Out of the East (21 page)

"And what has been taught," I asked, "concerning the time of that illusion?"

"The time of the primal illusion is said to be Mu-shi, 'beyond beginning,' in the incalculable past. From Shinnyo emanated the first distinction of the Self and the Not-Self, whence have arisen all individual existences, whether of Spirit or of Substance, and all those passions and desires, likewise, which influence the conditions of being through countless births. Thus the universe is the emanation of the infinite Entity; yet it cannot be said that we are the creations of that Entity. The original Self of each of us is the universal Mind; and within each of us the universal Self exists, together with the effects of the primal illusion. And this state of the original Self enwrapped in the results of illusion, we call Ny
ō
rai-z
ō
,
³
or the Womb of the Buddha. The end for which we should all strive is simply our return to the infinite Original Self, which is the essence of Buddha."

"There is another subject of doubt," I said, "about which I much desire to know the teaching of Buddhism. Our Western science declares that the visible universe has been evolved and dissolved successively innumerable times during the infinite past, and must also vanish and reappear through countless cycles in the infinite future. In our translations of the ancient Indian philosophy, and of the sacred texts of the Buddhists, the same thing is declared. But is it not also taught that there shall come at last for all things a time of ultimate vanishing and of perpetual rest?"

He answered: "The Sh
ō
-j
ō
indeed teaches that the universe has appeared and disappeared over and over again, times beyond reckoning in the past, and that it must continue to be alternately dissolved and reformed through unimaginable eternities to come. But we are also taught that all things shall enter finally and forever, into the state of Nehan."
⁴

An irreverent yet irrepressible fancy suddenly arose within me. I could not help thinking of Absolute Rest as expressed by the scientific formula of two hundred and seventy-four degrees (centigrade) below zero, or 461°.2 Fahrenheit. But I only said:—

"For the Western mind it is difficult to think of absolute rest as a condition of bliss. Does the Buddhist idea of Nehan include the idea of infinite stillness, of universal immobility?"

"No," replied the priest. "Nehan is the condition of Absolute Self-sufficiency, the state of all-knowing, all-perceiving. We do not suppose it a state of total inaction, but the supreme condition of freedom from all restraint. It is true that we cannot imagine a bodiless condition of perception or knowledge; because all our ideas and sensations belong to the condition of the body. But we believe that Nehan is the state of infinite vision and infinite wisdom and infinite spiritual peace."

The red cat leaped upon the priest's knees, and there curled itself into a posture of lazy comfort. The old man caressed it; and my companion observed, with a little laugh:—

"See how fat it is! Perhaps it may have performed some good deeds in a previous life."

"Do the conditions of animals," I asked, "also depend upon merit and demerit in previous existences?"

The priest answered me seriously:—"

All conditions of being depend upon conditions preexisting, and life is One. To be born into the world of men is fortunate; there we have some enlightenment, and chances of gaining merit. But the state of an animal is a state of obscurity of mind, deserving our pity and benevolence. No animal can be considered truly fortunate; yet even in the life of animals there are countless differences of condition."

A little silence followed,—softly broken by the purring of the cat. I looked at the picture of Adelaide Neilson, just visible above the top of the screen; and I thought of Juliet, and wondered what the priest would say about Shakespeare's wondrous story of passion and sorrow, were I able to relate it worthily in Japanese. Then suddenly, like an answer to that wonder, came a memory of the two hundred and fifteenth verse of the Dhammapada: "
From love comes grief; from grief comes Fear: one who is free from love knows neither grief nor Fear."

"Does Buddhism," I asked, "teach that all sexual love ought to be suppressed? Is such love of necessity a hindrance to enlightenment? I know that Buddhist priests, excepting those of the Shin-shu, are forbidden to marry; but I do not know what is the teaching concerning celibacy and marriage among the laity."

"Marriage may be either a hindrance or a help on the Path," the old man said, "according to conditions. All depends upon conditions. If the love of wife and child should cause a man to become too much attached to the temporary advantages of this unhappy world, then such love would be a hindrance. But, on the contrary, if the love of wife and child should enable a man to live more purely and more unselfishly than he could do in a state of celibacy, then marriage would be a very great help to him in the Perfect Way. Many are the dangers of marriage for the wise; but for those of little understanding the dangers of celibacy are greater. And even the illusion of passion may sometimes lead noble natures to the higher knowledge. There is a story of this. Dai-Mokukenren,
⁵
whom the people call Mokuren, was a disciple of Shaka.
⁶
He was a very comely man; and a girl became enamored of him. As he belonged already to the Order, she despaired of being ever able to have him for her husband; and she grieved in secret. But at last she found courage to go to the Lord Buddha, and to speak all her heart to him. Even while she was speaking, he cast a deep sleep upon her; and she dreamed she was the happy wife of Mokuren. Years of contentment seemed to pass in her dream; and after them years of joy and sorrow mingled; and suddenly her husband was taken away from her by death. Then she knew such sorrow that she wondered how she could live; and she awoke in that pain, and saw the Buddha smile. And he said to her: 'Little Sister, thou hast seen. Choose now as thou wilt,—either to be the bride of Mokuren, or to seek the higher Way upon which he has entered.' Then she cut off her hair, and became a nun, and in aftertime attained to the condition of one never to be reborn."

For a moment it seemed to me that the story did not show how love's illusion could lead to self-conquest; that the girl's conversion was only the direct result of painful knowledge forced upon her, not a consequence of her love. But presently I reflected that the vision accorded her could have produced no high result in a selfish or unworthy soul. I thought of disadvantages unspeakable which the possession of foreknowledge might involve in the present order of life; and Felt it was a blessed thing for most of us that the future shaped itself behind a veil. Then I dreamed that the power to lift that veil might be evolved or won, just so soon as such a faculty should be of real benefit to men, but not before; and I asked:—

"Can the power to see the Future be obtained through enlightenment?"

