by Alan Spence
Drawing water,
Fetching wood –
Miracles.
He managed a smile at that, then he bowed and headed back down the path, leaving me alone.
Chin had called the place the perfect retreat. Quiet as samadhi, he’d said, far above the noise and dust of the everyday world. And he was right. All around was deep silence, only broken now and then by the whirr of a cricket, the ripple of notes that was a skylark’s song, far off.
The hut was small, six-tatami, but it was clean and dry as if it had just been dusted and swept out. No doubt my young guide had been sent up the day before to get the place ready. Pinned to the wall was a single piece of calligraphy, my old friend Mu. The form had a certain harmony to it but lacked boldness, the lines shaky here and there as if drawn by an old man. I suspected it was the work of my benefactor Tokugen-san, and bowed to it in respect.
In one corner of the room was a rolled-up futon with a meditation cushion and a thin blanket that looked new. Beside it on a low table of rough unvarnished wood sat a jug and two unglazed bowls, a simple iron incense holder and a bundle of incense sticks. I lit one and the scent of pine filled the space. I sat on the cushion, made three deep bows, straightened my back and sat in zazen till the daylight began to fade.
A mist had descended when I went outside. I stared into it, watching the world disappear, then I went back inside, closed the door and bolted it shut, and sat once more on the cushion. I chanted the Daimoku a hundred times then entered again into the silence of meditation.
I had no idea how long I had been sitting. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed, and the darkness was deep. I opened my eyes and looked out, I closed my eyes and looked in, and there was no difference, other than the pressure of the air against my eyeballs. Then I heard what sounded like slow, heavy footsteps outside, approaching the hut. They stopped outside the door, and my first thought was that my benefactor had sent his son with supplies. Perhaps he didn’t want to disturb me and would simply leave whatever it was outside. But that made no sense. There was nothing I needed, and it was the middle of the night.
I listened, and the footsteps started again, moving round the outside of the hut, and every footfall thudded on the ground. It might be some traveller who had wandered off the track, lost. But what would anyone be doing halfway up the mountain in the pitch dark? It might be an animal, a deer or a mountain goat, but they would be light on their feet, they wouldn’t make a noise like this, this, this.
I breathed deep and chanted the Daimoku, low.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
The noise stopped. I paused in my chanting, and the footsteps started up again, louder and heavier, like stamping on the ground, and circling the hut, the rhythm getting quicker, like running, round and round, and I sensed a demonic presence, out there, round and round, circling, building up the energy of its hostile force, surrounding me, closing me in.
I seemed to hear a voice, rough and croaking like the call of a crow, and it spoke my name.
Ekaku. Ekaku.
I felt a deep coldness enter into me, spread from my hands and feet, up through my arms and legs, along my spine to my skull. I felt numb and immobile, encased in ice.
Then all at once, though still I could see nothing in the dark, I sensed that the being, whatever it was, was inside the hut and stood looming over me, filling the space.
I concentrated all my energy, chanted louder, faster.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
I generated heat, radiating out from my navel, the lower tanden, the cinnabar field. My temperature rose, and from freezing I began to burn. The heat filled the little room, made it an oven, and I thought I might actually, physically catch fire and burn the hut to ashes, perish in the conflagration and be dragged down to hell. The great hostile presence was still there, and although the darkness was still impenetrable, I seemed to discern a form, a huge figure taking shape. And just for an instant, perhaps in the light from my third eye, I saw it standing there, massive, eight or nine feet tall, its head almost touching the ceiling. Its face was contorted, its eyes bulging, a vicious beak where its nose should be. I had seen faces like this on masks depicting yamabushi hung outside mountain temples to ward off evil spirits.
In the moment I saw it, I named it, called out Yamabushi! Then I let out a great roar, and the darkness closed in again, and a great wind swirled round the room and the creature was gone. In the silence I could hear the thud-thud of a drum, and I realised it was my own heartbeat. I was drenched in my sweat, my old robes stuck to my back. I gulped in air and I slumped forward, lost consciousness completely.
When I woke at first light my body was one long ache. My arms and legs were stiff, my neck and shoulders clenched so tight I found it hard to straighten up and turn my head. When I managed at last, painfully, to untangle and stand up, I noticed that the door was still bolted from the inside. So either I’d dreamed the whole thing or the creature had indeed been from the other worlds.
Outside, the morning was clear, the mist lifting. I shivered and rubbed my hands together, walked round the hut stamping my feet to get the energy flowing again, the blood circulating in my veins. I realised I was retracing the creature’s steps, felt a chill again as I remembered it croaking my name.
Ekaku. Ekaku.
I continued walking, seven times round. Then I stopped and bowed to the mountain, let out another roar.
Ha!
I scooped out a handful of rice from the bucket, cooked it up into a thin gruel and ate it slowly, sitting cross-legged, looking down over the treetops.
Welcome to Mount Iwataki.
I washed my bowl and left it upside-down to dry. I went back inside and sat on my cushion in the centre of the room. I straightened my spine and began my meditation once more.
