1.
 |
| Oshida shimpsan |
Four times no: 1. no selection, 2. no possessions, 3. no rule, 4.
no plan. “No selection” means that anybody can come here and join
us, take part in our life, we don't reject anybody. “No possession”
is the vow of poverty, not just individual poverty but also of the
whole community, we decided that the community cannot have more
capital than is necessary for hospitalisation of one member for one
month. “No rule” means that any activity, prayers and so on, are
to be a result of the inner need, not an external command, nothing is
obligatory for everybody. It also means that the forms we have now
may also change in the future. “No plan” means we don't have any
plan for development. We live here in simplicity from one day to
another and rely on Providence. I don't mean a year or two ahead, we
are an agricultural community and we have to plan today what we will
eat next year, but we have no plans of any development of the
community or any attachment of what we have here. If the community
ceased to exist in three years time – we are ready to accept it.
Father
Oshida (shimpsan
is the title used for Catholic priests in Japan)
is answering my questions about the life of the community. We are
sitting in a room of his hut whose walls are not exactly straight and
whose roof is just corrugated iron. All around us – on the floor
and the low Japanese table – piles of letters.
“All
this is correspondence I have to answer”
Father Oshida looks like a sixty something years old person who is
not tired of life. He has grey hair combed back, a dark-brown kimono,
blue trousers loose at the waist and tight at ankles, comfortable for
work. He is sitting in the half-lotus position on the floor.
“It
all started with a vision of a few people 25 years ago. At first I
came here alone, I worked with the peasants in the fields. They
thought I was a bit strange but they didn't mind, on the contrary,
they liked someone who didn't want any money and worked just for
food. At that time I learned how to cultivate rice. I lived here in a
hut. We built the chapel with our own hands. There were no
carpenters, just a few people, one of them blind, he held the posts.
We built the chapel and the hut we are sitting in. At the time the
field terraces around here were overgrown by bushes and seemed
useless but one year their owner told us that if we want we can try
to clear and cultivate them, we could give him a part of our harvest
as payment. We cleared them and now you can see what they look like.
These are the fields behind the main building. Later other people saw
the effects and wanted to let us use other fields but we didn't want
too much, only what is needed for our needs.”
The
window behind father Oshida's back fills the whole wall from top to
bottom. It is a glass pane fitted in a movable wooden frame like the
traditional Japanese shoji.
The view from the window is obstructed by a fence made from rice
straw. The fence is always constructed around houses for winter to
protect from frosty winds. It is also a good way to preserve the
straw. Winters are snowy here, Takamori lies 1000 metres above the
sea level.
“Our
life here is concentrated around work and prayer. Work in the rice
field is very important for spreading the Gospel. Rice cultivation is
the basis of life of the whole of Asia and work in the rice fields is
the every day experience for most of its people. There, in the rice
fields, knee-deep in mud, we share the life of majority of
inhabitants of this part of the world. And the prayer: every morning
one hour and every evening also one hour, most of it in complete
silence, as you have seen. Sunday morning we have a mass here. Once a
month we have also a few days of complete silence and fasting. We
used to do it for a week each time but nowadays we just do three days
because of my health.”
The
sound of a bell calls everybody to the main building. The bell is
actually not a bell, it is an old gas bottle struck with a log, but
it sounds like a bell and regulates the life of the community. First
it sounds at 5:30, a wake up call, then at 6:00 for the morning
prayer, then at 7:30 for breakfast, then in the afternoon for lunch,
then at 5:30, the end of the day's work, at six for prayer and 7:30
for supper. Normally there is no bell to start work but today there
is something special: miso
will be made in the traditional village way and everybody is to come
and see how it is done. Miso,
the staple food of all Japanese people, is a paste made of fermented
soy beans. It is only done once a year and father Oshida is the one
who knows the old ways.
“I
have to go there”, he says. “They need me.”
He gets up. In the doorway he turns back and adds:
“We
live here in simplicity and try to feel the undercurrent of the
Church.”
 |
| Miso production |
2.
The
common room: tatami
mats cover all the floor, one wall is made up of glass panels, a
long and very low Japanese table where everybody sits during meal
times. Meals are simple: rice (home grown), miso
(home made), some vegetables. Conversation at the table is in two
languages. Father Oshida speaks to me in English. With a mischievous
smile he asks:
“Are
you a good Catholic respecting all the rules?”
“To
be honest I never thought about it.”
“Here
you can see things that sometimes shock good Catholics. For example a
cloistered nun who came here for holidays. I mean the sister who is
sitting next to me. She is a cloistered nun who was given a
permission from her Mother Superior to go to a dentist. The dentist
is 200 metres from her convent but she came here for two weeks.
