A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

by Kenko

  All things considered, a drunkard is so entertaining he can be forgiven his sins. Think of the charming scene when a master throws open the door on his servant, who is sound asleep next morning after an exhausting night on the drink. The poor befuddled fellow rushes off, rubbing his bleary eyes, topknot exposed on his hatless head, only half dressed and clutching the rest of his trailing clothes, his hairy shins sticking out below his lifted skirts as he scampers into the distance – a typical drunk.

  *

  The one thing a man should not have is a wife.

  One is impressed to hear that a certain man always lives alone, while someone who is reported to have married into this or that family, or to have taken a wife and be living together, will find himself quite looked down on. ‘He must have married that nondescript girl because he thought she was something special,’ people will say scornfully, or if she is a good woman they will think, ‘He’ll be so besotted that he treats her like his own personal buddha.’ The impression is even more dreary when she runs the house well. It is depressing to watch her bear children and fuss over them, and things don’t end with his death, for then you have the shameful sight of her growing old and decrepit as a nun.

  No matter who the woman may be, you would grow to hate her if you lived with her and saw her day in day out, and the woman must become dissatisfied too. But if you lived separately and sometimes visited her, your feelings for each other would surely remain unchanged through the years. It keeps the relationship fresh to just drop in from time to time on impulse and spend the night.

  *

  What a shame it is to hear someone declare that things lose their beauty at night! All lustre, ornamentation and brilliance come into their own at night.

  In daylight, one can keep things simple and dress sedately. But the best clothing for night is showy and dazzling formal wear. The same goes for people – a good-looking person will look still finer by lamplight, and it’s charming to hear a careful voice speaking in darkness. Scents and music too are still lovelier at night.

  It is a fine thing to see a man who calls on some great household looking his best late on an uneventful evening. Young people who pay attention to such things will always notice one’s appearance no matter what the hour, so it is wise to dress well whatever the situation, whether formal or informal, and most especially at times when one is inclined to relax and unwind. Particularly delightful is when a fine gentleman has bothered to plaster down his hair though it is after dark, or when a lady slips from the room late at night to take up a mirror and see to her face before rejoining the company.

  *

  When the now-deceased Tokudaiji Minister of the Right was Superintendent of Police, he was one day holding court at his central gate when the ox of one of the officers, Akikane, broke loose, got into the court room, scrambled up on to the Superintendent’s seating platform and there settled down to chew its cud. This was deemed a disturbingly untoward event, and everyone present declared that the beast should be taken off for Yin-Yang divination to determine the meaning.

  However, when the Superintendent’s father the Minister heard of this, he declared, ‘An ox has no understanding. It has its four legs which can take it anywhere. There is no reason to impound a skinny beast that happens to have brought some lowly official here.’ He had the ox returned to its master, and changed the matting where the ox had lain. There were no ill consequences from the event.

  It is sometimes said that if you see something sinister and choose to treat it as normal, you will thereby avert whatever it portended.

  *

  Nothing in this world can be trusted. Fools put all their faith in things, and so become angry and bitter.

  The powerful should place no faith in their powerful position. The strong are the first to go. The rich should never depend on their wealth. A fortune can easily disappear from one moment to the next. A scholar should never be complacent about his skills. Even Confucius did not meet with the reception he deserved. The virtuous should not rely on their virtue. Even the exemplary Yan Hui met with misfortune. Nor should those favoured by the emperor be smug. You may at any time find yourself instead faced with execution for some crime. Never rely on your servants to be loyal. They can rebel and flee. Never put your faith in others’ goodwill. They will inevitably change their minds. Never depend on a promise made. People seldom keep their word.

  If you rely neither on yourself nor on others, you will rejoice when things go well, and not be aggrieved when they don’t. Maintain a clear space on either side, and nothing will obstruct you; keep open before and behind you, and you will be unimpeded. If you let yourself be hemmed in, you can be squeezed to breaking point. Without care and flexibility in your dealings with the world, you will find yourself in conflict and be damaged, while if you live calmly and serenely, not a hair on your head will come to harm.

  Humans are the most miraculous and exalted of all things in heaven and earth. And heaven and earth are boundless. How, then, could we differ in essence? If our spirit is open and boundless, neither fear nor joy will obstruct it, and we will remain untroubled by the world.

