Essays in Idleness

Well, now: once we are born into this world, there seem to be many things we might wish for. The emperor’s rank is awesome beyond words. Down to the last leaves of the bamboo garden, the imperial line is not of common human seed, and that is what makes it exalted. The bearing of the Regent goes without saying. Even among subjects, those high enough to be granted court attendants look magnificent. Their children and grandchildren, even if they have come down in the world, still have a certain elegance. As for those further down, who prosper in their time each according to their station and wear a self-satisfied look: they may think themselves splendid, but it is a great pity.note

There are people who forget the government of the sage rulers of old, know nothing of the sufferings of the people or the harm done to the country, lavish splendor on everything, think themselves magnificent, and swagger about taking up all the room. They seem distasteful and thoughtless. In the Testament of Lord Kujō, too, we find: “From robes and caps to horses and carriages, use what you have. Do not seek beauty and splendor.” And in what Retired Emperor Juntoku wrote on the affairs of the palace: “For His Majesty’s own attire, plainness is held to be best.”note

A man who is splendid in every way but has no taste for love is very dull, like a jeweled cup without a bottom. Drenched with dew and frost, wandering without knowing where, his mind never at rest for fear of his parents’ reproaches and the world’s censure, torn this way and that, and yet mostly sleeping alone, with never a night of sound sleep: that is what is charming. And yet not to be given wholly to dissipation, but to be thought by women not easily won: that is how one would wish to be.

Not to let the next life slip from one’s mind, not to be a stranger to the Buddha’s way: that is admirable.

When someone is sunk in grief through misfortune, rather than rashly resolving to shave the head, it is better, in its way, to shut the gate and pass the days and nights as if hardly there, expecting nothing. Middle Counselor Akimoto is said to have spoken of seeing “the moon of exile, without having committed a crime”; one can well feel that way.note

Whether one is of high rank or, still more, of no account at all, it is better to have no children. “The former Prince of Central Affairs, the Kujō Chancellor and the Hanazono Minister of the Left all wished their lines to die out. For the Somedono Minister, too, it is good that he had no descendants. To leave descendants behind is a bad thing”: so says the tale of old Yotsugi. And when Prince Shōtoku had his tomb built in advance, he is said to have ordered, “Cut it off here, sever it there: I intend to leave no descendants.”note

Nothing leads people’s hearts astray like sexual desire. What a foolish thing the human heart is! Scent is a passing thing; we know it is only incense burned into the clothes for a while, and yet an exquisite fragrance still sets the heart racing. The immortal of Kume, they say, lost his magic powers on seeing the white shins of a woman washing clothes. Truly, when arms, legs and skin are fair, plump and glossy, since that is no borrowed color, it is no wonder.note

In a woman, it is fine hair, it seems, that most draws the eye. Her standing and temperament can be known from the way she speaks, even from behind a screen. On any occasion, even in her ordinary manner, she can lead a man’s heart astray. And that women in general never sleep at ease, do not spare themselves, and bear patiently what seems unbearable—all this is only because they are thinking of love. Truly, the path of attachment has deep roots and a distant source.

A dwelling that is fitting and as one would wish it—though we know it is only a temporary lodging—is a pleasure. Where a person of good breeding lives at ease, even the moonlight shining in seems all the more moving. Not fashionable or glittering, but with trees that have grown old, garden grasses unforced yet full of feeling, a veranda and a lattice fence pleasingly placed, furnishings that carry a feeling of the past, everything calm: that is what seems truly tasteful.

Once, around the tenth month, I passed a place called Kurusuno and made my way into a mountain village to visit someone. Treading a long, narrow, mossy path, I came to a hut where someone was living in lonely quiet. Apart from the dripping of a bamboo water-pipe buried in fallen leaves, nothing made the slightest sound. Chrysanthemums and red leaves had been cut and laid on the offering shelf, so someone did live there after all. So one can live even like this, I thought, and as I looked on, moved, I saw in a garden beyond a large mandarin-orange tree, its branches bent under the fruit, fenced in tightly all around. That rather spoiled it, and I thought: if only that tree were not there.

How glad one would be to talk quietly with someone of like mind and to find comfort in speaking openly of amusing things and of the world’s fleeting ways. But since there can hardly be such a person, sitting across from someone and taking care not to differ in the slightest would, I think, feel like being alone. With someone whose words are worth hearing and agreeing with, yet who differs a little, one might argue, “I don’t see it that way,” or talk it through, “so that is why”—and that, one thinks, would relieve the tedium. But in truth, with someone who does not share even one’s small grievances, idle chatter about trifles may do, but as a true friend of the heart there is bound to be a great distance. That is sad.

