by Alan Spence
Long enough, I said.
He gave a throaty chuckle that turned into a cough and he hawked and spat.
Still coughing up Zen, I said. Thank you.
Rascal, he said.
There was a shout from behind me and I turned to see Kakuzaemon, the cook, brandishing a ladle at me.
Another bloody mouth to feed!
Never mind, I said. You can just poison off a few of the others to make room for me.
Rogue, he said.
It was good to be home, to feel welcome.
I settled to the routine of the place, sat long hours in the cold meditation hall, chanted the sutras, grappled with the koans. I tramped the streets of Hara with my begging bowl to contribute my tuppenceworth to the subsistence. I did my share of sweeping and cleaning. I even helped patch a few gaps in the torn shoji screens to keep out the freezing draughts that blew in. There were three or four older monks I remembered from before, grim and dogged, resigned. The younger ones, half a dozen of them, were decent, serious-minded, intent on breaking through. Occasionally I would see a glimmer of devilment in their eyes, but already they had that gaunt, haunted look of the acolyte as they worried away at the dry bone of Zen. And I felt a kinship with every one of them. We were in this together. Sentient beings were numberless. We had vowed to save them all.
The old man appeared in the village, crazy or drunk or both. He’d been thrown out of the inn, was barred from the teahouse, the bathhouse, the noodle shop, for railing at the customers, telling them the end was nigh. The gates of hell would open wide, and all would be consumed in fire and brimstone.
Finally he came to the temple, stood at the gate bellowing.
Call yourselves holy men? Can you face the fires of hell? Heed my words or you’ll perish and burn!
The monks wanted to chase him away, drive him off, but I came out to meet him, bowed to him with folded hands. It was a cold day, a thin dusting of snow lay on the ground. I told him we didn’t have much but he was welcome to come in and have some rice, a bowl of tea. He stopped his rant, stared at me.
Ah, he said. At last, someone who sees.
He was wild-eyed, his grey hair dishevelled, sticking up this way and that. His padded coat had a plum blossom pattern on the sleeve. It might once have been expensive but was old and worn, shabby. His manner, his delivery, had something of the preacher, something oracular, but also something theatrical, something of the floating world. I looked at him hard and for a moment saw his face as a demon-mask from kabuki.
In the kitchen he wolfed down the rice, slurped the tea. The cook glared at him, clattered an iron pot on the stove.
So you’ve come to warn us, I said, about hellfire and brimstone.
It’s coming, he said. Very soon.
How do you know this? I asked.
I can smell it in the air, he said. And I can see the signs.
What signs?
The snakes are leaving their holes, he said, and slithering down the mountain slopes. Dogs and cats are running mad. The birds are leaving their nests. Wells are drying up. Frogs and toads are leaping out of the ponds.
Basho’s haiku in reverse, I said.
What?
The old pond. Frog jumps out. Ha!
He looked at me as if I were the madman. He slurped more tea and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
You have eyes, he said. Look and see.
He bowed and took his leave. I thought I could smell a faint trace of sulphur in the air. I had smelled it before when plumes of smoke and steam rose up from Fuji.
Over the next few weeks I saw the signs for myself, just as the old man had described. A snake wriggled across the footpath right in front of me. A dog chased its own tail. A cat screeched and its hair stood on end. The smell of sulphur grew stronger, rank, catching at the back of the throat.
Then in the middle of the night I felt the first tremor, a rumbling as if from deep underground, and the temple buildings shook. I had been seated in zazen and I thought either this was the mightiest satori or the old man’s prophecy was coming to pass.
I struggled to my feet, legs stiff, and went outside where a few of the monks had gathered. Fuji’s crater was a red glow, flames and smoke rising from its rim, and slow rivers of fire flowed down its slopes.
