by Alan Spence
SEVEN
OHASHI
A
mong the increasing number of lay followers who came to Shoin-ji to listen to my outpourings of venomous wisdom was a middle-aged businessman, Layman Isso. He had married late, and I knew nothing about his wife. Then one day he asked if she could come with him to hear my teachings.
Of course, I said. By all means.
She is an extraordinary woman, he said, and her story is a remarkable one.
I assumed he was just besotted with her, but the following week he brought her to the temple, and it was clear she was indeed out of the ordinary. Her name was Ohashi and she was perhaps in her thirties, classically beautiful in a way that would still turn men’s heads, even dressed as she was in plain simple robes. But more than that, there was an inwardness, a seriousness about her. It seemed to me she had known great sadness, great struggle, had won through to an acceptance and a gratitude at finding herself here.
One evening, after I had given a brief talk on the Blue Cliff Record, I noticed her sitting very still, deep in meditation. I asked her and her husband to stay behind and join me for tea, and I asked if she would mind telling me her story.
She composed herself, glanced at her husband who nodded encouragement. Then she began, slowly at first, a little uncertain.
My father was a high official serving the Daimyo of Kofu, she said. We lived comfortably in splendid surroundings. We had servants attending to our every need. Then our circumstances changed.
She paused a moment, her voice wavering.
That is the nature of circumstances, I said, pouring her more tea. She sipped it and continued.
My father was forced to leave the Daimyo’s service. It was over a trifling matter, but a matter of honour. So he had to go.
Of course.
He was forced to live as a ronin, a masterless samurai. We went to Kyoto where we knew nobody. We had nowhere permanent to stay and moved from place to place.
This is how we live on earth, I said.
Our money ran out, she said. My mother and father grew haggard and thin. My mother fell ill. I couldn’t bear to watch her fade away. Then I realised there was something I could do.
Once again she paused. Again I filled her cup but she stared at it, lost in remembering.
I was young, she continued at last. I understood men found me beautiful. I said they could sell me into service as a courtesan.
Her husband Isso cleared his throat, shifted on his cushion. Ohashi glanced across at him, gave a faint smile, continued.
My mother said she would rather starve to death. She said any parents who did such a thing to their child were worse than animals. My father remained silent. His mouth was a grim, straight line. His silence filled the room. It was difficult to breathe. Eventually I spoke again. I said any child who watched her parents starve was less than human. I said I would do this thing, it would only be for a short time, till our fortunes changed and we could be together again as a family.
My mother wept and said it was contrary to the Buddha’s law. From somewhere, born of desperation, I found the right words and grew eloquent. I said the Buddha spoke of Expedient Means, used to spread his wisdom. This course of action would simply be expedient, a necessity in the short term, and perhaps this too would be a kind of wisdom.
My father left the room then, his face set, an angry mask. I heard him let out a great roar of rage and pain and some piece of furniture clattered to the ground. When he came back in, his expression was blank, desolate.
You are right, he said. There is no other way.
A week later I was handed over to the madam in a Kyoto teahouse, to begin my training.
She looked at the tea in her bowl going cold. The light in the room was fading, and one of the young monks approached and asked if he should light the lamp. I thanked him and asked if he might also bring more hot water to replenish the tea. This he did, with a brisk efficiency, then he bowed and removed himself.
I waited till Ohashi seemed ready to resume her tale, nodded to her.
This is a story of great sacrifice, I said. Such a thing is rare in one so young.
She bowed.
Necessity, she said. Expediency.
A kind of wisdom.
At first, she said, I convinced myself it was not so bad. The madam, in her way, was kind. She did not ask me to . . . be . . . with many men. And she was very selective, chose only men who would be gentle and considerate.
Again Isso-san tensed and shifted on his cushion, cleared his throat loudly. Again she glanced across at him, reassuring.
And of course, she said, I received an education. I learned to play the koto, I studied poetry and calligraphy . . .
She plays beautifully, said Isso. Her calligraphy is fluid and expressive. Her waka poetry is sublime.
She smiled at him.
You are too kind.
So it was all very . . . refined, I said.
Yes.
But still . . .
Yes, she said. Still.
Her face was half in shadow, the lamplight flickering in the room. But I could see the deep sadness in her eyes, the set of her mouth. She spoke quietly.
It was a kind of hell, she said, however comfortable. I had no freedom, no life of my own. I had been cast out of paradise, and the worst of it was remembering my former happiness. I grew wretched and fell ill. The madam sent for the finest doctors she knew. Some of them were her customers! But none of them could help me.
Some illnesses are beyond cure, I said.
This was a sickness of the heart, she said. Born of despair.
So how did you conquer it? I asked.
She smiled.
One of my . . . patrons . . . was a young man from a noble family who had studied with a Zen master.
Not one of those do-nothing layabouts, I hope.
She looked confused.
I have no idea, she said.
Forgive me, I said. I was just launching into a familiar rant! Now, please, continue.