To sit alone by lamplight with a book open, making friends of people one never saw: there is no greater comfort. As for books: the moving volumes of the Wenxuan, the Collected Works of Bai Juyi, the words of Laozi, the chapters of the Nanhua. Among the writings of this country’s scholars, too, the old ones have much that is moving.note

Waka, above all, are delightful. Even the doings of humble peasants and woodsmen sound charming once put into a poem, and the fearsome wild boar becomes graceful when called “the boar’s bed of grass.” Among poems these days, some seem to have a clever turn here and there, but compared with the old poems, somehow… none gives a moving sense of a scene beyond the words. Tsurayuki’s “though it is not a thing twisted into thread” has been called, so they say, a scrap among the poems of the Kokinshū, but it does not look like something a poet of today could compose.note

Wherever it may be, going off on a short journey makes one feel wide awake. Wandering about the area, looking here and there, in rustic places and mountain villages, one finds so much that is unfamiliar. It is fun to find someone heading for the capital and send a letter, writing, “Don’t forget this and that when you have the chance.” In such places one is attentive to everything. Even of the things one has brought along, the good ones look better, and talented people and good-looking people seem more charming than usual. It is delightful, too, to go quietly into retreat at a temple or shrine.

Kagura is elegant and delightful. Of instruments in general, the flute and the hichiriki; and what I always want to hear is the biwa and the Japanese zither.note

To shut oneself away in a mountain temple and serve the Buddha: there is no tedium, and one feels the muddiness of the heart grow clear.

It is best for a person to live simply, put away extravagance, own no wealth and not crave the world. Since ancient times, the wise have seldom been rich. In China there was a man called Xu You who had no possessions about him at all and drank water by scooping it up in his hands. Seeing this, someone gave him a gourd. Once he hung it on the branch of a tree, and when it rattled in the wind he found it noisy and threw it away. And again he drank water from his cupped hands. How clear and cool his heart must have been! Sun Chen had no bedding in the winter months, only a bundle of straw; at night he slept in it, and in the morning he put it away. Because the Chinese thought this splendid, they must have written it down and handed it on to later ages. People here would not even pass such stories on.note

The turning of the seasons is moving in every way. Everyone says, “The pathos of things is deepest in autumn,” and that is so; but what lifts the heart still more, it seems, is the look of spring. The birds’ voices sound remarkably like spring, and from the time the grasses sprout by the hedges in the mild sunlight, spring deepens little by little, haze spreads everywhere, and the blossoms are just beginning to show their promise—when, as it happens, rain and wind come day after day, and they scatter in a hurried rush.

A recluse whose name I forget once said, “For someone like me, without a single tie to bind me to this world, the one thing I will be sorry to leave behind is the sky.” I can well believe it is true.

Whatever troubles us, looking at the moon brings comfort. Someone once said, “Nothing is as delightful as the moon,” and another argued back, “No, it is the dew that moves us.” That was amusing. In its season, what is there that does not move us? The moon and the blossoms go without saying, but the wind, it seems, can stir the heart like nothing else. Water breaking on rocks and running clear is lovely in any season. I was moved when I read the Chinese poem that says, “The Yuan and the Xiang flow east day and night; not for a moment do they stay for the sorrowing man.” Ji Kang, too, wrote, “Wandering among mountains and marshes, watching the fish and the birds, my heart is glad.” Nothing comforts the heart like roaming where people are far away and the water and grasses are clean.note

In everything, it is the old days I long for. Modern fashions seem to grow more and more vulgar. Even among the beautiful things made by master woodworkers, it is the old shapes that please. In letters, the wording on old scraps of paper is splendid. Ordinary speech, too, keeps getting worse. “In the old days people said kuruma motage yo for ‘Raise the carriage shafts’ and hi kakage yo for ‘Turn up the lamp’; people now say mote-age yo and kaki-age yo. Where one should say ‘Housekeeping Office, form your ranks’ (ninju-date), they say ‘Make the torches bright’ (tachiakashi shiroku seyo). And the Emperor’s listening room at the Saishō Lectures, which should be called gokō no ro, they call kōro. It is a pity,” a venerable elder once said.note

Though this is a declining latter age, the hallowed, time-worn air of the palace is still unworldly and splendid. Names like the Rodai Terrace, the Asagarei Room, such-and-such Hall, such-and-such Gate sound magnificent. Even the “little lattice shutter,” the “little boarded floor” and the “high sliding door,” things one might find in any humble house, sound fine there. “Prepare the guard post for the night” sounds splendid. And for the imperial bedchamber, “Light the lamps, quickly!” is fine too. The senior noble presiding at the guard post goes without saying. Even the underlings of the various offices, so practiced and so pleased with themselves, are delightful. It is charming to see them dozing here and there all through a bitterly cold night. “The sound of the bells at the Naishidokoro is splendid and refined,” said the Tokudaiji Chancellor.note

