the television is on: he’s watching the evening news. We’re asked to sit and wait. Finally he emerges.
The abbot’s entry is quiet. Slender and tall, with a kind face, he sits with impeccable posture. “I have three daughters,” he says. “I put them through school, and they haven’t been back since!” Laughter. “Then my niece, Fukan-san, came visiting and said she wanted to become a nun. I thought she was joking, so I told her to shave her head. Right then and there. And she did. That meant she was serious, so I sent her to the monastery in Nagoya.
“It takes five very hard years of practice, study, and training to become a Buddhist nun. Fukan-san graduated three days after the tsunami. I was so sorry that I couldn’t get there. I’m eighty years old and I need someone to take over the temple. I asked her if she would do it and she said, ‘Of course!’ ” He looks at her with an impish smile. “So I’ve adopted her as my daughter.
“One of the founding fathers of Soto Zen came from China and that priest’s ancestors built this temple 530 years ago. I’m the thirty-second abbot. I hope Fukan-san will be the thirty-third.”
The abbot’s wife joins us. Green tea is poured. There’s a long silence, then he speaks: “No one expected the tsunami wave to come up here on the river. People were standing on the levee watching, not realizing they were in danger. They were swept away, along with most of the children from the school up the road at Ookawa. Many years ago, I went to that same school.
“There were two waves. One was two meters high. It receded and came back as a three-meter wave, a big tsunami wave. The bottom of the river showed. This has never happened before.The temple up the road, Kannonji, was washed away. It lost all the headstones from the graves. Rice fields were swept clean. No one wants to live in that village now.”
He recalls that after the tsunami, it began snowing hard. An eighty-nine-year-old woman showed up at the door. She was soaking wet and shivering. The abbot’s wife warmed her and gave her dry clothes. “Earlier, when the earthquake happened, I was only concerned that the statue of the Buddha would fall. Then I realized the tsunami was serious and our whole world had changed. My temple became an unofficial evacuation center and a morgue.”
He remembers the Ogachi Bridge collapsing. No one could get out. The commuter train stopped on the tracks and hasn’t moved since. “Water came so far in, it was as if the ocean was right here. There was no river, just water stretching across everything,” he says, holding his hand to his heart.
Tenku tells of the priest and his wife who went to the second floor of their temple as water approached. “The whole building lifted off its foundations and started floating. It swung near the mountain. They ran out onto the veranda and when the temple floated close enough, they jumped off onto the steep slope and grabbed onto tree branches. From there they watched their beloved temple collapse.”
The abbot continues: “After the tsunami water came up this river, we had seventy or eighty people staying here. It’s a small country temple and it became too crowded. We had nothing to eat for three days. I sent them to an elderly lady’s farm down the road to get some vegetables, and they did, and came back. On the sixth day volunteers came with food and supplies.
One hundred people died who lived near the temple up the road. It’s only a roof and a frame now. Then the most extraordinary thing happened: survivors began dragging the dead out of the river and bringing them up the road to us. Some were carried over men’s shoulders, others were put in wheelbarrows,or in the back of small trucks. The dead kept arriving. Corpses filled our temple courtyard. They were lying all the way around the center pine tree.”
The abbot recalls how the faces of the dead were covered with cuts. The Wave had knocked them around. “They were
The abbot’s entry is quiet. Slender and tall, with a kind face, he sits with impeccable posture. “I have three daughters,” he says. “I put them through school, and they haven’t been back since!” Laughter. “Then my niece, Fukan-san, came visiting and said she wanted to become a nun. I thought she was joking, so I told her to shave her head. Right then and there. And she did. That meant she was serious, so I sent her to the monastery in Nagoya.
“It takes five very hard years of practice, study, and training to become a Buddhist nun. Fukan-san graduated three days after the tsunami. I was so sorry that I couldn’t get there. I’m eighty years old and I need someone to take over the temple. I asked her if she would do it and she said, ‘Of course!’ ” He looks at her with an impish smile. “So I’ve adopted her as my daughter.
“One of the founding fathers of Soto Zen came from China and that priest’s ancestors built this temple 530 years ago. I’m the thirty-second abbot. I hope Fukan-san will be the thirty-third.”
The abbot’s wife joins us. Green tea is poured. There’s a long silence, then he speaks: “No one expected the tsunami wave to come up here on the river. People were standing on the levee watching, not realizing they were in danger. They were swept away, along with most of the children from the school up the road at Ookawa. Many years ago, I went to that same school.
“There were two waves. One was two meters high. It receded and came back as a three-meter wave, a big tsunami wave. The bottom of the river showed. This has never happened before.The temple up the road, Kannonji, was washed away. It lost all the headstones from the graves. Rice fields were swept clean. No one wants to live in that village now.”
He recalls that after the tsunami, it began snowing hard. An eighty-nine-year-old woman showed up at the door. She was soaking wet and shivering. The abbot’s wife warmed her and gave her dry clothes. “Earlier, when the earthquake happened, I was only concerned that the statue of the Buddha would fall. Then I realized the tsunami was serious and our whole world had changed. My temple became an unofficial evacuation center and a morgue.”
He remembers the Ogachi Bridge collapsing. No one could get out. The commuter train stopped on the tracks and hasn’t moved since. “Water came so far in, it was as if the ocean was right here. There was no river, just water stretching across everything,” he says, holding his hand to his heart.
Tenku tells of the priest and his wife who went to the second floor of their temple as water approached. “The whole building lifted off its foundations and started floating. It swung near the mountain. They ran out onto the veranda and when the temple floated close enough, they jumped off onto the steep slope and grabbed onto tree branches. From there they watched their beloved temple collapse.”
The abbot continues: “After the tsunami water came up this river, we had seventy or eighty people staying here. It’s a small country temple and it became too crowded. We had nothing to eat for three days. I sent them to an elderly lady’s farm down the road to get some vegetables, and they did, and came back. On the sixth day volunteers came with food and supplies.
One hundred people died who lived near the temple up the road. It’s only a roof and a frame now. Then the most extraordinary thing happened: survivors began dragging the dead out of the river and bringing them up the road to us. Some were carried over men’s shoulders, others were put in wheelbarrows,or in the back of small trucks. The dead kept arriving. Corpses filled our temple courtyard. They were lying all the way around the center pine tree.”
The abbot recalls how the faces of the dead were covered with cuts. The Wave had knocked them around. “They were
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