by Alan Spence
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
And I was pushed forward against the resistance. The noise became a loud rushing and the rock itself heaved me out through the clay. I emerged into a spacious cavern, the noise stopped, and once more I could see by my own light.
I was on my knees, hands folded in gassho. Ahead of me I could see a bridge over a great chasm, and on the bridge, at intervals across it, were seven figures.
At first I took them for the gods of good fortune. Then I saw that the first was a young child, and the last was an old man. And the seven figures were the same man – Hakuin – at different stages in his life. The seventh figure was kneeling as I was now, hands folded. I stood up and made my way towards the bridge, began to walk across it.
As I approached the first figure, myself as a young boy, he looked up and smiled at me. I stepped forward and replaced him. I became that young boy.
My childhood name was Iwajiro, and I was eight years old when I first entered at the gates of hell.
I relived the terror of seeing the flames under the iron bathtub, a cauldron to boil me alive.
My mother’s cool hand on my forehead, her soft voice chanting the Daimoku. Nisshin walking through the fire, unscathed.
Namu Myoho Rengu Kyo.
I got to my feet and walked on across the bridge.
The next figure was the youth with the dragon between his legs. Once more I became him, relived his anguish and awkwardness, the desire that burned him. I took brush and inkstone and drew my world and myself in it, great Fuji a constant presence. Her snowy skin. The Daimyo’s procession. The woman looking out at me through parted curtains and smiling at me. By grace I had seen her as Kannon embodied. Once more I chanted.
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
I walked on further, to the third figure on the bridge, the young monk I had been, my head shaved, walking in the spring breeze, chanting my new name.
Ekaku. Ekaku.
Wise Crane.
I had met Hana. I had caught her and saved her when she fell. Now I held her once more in my arms. I breathed in her scent. Then in an instant she was gone. Butterfly in its season. Everything grew dark. Ganto’s death cry shook all the worlds. There was nothing but bone and ash, desolation.
I dragged myself on, one foot after the other. Beneath the bridge was a great chasm and in the background Fuji threw up flame and molten rock.
I was felled by blows – Shoju’s fist, the old woman’s broom. My skull cracked open and let in light.
Spine straight, I stood tall at the arc of the bridge. I was that figure, solitary, breathing deep, but suddenly held there, encased in ice. There were hells that did not burn but freeze. I was clamped, immobile, closed in. The ice extended endlessly all around, vast emptiness and cold. Then the clear sound of a bell rang true and shattered the ice into crystal fragments, each one a perfect mirror reflecting back the light that was in me, the light that I was. Mind clear and cold, I was Hakuin, Hidden-in-Whiteness.
Hakuin.
The demons he had encountered fell back and howled. The koans he had grappled with dissolved into nothing.
Mu.
He continued on his journey, on the Zen road, back to where his head had been shaved, to Shoin-ji. He was Hunger-and-Cold, the Master of Poverty-Temple.
Beat the Dharma drum.
He sat in a circle of skeletons in monks’ robes. Then they were gone, dust under the pines. But he himself survived and continued. Sentient beings were numberless. He had vowed to save them all.
He heard the sound of one hand, and put a stop to all sounds.
He walked and wrote and talked and drew.
His body became heavy again, sluggish. His health failed. His eyesight grew dim. But still he drove himself, to walk and write and talk and draw, to teach, to spread the Dharma.
Everything was effort, and effort was pain, in body and heart and mind. He drew breath in pain.
He walked on, across the bridge, stopped in front of the last figure, the seventh, down on his knees, but hands still folded in gassho, in supplication.
I looked down at him, at myself, kneeling there.
And beyond the bridge, on the other side, my old body wrapped in a winding sheet, covered by a rush mat, ready for cremation.
I lay there, in my winding sheet, under the rush mat, and I looked out at the great cave all around.
Far below, in the abyss under the bridge, I knew the all-consuming fires were burning. But they were one. Fire of desire and fire of aspiration. Fire of destruction, fire of transformation. Fire of purification, fire of illumination.
They were one and the same. Emma, Yamaraj, the terrible Lord of Hell, Jizo the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
One and the same.
I had heard a cacophony of voices, howling. Then it changed and the howling became a chant, an invocation.
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.
Now the face in the Precious Mirror, here in this place, at the end of all torment, was Kannon the merciful, the benign.
I bowed to the Great Bodhisattva of Hell.
I wrote that as a calligraphy, old hand shaking but brushstrokes still firm and thick and bold, the characters forming a solid column down the scroll.
I BOW TO THE GREAT BODHISATTVA OF HELL.
Let that be my epitaph, I said.
My condition grew worse, an overwhelming fatigue that made it difficult to move. But I wanted to deliver another Dharma lecture. Torei and the others were concerned. Finally a young nun, named after the great Erin, stepped forward and spoke up.
Perhaps, she said, bowing, your teaching can wait till you are stronger.
And when will that be? I asked. And what is a little fatigue compared to the sufferings you have undergone, the poverty and famine, the deprivation?
Again she bowed.
If you were to stop this flow of sweetness from your mouth, it would be like taking food from the hungry, like denying medicine to the sick.