The Ise Priestess’s stay at the Nonomiya Shrine struck me as the height of grace and charm. It is charming, too, that they avoid words like “sutra” and “buddha” and say “the middle one” and “dyed paper” instead. Shrines of the gods in general have an elegance one cannot pass by. The ancient groves are already out of the ordinary, and when the sacred fence runs all round them and paper streamers hang on the sacred sakaki branches, how could that not be splendid? Especially delightful are Ise, Kamo, Kasuga, Hirano, Sumiyoshi, Miwa, Kibune, Yoshida, Ōharano, Matsunoo and Umenomiya.note

This world is as inconstant as the Asuka River, whose deep pools turn into shallows. Times change and things pass, and joy and sorrow come and go. Places that were once splendid become empty fields where no one lives, and in houses that stand unchanged the people are new. The peach and the plum say nothing, so with whom can we talk of the past? Still more fleeting are the traces of a noble past we never saw. When I look at the Kyōgoku Mansion or Hōjōji, I am moved to see how the founder’s intentions linger while everything has changed.note

The flower of a person’s heart fades even before the wind can blow on it. When I think of the years we were close, I have not forgotten a single word I heard and was moved by. Yet the way someone drifts out of one’s world is sadder even than parting from the dead. So it is that some once grieved to see white thread dyed, and lamented the forking of roads. Among the poems of the Horikawa Hundred-Poem Sequence is this: “The hedge of the one I loved and visited long ago has gone to ruin; there are only violets, among the sedge.” A lonely scene; something like that must have lain behind it.note

When the ceremony of abdication is held and the Sword, the Jewel and the Mirror are handed over, it is unspeakably forlorn. In the spring after the new Retired Emperor stepped down, His Majesty composed this poem, they say: “The groundsmen of the Housekeeping Office keep their distance now; in the unswept garden the blossoms lie scattered.” Caught up in the busy affairs of the new reign, no one comes to call on the retired emperor, and it looks lonely. It is at times like this that people’s hearts are revealed.note

Nothing is as sad as a year of imperial mourning. Look at the mourning hut where the Emperor stays. The floor is lowered, reed blinds hang, and the cloth borders of the curtains are coarse. The furnishings are plain, and everyone’s dress, down to their swords and sword-sashes, is unlike the usual. It is solemn and awe-inspiring.note

When I think quietly, there is no remedy for my longing for everything past. When everyone has gone to sleep, I pass the long night putting my odds and ends in order. Among the old papers I tear up so as not to leave them behind, I sometimes find the handwriting practice of someone now dead, or a picture drawn idly. Then it is just as if I were back in that moment. Even letters from people still living make me wonder, once they have grown old, on what occasion and in what year they were written, and that is moving. And things the hand grew used to stay on unchanged for years, without feeling. That is very sad.

Nothing is as sad as the time after someone dies. During the forty-nine days, the family moves to some mountain village and crowds into a cramped, inconvenient place to hold the memorial services, and it is all hurried and unsettled. The days pass with incomparable speed. On the last day, coldly, no one says a word to anyone. Each packs up briskly, as if they alone knew what to do, and they scatter. It is after they return to their own homes that there will be even more to grieve. “Such-and-such—heaven forbid!

One morning when the snow had fallen beautifully, I had something to say to someone and sent a letter, without a word about the snow. The reply said: “How could I take seriously anything said by someone so wrong-headed as not to write even a line asking how I find this snow? It is a most disappointing heart.” That was delightful. The writer is gone now, so even so small a thing is hard to forget.

Around the twentieth day of the ninth month, a certain person of rank invited me along, and we went about viewing the moon until dawn. My companion remembered a house nearby, had us announced and went in. The overgrown garden was drenched with dew, and a soft, unstudied fragrance hung in the air. There was a hushed sense of someone living quietly there that was deeply moving. My companion came out after a fitting while. But the grace of the place still held me, and I watched for a while from where I stood hidden. Then the double door was pushed open a little wider, as if to look at the moon. Had the door been bolted at once, what a pity that would have been. How could anyone inside have known that someone was still watching? Things like this can come only from care taken morning and evening. I heard that the person of that house died not long after.

When the present palace was built, it was shown to the experts in court precedent, who found no fault anywhere. The day of His Majesty’s move was already near when Genki-mon’in looked it over and said, “At the Kan’in palace, the comb-shaped openings were rounded, with no border.” That was splendid. Here the openings had been cut with notched edges and framed in wood. This was a mistake, and it was corrected.note

Kōkō is the lid of a shellfish like a small conch, with a long narrow lip that juts out. There were some at a bay called Kanazawa in Musashi Province, and the local people said, “We call it henadari.”note

It is fine for someone with poor handwriting to write letters freely, without hesitation. To have someone else write them because one’s own hand looks ugly is tiresome.

