The Gate

by Natsume Soseki

  As he walked along he kept muttering over and over to himself the word “religion.” But with each repetition the word no sooner rang out than it died away, without any reverberation. This “religion” was an ephemeral word: It left no more trace than would smoke cupped in his hands once he had spread them open.

  By association with religion Sōsuke was reminded of an episode long ago that had to do with zazen.[76] When he was in Kyoto, a classmate of his used to go to Shōkokuji[77] to sit in meditation. At the time he had laughed at such frivolity—so out of touch with the times, he thought to himself. That this classmate’s everyday conduct did not appear to differ much from Sōsuke’s struck him as further proof of the absurdity of such pursuits.

  Now, all these years later, it came to him that his classmate may well have had a reason not to begrudge the time spent on these sessions that was quite different from any of the frivolous ones Sōsuke had imputed to him. On realizing how callow his judgment had been, he felt deeply ashamed. If it were possible, through the power of zazen, to attain to the state that had long been described in terms such as “at peace with oneself,” “confirmed in one’s destiny,” and the like, then he would gladly take off from work for ten or twenty days and give it a try. When it came to matters such as this, however, he was a rank layman and quite unable to form any clear idea of what achieving such a state might entail.

  After finally wending his way home and seeing the familiar figures of Oyone and Koroku, within the usual setting of sitting room and parlor, the lamp here, the chest of drawers there, Sōsuke became acutely aware of how thoroughly strange his experience over the past four or five hours had been. A small earthenware pot rested on the brazier, steam rising from the narrow gap below the lid. Beside the brazier his regular cushion had been set out in his customary place, and in front of it his tray table.

  Staring at the circular base of his rice bowl, which had been carefully turned upside down in his absence, and at the chopsticks he had grown so thoroughly used to holding in his hand every day and evening for several years, Sōsuke said, “I won’t be eating anything now.”

  “Oh well, it did seem late,” Oyone said, obviously disappointed. “I supposed that you’d probably stopped by somewhere for supper. ‘But then, if he hasn’t eaten, that would be too bad,’ I said to myself.” Using a tea towel, she picked up the pot by the handles and placed it on the tea-kettle pad, then called Kiyo to remove the tray table.

  It was Sōsuke’s habit, whenever something caused him to make a detour after work and delay his return, to give Oyone a general account of what had happened as soon as he was settled back home. For her part, until she had heard his account Oyone felt somehow remiss herself. This evening, however, for the first time Sōsuke balked at explanations; he said nothing about getting off the streetcar at Kanda or about stopping by the restaurant and forcing drinks down his throat. Left in the dark, Oyone appeared keen to ply her husband with questions about this and that in her typically innocent way.

  “Look, there really isn’t any particular reason why I’m late . . . I just felt like having some beef at one of those restaurants down there.”

  “And after that, for the sake of your digestion, you walked all the way home?”

  “Well, yes.”

  Visibly amused, Oyone laughed out loud. Sōsuke, though, was in pain.

  “While I was out, did Sakai send someone down to ask me over?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, the night before last he said something about having me up for dinner.”

  “Again?” said Oyone, looking somewhat exasperated.

  Letting the matter drop, Sōsuke went to bed. But his mind buzzed with commotion. From time to time he opened his eyes and saw the lamp flickering dimly, as always, in the alcove. Oyone appeared to be sleeping soundly. Up until recently he had been the one who slept well while Oyone was often troubled by insomnia. Eyes shut, he felt his frayed nerves further assailed by the clear, inescapable sound of the pendulum clock in the next room. At first it struck many times in a row. Later it struck only once. For a while the low, muffled tone reverberated down to his earlobes, tapering off like a comet’s tail. The next time it struck twice, with an inexpressibly mournful gong. In the interval the only decision Sōsuke was able to come to was that he must find a way to attain serenity in life. When the clock struck three, he barely heard it at all. Of the chimes at four, five, and six o’clock he was quite oblivious. He was aware only that the world was swelling, the heavens expanding and contracting in great waves. Like a ball dangling from a string, the earth swung to and fro in space, describing a wide arc. It was a dream orchestrated by demons. He awoke from it with a start, at seven in the morning. There was Oyone bending over him with her usual smile. The bright sun had immediately banished that dark world to some faraway place.