Another example is our communion bread. Catholics are often taught to
swallow the Communion wafer without touching it with their teeth but
here we bake not a wafer but quite a big bread and break it into
pieces. There was once a woman who wanted to swallow one of those
pieces whole and later – hrrr hrrr – she was choking. Ha ha ha ha
ha!”
3.
The chapel in Takamori is a tiny hut with a thatched roof without any
ceiling. There is one sliding door and one window. The tabernacle is
made of a wooden log built into the wall. The middle part of the
floor covered with a cloth serves as the altar. There is a candle on
one side of it and an iron tripod full of wood saplings on the other.
Six o'clock, prayer time announced by the gas bottle. Father Oshida
doesn't come, he gets up later. Sister Kawasumi always comes, always
sits at the same place by the window, she lights up a candle. She
sits in the Japanese way or in half lotus, always with her head
slightly inclined to one side. All who come sit around on the floor,
all in silence, motionless.
Very very long silence. When you pray, don't use a lot of words as
the pagans do. After one hour sister Kawasumi gives the sign by
lifting her hands folded in prayer. Somebody distributes books from a
pile next to the altar. Psalms are recited, one verse by sister
Kawasumi and one verse in unison by everybody else. Then a fragment
of a Gospel is read and all ends with “Our Father” spoken in
unison, with long pauses between each plea of the prayer.
4.
Many people come to Takamori for a short visit.
An old man bent in two, who has a well tended garden in the village
and usually comes with a bunch of vegetables or a pot of soup he
cooked for us. Or a young man named Takashi-kun, who comes because
Sueyoshi-san, a member of the community, started work as an
apprentice with a local thatcher, Takashi-kun works in the same place
and waits for Sueyoshi-san to finish his breakfast. Or Kagami-san, a
farmer always in rubber boots, one of the leaders of the fight for
clean water (quality of springs from which the village takes its
water is in danger, a big company bought land above the village and
wants to build a golf course, the villagers fear that pesticides may
pollute the springs).
Christians sometimes come for the Sunday mass from as far as Tokyo,
like Ishikawa-san, a young lady who was baptised by father Oshida in
Takamori in the spring that gushes from the rock like a fountain. Or
a group of Filipino girls who work in a bar in a nearby town. They
come for mass but not on Sunday, then they are too busy. They come in
an afternoon on a working day. After the mass they come for a cup of
tea. The girls are flirtatious. Asian faces but they have something
Hispanic in their behaviour, in their flirting with a touch of
cheekiness. “You are handsome” says one of them to me with a
wink. The conversation is about their life, their “work”. At one
point one of them suddenly changes the subject.
“Are
you open for confessions, father?”
They agree to meet another day, there is no time today, they have to
go back.
“I
have a lot to say, I will tell you all the details” says the cheeky
one.
They have to go. We walk with them to their car. After they are gone,
father says:
“The
place they work in is no good, but they are good Catholics, we have
to help them.”
5.
A mass in Takamori – absolute simplicity. Everybody sits as usual
on the floor, Kawasumi-san in her place near the window. Father
Oshida in half-lotus sits before the cloth that serves as the altar.
Absolute simplicity. Long silence to start with, very long silence,
half an hour or more. The vestments woven by Kawasumi-san: stole from
thick yarn, a grey blanket serves as a chasuble. Only the most
important words of the mass are spoken aloud. All fall to their faces
for Kyrie. For Sanctus Suzuki-san, who sits next to the iron tripod,
lights up the brushwood and the flame rises quickly almost to the
roof. The host is quite big unleavened bread, broken into as many
pieces as participants during the Communion. The paten goes around,
everybody takes a piece, later the chalice with wine goes around as
well and everybody takes a sip. The readings and the sermon are in
Japanese but if there are any foreigners – father Oshida adds a few
words in English.
“We
don't have faith because we understand. We have faith because we hear
the echo from the Depths...”
 |
| Takamori Soan |
6.
Work in the rice fields.
Kusatori,
hand weeding and squashing insects. Everybody knee-deep in mud, bent
down. Father Oshida in a straw hat. Sister Sato with a scarf on her
head, on her side a basket into which she puts the weeds she pulls.
Claudia wears long rubber trousers to protect her from insects. She
doesn't have a basket. Imai-san doesn't have a basket either, both
push a big ball of weeds before them.
“A
basket like this is a good idea” says Claudia.
“I
made it myself from plastic tape used to bind parcels at the post
office. I learned it from one sister who lives far in the mountains
in Nagano-ken.”
“Is
this the sister who was here last year? I think I met her.”
“It
is possible. She comes to Takamori at least once a year. She is a
very powerful sister”
Claudia is not Japanese. She lives in Buenos Aires where until
recently she taught theology at the university. She is sixty, her
hair completely white. She visited Takamori last year and this year
she came for six months. She decided that sitting in silence and
working in mud is better than university lectures.