“When I had not called for a long while, I knew my neglect and thought how she must resent me, and I felt at a loss for words. Then the woman sent a note saying, ‘Have you a servant to spare? Send one over.’ That was rare and welcome. A woman of that disposition is a good one,” someone told me. That is quite right.

Someone you have been close to morning and evening, without reserve, may at some moment turn formal and polite toward you. Some might say, “Why now, after all this time?” But to me that seems the mark of a truly well-bred person. And when someone we are not close to says something candid and unguarded, we are likely to feel drawn to that, too.

To be driven by fame and profit, never having a moment’s peace, tormenting oneself all one’s life: that is foolish. Great wealth leaves one hard put to protect oneself. It is a go-between that buys harm and invites trouble. Even if you left enough gold after your death to prop up the Northern Dipper, it would only be a burden to others. The pleasures that delight the eyes of fools are futile too. Large carriages, fat horses, ornaments of gold and jewels: a person of sense would find them distastefully foolish. Throw gold away in the mountains; cast jewels into the deep.note

Someone said to Saint Hōnen, “When I recite the nembutsu I am overcome by sleep and neglect my practice. How can I get rid of this obstacle?” The saint answered, “Recite the nembutsu while you are awake.” That was most venerable. He also said, “Rebirth in the Pure Land is certain if you think it certain, and uncertain if you think it uncertain.” This too is venerable. And he said, “Even with doubts, if you recite the nembutsu you will be reborn there.” This too is venerable.note

In Inaba Province there was a lay monk called something-or-other who had a daughter. She was said to be beautiful, and many men sought her hand. But the girl ate nothing but chestnuts and never touched rice or any grain. So her father said, “Such an oddity is not fit to marry,” and would not allow it.

On the fifth day of the fifth month I went to see the horse races at Kamo. Common people stood in front of our carriage and blocked the view, so we each got down and went toward the railing. But the crowd was especially thick there, and there was no way to push through. Just then I saw a monk who had climbed a chinaberry tree opposite and was sitting in a fork, watching. Clinging to the branch, he kept falling fast asleep and waking again just as he was about to fall.

Among the sons of a man known as the Karahashi Middle Captain was the Sōzu Gyōga, a monk who taught doctrinal studies. He had an illness in which the vital humors rose to the head. As he grew older, the inside of his nose became blocked and he could barely breathe. He tried all sorts of remedies, but it only grew worse. His eyes, eyebrows and forehead swelled out of shape and closed over, so that he could not see. He looked like the mask of the Ninomai dance. Then he became simply frightful, with the face of a demon: his eyes moved up toward the crown of his head, and his face turned all to nose. In the end he shut himself away and would not let even the people of his own quarters see him. Many years passed, he grew still worse, and he died. So there are diseases like this too.note

Toward the end of spring, under a calm and lovely sky, I came upon a house of some standing. It lay deep within its grounds among old, weathered trees, and the blossoms lay scattered and wilting in the garden. I could not bear to pass by, so I went in to look. The lattice shutters along the south front were all lowered and the place looked lonely. But on the east side a hinged door stood open just enough, and through a tear in the blind I saw a handsome young man of about twenty. He was at his ease, yet he had an admirably quiet bearing as he sat reading a book unrolled on his desk. Who could he have been? I would like to find out.

From behind a humble door of woven bamboo came a very young man. In the moonlight the colors were hard to make out, but he wore a lustrous hunting cloak and dark trousers, and he carried himself with great refinement. With one small boy attending him, he made his way along a narrow path through rice fields far from anywhere, wet with dew from the rice leaves, playing his flute exquisitely as the mood took him. There could hardly be anyone here to hear it and know how moving it was, I thought. I wanted to know where he was going, so I followed, watching him. He stopped playing and went in through a main gate at the foot of the mountain.

The elder brother of Kinyo of the Second Rank was the Sōjō Ryōkaku, a man of extremely bad temper. Beside his quarters there stood a large nettle tree, so people called him “the Nettle-Tree Sōjō.” “That name will not do,” he said, and had the tree cut down. Its stump remained, so they called him “the Stump Sōjō.” More furious than ever, he had the stump dug up and thrown away. That left a big ditch, so they called him “the Ditch Sōjō.”note

Near Yanagihara there lived a monk who went by the name of “the Bandit Hōin.” They say he was given the name because he had been robbed by bandits so many times.

