gone by boat along the bay to Nariu, which had taken a whole day. It was a hot time of the year just before the rainy season, and the sun blazed down day after day. Immediately after I had seen Father's body, the coffin was taken to the crematory on the deserted cape to be cremated by the seashore.
The death of the priest in a country temple is a peculiar business. It is peculiar because it is too pertinent. The priest has been, so to say, the spiritual center of the district, the guardian of his parishioners' lives, the man to whom their posthumous existence has been entrusted. And that very person has died in his temple. It is as though he has acquitted himself too faithfully of his duty; as though the man who went about teaching others how to die has given a public demonstration of the act and by some sort of mistake has actually died himself.
Father's coffin appeared, in fact, to have been placed in too appropriate a place, in which every single preparation had already been made to receive it. My mother, the young priest, and the parishioners were standing in front of the coffin weeping. The young priest recited the sutras in a faltering tone, almost as if he were still depending on directions from Father, who lay before him in his coffin.
Father's face was buried in early summer flowers. There was something gruesome about the utter freshness of those flowers. It was as though they were peering down into the bottom of a well. For a dead man's face falls to an infinite depth beneath the surface which the face possessed when it was alive, leaving nothing for the survivors to see but the frame of a mask; it falls so deep, indeed, that it can never be pulled back to the surface. A dead man's face can tell us better than anything else in this world how far removed we are from the true existence of physical substance, how impossible it is for us to lay hands on the way in which this substance exists. This was the first time that I had been confronted by a situation like this in which a spirit is transformed by death into mere physical substance; and now I felt that I was gradually beginning to understand why it was that spring flowers, the sun, my desk, the schoolhouse, pencils-all physical substance, indeed-had always seemed so cold to me, had always seemed to exist so far away from myself.
Mother and the various parishioners were now watching me as I had my last meeting with Father. My stubborn heart, however, would not accept the analogy with the land of the living that the word "meeting" implied. For this was not at all like a meeting; I was merely looking at Father's dead face.
The corpse was just being looked at. I was just looking. To know that looking (the act, that is, of looking at someone, as one ordinarily does, without any special awareness) was such a proof of the rights of those who are alive, and that this looking could also be an expression of cruelty-all this came to me now as a vivid experience. Thus did the young boy, who never sang loudly, who never ran about shouting at the top of his lungs, ascertain the facts of his own existence.
Although in many respects I was lacking in moral courage, I did not feel the slightest shame now in turning a bright, tearless face towards the mourners. The temple was on a cliff facing the sea. Behind the funeral guests, the summer clouds coiled themselves over the open waters of the Japan Sea and blocked my view.
The priest had now begun to chant the spccial Zen sutra that accompanied the removal of the body, and I joined in. The main hall of the temple was dark. The banner that was suspended between the pillars, the flower decorations in the sanctuary, the incense burner and the vases-everything sparkled brilliantly with the reflected light of the sacred taper. Now and then a sea breeze blew into the temple, puffing up the sleeves of my clerical robe. As I recited the sutras, I was constantly aware of the posture of the summer clouds as they cast a strong glare into
The death of the priest in a country temple is a peculiar business. It is peculiar because it is too pertinent. The priest has been, so to say, the spiritual center of the district, the guardian of his parishioners' lives, the man to whom their posthumous existence has been entrusted. And that very person has died in his temple. It is as though he has acquitted himself too faithfully of his duty; as though the man who went about teaching others how to die has given a public demonstration of the act and by some sort of mistake has actually died himself.
Father's coffin appeared, in fact, to have been placed in too appropriate a place, in which every single preparation had already been made to receive it. My mother, the young priest, and the parishioners were standing in front of the coffin weeping. The young priest recited the sutras in a faltering tone, almost as if he were still depending on directions from Father, who lay before him in his coffin.
Father's face was buried in early summer flowers. There was something gruesome about the utter freshness of those flowers. It was as though they were peering down into the bottom of a well. For a dead man's face falls to an infinite depth beneath the surface which the face possessed when it was alive, leaving nothing for the survivors to see but the frame of a mask; it falls so deep, indeed, that it can never be pulled back to the surface. A dead man's face can tell us better than anything else in this world how far removed we are from the true existence of physical substance, how impossible it is for us to lay hands on the way in which this substance exists. This was the first time that I had been confronted by a situation like this in which a spirit is transformed by death into mere physical substance; and now I felt that I was gradually beginning to understand why it was that spring flowers, the sun, my desk, the schoolhouse, pencils-all physical substance, indeed-had always seemed so cold to me, had always seemed to exist so far away from myself.
Mother and the various parishioners were now watching me as I had my last meeting with Father. My stubborn heart, however, would not accept the analogy with the land of the living that the word "meeting" implied. For this was not at all like a meeting; I was merely looking at Father's dead face.
The corpse was just being looked at. I was just looking. To know that looking (the act, that is, of looking at someone, as one ordinarily does, without any special awareness) was such a proof of the rights of those who are alive, and that this looking could also be an expression of cruelty-all this came to me now as a vivid experience. Thus did the young boy, who never sang loudly, who never ran about shouting at the top of his lungs, ascertain the facts of his own existence.
Although in many respects I was lacking in moral courage, I did not feel the slightest shame now in turning a bright, tearless face towards the mourners. The temple was on a cliff facing the sea. Behind the funeral guests, the summer clouds coiled themselves over the open waters of the Japan Sea and blocked my view.
The priest had now begun to chant the spccial Zen sutra that accompanied the removal of the body, and I joined in. The main hall of the temple was dark. The banner that was suspended between the pillars, the flower decorations in the sanctuary, the incense burner and the vases-everything sparkled brilliantly with the reflected light of the sacred taper. Now and then a sea breeze blew into the temple, puffing up the sleeves of my clerical robe. As I recited the sutras, I was constantly aware of the posture of the summer clouds as they cast a strong glare into
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