Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kusano Tenpei

Author's Preface

I thought I had walked my own path step by step.

But there were times when I stopped, times when I turned back and even ended up taking two or three steps in reverse.

I am one who could not sever one of the two and advance without speaking.
However, this was the utmost I could do.
I wish to be forgiven, but to whom should I address these words?
In the end, I can only speak to myself and my own actions.

On the hill
Voices cursing "Devil! Devil!" rose from outside.
Leonardo da Vinci was in the dim back workshop.
He listened intently to these voices.
And to the characters he had just jotted down in his notebook,
he merely gazed vacantly downward.
O Fundamental Force
O Terrible Fairness of Thine――

Please wait.

Please wait there for the reading.

The sun sank.

The hilltop was growing slightly cold.

I quietly raised my face.
The evening glow in the western sky fading away,
I gazed sadly.

Leonardo's Last Supper

Contemplating some unknown distant place,

Christ sat quietly.

What comes will come,

Things that have form will disappear,

There is no good nor evil,

Contemplating some unknown distant place,

Christ sat quietly,

Bodhisattva Mujaku Statue held a simple vessel,

Neither desiring rice,

Nor rejecting it,

Gazing softly into space,

And gently focusing on one spot,

Silently standing upon this earth,

Autumn,

Is that so?

Is this autumn?

In an empty temple garden,

Ginkgo leaves lie scattered,

Dusk,

Gazing at leaves sinking in a pond,

A bubble surfaces,

Then vanishes,

Morning snow,

A puddle,

Reflecting snow-laden pines,

A droplet falls plop.

And he gently gazed at one spot

Upon this land,
He stood silently.

Autumn

Ah, I see.

Is this autumn?

In the temple garden where no one was present,

The ginkgo leaves are scattered.

Dusk.
As I gazed at the pond where fallen leaves lay sunken,
a single bubble rose.
Then vanished.

Snowy morning
Puddle
The snow on the pine was reflected.

A droplet fell with a plop.

Again,

Snow on the pine was reflected.

The wife’s coffin,
adorned with white gauze leggings and leg wrappings
and holding a sedge hat,
“It becomes her perfectly.”

As the funeral director said.

It seemed she had set out on her journey to the Distant Pure Land.

Without a sound.

A distant, distant beautiful path.

Leaning on a cane like withered miscanthus,

feebly, one step at a time, she ascended.

Because the clothing and belongings were dirty and heavy,

let us leave them undisturbed just as they are.

Wife's Death

The thread on the spool was cut where it needed to be cut.
The gleaming needles were lined up and inserted into the needle holder.
Beside them,
a small Japanese-style pair of scissors
had been gently laid down.
When I picked up my wife’s needle box and looked at it,
tears flowed.

I walked through Musashino

The path continued.

I walked.

I stopped on the small bridge.
Plop, I dropped a stone.
And then I started walking again.
When I passed under the magnolia,
a fragrance wafted.
In the distance, clouds floated.

The path continues.

Musashino’s Evening Glow

In the oak grove,
A rake lay.
No one came to take it.
The oak’s shadow faded.
The sun faded away.
The sun faded away.

Memories of Childhood Days

Inside the dragon's beard thicket was quiet.

The indigo berries lay still.

Five or six rested on my palm

as I played with marbles.

If I rolled them,

they went rolling,

then stopped.

Another one -

if I rolled it,

it rolled along,

then stopped.

The winter sun struck the shoji.

I grew sleepier.

Noh.

He spread both arms slightly,
lowered his hips,
and looked straight ahead.

Walks on, walks on
And then comes to where it stops and stops.
His entire body
Plants his feet on the ground
And quietly faces forward.
He breathes faintly.

The Dance of Sanbasō

To the right and to the left.

To the right and to the left.

When he moved his arms, the bell rang.

Like plants swaying in the wind—
utterly devoid of human refinement.

Eventually, the wind gently subsided.

The body stopped.

The arms stopped.

The bell stopped.

And with that, it ends.

Before parents,

I couldn't even collapse and die there.

Thus I returned.

The one remaining male child in Japan,

I didn't care for him.

I go where I must go.

Even so, I said it with sweaty palms,

I returned.

A parent yet not a parent,

A child yet not a child,

Perhaps that is what being parent and child means.

Even while thinking so, I returned there.
Taking the easiest path on account of being parent or child,
cowardly I returned.

I sit here and look at my white hair.
I also look at this hip braced by my hands as I stand.
However, if some time passes,

I will greet them as one would greet the world’s parent,
and likely go somewhere again.

I stopped my hand smoothing ashes.

Please look at my face.

I returned.

I lived alone in the countryside.

On a low hill

The horse was eating grass.
The neck hung down.

At times, it wagged its tail.
A round cloud lingered alone.
It was in the middle of the sky.

I rose quietly from my seated position,

I returned along the path I had come.

I was alone.
Even when I looked, there was no one.

I closed the book.

When I leave the house and look at the mountains,
The mountains remain mountains.