Someone was going to Kiyomizu, and an old nun was walking along too. All the way she kept saying, “Kusame, kusame.” “Reverend nun, what is it you keep saying?” came the question, but she gave no answer and went on saying it. Asked again and again, she grew cross. “Oh, really! They say that if you sneeze and no one says this charm, you die. The young master I nursed is up on Mount Hiei, and I’m thinking he may be sneezing this very minute, so I’m saying it.” What rare devotion she must have had!note

Lord Mitsuchika was serving as commissioner for the Retired Emperor’s Saishō lectures when he was summoned before His Majesty, who had food brought out and gave him a meal. When he had eaten, he pushed the tray, scattered with leftovers, in under the blinds and withdrew. The ladies-in-waiting said to one another, “How filthy! Who does he expect to clear that away?” But His Majesty praised it again and again: “That is conduct true to court precedent—most admirable.” So they say.note

Do not wait until old age comes before you begin to practice the Way. Old graves are mostly those of the young. It is only when we unexpectedly fall ill and are about to leave this world all at once that we first realize how wrongly we spent the time gone by. The error is nothing other than this: we were slow over what should have been done at once and hurried over what could have waited, and now we regret what is past.

Around the Ōchō era (1311–12), word went about that a woman who had turned into a demon had been brought up to the capital from Ise Province. For some twenty days after that, people from the capital and Shirakawa went rushing out every day to see the demon. “Yesterday she went to the Saionji residence.” “Today she’s going to the Retired Emperor’s palace.” “Right now she’s at such-and-such a place,” they told one another. No one said they had actually seen her, yet high and low alike talked of nothing but the demon. At that time I was on my way from Higashiyama toward the Agui area, and all the people from Shijō northward were running north.

The Retired Emperor wished to bring water from the Ōi River into the pond at the Kameyama Palace, so he ordered the people of Ōi to build a waterwheel. They were given a great deal of money, and after several days’ work they finished it and set it up. But it hardly turned at all. They tried this and that to fix it, but in the end it never turned and just stood there, useless. Then people from the village of Uji were summoned to make one. They put it together with ease and presented it, and it turned just as intended and drew in water splendidly. In every field, someone who knows the craft is precious.note

A monk at Ninnaji had grown old without ever worshipping at Iwashimizu, and this troubled him. So one day he made up his mind and went, all alone, on foot. He worshipped at Gokurakuji, Kōra and the rest, took that to be all there was, and went home. Afterwards he met a fellow monk and said, “I’ve done what I had meant to do for years. It was even holier than I had heard. But every visitor was climbing the mountain. I wondered what was up there and wanted to see, but I thought, ‘Worshipping the god is what I came for,’ so I didn’t go up the mountain.” Even in small matters, one would wish for a guide.note

This too is about a monk of Ninnaji. A boy was about to become a monk, and as a farewell to his boyhood they all held a party. One monk, drunk and carried away with the fun, took a three-legged pot that was lying nearby and put it over his head. It was tight, but he squashed his nose flat, forced his face in, and came out dancing, to the boundless delight of everyone present. After dancing for a while he tried to pull it off, but it would not come off at all. The party fell flat, and they were at a loss what to do.

At Omuro there was a splendid boy acolyte, and some monks schemed to lure him out somehow for an outing. They brought in some talented entertainer monks and carefully prepared a fancy picnic in compartmented lunchboxes. They packed it into a sort of box and buried it in a suitable spot on Narabi-ga-oka, scattering autumn leaves over it so no one would ever suspect. Then they went to the palace and coaxed the boy into coming out.note

A house should be built with summer in mind. In winter one can live anywhere, but a poor dwelling in hot weather is unbearable. Deep water does not look cool; a shallow stream running along is far cooler. For looking at fine detail, a sliding door gives more light than a hinged lattice shutter. A high ceiling makes a room cold in winter and the lamp dim. As for building, people agreed when we discussed it that adding a space with no particular use is pleasant to look at and also comes in handy for all sorts of things.

Someone you meet again after a long separation may go on and on, telling you every last thing that has happened on their side. That is tiresome. Even with someone you have grown close to without reserve, don’t you feel a little shy on meeting again after some time? People of lesser breeding, after stepping out for even a moment, will tell you all about the amusing thing that happened, hardly pausing for breath and enjoying it hugely. When a person of good breeding tells a story, even if many people are present, it is addressed to one of them, and the others simply listen.

When someone tells a story about a poem, it is disappointing if the poem is a poor one. Anyone who knows even a little of the art would not tell it as though the poem were splendid. In general, to hear someone talk about a field they know nothing about makes one wince and is unpleasant to listen to.

Some say: “If one has the will for the Way, it should not depend on where one lives. Even living at home and mixing with people, why should it be hard to aspire to the next life?” Whoever says this knows nothing at all of the next life. If one truly sees how fleeting this world is and is determined, without fail, to escape birth and death, what pleasure could there be in serving a master morning and evening, or in the business of looking after a household? The mind is drawn by conditions and shifts with them. Unless one is in quiet, the Way is hard to practice.

