helicopter hovered overhead and we werehauled up—about ten of us at a time. It took until dark to get us all to safety.”
She sits with a thud and a laugh, drained by her own exuberance. Strips of yellow flypaper hang from the ceilings. She sees me looking at them. “Yes,” she says, “we are Buddhists, but the abbot says it’s okay to kill the flies because, with all the dead around, they could spread disease. We must protect the young from these things.”
Children are leaving for the day, being picked up by their mothers. A line of teachers stands outside in the rain holding umbrellas and waving good-bye to their young charges. They bow as the cars pull away.
SHOUNJI
Where the Naruse flows into the Kitakami River we cross a narrow bridge to the east side and follow the river toward a country temple called Shounji. Here, the river makes a wide, sensuous loop, a U-turn that heads north. Small farms and lumber mills line the narrow road. Great white egrets stalk fish in the shallows. Dredges and search boats ply the water: there are still so many missing.
Less than an hour after the 2:46 p.m. earthquake, the tsunami wave surged six miles up the river. People were standing on the levee watching when the water rushed backward. They were taking pictures, while their children were at the Ookawa Elementary School a few miles away. Farmers were working the fields or driving their produce to market. Almost all died.
“A river does not belong to this shore or that … it’s just a river flowing down,” Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, said. The river is the
bardo. Bar
means “between”;
do
means “tower,” or “island in a river.” Together, the words mean“the space between,” and refer to every present moment. We could be breathing, or between breaths; we may be treading water between life and death, or tumbling in the dirty surge, gulping salt, to stand on firm ground.
Today the river is wide, flat, blue. The road passes farmhouses with central courtyards, thatched roofs, and large vegetable plots. We stop to ask the way. A tiny, elderly woman emerges from her field with a basket full of green onions and eggplant slung over her arm. She wears the traditional cotton scarf, pantaloons, and rain boots, and her gray hair is pulled back tight. We ask where the temple Shounji might be found. “Up the road,” she answers in a soft, measured voice. “But not as far as the one that washed away.”
We follow the river road north. Earlier on today’s journey, I read a poem by Bashō that used the “cutting word”
ya
, which separates, yet joins, expressions of before and after. It signals something struggling, something coming into being or else leaving what it once was. It is a river word, a word that warns of impending movement, change, and flux, and helps to describe the Buddhist concept of
bardo
.
My friend Tenku Ruff, a Buddhist nun who came to Japan to help survivors, agreed to meet me at Shounji, where another nun, Fukan-san, lives. As we pull up to the temple, Tenku runs down stone steps, black robes flying, to greet me. An American, she speaks Japanese with a soft Florida accent. Her features are sensuous, her face beautiful; her head is shaved. She was ordained in Japan along with Fukan-san, after training at a monastery in Nagoya.
We follow her up the steps to the temple courtyard. An exquisite S-shaped pine tree stands in the center, so old and heavy its bows are supported by vertical sticks—bones braced by crutches. Past the abbot’s living quarters, we ascend another set of stairs to the temple. Fukan-san stands at the entrance and bows.
Flickering candles illuminate framed photographs and the vessels that hold the ashes of the recently dead: they are mothers and fathers, farmers and workers, and many children. We bow, light incense, and breathe in their suffering.
Shoes back on, we cross the courtyard to the abbot’s living quarters. Shoes off, we step up. In another room
She sits with a thud and a laugh, drained by her own exuberance. Strips of yellow flypaper hang from the ceilings. She sees me looking at them. “Yes,” she says, “we are Buddhists, but the abbot says it’s okay to kill the flies because, with all the dead around, they could spread disease. We must protect the young from these things.”
Children are leaving for the day, being picked up by their mothers. A line of teachers stands outside in the rain holding umbrellas and waving good-bye to their young charges. They bow as the cars pull away.
SHOUNJI
Where the Naruse flows into the Kitakami River we cross a narrow bridge to the east side and follow the river toward a country temple called Shounji. Here, the river makes a wide, sensuous loop, a U-turn that heads north. Small farms and lumber mills line the narrow road. Great white egrets stalk fish in the shallows. Dredges and search boats ply the water: there are still so many missing.
Less than an hour after the 2:46 p.m. earthquake, the tsunami wave surged six miles up the river. People were standing on the levee watching when the water rushed backward. They were taking pictures, while their children were at the Ookawa Elementary School a few miles away. Farmers were working the fields or driving their produce to market. Almost all died.
“A river does not belong to this shore or that … it’s just a river flowing down,” Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, said. The river is the
bardo. Bar
means “between”;
do
means “tower,” or “island in a river.” Together, the words mean“the space between,” and refer to every present moment. We could be breathing, or between breaths; we may be treading water between life and death, or tumbling in the dirty surge, gulping salt, to stand on firm ground.
Today the river is wide, flat, blue. The road passes farmhouses with central courtyards, thatched roofs, and large vegetable plots. We stop to ask the way. A tiny, elderly woman emerges from her field with a basket full of green onions and eggplant slung over her arm. She wears the traditional cotton scarf, pantaloons, and rain boots, and her gray hair is pulled back tight. We ask where the temple Shounji might be found. “Up the road,” she answers in a soft, measured voice. “But not as far as the one that washed away.”
We follow the river road north. Earlier on today’s journey, I read a poem by Bashō that used the “cutting word”
ya
, which separates, yet joins, expressions of before and after. It signals something struggling, something coming into being or else leaving what it once was. It is a river word, a word that warns of impending movement, change, and flux, and helps to describe the Buddhist concept of
bardo
.
My friend Tenku Ruff, a Buddhist nun who came to Japan to help survivors, agreed to meet me at Shounji, where another nun, Fukan-san, lives. As we pull up to the temple, Tenku runs down stone steps, black robes flying, to greet me. An American, she speaks Japanese with a soft Florida accent. Her features are sensuous, her face beautiful; her head is shaved. She was ordained in Japan along with Fukan-san, after training at a monastery in Nagoya.
We follow her up the steps to the temple courtyard. An exquisite S-shaped pine tree stands in the center, so old and heavy its bows are supported by vertical sticks—bones braced by crutches. Past the abbot’s living quarters, we ascend another set of stairs to the temple. Fukan-san stands at the entrance and bows.
Flickering candles illuminate framed photographs and the vessels that hold the ashes of the recently dead: they are mothers and fathers, farmers and workers, and many children. We bow, light incense, and breathe in their suffering.
Shoes back on, we cross the courtyard to the abbot’s living quarters. Shoes off, we step up. In another room
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