’s ‘following the Law’ for you, why then, it’s the same for me!”
“No. My mind is chained in darkness, yours isn’t. We’re as different as charcoal and snow. You’re as pure as crystal; there’s no need for you to test your faith in ways that put you in danger. If something happened to you, what excuse could I ever offer to our Master? If it were some amusing place I was going to, I’d never leave you behind, but the outside world is a disgusting, terrifying sort of place. If all goes well and I come back, the scales will have fallen from my eyes and I’ll be able to tell you all about it, in detail, so you’ll understand the meaning of illusion without having to see the outside world yourself. Just stay here and wait. If the Master asks anything, say you wandered off on a mountain path and lost sight of me.”
Senjumaru drew closer to Rurikōmaru and pressed his cheek sadly against the younger boy’s, remaining like that for some time. To leave behind—even for a short while—the holy mountain and this friend from whom he’d never been parted was both a painful and a daring thing to do. He felt something akin to the excitement of a warrior going into battle for the first time. The fear that he might actually die and the hope that he could win through and return victorious swirled within him.
Two, then three days passed, but Senjumaru did not return. Fearing that he might have tumbled into one of the mountain gorges and died there, his fellow acolytes and monks split up into several parties and set out in all directions, scouring the mountain for traces of him, but in vain.
“Master, I’ve done a very wicked thing: I lied to you the other day.” Rurikōmaru prostrated himself before the Master and confessed how for the very first time he’d broken the commandment against false speech. It was about ten days after Senjumaru had disappeared. “I was lying when I said I lost sight of Senjumaru on the way back from Yokawa. He isn’t anywhere on the mountain now. I know it was wrong of me to tell an outright lie, even if someone asked me to. Please forgive me. Oh, why didn’t I stop Senjumaru from ever leaving?” The boy lay flat on the floor, his body shaking with sobs of remorse.
He had looked on Senjumaru as his elder brother and now where was he? Was he sleeping among the tufts of moor grass somewhere, wet with dew? He’d firmly promised to come back within half a day, so something must have happened to him. Knowing this, it made no sense to be searching the mountain when they ought to be combing the world outside instead. And if he had fortunately survived, Rurikōmaru hoped they’d save him from that fearful world without delay. These were his feelings as he decided to risk a harsh scolding and tell the Master everything about Senjumaru’s motives for leaving the mountain.
“Well, it’s like tossing a pebble into the ocean. There’s no telling what might have become of him, out there in the world.” The Master had closed his eyes and taken a deep breath before speaking slowly, with great concentration, so as to impress the gravity of the situation on the lad. “Still, you did well not to be misled yourself and to stay on the mountain. You’re the younger of the two, but your character has always been different from Senjumaru’s. It’s a matter of breeding, I suppose.”
Senjumaru’s parents, though well-to-do, came from peasant stock, while Rurikōmaru was the scion of an aristocratic family that served at court. The word breeding had often been used when people drew comparisons between the two boys, in looks or temperament. Rurikōmaru had heard it himself before but now for the first time from the Master’s own lips.
“It was wicked of him to break the rules and decide on his own to go, but I daresay he’s paying for his foolishness now, so I feel sorry for him too. He may have been eaten by wild dogs or attacked by bandits—I’m sure something bad has happened to him. Perhaps we should assume he’s no longer of this world and offer up prayers for his soul. You, at any rate, must be careful never to give way to worldly passions. Let Senjumaru’s fate be a lesson to you!” The Master looked into Rurikōmaru’s large, lively eyes and gently patted him on the back, as if to say, “What a good, clever lad you are!”
From then on, each night Rurikōmaru had to sleep alone in the room right next to the Master’s. “I’ll be back soon,” Senjumaru had said when they parted, and then he had gone off toward Yase along a rugged, almost untraveled mountain path, so as not to be seen by anyone. Night after night in his dreams Rurikōmaru saw that receding figure growing smaller and smaller, vanishing in the distance. Looking back, he felt a certain guilt at not having forced Senjumaru to give up his plan, so likely to lead to his death. Yet, had he gone with him then, what disaster might have awaited him? The thought made him bless his own good fortune. “The Buddha was protecting me. From now on I’m going to do whatever my Master says, so as to become in the end as pure in heart as any holy man should be. Then I’ll pray constantly for Senjumaru’s salvation.”
Rurikōmaru vowed this repeatedly to himself. If he really did have the sort of gifts the Master was always praising him for, then he would surely be able to endure every sort of hard and painful practice, finally awakening to the truth of the Dharma Realm of Suchness and attaining the state of Wondrous Enlightenment. The very thought made the flame of faith blaze up within his earnest young mind.