Whoever resolves on the great matter must leave unfulfilled the things that weigh on the mind and are hard to let go, and cast them all aside just as they are. One may think: “Let me just finish this first.” “While I’m at it, let me settle that other business.” “About such-and-such, people may laugh at me, so let me arrange things so there’ll be no trouble later.” “It has gone on all these years—waiting for this one thing won’t take long.” “I mustn’t cause a fuss.” If one thinks like this, unavoidable matters only pile up more and more. There will be no end to them, and the day of resolve will never come.note

At Shinjōin there was a monk of high rank, the Sōzu Jōshin, a man of eminent learning. He loved taro roots and ate a great many of them. Even when lecturing on scripture, he would have them heaped high in a big bowl at his knee, and he read out the text as he ate. When he fell ill, he would shut himself away for seven days or fourteen, calling it treatment. He picked out the finest taro roots he could wish for, ate even more of them than usual, and so cured every illness. He never gave any to anyone else. He ate them all by himself.note

Dropping a rice steamer during a birth in the imperial household is not an established rite. It is a charm used when the afterbirth is slow to come. If it is not delayed, this is not done. The practice began among the lower classes and has no real authority behind it. The steamer is sent for from the village of Ōhara. In an old painting in a treasure house, there is a picture of a steamer being dropped where a woman of humble rank is giving birth.note

When Enseimon’in was a little girl, she gave someone who was going to the retired emperor’s palace a poem to deliver as a message: “The letter of two strokes, the letter like a cow’s horns, the straight letter, the crooked letter—that is how I think of you.” It meant that she missed him dearly.note

The presiding master of the Latter Seven Days rite gathers armed men around him because, they say, he was once robbed. Under the name of night guards it has grown into this grand affair. Since the omens for the whole year are said to appear in how things go during this rite, it is a disquieting thing to call in soldiers.note

“The five-cord carriage is not reserved for particular families. One rides in it on reaching the highest office and rank one’s station allows,” a certain person of rank once told me.note

“Court caps these days have become much taller than they used to be,” a certain person of rank once told me. People who own an old-style cap box add to its rim so as to use it now.

Lord Okamoto, the Regent, once ordered his falconer, Shimotsukeno no Takekatsu, to tie a pair of birds to a branch of red plum in full bloom and present them with it. Takekatsu replied, “I do not know how to tie birds to a branch in flower, nor have I heard of tying two to one branch.” The Regent asked the kitchen staff and had others asked as well. Then he told Takekatsu again, “In that case, tie it as you see fit and present it.” So Takekatsu tied a single bird to a plum branch without blossoms and presented that. Takekatsu explained it to me like this: “One ties them to a brushwood branch, or to a plum branch either in bud or with its blossoms fallen.note

At Kamo, the Iwamoto and Hashimoto shrines are dedicated to Narihira and Sanekata. People are always mixing them up, so one year when I went there, I stopped an old shrine official who was passing and asked him. He said, “It is said that Sanekata’s reflection fell on the purifying stream, so I believe his shrine must be Hashimoto, since it is nearer the water. And when the Reverend Yoshimizu wrote, ‘The graceful man of old who loved the moon and gazed at the blossoms is here, Ariwara,’ I have been told that he meant the Iwamoto shrine. But you, sir, may well know more about it than people like us.” He said this so very courteously that I found it splendid.note

In Tsukushi there was a man who was something like the district constable of such-and-such a place. He believed that daikon radish was a splendid cure for everything. For many years he had roasted and eaten two every morning. One day enemies chose a moment when there was no one in the residence, attacked it, surrounded it and pressed in. But two warriors appeared from inside the residence, fought without sparing their lives, and drove them all back. Much amazed, he asked them, “I have never seen you here before, and yet you fight for me. Who are you?” “We are the radishes you have trusted all these years and eaten every morning,” they said, and vanished. When one puts deep faith in something, it seems, even this kind of blessing can come of it.note

The holy man of Shosha had accumulated so much merit from reciting the Lotus Sutra that his six senses had been purified. Once, when he stopped at a lodging on a journey, he heard beans boiling over a fire of their own husks, popping and bubbling. “‘You are our own kin,’ the beans were saying, ‘yet you are cruel enough to boil us and make our lot so bitter!’ And the husks, crackling as they burned, answered: ‘Do we do this of our own will? Being burned is unbearable for us too, but there is nothing we can do. Please do not resent us so.’” That is what he heard.note

At a concert in the Seishodō hall in the Gen’ō era, at the time when the lute Genjō had been lost, the Minister of Kikutei played the lute Bokuba. On taking his seat, he first felt the frets, and one of them came off. He had rice glue in the fold of his robe and stuck it back on. By the time the offerings to the gods were brought, it had dried firmly, and nothing went wrong. Whatever her motive may have been, they say a veiled woman among the onlookers had gone up to the lute, pulled the fret off, and set it back as it had been.note

As soon as we hear a name, we feel we can picture the face at once. Yet when we meet the person, no one ever has quite the face we had imagined. When I hear an old tale, too, I picture it as having taken place somewhere around the house of someone living today, and I find myself likening the people in it to people I see now. Does everyone feel this way, I wonder? And at certain moments, what someone is saying right now, what is before my eyes, what is in my own mind, all seem to me to have happened just so at some time before. I cannot recall when, yet I feel sure it really did happen. Am I the only one who feels this?