The creature never came back after that first night. Perhaps it was a warrior-spirit, a guardian of the mountain come to test me. Whatever it was, it left me alone. If anything, the encounter strengthened my resolve, my determination to deepen my meditation. And, as if to encourage me, I remembered stories of the great masters and the trials they had faced.
Master Gudo, angered by some rebuke from his teacher, striding off into the mountains and seating himself on a rock, vowing to sit there as long as it took, see it through or perish. His clothes irritated him so he stripped naked and sat on, undeterred by the swarms of mosquitoes that gathered in clouds and covered every inch of his body. All night he sat through the pain as they fed on him, piercing his skin and drinking his blood. Then suddenly body and mind fell away and he moved beyond it all into the great liberation. At dawn he opened his eyes and saw the thousands of insect bodies, bloated and red, covering him like a garment. Calmly he brushed them off and they lay on the ground all around him, a crimson carpet. Overcome with joy, he stamped his feet and waved his arms in a wild ecstatic dance, then he put on his clothes and made his way back down the mountain. The same teacher who had admonished him took one look and bowed to him, said without doubt he had attained the Buddha-Dharma.
Myocho Daishi practising austerities on the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto. He would seat himself in zazen every night on a cushion of reeds, in the neighbourhood of Shijo Bridge, one of the worst areas for marauding gangs of hooligans. These young men would swagger through the district, testing out their swords on any hapless beggars or vagrants they came across, cutting them down without mercy. One night a group of them saw Myocho seated in meditation and they thought he would make an ideal target. The leader would strike him down with his long sword and the others would follow up with their short swords and hack him to pieces, leave his body for the crows and the jackals.
They surrounded the master who sat still and unmoving as if unaware of their presence. The leader stepped forward and raised his sword to strike the first blow. Still Myocho sat, back straight, intent on his meditation, unflinching. The leader stopped and looked long and hard at this silent figure seated before him. Then he sheathed his sword and folded his han
ds. He said if they killed this holy man it would be an unimaginable sin and they would be dragged down into Black Line Hell where they themselves would be endlessly butchered and cut into smaller and smaller pieces for all eternity. Hearing these words, the rest of the gang lowered their swords and fled into the night.
A poem Myocho wrote, later in his life.
Difficulties still attack me,
One after another.
They let me see
If my mind has truly
Cast off the world.
This story of Myocho had inspired my own teacher, Shoju Rojin. I still felt a frisson of fear when I thought of old Shoju, the ferocity and ruthlessness of his teaching, the actual physical blows he struck me, trying to knock some Zen-sense into my thick head. But in a quieter moment, over a bowl of tea, he had told me his story about facing down the wolves that had terrorised his village.
When I thought of these great men and what they had faced, Master Gudo with his cloak of mosquitoes, Myocho Daishi confronting the swordsmen, Shoju Rojin and the wolves, it put my own small battle against the mountain-demon into some kind of perspective. But I also felt that these men had admitted me to their company and were guiding me. They stood behind me in solidarity – I could almost see them there, in the clearing beside my hermitage – and I was overcome with gratitude.
How long did I stay on Mount Iwataki? I knew it was weeks, then months, by the changing seasons, the turning of the year. But time had lost all meaning – now it was day, now it was night. By day I recited the sutras, at night I sat in meditation. Every morning I cooked up a handful of rice gruel and that was my food for the day. But not once did I feel pangs of hunger – I understood how Muso had survived, even flourished, on his half-persimmon a day. I felt a great energy and vigour coursing through me. In meditation I experienced countless awakenings, great and small, moments of satori that filled me with ecstasy. Time and again I roared with laughter, jumped up and danced around for sheer crazy joy. I laughed till I fell over, lay there clutching my belly till the fit subsided. Then I struggled to my feet only for another wave of laughter to shake me till I was once more helpless, in tears, rolling on the ground, laughing, laughing, laughing.
I emerged from one of these interludes and became aware of a figure standing a few yards away. I recognised him as my benefactor’s son, the young man who had guided me up here those weeks and months ago. He had visited again in between times – once or twice I was aware the rice in the bucket had been replenished, though he had never made himself known. I assumed he had come and gone quietly when I was in zazen, or during the hour or two each night that I slept.
Seeing him now, I felt nothing but gratitude for this service he had done me, and I bowed and told him so, thanking him. But I was still buoyed up by the meditation, and the laughter kept bubbling up out of me.
Forgive me for disturbing you, he said.
Not at all, I said, the words absurd and clumsy in my mouth. I would have to rediscover the art of conversation, and that too seemed wonderfully funny.
Too many words, I said, not quite explaining.
I’m sorry, he said. I . . .
I composed myself.
It is you who must forgive me, I said. You have a message for me?
You have a visitor.
I looked round, expecting to see someone behind him on the path.
Not here, he said. At the foot of the hill. He is old. He could not make the final climb. His name is Shichibei-san.
The only Shichibei I knew was my father’s servant. He had seemed old to me even when I was a child.
What is he doing here? I asked. So far from home?
He would not say.