He said there was a cure, and its name was detachment. I simply had to detach myself from my seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing.
Simply, I said.
He said, Concentrate your full attention on only two questions. Who is it that sees? Who is it that hears? If you can do this in the midst of your everyday activities, whatever they may be, then your inborn Buddha-nature will come to the fore. This is the only way to go beyond and free yourself from this world of suffering.
Sound advice, I said, but not such a simple matter to put into practice.
I did my best, she said, and it definitely helped. But I felt so far away from realisation, and I longed to meet a true master who could teach me.
Not easy in your situation, I said.
One night, she said, a few years ago, the whole city was battered by terrible storms. There were twenty-eight lightning strikes reported in Kyoto alone, she said. And since my childhood I had been terrified of lightning.
Her eyes grew wide as she remembered it. I nodded, recalling my own fear of hellfire.
I retreated to my room, she said, and closed all the windows and doors. I straightened my back and sat in meditation, confronting those questions. Who is it that sees? Who is it that hears? All of a sudden there was a flash of light and a deafening crash. A huge bolt of lightning had struck a tree in the garden and shaken the whole house. I completely lost consciousness and fell into a swoon.
She closed her eyes, shuddered as the memory overwhelmed her. Then she opened her eyes and looked out again, as if from somewhere else, and her voice grew quiet and calm.
When I came back to this world, she said, my seeing and hearing had completely changed.
Who is it that sees? Who is it that hears?
I had been jolted awake, she said. The world was a different place.
And yet it was the same place, I said. It was the seeing that was different.
Yes! she said, grateful that I understood.
An experience of kensho,
I said.
This was what I thought, she said. But there was nobody I could ask. Now more than ever I wanted to meet a master who could help me. But my situation was still impossible. Then another customer had compassion for my plight. He offered to marry me.
Let me take you away from all this . . .
Yes. The madam agreed, in exchange for a substantial fee. I left the pleasure quarter for good, a free woman.
But this was not your present husband, I said, indicating my friend Layman Isso.
No, she said. This was my first husband, a kindly man with a good heart. He died two years ago and I met Isso-san and remarried. And now Isso-san has brought me here to sit at your feet.
Expedient Means, I said. The Buddha and his box of tricks.
From then on, Ohashi accompanied her husband every time he came to meditate or to hear my Dharma talks. One day they stopped and bowed to me as I was crossing the courtyard.
My wife is grateful to you, said Isso.
For what? I said. For spewing out more words? Pouring water into the ocean?
For accepting me, said Ohashi.
Sentient beings are numberless, I said.
And some masters think women are more difficult to save.
Is that so? I said.
She smiled, said, Even the Buddha himself was reluctant to accept women as disciples.
It was his own son who persuaded him, said Isso. It was his own wife he accepted.
And what do you think, Isso-san? Was the Buddha right to change his mind?
That sounds to me like an insoluble koan, he said. Whatever way I answer will be wrong.
You have learned wisdom from your wife, I said.
Again she bowed, and I was moved to put something into words.
I owe much to my own mother, I said. I try to see her in every woman I meet. I try to see in all women the Bodhisattva Kannon herself.
I had never expressed this thought before. But as I spoke the words I knew them to be true.
In the coming months, Ohashi far surpassed her husband in meditation. One day they approached me and asked if she could be ordained as a nun.
I have played my role, said Isso.
Ohashi bowed to him in gratitude.
This too, I said.
Her head would be shaved, she would put on the robes and enter the imperial Hokyo-ji convent in Kyoto. She would adopt the name Erin.
The following year I received a visit from Layman Isso. He too had moved to Kyoto where he had business interests, and he kept contact with his wife. He brought a message from her to say the convent was not what she had expected, and if I should ever happen to be in Kyoto, perhaps I might visit Hokyo-ji and deliver a Dharma lecture.
As it happened, my next expedition was to western Honshu on the Inland Sea, where I gave a series of lectures. On the long journey back to Shoin-ji I stopped for a time in Kyoto at the great Myoshin-ji monastery to which our little temple was affiliated. I was made welcome and invited to give more talks, and I received a letter from the abbess at Hokyo-ji inviting me to visit the convent. Nuns from the other imperial convent, Kosho-in, would be in attendance. I accepted, wondering if Erin had been instrumental in my being invited.
The two abbesses were sisters, young princesses from the imperial household. They were both in their twenties and had been appointed as part of their own training, to ground them in Buddhist principles and deepen their understanding. They were the embodiment of charm and grace and refinement, but they were worlds away from the simplicity and rigour of convent life. They wore elegant silk kimonos, ate lavish meals prepared by their own cooks. They were surrounded by luxury and the temple chores were performed by a host of servants.
I recalled old Shoju admonishing us about monks who wallowed in luxury, lolling back on thick cushions, eating and drinking their fill, accepting it all as their due, lost in the mire of their own delusion.
Out of courtesy and deference I said nothing. But I resolved to compose a letter to the princesses on my return to Shoin-ji. As I was leaving the compound I saw Erin, standing back. She made three deep bows and I nodded to her and smiled.