7.
Showing me a lawn that doesn't seem to have ever been mown shimpsan
says to me:
“Can
you cut down this grass a little? It begins to look a bit messy. This
place should look like a temple. Shouldn't smell of consciousness too
much but it shouldn't smell of laziness either.”
This comparison with Japanese temple surprises me. Japanese temples
(at least the ones most visited by Western visitors) are extremely
neat, with their raked gravel gardens without a single weed, with
stone paths meticulously swept. Slightly curved roofs give the temple
buildings a special dignity. It wouldn't ever occur to me to compare
them to this place where a muddy road leads to the main building,
straw and goat droppings are spread around the goat shed, paths that
could be meticulously swept don't exist. The roof of the main
building is a patchwork of tiles and corrugated iron, obviously the
building has been extended a few times.
“To
me this place doesn't look like a temple at all” I said. “Certainly
not like the garden of Ryôanji.”
Father Oshida answers almost in anger:
“I
don't want this place to look like some temple in Tokyo! Most temples
smell of consciousness too much. Everything has a function, they are
not open to the depths. This place is to be open! MU split in two,
open to the depths!”
“Do
you think the garden of Ryôanji
smells of consciousness?”
8.
Kumitori
means emptying cesspools by hand using a bucket and a big ladle.
Every toilet has a separate cesspool, all are nearly full and in the
morning Kawasumi-san asked me to dig a big hole behind the buildings,
near the rice fields.
“We
will empty the pools in the afternoon” she said.
I dug the hole and after lunch I put rubber boots on and went to ask
where the tools were.
“Ladles
and buckets are there, behind the shed. But you want to do this? No
no, I will do this, I only asked you to dig the hole.”
All afternoon she walks there and back, there and back, until the
evening.
9.
“I
am coming to Yamada Roshi for a dokusan
(as you called it) and he says: 'What koan are you on?', I say 'How
to stop the sound of Mount Fuji', he says 'And what is your answer?'
I say 'I cut it with a sword of my wisdom'. He says “No good, this
is rational thinking, bring your answer tomorrow' Jingle jingle (his
little bell).”
Douglas is fixing a door and I am helping him when he puts hinges on.
He volunteered to do this because he built his own house in
California and knows how to do it. Douglas is on his journey around
the world, mostly visiting places like this. He has been to San'un
Zendo in Kamakura, now he is in Takamori, later he plans to visit
monasteries in Thailand and ashrams in India. He only came to
Takamori for a few days. We are talking most of the time while he is
here.
“Another
time he asked me: 'How does Mount Fuji do three steps forward?' I got
up and made three steps. 'Good' he says. 'You and the mountain are
one'. All this is about what they call kensho.
Some people have been for years in his zendo and still don't get it.”
“Do
you mean he told you you've got it?”
“Yeah,
he says I've got the MU.”
“And
how do you feel?”
“It's
OK, my ego feels alright. But all this is too formal for me. He says
I should go to him just before my flight to give him my answer to
the last koan he gave me. Maybe I'll go, maybe not, I am not sure.
But this is where I learned about Takamori. Yamada Roshi stresses
approach with Christianity, he even threw out from his zendo some
people who were against it. He himself is in close contact with
Jesuits from Sophie University. A few people from his zendo spent
some time here and told me to come if I want to taste the real
Japan.”
10.
Silence dominates the mass in Takamori. Words of father Oshida when
he reads the Gospel and when he says his sermons come from Silence.
“We
are leading our spiritual life in simplicity, listening to the Voice.
There was no other sign given but the sign of Jonah...”
Sister Kawasumi suddenly bows to the ground and starts sobbing
uncontrollably.
 |
| Kawasumi san |
11.
In the evenings, after supper, there is Bible study. Atmosphere very
different from that in the chapel, where there is silence and
everything is said with dignity and seriousness. The Bible study is
in the dining room, father Oshida with the face of a visionary
scratches his head or his foot, reads St. John's Gospel in Greek,
translates it ad hoc into Japanese and English, compares it with
translations he has in front of him and cries out:
“It
is not like this! They don't understand anything! They are prisoners
of consciousness, want to explain everything logically! It is
impossible! This is a vision and when we read St. John we have to
sense that vision!”
Sometimes he looks into his huge Greek-Japanese dictionary. Sister
Kawasumi sits leaning against the wall with a calm smile of someone
who knows. Sister Sato looks at shimpsan as if hypnotised. Claudia
pens down words of Father Oshida in her notebook. Sueyoshi-san, the
thatcher's apprentice, every so often asks simple questions to which
shimpsan answers:
“Stupid!
You don't understand anything!”