Things that look vulgar: too many furnishings around where one sits; too many brushes by the inkstone; too many buddhas in one’s private chapel; too many stones, plants and trees in the garden; too many children and grandchildren in the house; too many words when one meets people; too many good works listed in a prayer of dedication. Things that are many and not unsightly: the books in a book cart, and the dust on a rubbish heap.

What is told and handed down in the world is mostly false. Perhaps the truth is too dull. People make things out to be more than they are even as it is. All the more, once years and months have passed and places lie far apart, they tell things however they please. And once it is written down, it soon becomes fixed. As for the marvels of masters in the various arts, ignorant people who do not know the art speak of them recklessly as though they were gods, but those who know the art do not believe a word of it. Hearing of a thing and seeing it are always different.

People swarm like ants, hurrying east and west, running north and south. Some are high, some low. Some are old, some young. They have places to go and homes to return to. They sleep at night and rise in the morning. What is it they are all busy with? Greedy for life and seeking profit, they never stop. They nourish their bodies, but what are they waiting for? All they can expect is old age and death. These come swiftly, never pausing from one moment of thought to the next. While we wait for them, what pleasure can there be? The deluded do not fear them, because, drowning in fame and profit, they do not look at how near the end of the road is. Fools, for their part, grieve over them, because they want things to last forever and do not understand the law of change.

People who complain of having nothing to do—what can they be thinking? It is best to be simply alone, with nothing to distract one. If we follow the world, the mind is seized by the dust of outside things and easily led astray. If we mix with people, our words follow how others will hear them and do not come from our own hearts at all. We joke with people and quarrel over things, resent one moment and rejoice the next, and nothing is ever settled. Judgments spring up at random, and gain and loss never cease. On top of delusion, we are drunk; within drunkenness, we dream. Running about busily, dazed and forgetful—everyone is like this. Even if one does not yet know the true Way, to leave one’s involvements behind, keep oneself at leisure, take no part in affairs and set the mind at ease—that, at least for a while, may be called happiness. As the Mohe zhiguan says, “Put an end to all involvements: livelihood, human affairs, skills and learning.”note

At a house that enjoys high favor in the world, when there is a bereavement or a celebration and many people call to pay their respects, a holy man among them, sending in his name and lingering at the door, strikes me as something that need not be. Even with a proper reason, a monk would do well to keep apart from people.

When there is something everyone happens to be talking about, I do not care for it when someone who has no business meddling knows all the details, tells others about it and goes around asking questions. Holy men in remote places especially seem to inquire into other people’s affairs as if they were their own, and spread the news about to such a degree that one wonders how they could possibly know so much.

Spreading word of the latest novelties and making much of them is another thing I do not care for. Someone who has not heard of them until they have grown stale is admirable. When a newcomer is present, people who are in on some catchphrase or name coined in their own circle exchange fragments of it, catch each other’s eye and laugh, and leave the one who is not in the know bewildered. People unused to society and lacking good breeding always do this.

In everything, it is best to look as though one were not deeply versed. Do people of good breeding speak with a knowing air about something just because they know it? It is someone who has come up from the depths of the country who answers as though versed in every art. Such people may indeed have things to say that put others to shame, but their air of thinking themselves splendid is boorish. To be slow to speak about an art one knows well, and to say nothing unless asked—that is truly splendid.

Everyone likes only what is remote from their own calling. Monks take up the way of the warrior, while eastern warriors, who do not know how to draw a bow, put on an air of knowing the buddha-dharma, compose linked verse and dabble in music. Yet they are bound to be despised for this even more than for their poor command of their own calling. Not only monks: senior nobles, courtiers, and even those of the very highest rank, all alike, very many of them love martial things. Even if one fights a hundred times and wins a hundred times, a name for valor is not yet secure. The reason is that when luck is with one and one crushes the foe, no one would say one is not brave. Only when the soldiers are gone and the arrows spent, when one still does not surrender to the enemy and meets death without flinching, does one’s name at last become known: such is this way. As long as one lives, one should not pride oneself on martial prowess. It is conduct far from humanity and close to that of birds and beasts. Unless one is born to such a house, there is no profit in loving it.

When the pictures or the writing on folding screens and sliding doors are done in a clumsy hand, they strike one less as ugly than as a sign of the master’s poor taste. In general, the furnishings people own can lower one’s opinion of them. I do not mean that one must own only fine things. I mean making things graceless and ugly so that they will not get damaged, or adding useless features to make them novel, fussy contrivances of that kind. What is good is something a little old-fashioned, not too elaborate, not costly, and well made.