In the letter I thanked the princesses for their hospitality, but said I had to make a few observations. I referred them to stories of great Zen figures, especially women, who had led lives of exemplary simplicity and frugality. I reminded them of the virtue of poverty. I humbly suggested they wear homespun robes and eat only small amounts of plain food. I also suggested they send their servants back to the palace and perform the temple chores themselves.
The next time Layman Isso visited Shoin-ji, he said my letter was the talk of the capital.
To admonish the daughters of the emperor, he said. It is unheard of!
Perhaps the emperor will throw me in prison and cut out my tongue. But then again, I’m just a bumpkin from a small village. I don’t know any better.
One night Erin appeared to me in a dream. She bowed to me as she had that last time I’d seen her, in Kyoto. Three bows. I hadn’t heard from her in some time, and Layman Isso had been caught up in his work and unable to visit Shoin-ji. The day after my dream I saw him standing at the back of the room when I’d finished giving my lecture, and I knew without asking what he had come to tell me.
Erin had suffered a recurrence of the illness she had suffered as a young woman. This time nothing could help, not even the introspection I had taught her.
Perhaps that gave her those few precious years, I said.
I am sure of it, said Isso, a choke in his voice.
Those early years were difficult, I said, and full of suffering. But they led her to you, to this life.
I am grateful, he said, and so was she. It was her wish that her ashes be buried here at Shoin-ji. And I would ask that you make an offering of incense on her behalf.
I would be honoured, I said.
On the appointed day I approached the shrine, ready to make my offering, and I noticed there was no mortuary tablet in Erin’s name. Instead there was a small votive statue of Bodhisattva Kannon. I turned to Layman Isso who was standing with folded hands.
I brought the statue, he said, to be dedicated in her name. Erin studied the Dharma in a woman’s form. She gained enlightenment in a woman’s form. She spread the teaching in a woman’s form. For me she was an incarnation of Kannon herself.
I nodded and lit the incense, bowed and chanted to the Bodhisattva.
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
Isso joined me and his wavering voice grew strong as the incense smoke rose.
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
The little statue glowed as if alive.
THE SOUND OF
ONE HAND
I
had kept contact with Torei in Kyoto, bombarded him with letters, reminders that I had chosen him as my Dharma-heir and he deserved that accolade, but repeating that I would put no more pressure on him to take over at Shoin-ji. In time he believed me, and we made peace. We came to an arrangement about the running of Muryo-ji, and when he was not there, or in Kyoto, he would visit me at Shoin-ji. I even asked if he would consider writing my biography, and he said it would be an honour.
One evening I sat with him and Suio and a handful of other monks. I had been driving their koan practice, pushing them to meditate further on Mu, enter into its nothing and go beyond. Now I drew the symbol for death – Shi – as I had when my father died, repeated the inscription I had written at that time.
Death
a one-word
koan.
I instructed them to meditate on this, as they would on any other koan.
To see into your own nature, I said, you must enter into this death, into the word itself and the reality behind it. Whether walking or standing, sitting or lying down, not caught up in action, not lost in contemplation, simply address this koan.
I placed the drawing in front of them, left a silence, then I continued.
When you are dead and your body has been burned, reduced to ash, what then? Whe
re are you, the main character, the principal actor in this drama?
Again I sat in silence, let them look at the drawing.
Death, I said. The very word is ugly to us and fills us with fear. Yet if you concentrate on it fully, with your whole being, you will be filled with a kind of joy. If you penetrate this koan, it becomes the key to unlock the Buddha realm, beyond birth and death.
A sudden heavy shower of rain began to fall, and the wind drove it hard against the shoji screens.
A warrior who has not faced this koan, I continued, will be weak and feeble on the battlefield, cowardly and fearful, unable to act. But master the koan, go beyond your own death, and your actions will be resolute. Your consciousness will be firm as a great rock, solid as a mountain range, vast as the sea.
The wind drove the rain even harder, battered the screens.
You die, I said, and your body is burned. What then?
Over the next week I saw them, day and night, meditating on the koan. Torei made his own brush-drawing of Shi – vigorously executed in half a dozen bold strokes – and he lost himself in contemplation of that, the word itself, the symbol. Suio took to sitting in the graveyard, under the pines, confronting the reality of his own death.
I didn’t have to summon them to come and sit before me. They came willingly, Torei first, then Suio.
Well? I said to Torei.
He unrolled a scroll with his latest version of Shi. The lines were still fluid and strong but he had thinned the ink, so the character itself looked translucent, as if written on water, in air.
Shining through, I said. What then?
He took the paper and tore it in half, threw the pieces aside.
Ah! I said, nodding. And then?
He took the pieces and tore them again, then again.
Ever smaller, I said. And after that?
I’ll burn them, he said.
And the ash?
Blown by the wind, he said. Dissolved in the rain.
And what remains?
Who is asking? He said. Who wants to know?