He ends the session with a gesture of folding palms and gets up,
intones a Japanese folk song and jumps up in dancing steps. Claudia
looks at him with astonishment. Shimpsan shouts in her direction:
“Prisoner
of consciousness!”
12.
Sister Kawasumi lives in something they call “a hermitage”,
really just a shed made with planks. Sister Komoda lives in something
similar but slightly bigger and with a thatched roof. Sister Sato
lives in a dugout, half of which is a store room and half is for her
to sleep. They don't have electricity, they use candles, only father
Oshida has light in his cottage. Sister Kawasumi eats only two meals
a day, lunch and dinner. Sister Komoda also eats only two meals:
breakfast and lunch.
During a tea break (usually around three in the afternoon there is a
break in work for a cup of tea) father Oshida talks with sister
Kawasumi in Japanese. After a while he turns to Claudia and myself
and says in English.
“She
says that although she lives in her cottage, unconsciously she seeks
stability. We have lived here for so many years and we begin to think
that it will always be like this...”
13.
I tell father Oshida that most Zen temples charge money for
meditation. If one wants to meditate in them one has to pay quite a
lot. I came to Japan because I wanted to experience the life of a Zen
monastery but I have no money at all so I could only stay in those
monasteries that don't charge. He says:
“They
charge money? I can't judge that. If they have to buy food, it may be
expensive. If they have their own rice field then maybe, but if
not... You said they charge 2500 yen per day? Well, I suppose it
could be a little less than that..,.”
“Bukkokuji,
where I spent a month, lives only from gifts and takuhatsu
(begging in the street – old Buddhist tradition).”
“If
they go for takuhatsu,
then OK.”
“Actually
most gifts are brought by the people to the temple and left before
the altar. A great box of rice, for example.”
“If
they are appreciated then they get gifts, but if not... They have to
charge for funerals, for example. Here in the village the bonza
takes 300 000 yen for a funeral. Once a lonely lady died, she had
nothing in the bank, the village council asked him to lower the price
and he refused. This is a fact. He thinks that for this money he'll
rebuild the temple, rebuilding a temple is a good deed so he is
convinced that he's done good. The Catholic Church gets money from
abroad so they don't need money from the people here. Some very
strange people come and the priests say only 'Please come in, please
come in'. In this country the highest percent of Christians is in
prisons and lunatic asylums. They don't change their lives at all.
Priests only count baptisms. This is a sick situation!”
“I
myself often think that Christian missionaries should go to prisons
most of all.”
“But
they don't change their lives and the priests are only interested in
statistics!”
“This
is what I mean. The missionaries themselves should go to prisons. As
has been said – 'it is not those who are well who need a doctor but
those who are sick'.”
“I
am not talking about that. We started here without a penny from the
Church and the Church doesn't understand us even today. But the
simple people, the Buddhist villagers, they do understand...”
14.
During the evening Bible study Father Oshida reads the Gospel from
his English Jerusalem Bible:
“Sir,
answered the official, come down before my child dies. Go home, said
Jesus, your son will live.”
Father Oshida lifts his head up'
“Ha
ha ha ha!”
Then he bends over the text again:
“The
man believed what Jesus said and started on his way.”
“Why
does John write about a miracle in this place? Why does he say in
this place that without signs and miracles they won't believe him?
What is this all about? The son was cured at one o'clock. What
happened at one o'clock?
At the crucifixion there was no sign, no miracle, the apostles were
in darkness. They didn't believe.
But John doesn't put his pen away here. He puts it away only at the
end of Chapter 5. But here, in Jerusalem Bible, they added a title:
'feast at Jerusalem'. They all think like that. This way they'll
never understand John. Poor people.”
Father Oshida knocks his head saying:
“They
all have it here but understanding John is not here. All translations
are distorted, there are even changes introduced to editions of the
Greek original! It is so because they are prisoners of consciousness.
You won't meet God studying theology. You'll have a better chance
weedeing a rice field.”
 |
| Goat shed in Takamori |
15.
Imai-san came to Takamori for three weeks only. In the beginning she
was quiet, shy in a typically Japanese way, later she started to be
more talkative. She spoke English quite well, a rare thing in Japan.
Here is a sample of my converstation with her while washing up after
dinner. She asked:
“What
have you learned all this time in Takamori?”
“Nothing,”
I say, but after a while I add, “Speaking Japanese'”
“Did
you come to Takamori to learn Japanese?' she asks in disbelief.
“No,
I came because I feel at home here.”
This answer seems closer to her understanding. She says:
“Oshida
shimpsan is like a real father, isn't he?”
“Well,
I didn't think about that. My own father left the family when I was a
little boy.” I say and add after a while “I feel at home because
this place feels like a hippy commune.”