I raised my hand, acknowledging the pure devotion in her words.
And if it should happen, she said, if it should happen that your condition deteriorated and you were to enter into Nirvana tomorrow, then without you we would not know where to turn.
Again I raised my hand and opened my mouth to speak, but no words came.
However, she continued, even if we do not hear you preach again, just seeing your face, and knowing you are well and at peace, is the greatest happiness we can know.
I could see there were tears in her eyes, and I had to struggle against them myself, this old ox, this tiger, helpless as a child. I lay back on my futon, cushions propped up behind me, and took more rest.
My sleep was fitful, disturbed. I fell into a fever, turned this way and that. At one point in my delirium, I sat up and thought I saw Suio, standing at the end of my bed. I slept again, and when I woke he really was there, looking down at me, concerned.
It’s you, I said.
He grunted.
So it would seem.
Good of you to visit, I said. Where have you been?
Here and there, he said. But I couldn’t let you slip away without barking at me one more time. And I wanted another look at your ugly face.
I tried to laugh but it set me coughing. Suio helped me sit up, adjusted the cushions behind me.
So, he said.
Indeed.
He left a silence, then spoke, the words all-in-a-rush.
I have discussed matters with Torei. Things are going well at Ryutaku-ji and he will continue there. As for Shoin-ji, this old rubbish dump . . . Well, against my better judgement, I’ll have a go at running the place and see how it works out.
Abbot Suio after all, I said.
Abbot Suio.
I bowed.
I am grateful.
Later I challenged him to a game of Go, for old times’ sake, and he brought the counters and board. But I couldn’t see clearly enough, or concentrate on the moves, and I barely had th
e strength to pick up the pieces.
This time I’ll let you win, I said.
I had nothing left.
Next day a terrible storm swept through the district, battering Hara, bombarding Shoin-ji. Relentless rain poured down, the buildings shook and great bolts of lightning zigzagged to earth.
What do you think? I asked Suio. Are they opening the gates of hell for me?
Perhaps, he said.
There’s a haiku by Matsuo Basho, I said.
I remembered old Bao reciting it to me.
How admirable
Not to think life is fleeting
When you see the lightning.
Suio nodded, but when I was shaken by another spasm of coughing and spat up blood, he sent for the doctor.
My old friend Gentoku had himself passed to the other side, unable at the last to heal himself. His successor was a younger man, Furugori, all quick remedies and instant cures, with none of Gentoku’s wisdom, his humanity.
He had treated me for a suppurating carbuncle on my backside. The curse of zazen, or too much sugar. It was agony, yet Furugori had showed no compassion.
Now he took his time in coming, waited till the worst of the storm was over. Didn’t want to catch his death of cold. He had a fastidiousness, a fussiness in his manner, looked constantly disapproving. He took my pulse, holding my wrist.
Well? I said.
You eat too many sugared sweets, he said.
Guilty as charged, I said. I’ve eaten them all my life. And the remedy?
The same as last time.
Ah.
A purgative, he said. To flush it out of your system.
Get rid of all my sweetness.
He measured out a pinch of some powdered herb, told me to add it to a little water, swallow it down in a single gulp.
Then spend the night in agony, I said, crouched over the privy.
If that’s what it takes.
Gates of hell, I said to Suio.
As the doctor prepared to leave, I asked if he had anything else to say about my health.
Nothing much, he said. There’s nothing out of the ordinary.
I sat up as straight as I could, fixed him with my gaze.
You call yourself a doctor, I said, and you can’t even tell when a man has just three days to live.
Suio and Torei glanced at each other. The doctor looked as if he had been punched. The young nun Erin dropped a bowl she had picked up from my bedside and it smashed to pieces on the floor.
Don’t worry, I said. It was the bowl’s time to die.
This very moment, what’s to be sought?
Nirvana is here and now.
This very place is the Pure Land.
This very body is the Buddha-body.
The same young monk who had told me of Hakuyu’s passing now asked if the master had really been 400 years old when I met him.
Words, words, words, I said.
All of it. All of it. Idle talk on the night boat.
A death-verse?
Torei had asked if I would write something. He was ready, brush in hand.
What more do I have to say? I asked him.
I recalled Shoju’s reluctance to utter his final words. I’ll say it / Without saying it / Nothing more / Nothing more.
There was one I had written that Bao had liked, about incense burning down, leaving just the fragrance. If only I could remember it.
But then Bao had quoted Mumon at me, said reciting a death-verse is adding frost to snow. Frost to snow.
Nevertheless, Torei was anxious.
All true poetry is death-verse, I said. Why not choose something I have already written?
He came back to me with a little tanka I had scribbled long ago, beneath a drawing of a swallow, flying.
Crossing the ocean
of life and death,
envying the flight
of the swallow.
That’s as good as any, I said. But I’ll make sure you hear my last word.
Last word? Last sound.
I had slept deep, woken from a dream. Looked around me and gave voice. Part mantra, part deep groan. The bellow of an ox. Like Ganto’s last cry it would carry and resonate.