The priest answered :—

"Yes. When we reach that state of enlightenment in which we obtain the Roku-Jindz
Å«
, or Six Mysterious Faculties, then we can see the Future as well as the Past. Such power comes at the same time as the power of remembering former births. But to attain to that condition of knowledge, in the present age of the world, is very difficult."

My companion made me a stealthy sign that it was time to say good-by. We had stayed rather long—even by the measure of Japanese etiquette, which is generous to a fault in these matters. I thanked the master of the temple for his kindness in replying to my fantastic questions, and ventured to add:—

"There are a hundred other things about which I should like to ask you, but to-day I have taken too much of your time. May I come again?"

"It will make me very happy," he said. "Be pleased to come again as soon as you desire. I hope you will not fail to ask about all things which are still obscure to you. It is by earnest inquiry that truth may be known and illusions dispelled. Nay, come often—that I may speak to you of the Sh
ō
-j
ō
. And these I pray you to accept."

He gave me two little packages. One contained white sand—sand from the holy temple of Zenkoji, whither all good souls make pilgrimage after death. The other contained a very small white stone, said to be a shari, or relic of the body of a Buddha.

I hoped to visit the kind old man many times again. But a school contract took me out of the city and over the mountains; and I saw him no more.

Five years, all spent far away from treaty ports, slowly flitted by before I saw the Jiz
ō
-Do again. Many changes had taken place both without and within me during that time. The beautiful illusion of Japan, the almost weird charm that comes with one's first entrance into her magical atmosphere, had, indeed, stayed with me very long, but had totally faded out at last. I had learned to see the Far East without its glamour. And I had mourned not a little for the sensations of the past.

But one day they all came back to me—just for a moment. I was in Yokohama, gazing once more from the Bluff at the divine spectre of Fuji haunting the April morning. In that enormous spring blaze of blue light, the Feeling of my first Japanese day returned, the Feeling of my first delighted wonder in the radiance of an unknown fairy-world full of beautiful riddles,—an Elf-land having a special sun and a tinted atmosphere of its own. Again I knew myself steeped in a dream of luminous peace; again all visible things assumed for me a delicious immateriality. Again the Orient heaven—flecked only with thinnest white ghosts of cloud, all shadowless as Souls entering into Nirvana—became for me the very sky of Buddha ; and the colors of the morning seemed deepening into those of the traditional hour of His birth, when trees long dead burst into blossom, and winds were perfumed, and all creatures living found themselves possessed of loving hearts. The air seemed pregnant with even such a vague sweetness, as if the Teacher were about to come again; and all faces passing seemed to smile with premonition of the celestial advent.

Then the ghostliness went away, and things looked earthly; and I thought of all the illusions I had known, and of the illusions of the world as life, and of the universe itself as illusion. Whereupon the name Mu-My
ō
returned to memory; and I was moved immediately to seek the ancient thinker of the Jiz
ō
-D
ō
.

The quarter had been much changed: old houses had vanished, and new ones dovetailed wondrously together. I discovered the court at last nevertheless, and saw the little temple just as I had remembered it. Before the entrance women were standing; and a young priest I had never seen before was playing with a baby; and the small brown hands of the infant were stroking his shaven face. It was a kindly face, and intelligent, with very long eyes.

"Five years ago," I said to him, in clumsy Japanese, "I visited this temple. In that time there was an aged bonsan here."

The young bonsan gave the baby into the arms of one who seemed to be its mother, and responded:—

"Yes. He died—that old priest; and I am now in his place. Honorably please to enter."

I entered. The little sanctuary no longer looked interesting: all its innocent prettiness was gone. Jiz
ō
still smiled over his bib ; but the other divinities had disappeared, and likewise many votive offerings—including the picture of Adelaide Neilson. The priest tried to make me comfortable in the chamber where the old man used to write, and set a smoking-box before me. I looked for the books in the corner; they also had vanished. Everything seemed to have been changed.

I asked:—

"When did he die?"

"Only last winter," replied the incumbent, "in the Period of Greatest Cold. As he could not move his Feet, he suffered much from the cold. This is his ihai."

He went to an alcove containing shelves incumbered with a bewilderment of objects indescribable,—old wrecks, perhaps, of sacred things,—and opened the doors of a very small butsudan, placed between glass jars full of flowers. Inside I saw the mortuary tablet,—fresh black lacquer and gold. He lighted a lamplet before it, set a rod of incense smouldering, and said:—

"Pardon my rude absence a little while ; for there are parishioners waiting."

So left alone, I looked at the ihai and watched the steady flame of the tiny lamp and the blue, slow, upcurlings of incense,—wondering if the spirit of the old priest was there. After a moment I Felt as if he really were, and spoke to him without words. Then I noticed that the flower vases on either side of the butsudan still bore the name of Tous-saint Cosnard of Bordeaux, and that the incense-box maintained its familiar legend of richly flavored cigarettes. Looking about the room I also perceived the red cat, fast asleep in a sunny corner. I went to it, and stroked it; but it knew me not, and scarcely opened its drowsy eyes. It was sleeker than ever, and seemed happy. Near the entrance I heard a plaintive murmuring; then the voice of the priest, reiterating sympathetically some half - comprehended answer to his queries : "
A woman of nineteen, yes. And a man of twenty-seven,—is it?
" Then I rose to go.

"Pardon," said the priest, looking up from his writing, while the poor women saluted me, "yet one little moment more!"

"Nay," I answered; "I would not interrupt you. I came only to see the old man, and I have seen his ihai. This, my little offering, was for him. Please to accept it for yourself."