“Hippy
commune? What do you mean?” Imai-san is terrified. This is a
typical reaction in Japan. Apparently in Japanese media a hippy is an
incarnation of evil, an absolute outcast from the society.
The same subject was continued later that evening when dough was
kneaded for the morning bread. It was Saturday and in Takamori on
Saturdays bread is baked so they have it fresh for Sunday breakfast.
Being a European I have an attitude to bread similar to that the
Japanese have to rice, it is a kind of sacred gift from God, 'give us
this day our daily bread' kind of thing. So I asked for the privilege
of kneading it and while at it I said to father Oshida:
“Shimpsan,
I told Imai-san that this place reminds me of a hippy commune and she
was very much surprised.”
Father Oshida just laughed aloud.
“Is
it the first time you hear it?”
“Yes”
“At
least one more person had this impression, it was Douglas. This is
exactly what he said, this place reminded him of a hippy commune of
the sixties.”
Again everybody except shimpsan is terrified. I like to tease the
Japanese saying that I am a hippy, after all I have long hair. Those
who like me usually say something like “Don't worry, you are not a
hippy”. I explain:
“There
are many similarities. This place is open to anyone, anyone can come
any time. Self-built houses, organic agriculture, dislike of all
institutions, government, offices... I think that the main difference
is that Takamori-sôan
is on a list of Dominican monasteries.”
Father Oshida's reaction:
“Ha
ha ha ha ha!”
16.
Father Oshida:
“In
China when the word spreads that a Catholic priest is in town streets
are blocked because of the crowd of people who want to go to see him.
Underground is not possible there.”
I had just been talkingg about the underground church in the Soviet
Union, about father Bukowinski, who travelled around Siberia and
Kazakhstan and celebrated masses in secret. This is how the subject
of the underground church in China came about.
“I
don't know the scale of repression in China but in Soviet Russia if
this was not secret the police would enter, the whole place would be
cordoned off, people would be arrested.”
“In
China all homes are open so this would be impossible. Although
sometimes they pretend to play cards. The cards are there on the
table, if somebody unknown enters they start playing, when that
person leaves they carry on celebrating mass. It all looks like the
old Japanese church of the martyrs. They pretended that the mass was
a family celebration. They used dried fish as host and sake instead
of wine. They used fish, like in John's Gospel. They still do it on
islands around Kyushu. They sit on the ground like us, they use dried
fish as host and two people stand as sentries to keep the tradition.”
“Still
today? That is interesting!”
Yes, but they don't invite tourists. You would have to be a very good
friend to be invited to their mass. These people have a living
tradition given to them by God. But the new Church, from the Meiji
era, is different, doesn't have this natural spirit. They just want
to ape Europeans. A bishop comes to those people on Kyushu and asks:
'Where do you have a church?'. They show him but he says 'What? You
call this a church? You must be joking!' They have a beautiful
Japanese church but he wants to build a new one in Gothic style.
This is why these people feel well when they come here. They say
'What is this? A real Japanese church!'
I was once banned from coming here but later they allowed me to come
back. Once we even had a visit of a cardinal, a papal nuncio. At
first he was very formal, 'Yes father, no father', but we don't treat
anybody in a special way. After a meal I announced: 'Now we are going
to wash the dishes' and he was shocked. The next day he said to me
'You know what, father? Now I feel free' Later Vatican wanted to give
us some subsidy.”
“Vatican?”
“Yes,
this nuncio asked me if i wanted a subsidy. I didn't want any.”
17.
Kimoto-san:
“I
accept the message of Jesus but some elements that come from the West
I find hard to accept.”
“What
elements?”
“For
example the position of prayer, always kneeling with palms folded. In
my opinion one can pray just as well in lotus position. I
am also put off by lack of any deep spirituality in the Western
Church, its stiff ritual. When I was in Jerusalem I went to the mass
to the Coptic Ethiopian church rather than the Catholic one..”
Kimoto-san
is a member of the community and comes “back home” here but most
of the time he is in Tokyo, where he teaches at an university. He has
spent several years in Israel and generally travelled a lot, so I am
surprised about what he says about 'the western position of prayer'
or 'lack of deep spirituality'. I ask if he has ever been to Taizé.
“Yes,
I have been there but it didn't make any impression on me.”
“Why
not?”
I
am completely surprised. To me Takamori is very similar to Taizé
and father Oshida says that they are in touch.
“I
encountered ambition there, simple human ambition.”
“What?
Ambition? Who did you talk to? Did youtalk to brother Roger?”
“No,
I was told that brother Roger has no time, but...”
“Did
you talk to any of the brothers?”
“I
don't know whether the person I talked to was a brother but I was
told he was a secretary of brother Roger.”
“Do
you think that nobody here has any ambition?”