OM
Throw this old carcass on the funeral pyre and let it burn.
And then? Where am I now? What realm do I inhabit? This self, this no-self. He who was Nagasawa Iwajiro, he who was Ekaku, Wise Crane, he who was Hakuin, Hidden-in-Whiteness.
Where? In these words? In the mind of the one who wrote them and of you who read? You read them in a language I never knew, on the printed page or on some illuminated kamishibai screen you carry with you.
Expedient devices. Words on a screen. Name and form.
Idle talk. The night boat.
Is that so?
My childhood name was Iwajiro. I was eight years old when I first entered at the gates of hell.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T
here are many people I would like to thank for their contributions to the progress of Night Boat.
The late and greatly missed Gavin Wallace for encouragement and support, and particularly for facilitating a Creative Scotland grant for travel to Japan. Alex Reedijk at Scottish Opera for commissioning the libretto of my mini-opera Zen Story (with Miriama Young) and setting me off down the Hakuin road. Norman Waddell for his extreme kindness and generosity, welcoming me to Kyoto, sharing the fruits of the lifetime’s research that went into his own definitive translations and compilations of Hakuin (running to five volumes). Yoshie Waddell for further extending that welcome and hospitality. Professor Yoshizawa Katsuhiro at Hanazono University, the foremost living Hakuin scholar, for allowing me deeper in to Hakuin’s world and for graciously funding my trip to Tokyo to take part in his Hakuin Forum, linked to the fabulous exhibition he curated at Bunkamura Museum. Thomas Kirchner for looking after me on that trip. Cairns Craig for approving additional funding from CASS at the University of Aberdeen. Elizabeth Sheinkman, my wonderful agent, formerly at Curtis Brown, now with WME. All at Canongate, especially the indefatigable Jamie Byng, Francis Bickmore, as always an astute and unobtrusive editor, ably assisted by Jo Dingley, and Vicki Rutherford for patient copy-editing. My good friends in the Sri Chinmoy Centre – Sundar, Dhrubha, Jaitra and Pavitrata – for inspiring me to go to New York for the Hakuin exhibition at the Japan Centre, and Kusumita Pedersen for lending me a rare copy of Philip Yampolsky’s book of Hakuin’s writings. Brian McCabe for publishing part of the opening chapter in Edinburgh Review. Friends and colleagues who responded to individual chapters along the way – John Burns, Wayne Price and Alison Watt for positive feedback, Kevin MacNeil for his kind words, and Helen Lynch for continued support and invaluable close reading of several sections. Janani, always, for living with the work, for putting up with the process, for getting me to New York for that Hakuin exhibition, and for a final, painstaking proofing of the whole text. The biggest debt of gratitude is to Sri Chinmoy, my teacher of 40 years, a constant inspiration whose guidance has continued after his passing. To quote his final poem: My physical death / Is not the end of my life. / I am an eternal journey.
THE PURE LAND
ALAN SPENCE
The year is 1858. Thomas Glover is a gutsy eighteen-year-old who grasps the chance of escape to foreign lands and takes a posting as a trader in Japan. Within ten years he amasses a great fortune, learns the ways of the samurai, and, on the other side of the law, brings about the overthrow of the Shogun.
Yet beneath his astonishing success lies a man cut to the heart by an affair with a beautiful courtesan, a lover who, unknown to Glover, would bear him a son.
‘Not merely an engaging and vivid hostorical novel, but also a meditative work of art that is as finely honed as a samurai's sword’ John Burnside, The Times
‘Astonishing in its breadth, depth and ambition . . . a beautifully written modern epic’ Irish Independent
‘His imagination is given full reign but this never clouds his i
nstinctive understanding of the contradictions of the human condition . . . glorious’ Sunday Herald
www.canongate.tv
POETRY BY ALAN SPENCE
CLEAR LIGHT
Mythic and mesmerising, inspiring and hilarious, these poems shed light on the delights, hardships, breakthroughs and frustrations of the world of the momentary. Simple in form, these haiku request a fresh look at the familiar and leave us reeling at how much in the world, from the exotic to the everyday, we have yet to observe.
‘He is a gentle writer, but never sentimental. The beautiful moments have always been earned. He is a writer to cherish, one offering deep and fulfilling pleasure’ Allan Massie
GLASGOW ZEN
A collection of haiku and other short poetic forms on the theme of Glasgow – its people, landscape, culture. An exquisite poet, Spence is, as always, uniquely illuminating, witty and delightful.
‘The 150 pieces in this exquisite collection take the reader through the unfolding beauty of the passing seasons, their fleeting delights presented in a pleasing pocket-size format’ Scotland on Sunday
SEASONS OF THE HEART
In this stunning collection Soence evokes the essence of the seasons with this cycle of haiku.
‘How much pure energy can be packed into a book that fits into a back pocket? Seasons of the Heart testifies in 150 haiku to the sheer potential of the small. It is a reminder of the power of simplicity . . . A meditative and sustained delivery of both energy and purity. Spence is a calm and necessary visionary . . . This is Spence in essence, all openness of instinct and imagination’ Ali Smith, The Herald