light.
"Now this child, you see...â Hearing Father's words, I turned towards him. In the almost dark room, Father was about to entrust my future to Father Dosen.
âI don,t think I shall live much longer," Father said. âI want to ask you to look after this child when the time comes.â
Priest though he was and accustomed to comforting people at times like these, Father Dosen had no soothing words for this occasion, but simply answered: ââVery well, I'll look after him.â
What really astohished me was that they then embarked merrily on an exchange of anecdotes about the deaths of various famous priests. One of them had died saying: "Oh, I don't want to didâ Another had ended his life with Goethe's own words: âMore light!â Still another famous priest had evidently been counting the temple money until the very moment that he died.
We were offered an evening meal, known to Buddhists as "medicine," and it was arranged that We should spend that night in the temple. After dinner I persuaded Father to come and have another look at the Golden Temple. For the moon had come out.
Father had been overstimulated by meeting the Superior again after so many years and he was quite exhausted; but when he heard me speak of the Golden Temple, he came out with me, breathing heavily and leaning on my shoulder.
The moon rose from the edge of Mount Fudo. The back of the Golden Temple received its light. The building seemed to fold up its dark, complicated shadow and to subside quietly; only the frames of the Kato windows in the Kukyocho allowed the smooth shadows of the moon to slip into the building. The Kukyocho had no proper walls, and so it seemed that this was where the faint moonlight had its dwelling.
From Ashiwara Island came the cry of the night birds as they flew off into the distance. I was conscious of the weight of Father's emaciated hands on my shoulders. When I glanced at my shoulder, I saw that in the moonlight Father's hand had turned into that of a skeleton.
After my return to Yasuoka, the Golden Temple, which had disappointed me so greatly at first sight, began to revivify its beauty within me day after day, until in the end it became a more beautiful Golden Temple than it had been before I saw it. I could not say wherein this beauty lay. It seemed that what had been nurtured in my dreams had become real and could now, in turn, serve as an impulse for further dreams.
Now I no longer pursued the illusion of a Golden Temple in nature and in the objects that surrounded me. Gradually the Golden Temple came to exist more deeply and more solidly within me. Each of its pillars, its Kato windows, its roof, the phoenix at the top, floated clearly before my eyes, as though I could touch them with my hands. The minutest part of the temple was in perfect accord with the entire complex structure. It was like hearing a few notes of music and having the entire composition flow through one's mind: whichever part of the Golden Temple I might pick out, the entire building echoed within me.
"It was true when you told me that the Golden Temple was the most beautiful thing in this world.â So I wrote for the first time in a letter to Father. After taking me back to my uncle's house, Father had immediately returned to his temple on the remote cape. As if in reply to my letter, a telegram came from my mother saying that Father had suffered a terrible hemorrhage and was dead.
CHAPTER TWO
O WING TO Father's death, my real period of boyhood came to an end. I had always been astohished at the fact that my boyhood was so utterly lacking in what may be called human concern. When I came to realize that I felt not the slightest sorrow over Father's death, this astohishment turned into a certain powerless emotion that no longer belonged to the category of surprise.
I hurried over to Father's village and, when I arrived, he was already lying in his coffin. I had walked as far as Uchiura and from there
"Now this child, you see...â Hearing Father's words, I turned towards him. In the almost dark room, Father was about to entrust my future to Father Dosen.
âI don,t think I shall live much longer," Father said. âI want to ask you to look after this child when the time comes.â
Priest though he was and accustomed to comforting people at times like these, Father Dosen had no soothing words for this occasion, but simply answered: ââVery well, I'll look after him.â
What really astohished me was that they then embarked merrily on an exchange of anecdotes about the deaths of various famous priests. One of them had died saying: "Oh, I don't want to didâ Another had ended his life with Goethe's own words: âMore light!â Still another famous priest had evidently been counting the temple money until the very moment that he died.
We were offered an evening meal, known to Buddhists as "medicine," and it was arranged that We should spend that night in the temple. After dinner I persuaded Father to come and have another look at the Golden Temple. For the moon had come out.
Father had been overstimulated by meeting the Superior again after so many years and he was quite exhausted; but when he heard me speak of the Golden Temple, he came out with me, breathing heavily and leaning on my shoulder.
The moon rose from the edge of Mount Fudo. The back of the Golden Temple received its light. The building seemed to fold up its dark, complicated shadow and to subside quietly; only the frames of the Kato windows in the Kukyocho allowed the smooth shadows of the moon to slip into the building. The Kukyocho had no proper walls, and so it seemed that this was where the faint moonlight had its dwelling.
From Ashiwara Island came the cry of the night birds as they flew off into the distance. I was conscious of the weight of Father's emaciated hands on my shoulders. When I glanced at my shoulder, I saw that in the moonlight Father's hand had turned into that of a skeleton.
After my return to Yasuoka, the Golden Temple, which had disappointed me so greatly at first sight, began to revivify its beauty within me day after day, until in the end it became a more beautiful Golden Temple than it had been before I saw it. I could not say wherein this beauty lay. It seemed that what had been nurtured in my dreams had become real and could now, in turn, serve as an impulse for further dreams.
Now I no longer pursued the illusion of a Golden Temple in nature and in the objects that surrounded me. Gradually the Golden Temple came to exist more deeply and more solidly within me. Each of its pillars, its Kato windows, its roof, the phoenix at the top, floated clearly before my eyes, as though I could touch them with my hands. The minutest part of the temple was in perfect accord with the entire complex structure. It was like hearing a few notes of music and having the entire composition flow through one's mind: whichever part of the Golden Temple I might pick out, the entire building echoed within me.
"It was true when you told me that the Golden Temple was the most beautiful thing in this world.â So I wrote for the first time in a letter to Father. After taking me back to my uncle's house, Father had immediately returned to his temple on the remote cape. As if in reply to my letter, a telegram came from my mother saying that Father had suffered a terrible hemorrhage and was dead.
CHAPTER TWO
O WING TO Father's death, my real period of boyhood came to an end. I had always been astohished at the fact that my boyhood was so utterly lacking in what may be called human concern. When I came to realize that I felt not the slightest sorrow over Father's death, this astohishment turned into a certain powerless emotion that no longer belonged to the category of surprise.
I hurried over to Father's village and, when I arrived, he was already lying in his coffin. I had walked as far as Uchiura and from there
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