“This
is what I think. If father Oshida was showing this kind of ambition I
would have left this place.”
18.
Father Oshida during a mass:
“Only
those who are hungry can taste this bread. How many people go to
communion every day but without hunger, only because the Church
considers it a good thing? These people won't know its taste.
Those who are not hungry won't
know its taste. Those who rely on this world won't know this taste.
Those who rely on money in the bank, on education, on reputation...”
He continues the same evening
during the Bible study, commenting on John's Gospel:
“'The
bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.' The
Jews started arguing with one another: 'How can this man give us his
flesh to eat?'”
At this point father Oshida lifts
his head up and combs his hair with his fingers.
“What
does it mean - to eat Jesus? Today the Church advises to go to
Communion every day but people are not prepared. They go just so, one
of the things during a day...”
He mimics somebody's lazy face.
“The
Church does not prepare people for that. If you go to communion and
eat it like one of the material things you will not, you can not know
its taste.
But there are people in this
world who know this taste. In the Third world, at the front of war in
Nicaragua I saw people who knew this taste. A man who could not walk
because his feet have been burned, but full of joy! His son was a
priest, they tried to persuade him to join the Communist party, he
refused so they forced him to walk through a field of burning Bibles,
he did this but later he couldn't walk any more. I have met this man!
He had been beaten with sticks, his back was broken...”
...here father Oshida bends his
back to demonstrate...
“...but...”
Father Oshida Imitates a blissful
smile.
“...
full of joy! He He knew the taste of Jesus!”
“We
have to remember – eating Jesus is not a cheap thing...”
 |
| Komoda san |
19.
“I
am saying this in connection with sister Kawasumi's hermitage. Some
people have this vocation, others don't. Sister Kawasumi has it and I
agreed on a condition that half her time she will spend here in the
community. The hermitage is important but the life of the community
is also important and sister Kawasumi needs it as well. We are here
to help each other fulfil each other's vocation.”
Father Oshida says this after the
Bible study when everybody is still present. Kawasumi-san says to
everybody but mainly in the direction of sister Komoda:
“Ii
desu ka? (Is that OK?)”
Komoda-san says nothing, stares
somewhere in the distance.
20.
“But
these meals!” Claudia says to us, then turning towards Furukawa-san
who is cooking this week she adds: “I won't be fasting tomorrow.”
Tomorrow is Friday and Claudia usually only ate suppers on Fridays.
“Those
meals, they eat them so quick and so little! When I saw this I
straight away thought about you two” she turns towards Kimoto-san
and myself. “How could you have stayed there for the whole week?!”
“I
was there for a whole month” I say.
“A
whole month? I really don't know.”
Claudia
has just walked in having come back from Bukkokuji, a Zen monastery
where she spent several days. She started talking in the door,
couldn't contain herself, she had to say everything before she took
her shoes off. We had already eaten supper but Furukawa-san heats up
some rice and misoshiru
and brings it up to the table.
“Sometimes
there was just one bowl of rice and nothing more. And then there was
this boy who ate so slowly and everybody had to wait for him.”
“It
mus have been Carlos” I remember. “Have you met Carlos, the
Spaniard?”
“Yes.
He was a very strange boy. I asked him if he spoke Spanish and he
said 'A little'. But he is a Spaniard! Everybody is so serious there,
they talk so little...”
“Maybe
this is a style of Tangen Roshi. He doesn't officially forbid
anything but says separately to everybody that too much talk is no
good for meditation. Foreigners especially treat this with deadly
seriousness. The Japanese monks are not talkative either but when
they do talk they joke and laugh, but Westerners are deadly serious
and don't joke...”
Kimoto-san:
“Did
you use this opportunity to go to dokusan?”
“Yes,
I did.”
“With
all the bows and everything?”
“Yes.
It was so strange. Suddenly during the morning zazen
I heard everybody running out from the zendo.
I thought it was strange because I knew one should get up slowly from
zazen,
but then I remembered what Priscilla told me and I thought I should
go there as well. So I did. But the best talk with Roshi-sama I had
on another occasion, when a new lady from America arrived and I was
showing her around and wanted to show her the room where they have
dokusan and we went there and Roshi-sama was there with some people.
I thought 'Gosh' but Roshi-sama said 'Come in, come in' and then he
explained what zazen is, he sat himself in the position with blissful
calm emanating from his face. This moment moved me most.”
“Exactly,
Tangen-roshi emanates something special, doesn't he?”
“I
think Bukkokuji is one of the most extraordinary places in Japan” I
add.
“You
are right” says Kimoto, while Claudia continues:
“As
I sat there in the zendo
I wondered about you two, where you sat.”
“So
you didn't sit in the corridor before the zendo?”
“No.