A single point in the universe.
People die.
They are born again.
They work.
They die.
Before long, I too will die.

I have nothing to grieve.

I need not strain.

Just being here.
It’s enough to exist solitary.

Rainy season.

Droplets fell from the storehouse roof tiles.

The spider’s web swayed.

Desolate.

From the rice seedling bed,
the voices of people bundling seedlings
could also be heard.
I sat alone.
"If I said I wanted to live,"
"Is that so?" they responded.

If I say I want to die,
"Is that so?" they said.
Warmly present everywhere,
Coldly nowhere to be found.

I think I want to become like air.

Midday.

At an unnamed beach,

A few evening primroses were blooming.
The sea was blue.
Endlessly flat.
Completely without sound.
The sand dried and settled.
The evening primroses did not sway at all.

No boats.

No clouds.

Morning.

A persimmon fell into the pond.

It made just a single sound.

The tree cast its shadow

onto the soil.

A hill bathed in sunset light.

“Since this is my first time hearing a pine cricket,”
my friend said, “please keep quiet.”
When I stopped and stood still,
a single tinkling cry rang out.
“The pine cricket resembles a bellflower,” my friend remarked.
Though I too had vaguely felt that way...

Because it had gotten cold,

He started walking in silence.

Simplicity.

Simplicity is
Houses, food, and clothing are simple matters.
Free from dust.
Always kept open.
Those drawn to wealth and worldly matters—
it does not mock,
nor
does it grow angry.

He says to the child

“Child,

Sit here.

You were fighting with stones earlier, weren’t you?

Such things are not allowed.

Discard the stones.

One must never borrow even the slightest power different from one’s own.”

Another time, when he was walking with the child.

There had been times when I would say, “Father is right here.”
I, in times like that—
I was not truly by your side.
If that child was stronger than you,
I thought you should strike as if strong,
and if you were strong, to act as strong—
yet ultimately I thought you should just strike normally.
It was fine to win.
It was fine to lose as well.
Even if you won, you couldn’t boast,
and even if you lost, it wasn’t something to boast about.

“Listen.”

“Did you understand?”

Reflections on War

I. Supreme Victory

The weapon to truly conquer all people in the world would be to remain empty-handed like a god. One must look straight ahead. It would mean holding nothing—not even attempting to hold anything. Though we are children of our parents, creation remains solitary—a child of boundless heaven and earth existing through not claiming ownership over anything. Hands would hang empty without grasping anything while standing between compassion and mercilessness, never concentrating force in any part of the body—that calm figure would embody both words and action.

II. Self and the Human World

One who conquers oneself alone conquers all people.

For oneself alone.

The one who purifies the defilement of oneself alone

becomes the purifier of all people’s defilement.

Should one speak ill of others,

know that those others are none other than oneself -
this self that lies down at night and rises at dawn.

They remain ultimately the same.

They slander.

Since beauty and ugliness both originate within oneself,

one cannot presume to praise noble human acts,

nor dare scorn base ones.

III. Japanese Politics

The source

It was considered that one must not move.

It was considered that one must not even lower one’s gaze.

They retreated and did nothing.

They wore Japanese kimonos impeccably,

sat quietly on tatami mats,

observed a wavering world within themselves

while simultaneously gazing at unmoving heavens,

spoke with merely refined voices -

the words they uttered

had to be ordinary.

All things in this world seemed futile,

and yet also seemed not to be so.

Whether in war

or in peace,

in the end they seemed to reside within a single essence,

To advance,

They could neither advance nor retreat.

They kept maintaining exactly the same measure.

A color that held no color existed,

and they seemed compelled to walk this middle path.

Rain over the spring sea.

A soft rain fell,
moistening the sand.
The pine across gradually faded,
then vanished.
Now there was no sound at all—
sparse waves reaching shore,
never returning as they came.

Autumn evening

Here and there were clumps of silver grass.

The daytime moon hung visible.

Though their forms remained unseen,

From a slight distance away
The sound of bell crickets lingers
Hushed in lonely restraint
One by one they pause
Until silence remains

A cloudy winter day.
One snowfly descended to the pond’s surface.
Another snowfly moved away from beside the holly.

In the shade of the holly leaves,
Small white flowers clung,
Clustered and scattered along the edge—yet

In both sound and hue,
calm and
something unseen—
gently cherishing all
without uttering a word,
as if enveloping

Early summer midday.

Like a single strand of thread,
where the sea was visible,
at the grassy hill’s path,
a single thistle bloomed,
not lingering near the surface,

The wind flowed through.
A posture for objectively surveying the whole world.
Breath kept still.
Eyes remained open, fixed upon some indeterminate point.

Countless human consciousnesses surrounding myself
To the qualities and quantities created by human consciousness
I lightly touched
A smile even lingered around my mouth.
That was painful and sad, but
Far removed from parent-child affection,
Indescribable.

A balance between freedom and principle was struck.

There was white or blue,
Neither peak nor trough,
Even heaven
Devoid of all,
Within loneliness and stillness and tranquility -
All things ceased, devoid of individuality,
Existing.