At last autumn came. A half year had passed since Senjumaru left the mountain. The loud whirring of cicadas that had filled the mountainsides had been replaced with the melancholy sound of the higurashi, or “evening cicada,” and the leaves of the forest trees grew gradually yellower. One evening after vespers Rurikōmaru was descending the stone stairway that led from the Monju Pavilion, going to his quarters, when he heard someone calling to him from the top of the stairway in a low, hesitant voice: “Excuse me, but might you be Rurikōmaru? I’ve come with a message for you from my master, from the village of Fukakusa in Yamashiro. I was told to hand this letter to you directly.” The man, half hidden in the shadows of the pavilion gate, beckoned to him, making many little bows and revealing in a meaningful fashion the edge of a letter that he had concealed in his kimono sleeve. “Don’t worry, it’s all explained here. My master told me to show you this letter, in private if possible, and bring back your reply.”
Rurikōmaru looked at the fellow suspiciously, a man of about twenty with scraggly whiskers and the lowly manner of a servant. He took the letter, though, and looked at the writing on the front. “Why, it’s Senjumaru’s hand!” he cried despite himself. The man, trying to quiet him, went on to say, “Yes, it’s true. It’s good you haven’t forgotten. The sender of this letter is indeed Senjumaru, your good friend and now my master. This past spring, soon after leaving the mountain, he fell into the clutches of a slave trader, and had a very hard time. But his luck hadn’t run out, for just two months ago he was sold to be the servant of a rich man in Fukakusa. His gentle looks won the heart of the rich man’s daughter, and now he’s the son-in-law of the family, with everything he could desire.
“And so I’ve brought you this letter which will tell you all about the world outside, just as my master promised. It’s not at all the terrifying place he thought it was when he was on the holy mountain. Women aren’t like snakes or wild animals at all. No, they’re prettier than the flowers of spring and as loving as the Buddha. It’s all explained in detail in this letter.
“My master Senjumaru is loved by a lot of other women, too, not only that rich man’s daughter. Tomorrow it’s off to Kamizaki, today to Kanishima and Eguchi—he wanders about here and there, attended by a crowd of courtesans more beautiful even than the twenty-five bodhisattvas. He passes his days in pleasure, like a butterfly in springtime, fluttering over the fields and hills. And here you are, knowing nothing about what the world out there has to offer, leading a dreary life on this mountain. My master feels sorry for you; he wants you to come to Fukakusa, if possible, and share his happiness, for old times’ sake. I can see for myself that you’re an even better-looking and more charming young acolyte than my master must have been. It’s a terrible waste for you to spend your life up here. Just think how admired and wanted someone with your looks would be if you went out into the world! Anyway, please read this letter and see whether or not I’m telling the truth. And then by all means come with me to Fukakusa. I have to leave now for Katata Bay in the province of Ōmi, but I’ll be back here by dawn tomorrow. Think it over carefully till then, and when you’ve decided, wait for me beneath this gate, taking care that no one sees you. I promise that nothing bad will come of this. And nothing would make my master happier than to see you return with me!”
Looking at the man’s smiling face, Rurikōmaru felt somehow afraid. He hadn’t had time fully to taste the joy of this unexpected message from the friend he’d not seen for six months; and now this grave proposition, which might well determine the rest of his life, was suddenly thrust before him. It seemed for a while as if he couldn’t breathe, as if his eyes had grown dim. He stood there trembling, rooted to the spot.
I don’t know where to begin or where to stop, trying to describe all that’s happened to me since that day, the letter began. I’d have liked to go to the holy mountain myself so I could see you again after so long and tell you everything in person. But for one who has broken the monastic rules, the lofty summit of the One Vehicle of Salvation towers too high above me to look upon; and the valley of the One Taste of Truth lies too deep for me to approach. . . .
Rurikōmaru stood there blankly, hardly knowing what he was doing. He held the letter loosely in one hand, hurriedly reading a sentence here, a sentence there.
During all the time that has passed since I left, promising to return within half a day, you must have thought I’d deceived you. That thought fills me with pain and regret. I never had any such intention. I was on my way back that evening and had already reached Kiraragoe when suddenly a man rushed at me from the shadows. I found myself being gagged and blindfolded and dragged who knows where. Horrified, I thought that the Buddha’s punishment had been swift indeed, that I’d be taken alive across the River of the Dead to experience the eight torments of Hell!