All the way back down the hill I was trying to prepare myself, not just for meeting people and relearning speech, but for the old man’s message. It could only be grave news to have brought him all this way. I remembered the messenger my father had sent to me at Bao’s temple, to tell me my mother had died. The call of the hototogisu had undone me, made me cry like a child.
Now, most likely, it was my father’s turn to go, and I would be expected to come down from my retreat and set things in order. But that was ludicrous. The best thing I could do for my father, and for all of humanity, was to stay in the mountains and continue my meditation. Set things in order! I laughed and the young man ahead of me glanced back over his shoulder, alarmed. I realised how I must look to him, dishevelled, a wild-eyed madman, and I pulled myself together again. Pulled myself together! And I put on a serious face for the rest of the descent.
Old Shichibei stood up and bowed as I approached. He had indeed aged, but he had a wiry strength about him and his eyes crinkled as he greeted me.
The months on my own had stripped away the niceties, the need for excessive formality.
What news? I asked, straight out.
Your father sent me, said Shichibei.
My father? So he’s not . . . ?
Your father is alive and well, he said. Although . . .
Why has he sent you?
Sometimes in his old age, said Shichibei, a man begins to worry about things he has done, and even more about things he has not done. He can be troubled by a sense of duties not honoured, responsibilities unfulfilled.
I had forgotten this in my time on the mountain, this circuitousness of discourse. I really had forgotten.
My old benefactor and host appeared behind Shichibei.
Tokugen-san, I said, bowing to him.
It is a joy to see you again, he said, and an honour. But please, forgive me. I have been remiss in my duty. Please, step inside and be seated, and I will bring some tea.
Now there were two of them fussing and bumbling around, and there would be the business with the bowls and the poetic smalltalk about the season, and it might be well past nightfall by the time the conversation meandered back to the point of Shichibei’s visit.
I surrendered to the process, sat down and made a favourable remark about the bowls, admiring their shape, the way they felt in the hand, the rough unfinished quality of the glaze.
When we had sipped our tea and recited haiku and set the universe to rights, Tokugen-san called his son to clear the things away, and he bowed and took his leave.
There was silence for a few moments.
So, I said breaking it.
Yes, said Shichibei.
My father, I said.
Yes.
Shichibei had said my father was alive and well, but he had qualified it with that Although . . . Now he told me the whole story, the reason he was here, and at first it made no sense. He said my father had grown increasingly troubled. He looked haggard from lack of sleep and had taken to getting up in the middle of the night, wandering aimlessly from room to room, sometimes going outside where Shichibei had found him once or twice, staring in the direction of Fuji and muttering to himself.
It’s all falling into ruin and decay, he would say. It’s disintegrating into nothing. Then he would say Ekaku is the only one who can make a difference, the only one who can save it.
What is he talking about? I asked. The world? The universe? That’s too big a job for me!
The temple, said Shichibei. He’s talking about Shoin-ji.
Shoin-ji? I said. The place was run-down even when I was there. So I can well imagine the state it’s in now.
With respect, said Shichibei, bowing, I don’t think you can. It’s utterly derelict. The walls have cracked and crumbled, and the roofs have caved in. There’s nothing to keep out the rain, and even indoors you have to wear a hat or carry an umbrella. The straw matting on the floors has rotted away and all the sacred books and scrolls have been damaged. Soon, said your father, it will disappear completely. The earth will swallow it up and a field of wild barley will grow in its place.
As he spoke my father’s words old Shichibei’s voice choked with emotion. I gave him a moment or two to recover before continuing.
But why is this bothering him? I asked. Why Shoin-j
i? Why now?
He mentioned the family connection, said Shichibei. He said the temple had been restored by his uncle, Daizui-Rojin. Your father was taught by him there as a young man.
Yes, I said.
Again there was a silence. I thought Shichibei had something more he wanted to say but was struggling with it.
What else? I asked.
He hesitated then came out with it, almost apologetic.
He also mentioned your mother.
It was like a lamp being lit, throwing light into a dark corner.
Ah, I said. Yes.
Shichibei would stay the night. Tokugen treated him as an honoured guest. I said I would return to my hermitage and meditate till the way forward became clear.
But clarity eluded me as I sat through the hours of darkness. I had grown used to this life of freedom, the nights spent in contemplation, the days reciting the sutras. I felt strong in myself and at peace with the world, and there were those moments of unbridled ecstasy that shook me to the core.
Now this.
I saw my father’s face, the way I remembered him from my childhood, his anger at me, his impatience, dismissing me as useless. My mother telling him he had neglected his own devotions and was trying to stop me following the way.
My mother.
When he gets angry at you, she had said, it is not a simple matter.
My father’s brush and inkstone. He had once been a young man, studying at Shoin-ji.
My father old and fearful, regretting what he had done and not done.
Falling into ruin and decay. Disintegrating into nothing.
He was close to death. He was afraid.
And yet.
I had made my own way here, through hardship and sickness. I had found this place where I could do my spiritual work, unhindered by the pressures of the world below with its madness and striving, its turmoil and trouble and endless demands.