  18

  WITH A letter of introduction tucked in his breast pocket, Sōsuke passed through the temple compound’s main gate. He had obtained the letter from the friend of a colleague at work. This colleague would slip a copy of Maxims for Life[78] out of his jacket pocket and read it on the streetcar on his way to and from the office. One day when the two of them were sitting next to each other on the streetcar, Sōsuke, who was ignorant of this text, never having had the slightest interest in such writings, had asked his colleague what he was reading. The man held up the small, yellow-bound volume for Sōsuke to see and replied that it was an odd sort of book. Sōsuke inquired further about the content. Apparently struggling to find the right words for a succinct reply, the colleague had remarked, in a curiously offhand fashion, that it had something to do with the study of Zen. This remark had stuck in Sōsuke’s mind.

  Several days prior to securing the letter of introduction, he had gone over to his colleague’s desk and asked him out of the blue, “Do you practice Zen yourself?”

  Alarmed at the look of severe tension on Sōsuke’s face, the man responded evasively, “No, no, I just read a few things in my spare time.” Sōsuke’s jaw sagged with disappointment as he went back to his desk.

  That very day on the way home, he again found himself on the streetcar with this same colleague. It appeared to have dawned on the man after his glimpse of Sōsuke’s earlier disappointment that this morning’s question had been prompted by something deeper than a wish to make conversation, and so he renewed the topic in a more sympathetic manner. He confessed that he had never actually practiced Zen himself, but said that if Sōsuke wanted to learn more, he fortunately had an acquaintance who frequently visited a temple in Kamakura, and he could arrange an introduction. Right there on the streetcar, Sōsuke wrote the acquaintance’s name and address in his date book. The very next day, carrying a note from his colleague, he made a considerable detour in order to call on the man, who was kind enough to compose on the spot the letter of introduction now lodged in his pocket.

  At the office Sōsuke had asked for ten days’ sick leave. Even with Oyone he maintained the pretext of actually being sick.

  “My nerves are really out of sorts,” he told her. “I’ve asked for a week or so off from work so I can go somewhere and take it easy.”

  Having recently come to suspect that all was not well with her husband, she had quietly but constantly worried about him, and was privately very pleased by this uncharacteristic show of decisiveness by the normally temporizing Sōsuke. Still, she was astonished by the abruptness of it all.

  “And where do you plan to go and ‘take it easy’?” she asked, wide-eyed with curiosity.

  “Actually, I was thinking of Kamakura,” he replied placidly.

  There being virtually no common ground between her retiring husband and the fashionable seaside town, this sudden juxtaposition of the two struck Oyone as comical, and she could not suppress a smile. “My, aren’t you the dandy,” she said. “I think you should take me with you.”

  Sōsuke felt too beleaguered to appreciate his beloved wife’s humor.

  “I’m not going anywhere fanc
y,” he said defensively. “There’s a Zen temple where they’ll put me up—I’ll stay there for a week or ten days just taking it easy and giving my mind some rest. I don’t know if this will make me feel better or not, but they say if you spend some time in a place with fresh air it can work wonders for your nerves.”

  “That’s absolutely true. And you should definitely go. What I said before—I was only joking.”

  Oyone felt a pang of genuine remorse for having made light of her husband’s plan. The next day, bearing his letter of introduction to the temple, he boarded the train at Shimbashi terminal.

  On the envelope was written “To the Reverend Brother Gidō.”

  When Sōsuke’s colleague’s friend finished writing his letter, he had made a point of explaining: “Until recently this monk served as an acolyte to the head priest, but I’ve heard that he has restored a retreat in one of the sub-temples and is now living in it. I’m not quite sure which one—when you arrive you can ask somebody—but I think that it’s called the Issōan.”