I sat there at first but later Roshi-sama came and said that I had a
place in the zendo,
there was a space with my name written above.”
“Amazing.
Usually newcomers sit in the corridor. I sat there for a whole week.”
“That's
right, I only sat there, never inside the zendo.”
“But
those meals! I was hungry all the time...”
21.
Father Oshida always wears simple dark brown kimono and loose
trousers. He also has an expensive embroidered kimono which he
doesn't wear. It is there, nicely folded, on a shelf. Father Oshida
says:
“People
bring gifts, sometimes quite expensive gifts, and we not always use
them. Like this kimono. I don't use it, it has to wait for the right
moment. The right moment will be my death: I will dance in this
kimono at my own funeral.”
22.
“Westerners
come to Japan to study mysticism in Zen monasteries” says
Kimoto-san, “but Zen is not really that mystical. It only scratches
the surface. If you really want to see mystical Buddhists you should
see the Shin Buddhists.”
This is something I never heard
before. Shin Buddhism, otherwise known as Amidism, is known on the
West for its practice of endless repetition of the mantra 'Namu Amida
Butsu' in a hope that this will cause a rebirth in the Paradise of
Amida, where everything is made of gold and precious stones. But
Kimoto explains:
“Shin
Buddhists analyse how the false ego – they call it jiriki
or 'own power' – controls our behaviour and how to make it
surrender to tariki,
or 'other power'. The Paradise od Amida is a metaphor, anybody who
conquered his or her own ego has already been reborn in the Paradise
of Amida.”
Later I ask father Oshida about
the Shin Buddhists. To my surprise he says that he had been to one of
their retreats..
“My
spiritual guide told me to analyse my approach to my mother. Whenever
I came back to him with my answer he scolded me saying 'You are to
analyse your own approach to your mother, not your mother's to you!'”
Only then I understood what
confession is about. And I had been a priest for twenty odd years
already!”
 |
| Sueyoshi san. |
23.
The empty gas bottle struck with a thick stick calls everybody to
mass. Some people are already in the chapel, others walk there along
the path between the trees and tall grasses. Father Oshida sits in
the lotus position facing everybody. There is a long silence before
the mass. The stole and chasuble woven from thick grey yarn.
On Kyrie all fall to their faces. Words of the readings come from
deep silence. Words of father Oshida's homily also come from silence.
“This
koan, God's riddle: 'Eat, my body is really your food, my blood is
really your drink'. We are called to responsibility. Not ritual
responsibility. Not ethical responsibility. We are called to
responsibility before the whole of Providence.
Eat, my body is truly your food, my blood is truly your drink. When
we eat and drink them our mode of being changes. The apostles until
the day of Pentecost – with the only exception of Transfiguration –
did not see the real mode of existence of Jesus. But we are invited
to responsibility before the whole of Providence.”
A huge flame shoots up from the iron tripod.
“This
is my body” says Father over the bread he holds in his hands. “This
is my blood” he says over the chalice full of wine. All present
fall to their faces. The bread is broken into many pieces and
everybody takes a piece; later everybody takes a sip of wine from the
chalice.
24.
“Do
you want to see another branch of Takamori, fifty kilometres from
here, in the mountains of Nagano-ken?”
Kimoto-san calls me while Sueyoshi-san runs to put his boots on.
Sueyoshi's boss, the thatch expert, is waiting in a pick-up. They are
going to Ima to look at a thatch that needs repairing.
“Of
course I do”. I run to put my boots on as well. Not enough room in
the cab, Kimoto and myself sit in the back. We drive along the old
road parallel to the express-way. Just before Suwa we turn left
towards Takato, up the hill. We stop for a moment at a roadside car
park to have a look at a fantastic view of Lake Suva and the
surrounding mountains around. Then we drive up the hill, over the
pass and down to Ina, then left again ap the hill along a valley. At
one point we turn into a very narrow lane, stop on a ridge and get
out of the truck. Kimoto shows me the other side of a narrow valley
saying:
“It
is there but the road is impassable because of the rains. Maybe we
can get there another way, over the hill.”
We get back to the truck and drive a narrow road around the valley.
Here and there we pass houses hidden in bamboo groves. In the end we
reach a little house built at the end of the ridge, accessible only
from one side. Other sides are steep slopes covered partly by bamboo
groves, partly by terraced vegetable gardens. An old woman in a grey
dress comes out to greet us, her face radiant.
“Welcome
welcome. I just had my lunch. Would you like to eat something?”
The thatch experts prefer to see the thatch in question first, so the
sister (this is how everybody addresses the old lady) explains the
way. We drive there. The owners are absent but the thatchers inspect
the roof anyway. They climb on the top, pull one straw out and
discuss it for a long time. In the end we go back to the hermit
sister.
Now there is more time to look around as the sister prepares food.