Never in living memory had Fuji erupted. There were accounts in old books – ancient drawings showed fire and rock and smoke thrown into the air, the scene infernal. Now it was happening again. In the grey winter half-light the mountain seemed to loom closer. Its cap of snow was completely gone, melted in the heat. Fire flared through the covering of dense black cloud. The brimstone smell was now a stench, choking.
Word came that the villagers were already leaving their homes, gathering up what little they could carry and heading inland. The head priest gave orders that the monks should do the same. Every man should rescue a sacred book or arte-fact – a scroll, a small statue, an incense holder, a bell. I bowed and returned to the meditation hall, resumed my zazen.
I sat on, aware of the noise and commotion outside and around me, but untouched by it. Finally the priest came in and stood in front of me, cleared his throat loudly to get my attention.
So, Wise Crane, he said. Is this really wise after all? Do you want your wings to be singed?
It’s a cold winter, I said. The fires of hell will warm me up nicely.
You think you are Nisshin Shonin, he asked, and can walk through the fires unscathed?
I’ll chant the Daimoku for my mother, I said. She had great faith in it.
Surprisingly, he had nothing to say to that. He bowed then gave a rough grunt that might have been a blessing or dismissal, and he left me to my fate. But before I faced that fate, there was one thing I had to do.
In mentioning my mother, I had invoked her presence. I had seen her face before me, as clear as if she were alive. The look in her eyes was one of deep compassion and concern, not only for me, but also, I realised, for my father. I had to make sure he was moved to a safe place, and I hurried along the road to the family home at the post-station. The whole way I was bumped and jostled by fleeing families desperate to escape. Many carried their belongings in huge packs on their backs, or dragged them in handcarts along the rutted road. Children howled and dogs barked and the mountain grumbled and threatened and groaned. As I stepped into the courtyard my father was being led out by the family servant Shichibei and a stocky man I recognised as my brother. I bowed to all three of them in turn.
Iwajiro, said my brother. I hardly recognised you. A scarecrow has more meat on its bones.
My name is Ekaku, I said, and I bowed to him again.
Will you come with us? said my father. We are going to Numazu.
I have to stay here, I said, at Shoin-ji.
For a moment I saw a look of hopelessness in my father’s eyes, then resignation.
Shichibei nodded, as if he understood, and he took my father by the arm.
The ground beneath us shook.
Right, said my brother. We have to go. Now.
I chanted the Daimoku quietly.
Well, said my brother. Are you coming or not?
I have work to do, I said. Sentient beings are numberless.
And you have vowed to save them all. Of course you have. But will you achieve that by sacrificing yourself?
Perhaps that is what it takes, I said, and I nodded to my father, told him he should go and I would be fine and all would be well and I would see him again soon. I watched them go, into the crowds, and I pushed my way in the opposite direction, against the tide, back along the road to Shoin-ji.
I was alone. Everyone else had gone. The place was deserted, like a ghost town, like an abandoned ship found drifting at sea. I sat in the zendo and meditated through the night as the rumbling and booming grew louder and the walls of the temple shuddered and groaned, trembled as if the buildings might tumble around me. The screens rattled and shook, the pillars and beams seemed to tip and shift, the very ground beneath me fel
t as if it might ripple and open up.
The gates of hell will open wide and all will be consumed.
I saw the madman’s face, vividly before me, then it changed to the face of the old monk who had terrified me when I was a child, leading me down through the Eight Burning Hells.
The hells that descended in order of severity, down and down, ever deeper.
Heating Hell. Intense Heating Hell. Hell of Ultimate Torment.
I would face what I had to face. I straightened my back, chanted louder. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
Nisshin bearing the cauldron of red-hot iron.
My mother’s cool hand on my forehead.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
The heat rose up my spine, spread through me. My body was soaked with sweat. Outside it must be freezing. In here I burned.
As the darkness lightened towards another grey dawn, there was a sudden thunderous explosion, louder than anything I’d ever heard. It shook my whole being, tore the screens from the windows and doors, and a searing wind blew through the room.