  Sōsuke had thanked him, put the letter away, and then, before taking his leave, listened to the man’s explanations of such unfamiliar terms as “acolyte” and “retreat.”

  Just inside the main gate, tall cryptomeria trees rose up on both sides, cutting off the open sky and abruptly casting the path into deep shadow. The moment Sōsuke entered into this gloomy atmosphere he was struck by the temple’s apartness from the everyday world. Standing there, at the entrance to the temple precincts, he felt a chill come on, not unlike that which announces the onset of a cold.

  Initially he proceeded straight along the path. Buildings were scattered about on either side and ahead of him, some looking like assembly halls, others like cloisters. He saw no one coming or going. All was scoured by age and desolate in the extreme. Stopping in his tracks in the middle of the deserted path, Sōsuke cast his gaze in all directions, wondering which way to turn and whom to ask about the whereabouts of the Reverend Gidō.

  The temple compound stood in a clearing that extended some one or two hundred yards up the mountain slope and was hemmed in from behind by a wall of dark green trees. The terrain to either side of him likewise sloped sharply upward into steep hillsides, such that there was little level ground. Sōsuke spotted two or three auxiliary temples, each with its own impressive gate, rising up from stone stairways and perched at higher elevations. A good many more similar edifices, each enclosed by a hedge, were scattered across the more level portion of the compound. Sōsuke approached some of the buildings and noted, hanging from the tiled roof of each gate, a plaque bearing the name of the particular cloister or retreat.

  As he walked along, stopping to read a couple of the old plaques, now stripped of their gilding, it occurred to him that it would be more efficient to concentrate on looking for the Issōan, and then, if Gidō were not to be found at this retreat, to move farther into the compound and make inquiries. Retracing his steps, he inspected each and every building and eventually came upon the Issōan at the top of a long flight of stone steps that led up to the right from just inside the main gate. The retreat, its exposed front blessed with full sun and its rear tucked cozily into a hollow at the base of the mountain that rose up behind it, appeared well designed to keep winter at bay. Entering the retreat, Sōsuke stepped into the earthen-floored kitchen, approached the shoji leading into the building proper, and called out two or three times to announce himself. No one appeared to greet him. He stood there for a while peering at the shoji, trying to make out some sign of life inside. He waited still longer, but to no avail; there was no sign, no hint of anyone. Baffled, he went back through the kitchen and out toward the gate. Just then he saw a monk climbing the stone steps, his freshly shaven head aglow with a bluish hue. His pale face was that of a young man, perhaps twenty-five years old at most. Sōsuke waited at one of the open portals of the gate and asked, “Does the Reverend Gidō reside here?”

  “I am Gidō,” the young monk replied.

  Sōsuke was pleasantly surprised. He removed the letter of introduction from his breast pocket and handed it to Gidō, who read it on the spot. After folding the letter up and putting it back in the envelope, he welcomed Sōsuke warmly and without further ado led him into the retreat. They deposited their clogs on the kitchen floor, opened the shoji, and stepped inside. There was a large square hearth sunk into the floor. Gidō removed the coarse, thin surplice he wore over his gray robe and hung it on a hook.

  “You must be very cold,” he said, raking up pieces of hot charcoal from under a thick layer of ashes.

  The monk spoke with an ease that was rare in someone so young. The quick smile that punctuated his well-modulated utterances struck Sōsuke as distinctly feminine. Wondering what fateful episode had led the man to shave his head, Sōsuke felt a twinge of pity for this monk who comported himself with such gentility.

  “It seems very quiet today,” he said. “Has everyone gone out?”

  “No, it’s like this every day. I am the only one here. I don’t even bother locking up when I have an errand to do. I just leave the place open. I was out on an errand just now. That’s why I was regrettably not here to greet you when you arrived. Do please forgive me.”

  Thus did Gidō offer his guest formal apology for his absence. Sōsuke realized that his arrival could only add to the considerable burden on this monk, charged as he was with looking after the large retreat all by himself, and his face betrayed some embarrassment.