But, although there were praiseworthy lines like those above, there was also one beginning boldly with the words “It’s a sheer delight!” which seemed to hold neither gods nor buddhas in awe.
The truth is, the outside world is not a dream, not an illusion. It’s a sheer delight—in fact a paradise, the Western Pure Land here on earth. I have no use any more for the doctrine of “Three Thousand Phenomena in a Single Thought” or for the meditation on “The Perfect Interpenetration of the Three Truths.” Believe me, the joy of being just a common layman involved with the passions is infinitely preferable to being an ascetic practicing the “Perfect and Sudden Way” to enlightenment. I urge you to change your way of thinking and come down from the mountain at once.
Could this really be Senjumaru speaking? Senjumaru, who had been so devout, who had hated the very sound of the word passion—could these really be his thoughts? The sacrilegious comments that filled the letter, the strangely excited tone, the enthusiasm that seemed somehow overwrought, all aroused a feeling of revulsion in Rurikōmaru, yet at the same time, and to an equal degree, they caused the curiosity about the outside world that had been building inside him for a long time to well up.
Tomorrow morning will do very well, so please think it over carefully. It goes without saying that you mustn’t speak of this to anyone. Everything the monks on that mountain tell you is a pack of lies. They’ll say anything to an innocent lad like you to make you give up any thought of the greater world outside. Anyway, take a good look at this letter and then decide for yourself. All right?
The servant could see from the look on Rurikōmaru’s face that he was hesitant and suspicious, so he spoke to him again in a reassuring manner; then, with several hurried little bows, he ran down the steps.
Even so, Rurikōmaru could not stop trembling. The man had left behind a burden so heavy that it overwhelmed the heart of this innocent, serious-minded youth. His whole future would depend on the reply he had to give by the next morning. This was the first time he had ever had to make such a great decision for himself. That realization itself made his heart pound uncontrollably.
That night, overcome by anxiety and excitement, he was incapable of calmly considering the problem with which he’d been presented. He decided to wait until he was feeling calmer and then try again to read that strange letter filled with the most amazing revelations about the long-hidden secret of “women.” Leaving it sitting on his desk, he closed his eyes and earnestly prayed to the Buddha. The letter brought news of his beloved friend, yet it made him feel angry and resentful since it amounted to a surprise attack on his determination to devote himself to the most intense religious training and to accrue merit in accordance with the karmic relations he had established.
“If I read it again, it will lead me astray. Wouldn’t it be better to burn it?” he asked himself. But the next minute he laughed at his own cowardice: “I’m not such a weakling that I need to be so afraid!” Whether he was to be led astray or not depended solely on the will of the Buddha. Senjumaru claimed that the world outside was not an illusion, but how far was he to be believed? How much of it was mere temptation? And if he couldn’t resist that kind of temptation, hadn’t he already been abandoned by the Buddha? A sneaking curiosity that kept raising its head left him unable to resist asking such questions and making such excuses.
It is hard to convey the gentleness and beauty of women, either in words or pictures. To what shall I compare them? . . . Just yesterday I embarked at Yodo harbor and went to a place called Eguchi where from the houses along the riverbank came a throng of courtesans paddling their little boats toward us. It seemed like Seishi Bodhisattva’s descent from Paradise, or an apparition of the Willow Kannon: I was filled with joy and gratitude! Before long they surrounded our boat and began singing popular songs so gaily that I begged them to sing one for me—any one would do. Then one of the women, beating time on the gunwale of the boat, sang, “Even holy Shakamuni / Who went from passion to perfect peace / Once knew the mother of his son / Ragora, ’tis said.” Over and over she sang it, so entertainingly . . .
Throughout this passage Senjumaru seemed to be doing his utmost to destroy Rurikōmaru’s devotion to the Way. It was a shout of joy and praise from a youth who for the first time in his sixteen years of life had been shown what the world could be. In one part of the letter, Senjumaru became ecstatic; in another, he railed against the Master who had deceived him for so long; in another, he vowed eternal friendship for Rurikōmaru, his childhood companion, and urged him to leave the mountain. Rurikōmaru felt he had never been so impressed by anything he’d ever read, not even the words of sacred scripture.
The Pure Land of Perfect Bliss, believed to be billions of worlds away, lies just below your mountain, and living bodhisattvas in great numbers are waiting to welcome you there at any time.