  *

  There is a place in Tamba called Izumo, where the deity of the great Izumo Shrine has been installed in a magnificent shrine building. The area is ruled by a certain Shida, who one autumn invited a great many people, including the holy man Shōkai. ‘Come and pray to Izumo,’ he said, ‘and let us feast on rice cakes.’ He led them to the shrine, and every one of them prayed and was filled with faith.

  The holy man was immensely moved by the sight of the guardian Chinese lion and Korean dog, which were placed back to back and facing backwards. ‘How marvellous!’ he exclaimed, close to tears. ‘Such an unusual position to stand them in! There must be some deep reason behind it.’ Then he turned to the others. ‘How can you not have noticed this wonder?’ he cried. ‘I’m amazed at you.’

  They were very struck. ‘Yes indeed,’ they all declared, ‘they are different from elsewhere. We’ll tell this to everyone back in the capital.’

  The holy man now wished to learn more, so he called over an elderly and wise-looking shrine priest. ‘There must be some interesting tale explaining the placement of these images,’ he said. ‘Do be so kind as to tell us.’

  ‘Indeed there is,’ replied the priest. ‘Some naughty children did it. A disgraceful business,’ and so saying he went over to the statues, set them to rights and walked off.

  The holy man’s tears of delight had been for nothing.

  *

  He whose deep love spurs him to dare all and go to his beloved, though ‘watchful eyes surround the stealthy lover’ and ‘guards are set to snare him in the dark’, will leave them both replete with powerful memories of all the moments when they tasted life’s poignancy to the full. It must feel very awkward and unromantic for the woman, however, if a man simply takes her as his wife with the full consent of the family and without further ado.

  How dreary it is when a woman hard up in the world announces that she will ‘answer the call of any current’ so long as he is well-off, be it some unsuitable old priest or an uncouth Easterner, and a go-between sets about singing the praises of each to the other, with the result that she comes to someone’s house as a bride without either knowing the other at all. What on earth would they say to each other when they first come face to face? On the other hand, a couple can find endless conversation in the memories of long hardships overcome, ‘forging their way through the dense autumn woods’ to be together at last.

  It can generally be said that a great deal of dissatisfaction results from a marriage set up by a third party. If the wife is excellent and the man a lowly and ugly old fellow, he will despise her for allowing herself to be thrown away on the likes of himself, and feel ashamed in her presence – a deplorable situation.

  If you can never linger beneath the clouded moon on a plum-scented evening, nor find yourself recalling the dawns when you made your way home through the dew-soaked grasses
by her gate after a night of love, you had best not aspire to be a lover at all.

  *

  The full moon’s perfect roundness lasts barely a moment, and in no time is lost. Those with no eye for such things, it seems, fail to see how it changes in the course of a night.

  An illness will grow graver as each moment passes, and death is already close at hand, yet while the sickness is still mild and you are not yet confronting death, you are lulled by your accustomed assumptions of a normal life in an unchanging world, and choose to wait until you have accomplished all you want in life before calmly turning your thoughts to salvation and a Buddhist practice, with the result that when you fall ill and confront death, none of your dreams has been fulfilled. Now, too late, you repent of your long years of negligence, and swear that if only you were to recover you would dedicate yourself unstintingly day and night to this thing and that – but for all your prayers your illness grows graver, until you lose your senses and die a raving death. It happens to so many of us. We must fully grasp this, here and now.

  If you plan to turn your thoughts to the Buddhist Way after you have fulfilled all your desires, you will find that those desires are endless. What could be achieved, in this illusory life of ours? All desire is delusion. If desires arise within you, realize that they spring from your lost and deluded mind, and ignore them all. Relinquish all today and turn to the Buddhist path, and you will be freed of all obstruction, released from the need for action, and lasting peace will be yours body and soul.

  *

  The year I turned eight, I asked my father, ‘What sort of thing is a buddha?’

  ‘A buddha is what a human becomes,’ he replied.

  ‘How does a human become a buddha?’ I asked.

  ‘You become a buddha by following the Buddha’s teaching,’ he answered.

  ‘So who taught the Buddha?’ I asked.

  ‘He became a buddha by following the teaching of previous buddhas,’ he said.

  ‘So what sort of buddha was the first one who began the teaching?’ I asked.

  My father laughed and replied, ‘I suppose he just fell from the sky like rain or rose out of the earth like water.’

  He used to enjoy recounting this story to others, adding, ‘He had me cornered. I couldn’t think what to reply.’

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  This selection published in Penguin Classics 2015

  Translation copyright © Meredith McKinney, 2013

  The moral right of the translator has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-141-39826-6