In a dream I stepped outside, looked towards Fuji. Flame and smoke leaped from its peak in a great column, and above it hung a gathering mass of dark cloud, deepening and billowing, like a huge expanding mushroom. The smoke and mist obscured everything except that blazing fire surging upward and forks of lightning shooting down from the heavens. The air was thick with acrid smoke and cinders and soot. Around me sparks were descending on some of the wooden buildings, setting them alight.
I wondered if I had died during the night and was now a wandering spirit, stumbling across the outskirts of hell on my way to the great gate that led ever down to the deepest depths. I heard a voice, my own, chanting the Daimoku once more.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
I woke to myself, here in this moment, in this world, catching breath as everything burned.
For days that thick pall of mist and cloud blotted out the sun. In the dense fog it was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction. I drank water from the rain barrel, gritty with cinders and ash. I ate a few raw vegetables, dried out and stringy, left behind in the kitchen. I sat in zazen for hours and days, mind clear.
Eventually gaps appeared in the mist. The fog swirled. There was a heavy downpour of rain and the landscape reappeared, beaten down and grey. I heard voices outside in the courtyard. The head priest was the first to appear in the doorway.
So, Wise Crane, he said. Have you been sitting there the whole time?
More or less, I said.
More or less sitting, he said, or more or less the whole time?
Both, I said. Neither.
Rascal! He said. Pretending to do zazen and warming yourself at the fires of hell.
I stretched and yawned.
At least I’ve had a good sleep, I said, without being disturbed by all this prattling about satori.
He grunted and the cook came in behind him.
Still here?
Where else would I be?
I bet you’ve eaten every scrap of food.
Every last morsel, I said. I feasted on withered radishes and rotten cabbage.
Dog! he said, and made as if to cuff me, but changed his mind.
Behind it all I could tell they were both happy to see me, relieved at not discovering my miserable corpse reduced to ash.
After a few days a message came from my brother in Numazu to say my father was well and would return home in due course. Word had reached them that I had not been incinerated and was still on earth, for which they were grateful and offered up thanks. I replied by sending a little drawing of this stubborn monk, intent on meditating as Fuji, in the distance, threw off fire and smoke.
Through the winter and into spring, on days when there wasn’t rain or snow or sleet, everyone pitched in to repair damage to the temple buildings. We patched things up as best we could, and some of the villagers, when they’d rebuilt their own flimsy homes, came to help us with the work.
I bowed to them in gratitude. They too were future Buddhas.
Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all.
It felt like some kind of miracle that the temple hadn’t been completely destroyed. And I too had come through the fire unscathed. I threw myself into my meditation with even greater intensity. I grappled with the koans once more, locked horns with Joshu’s Mu. My head was a battering ram. The koan was a solid oak door.
RETURN TO MINO
W
ord came to me that my old poetry teacher Bao had fallen sick. His only disciple Onbazan had been forced to return home to look after his own parents, leaving Bao alone at Zuiun-ji. I thought a change of scene might do me good, a change of air. I could help Bao and help myself at the same time. I set out once more on the road to Mino.
This time I travelled alone, not caught up in a gaggle of monks, and I covered the miles more quickly. As I walked I chanted the sutras, wrestled with the koan. Mu.
It was late in the day when I arrived at Ogaki. I walked on through the town, remembering it like something I had once dreamed, and headed out along the dirt track towards Zuiun-ji.
The temple looked even more dilapidated, had deteriorated even further, as if it might collapse completely at any moment and disappear into the dust.
As I approached the gate, swinging open on its hinges, a figure came out and I saw it was a nun, head down, moving briskly. I bowed as she passed, and she hesitated as if about to stop and speak, but she merely nodded and hurried on.
The place felt deserted, as if not a soul lived here. Three crows perched on a sagging roof, cawed and cawed as I passed. I approached what had been Bao’s living quarters, a ramshackle hut, and heard coughing from inside. I called out a greeting and his voice wheezed.