What reason was there for continuing to doubt this amazing fact? Senjumaru hadn’t actually mentioned them, but there must be kalavinka birds and parrots and peacocks filling the air with their cries. There would be pavilions made of mother-of-pearl and agate, stairways of gold and silver and garnet. A wondrous world of fantasy abruptly rose before Rurikōmaru’s eyes, as in a fairy tale. Why should it be an obstacle to enlightenment to spend a while in such a pleasant world? Why should the Master have such contempt for it and try to keep them all away from it? He wanted to know the reason he had to overcome this “temptation” if he was to try to overcome it.
He spread the letter out in the dim lamplight and read it over and over again. That whole night he spent in thought, without a moment’s sleep. He struggled to find some means of denying the facts in the letter, taxing his knowledge and powers of understanding to their limits. He tried listening to the voice of conscience and seeking guidance from the Buddha, to a degree that anyone would find commendable. In the end, there was nothing to keep him from taking the final step apart from his attachment to his accustomed life in the monastery and his blind faith in the precepts of his Master. But those two things had an unexpectedly strong hold on his mind. If he were to fight off the desire to leave the mountain, he would have to strengthen those two feelings to the utmost.
“So, am I willing to believe Senjumaru and deny the teachings of the Buddha, the precepts of my Master? To go so far as to call the Buddha and my Master liars? Do I honestly think that will be the end of it?” he muttered aloud. The fleeting world outside must surely be a pleasant place, as Senjumaru said. But would it do to cast aside in one morning the firm faith he had built up over fourteen years for the sake of such diversions? Had he not recently made a vow to endure the harshest, most painful ascetic practices? Even if he could have worldly pleasures in this life, wouldn’t he have to endure pains ten or twenty times as great if, incurring the Buddha’s displeasure, he fell into the fires of Hell in the next life?
The word breeding suddenly came to mind. He and Senjumaru had had different characters since earliest childhood. He knew the Buddha was protecting him. It was that, surely, that had made him think of retribution in the next life just now. So long as there was a next life, how could he fail to fear the prospect of punishment? It was because there was hope of a life to come that the Master had forbidden them the pleasures of this life. Senjumaru, it seemed, did not believe; but he would—he would believe in the next life, and in perdition. That itself would demonstrate the superiority of his character. When the Master praised him, wasn’t he referring precisely to that?
These thoughts descended on Rurikōmaru like a revelation from Heaven. At first it was like lightning flashing, then as if the waves of the sea were gradually spreading, washing over his soul, filling his body to overflowing. He felt refreshed, like someone moved by the clear sounds of music; it seemed to him the sort of heightened religious emotion that only an ascetic who has entered the realm of samadhi could experience. Rurikōmaru found himself folding his hands in prayer to the unseen Buddha and saying in his heart again and again, “Forgive me, please, for being foolish enough to give in to the temptations of this life even for a little while and being willing to throw away the rewards of the world to come. I promise never again to allow those wicked thoughts to arise the way I did tonight, so please forgive me.”
No, no matter what, he would not be misled by anyone. If Senjumaru wanted to indulge in worldly pleasures, let him do so on his own. And then let him fall headfirst into the Aviçi Hell in the next life and suffer there for endless aeons. And Rurikōmaru, meanwhile, would travel to the Western Pure Land and gaze down from on high on Senjumaru crying in torment. His faith was now unshakable, regardless of what anyone said. He had stopped himself in the nick of time; now he was safe, now there was nothing to worry about.
As Rurikōmaru arrived at this resolution, the long autumn night grew gradually lighter, and the clear sound of the bell calling them to early matins was heard. With a mind many times more tense than usual, he respectfully presented himself in the chamber of his Master, who seemed just to have awakened.
Now the man sent by Senjumaru had been waiting beside the stone steps leading to the Monju Pavilion since before dawn. But, although Rurikōmaru did meet him there, the boy’s reply was an unexpected one: “For reasons of my own, I’ve decided not to leave the holy mountain, despite the attractions of life elsewhere. I’d rather have the blessing of the Buddha than the love of women.” He drew the letter from the night before out of the folds of his kimono and went on: “Tell your master that I hope to gain peace in the next life, even if I have to suffer in this one . . . And this letter will disturb my peace of mind, so please take it back with you.”
The man blinked his eyes in amazement and seemed about to say something when Rurikōmaru hurriedly threw the letter on the ground and set off toward the monastery without so much as a backward look.
And so winter came on. “You’ll be fifteen next year, and when I think of what happened to Senjumaru, it seems best for you to take your full vows as soon as possible, in the spring,” said the Master.