  “Oh, but you mustn’t be concerned on my account. It is all for the sake of the Way.”

  Gidō’s words conveyed much grace. He went on to explain that at present, besides Sōsuke, there was one other layman in residence whom he had been looking after. Evidently, it had already been two years since the man first arrived at the compound. When, two or three days later, Sōsuke first encountered this layman, he turned out to be an easygoing fellow with the face of a playful arhat. At that moment he was dangling a bunch of daikon, which he presented as a special treat. He had Gidō boil and serve the large white radishes at a meal for the three of them. This layman had such a monkish look about him that, as Gidō laughingly related, he managed to insinuate himself from time to time into the clerical ranks at the ceremonial feasts offered up in the town by the faithful.

  Sōsuke heard a good deal about other laymen who came to the temple for training. Among them was a seller of writing brushes and ink who, for three or four weeks at a stretch, would make his rounds on foot with a load of goods strapped on his back; when he had sold nearly all of his stock, he would return to the temple and resume his life of meditation. In due time, when the wherewithal to buy his meals was depleted, he would pack up a new supply of brushes and ink and go back on the road. These two facets of his life alternated with a certain mathematical inevitability, apparently without his ever finding it monotonous.

  When Sōsuke compared the everyday lives of these people, seemingly so free from petty obsessions, with the present state of his own inner life, he was dismayed by the glaring disparity. Were they able to practice zazen in this way because they led such carefree lives? Or had their minds become carefree as a result of their practice? He could not tell which.

  “It’s certainly not a matter of being carefree,” said Gidō. “If it could all be done as a kind of pleasant pastime, we wouldn’t have all these devoted monks suffering through twenty or thirty years of wandering from one temple to another.”

  The monk proceeded to offer him some basic guidelines for zazen, followed by a general description of what it was like to rack one’s brains morning, noon, and night over a koan posed by the Master, all of which was deeply unsettling for Sōsuke. Gidō then stood up and said, “Let me show you to your room.”

  The monk led Sōsuke away from the hearth, across the sanctuary, and then along the veranda a few steps to some shoji that gave onto a six-mat room. At that moment Sōsuke felt for the first time how far from home his solitary journey had taken him. Yet his mind was still mor
e agitated than it had been in the city, perhaps because of the very tranquillity of his surroundings.

  After what seemed like an hour or more, he heard Gidō’s footsteps reverberating again from the direction of the sanctuary.

  Kneeling deferentially at the threshold to Sōsuke’s room, the monk said, “I believe the Master is prepared to conduct an interview. Let us go now, if it’s convenient for you.”

  Leaving the retreat vacant, they set out together. Proceeding up the main path a hundred yards or so farther into the compound, they came to a lotus pond on the left-hand side. With nothing growing at this chilly season the stagnant pond was murky and devoid of anything that might have conveyed a sense of purity and enlightenment. But across the pond, a glimpse of a pavilion, ringed by a railed veranda and backing into a rocky cliff, presented a rustic scene of the sort depicted in paintings of the literati style.

  “That is where the Master resides,” said Gidō, pointing up at the edifice, which appeared to be of relatively recent construction. Skirting the shore of the pond, the two of them climbed five or six flights of stone steps. At the top, with the structure’s massive roof towering directly above them, they made a sharp turn to the left. As they approached the entranceway, Gidō excused himself and made his way to the rear entrance. Presently he reemerged through the front door, ushered Sōsuke in, and led him to the room where the Master was seated.

  The Master looked to be around fifty years old. His ruddy face had a healthy glow. His smooth skin and taut muscles, without a wrinkle or sag, suggested a bronze statue and made a deep impression on Sōsuke. Only his lips, which were exceedingly thick, revealed a hint of slackness. But this small detail was obliterated by a vibrancy that flashed from the Master’s eyes, the likes of which were not to be seen in any ordinary man. Encountering this look for the first time was for Sōsuke to glimpse a naked blade glinting in the dark.