Sueyoshi-san brings some bamboo tubes from the grove. There is a kind
of disorder around the house, garden tools lying here and there, I
can also spot some baskets made with blue and yellow post office
tape. In a neighbouring room a loom is looming. The sun slowly goes
down and mosquitoes descend on us with vengeance. Refreshments, we
sit in the tiny room around a low Japanese table. The sister lights
up an incense to drive the mosquitoes away.
“Would
you like to eat this? Shall I prepare that for you?”
Time to go back, it is dark already. Dark road through the mountains,
Kimoto and myself in the back.
“Who
is this sister we visited?”
“Her
name is sister Takuchi. She used to be a prioress of a Dominican
nunnery but she left and she lives here now. The life here is very
hard. Father Oshida has sent some more sisters to live here but none
could stand it.”
“Why
is life here so hard? Is it harder than in Takamori?”
“Yes,
because the work in these terraced fields is very hard, everything on
steep slopes. Also here nobody brings any gifts. In Takamori people
often bring gifts but here hardly ever.”
“You
don't live in a hermitage to get gifts, do you?”
“Yes
yes. She has very strong character. She has been living here for the
past twenty years.”
Extraordinary journey. Not because on the back of a Toyota pick-up
through the mountains at night but because of the places visited and
people who lived in those places. I remember when I first came to
Takamori, at the railway station I asked where I should go and
somebody told me: “Go this way, the Soan is on the left side just
before the bridge over the motorway”.
I went along a tarmac road, of the left side there were some houses,
very neat, as always in Japan, then there was a pine grove and then
the motorway viaduct, so where is that Soan? I went back and noticed
a dirt road leading into that pine grove and a few thatched huts that
stood between the trees. “Could this be a monastery?” I thought
and then I saw a nun in a grey habit running towards me: :”Its
here. Did you get lost?” They waited for me because I phoned the
night before that I would be coming. This was indeed the monastery
and the nun who came to meet me was Kawasumi-san.
“Where
does Kawasumi-san live now?”
Kimoto gestures towards the higher part of the mountains.
“She
is even farther there, in the middle of Japanese Alps, really in the
middle of nowhere.”
All those hermits and beggars of Takamori, dressed in grey patched
robes, living deep in the mountains in thatched huts hidden in bamboo
groves. I have an impression that I found early Chinese Zen masters.
But this is XX century Japan! The expressway that slices the country
in two is just two hundred meters from Takamori-soan, houses with TV
sets are in the same village!
 |
| Father Oshida, sister Kawasumi and myself in Takamori in 1988 |
25.
I was in Takamori in 1988 on three separate occasions, altogether I
spent two months there. All the talks took place then, usually penned
down from memory on the same day in the evening. They are not literal
but close to it. They are not authorised but when I asked if he had
anything against me writing this text, father Oshida answered: “Feel
free'”
What is Takamori-soan? If it doesn't transpire from the above, here
is the more condesed information. It is a community started by a
Japanese Dominican, father Oshida Shigeto (Oshida is the surname
here) in the mountains of central Japan, in a village of Takamori in
Nagano prefecture. It is a small village but easy to find on a map
because it lies just on the border between Nagano and Yamanashi
prefectures and just next to the motorway between Tokyo and
Matsumoto.
The life of the community is based on simplicity and is open to
anyone. Soan is officially on the list of Dominican monasteries in
Japan but apart from father Oshida and three nuns there are also some
lay people who live there permanently and also many who (like me)
come to stay for shorter periods.
Father Oshida is a well known person in Japan. He writes a lot
(unfortunately almost exclusively in Japanese). When I was in Japan I
visited a number of Zen Monasteries and met many Buddhist monks who
read books by father Oshida. He himself came from a family connected
to Zen Buddhism and although he later became a Catholic priest he
never lost respect for this mystical current. He is known as somebody
who tries to join the two. Long silent prayer in Takamori is very
similar to Zen meditation although the most important event during
the week is the Eucharist, therefore there is no doubt that this is a
Christian community. Nevertheless sometimes friendly Buddhist monks
visit Takamori. The Catholic hierarchy in the early days didn't have
much understanding for father Oshida's activity but later he gained
some respect and has even been asked to act as an expert on contact
with Buddhist on conferences of bishops of East Asia. He flew on a
plane to whichever capital was hosting the conference and afterwards
returned to his hut next to the goat shed.
The above was written in November 1988 in Polish. The same year it
was published in an underground Polish magazine (Poland was still a
communist country at the time). More than a quarter of a century
later I translated the Polish text into English.
In the meantime the day came for shimpsan to use his ornate kimono.
The day was 6 November 2003. A sad day perhaps. Or was it? What did
shimpsan say about dancing at the funeral?
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