However, Rurikōmaru’s mind had been disturbed by the letter from his old friend, and he was unable to maintain his serenity for very long—he had merely repressed his feelings in a burst of religious fervor. Gradually he, too, began to share the obsessions that had so troubled Senjumaru. The time came when, like his friend, he, too, would see the forms of women in his dreams and feel bewitched by the images of the bodhisattvas in the chapels and pagodas. He even began to wish he hadn’t returned Senjumaru’s letter that day. There were days when he became aware of himself waiting for the messenger from Fukakusa to come again. He was afraid to let the Master see his face.
Nonetheless, he still had faith in the divine protection of the Buddha, and he was not about to act as rashly as Senjumaru had. So one day he presented himself reverently before the Master and confessed: “Master, have pity on me—forgive me my folly. I can’t laugh at Senjumaru’s action any more. Teach me the way to put out the flames of passion and make my fantasies of women disappear. I will endure even the harshest rites to be free of them.”
“It took courage for you to confess this to me,” said the Master. “Your intentions are admirable. You’re a fine young acolyte, I assure you. Whenever those evil thoughts begin to arise, you must seek the Buddha’s compassion through wholehearted prayer. For the next twenty-one days, you are to purify your body with cold water each day without fail and seclude yourself in the Lotus Hall. Your reward will then surely come, and these shameful visions will cease.” Such were the Master’s instructions.
It was the night of the twenty-first day, the end of Rurikōmaru’s special devotions. Fatigued from those long days of ascetic practice, he was leaning against a pillar in the Lotus Hall, dozing, when the figure of a noble-looking old man appeared in a dream. He seemed to be calling Rurikōmaru’s name repeatedly. “I have good news for you,” he told him. “In a former life, you were an official at the court of a certain Indian king. At that time, there was a beautiful woman in the capital who was very much in love with you. However, since you were already a person with his mind set firmly on the Way and not given to worldly lusts, she was unable to lead you astray. It was due to your merit in resisting that woman’s charms that you had the good fortune in this life of being brought up under the guidance of your Master and receiving his invaluable instruction. The woman who loved you, though, has been unable to forget you and is now living on this mountain in a different form. As retribution for the sin of trying to win you over, she was reborn as a bird; but having spent her life in this holy place where she hears the words of the sutras chanted every morning and evening, she will gain rebirth next time in the Western Pure Land. In the end, seated together with you on one of the lotuses that bloom in Paradise, she will appear as a bodhisattva, bathed in the radiance of the buddhas of all ten directions.
“The woman is now lying alone, badly wounded and near death on the summit of Mt. Shakagatake. Knowing you are troubled by dreams of women, I urge you to go to her at once. Then she can enter Amida Buddha’s Pure Land ahead of you and from there help you in your quest for enlightenment. Your present distractions should vanish without a trace . . . It was out of admiration for your strong faith that I came down from the Tushita Heaven as a messenger of Fugen Bodhisattva. So that your faith may not falter, I give you this crystal rosary. You must never doubt my words!”
When Rurikōmaru returned to full consciousness, the old man was nowhere to be seen; but there was indeed a crystal rosary laid upon his lap, where it shone as brightly as beads of dew at dawn.
Trying to climb to the top of Shakagatake in a piercingly cold wind early in the morning of a day close to the end of December must have been, to the young acolyte, a task harder than the twenty-one days of purification with cold water. Yet Rurikōmaru felt neither pain nor hindrance as he climbed the steep mountain path, so eager was he to see in her present form the woman with whom he seemed to have such deep links, extending over past, present, and future lives. Even the snow, white and fluffy as cotton, that began to fall as he climbed served as fuel, making the flames of his single-minded fervor burn all the brighter. On he went, stumbling occasionally, through a landscape where everything—sky and earth, valleys and woodlands—was gradually enfolded in a sheet of silver.
At last it seemed that he had reached the summit. The snow fell in gentle eddies and covered the ground, and in its midst there was something whiter yet, something that seemed like the very spirit of the snow itself, a bird of unknown type with a painful-looking wound beneath one wing, flopping about in the snow, crying out in pain as drops of blood fell here and there like scattered scarlet petals. Catching sight of this, Rurikōmaru ran forward and held her closely in his arms, like a mother bird sheltering her chick beneath her wings. Then, from the depths of the snowstorm, which seemed to smother all sounds, he raised his voice and chanted loudly, and still more loudly, the saving name of Amida. The crystal beads that he was holding in his hand he placed about her neck.
He wondered if he might not die of cold before she died of her wound. Pressing his face against her, he covered her body with his own; and onto his hair, arranged in the charming and quite elaborate style of the temple acolyte, there fell softly, steadily, something white—bird’s feathers, perhaps, or powdery snow.