Who’s there?
I stood in the doorway and bowed. The room smelled fetid, gaseous.
It’s like an animal’s den, I said, where some old creature has crawled in to die.
Kaku! he shouted. Is that you?
I folded my hands and bowed.
I thought I recognised the smell, he said. The stink of Zen!
It smells of worse than that in here, I said.
You’re as bad as Jukei, he said. She wants me to drag myself into the sunlight so she can clean this place out, then drag me back in to rest.
Jukei, the nun who lived in Ogaki, the one he visited on a blue sky day.
You must have passed her on your way in, he said.
I believe I did.
There was a silence, and he was suddenly awkward.
She looks out for me, he said. Makes sure I eat a little broth every day. Brews up some foul-smelling herbs to purge my innards.
I’d heard you were at death’s door, I said. But I can see you’re in good hands.
Yes, he said quietly. But I’m glad to see you.
Jukei returned next morning and Bao formally introduced us. She was younger than Bao, I guessed, by a few years, her face weathered and worn, but eyes bright, alert.
He always said you would return one day, she said, bowing to me. Said you could teach him a thing or two.
So this illness was a ruse, I said, a rumour he spread to get me back.
Don’t flatter yourself, he said.
Jukei and I helped him outside, sat him down with his back to a tree, a blanket wrapped around him. She made a little miso soup with daikon, and we sat supping it under the tree. Then she set about cleaning his room, vigorously sweeping and dusting with total concentration, and she lit a stick of incense and chanted a sutra. Then she brewed his concoction of herbs, poured it into a bowl for him to drink. He was right about the stink – it smelled of swamp gas and rotting vegetation. But he held his nose and swallowed the brew, screwed up his face and shuddered.
You see? he said. She’s poisoning me!
So I can inherit this pigsty, she said.
They were like an old married couple, and for all they niggled and jibed at each other, what they had was real and deep. He would prob
ably not have survived without her looking after him, and this too was the Buddha’s compassion.
As it happened, she had work to do in Ogaki, and the timing of my visit could not have been better. She gave me strict instructions about making him rest, and preparing his soup, and how much of the toxic herb-mix to boil in the pot for his remedy.
You will stay till he is well, she said.
Yes, I said. I promise.
And you, she said to Bao. Don’t be troublesome.
And just for a moment I saw it all in her eyes, her suffering, the depth of her concern for him. She bowed to us both and headed off down the path, not stopping or looking back.
A good woman, I said, when she’d gone.
Much good it does her, he said. Stuck with an old waster like me.
Perhaps she’s paying off some ancient karmic debt, I said.
She must have done something really bad, he said, and he laughed, and it brought on another coughing fit. He hawked and spat, and I helped him back into his room, now clean and smelling of the pine incense Jukei had lit. Mindful of her instruction, I insisted he lie down and rest and he let out a great sigh, lay back and immediately fell asleep. I sat for a while then went outside and wandered round the temple grounds.
Just there was where I had first met him. I’d stepped outside, restless, in the middle of the night, moon-viewing. He’d challenged me and shaken me up, and he’d quoted Li Po. Out among the flowers with my jug of wine . . . And Basho. Sick on a journey . . .
It was only a few short years since I’d been here. They’d called Bao the Wild Horse of Mino. Now here he was, ailing, seeing out his days. Time and decay.
Over there was the verandah where those precious books had been piled up to dry. I had reached in, praying for guidance, chanced on that musty old moth-eaten volume that was to change my life. Spurring Students through the Zen Barrier. I still carried my own tattered copy everywhere I went.
Walk On.
Through the night I sat up and meditated in the corner of Bao’s room. I felt the need to be on hand while he slept. Once or twice he grew restless, groaned aloud or called out in his sleep. Once he shouted, Is this all? Is there no more? Later he cried No! in a loud voice. And towards dawn he called Jukei’s name as if it were a mantra or a prayer.