Someone remarked, “It is a shame that silk-gauze covers wear out so quickly,” and Ton’a replied, “Gauze is at its best once it has frayed at top and bottom, and a mother-of-pearl roller once the shell has dropped out.” That struck me as a finer sensibility. People call it unsightly when the volumes of a set do not match, but the Sōzu Kōyū said, “Insisting on making everything into a matched set is what people without taste do. Incompleteness is what is good,” and I thought that splendid too. “In all things, it is bad for everything to be perfectly complete. To leave something undone and let it be is interesting, and gives a sense of room to breathe. Even when the palace is built, they always leave some part unfinished,” someone told me. And in the writings of the sages of old, Buddhist and secular alike, there are a great many missing chapters and sections.note

The Lay Monk Minister of the Left of Chikurin-in could have risen to Chancellor without any obstacle at all. But there seemed nothing special in that. Deciding to stop as First Minister, he took vows. The Minister of the Left of Tōin admired this, and he too had no ambition to become Chancellor. “The dragon that soars too high has cause for regret,” as the saying goes, I believe. The moon wanes once it is full; things decline once they flourish. In all matters, whatever has reached its limit is on the road to ruin.note

When Faxian, the Tripiṭaka Master, went to India, he grew sad at the sight of a fan from his homeland, and when he lay sick he longed for Chinese food. Hearing this, someone said, “How very weak-hearted of so great a man, to let himself be seen like that in a foreign land.” But the Sōzu Kōyū said, “What a gentle, feeling Tripiṭaka Master he was!” That struck me as admirably tasteful, and not at all like a monk.note

Because people’s hearts are not straightforward, there is no lack of falsehood. Yet surely there must be some who are honest by nature. Even those who are not straightforward themselves commonly envy the virtue of others when they see it. The utterly foolish, on the rare occasion they meet a wise person, hate that person for it. “They turn down a small gain in order to win a great one,” they disparage; “they put on a false show to make a name for themselves.”

The Middle Counselor Koreshige was richly gifted in poetry. He kept a devout life, reciting the sutras all his days, and he lodged together with the Sōjō En’i, a Temple monk. When Mii-dera was burned in the Bunpō era (1319), Koreshige met the monk and said, “We used to call you a Temple monk, but since there is no temple anymore, from now on we shall call you simply a monk.” It was a splendid witticism.note

One should be careful about giving wine to servants. A man who lived at Uji was on close terms with an elegant monk in the capital who had left the world, called Gukakubō, for he was his brother-in-law. Once the man sent a horse to fetch him. “It is a long way,” said Gukakubō. “Let the groom have a drink first,” and he brought out wine. The groom accepted cup after cup and gulped it down.

Someone owned a copy of the Wakan rōeishū said to be in the hand of Ono no Michikaze. Another person said, “I don’t suppose the tradition handed down to you is groundless, but the anthology was compiled by the Shijō Major Counselor. Would the dates not be wrong for Michikaze to have copied it? It seems doubtful.” “That is exactly why it is so rare a thing,” said the owner, and treasured it all the more.note

“Deep in the mountains there is a thing called a nekomata, and it eats people, I hear,” someone said. Another said, “Not only in the mountains—even around here, cats grow old and turn into nekomata and carry people off, so they say.” A monk called something-Amidabutsu, I believe, who composed linked verse and lived near Gyōganji, heard this and thought that anyone who walks about alone had better be careful. Just at that time, he had been composing linked verse somewhere until late at night and was coming home all alone, when on the bank of a little stream the nekomata he had heard of, sure enough, came suddenly right at his feet, leaped on him at once and went for his throat.note

Otozurumaru, a servant boy of the Dainagon Hōin, had come to know someone called Lord Yasura and was always going there. Once, when the boy came back from an outing, the Hōin asked, “Where have you been?” “I went to see Lord Yasura,” he said. “This Lord Yasura—is that a layman or a monk?” the Hōin asked again, and the boy, folding his hands in his sleeves, answered, “I wonder, sir. I have never seen the head.” Why should the head alone have been hidden from him?note

Red Tongue Days are not dealt with in the Way of Yin and Yang. People of old did not avoid them. Who started it, I wonder, that people have lately begun to avoid them, saying, “Things done on this day do not last,” and “What one says or does on that day does not come to pass, what one gains is lost, and what one plans does not succeed”? This is foolish. If one counted the undertakings begun on lucky days that did not last, the number would surely be the same. The reason is that in this realm of impermanence and change, what we see as existing does not endure, and what has a beginning does not reach its end. Aims are not fulfilled, desires never cease; the human heart is unsettled. All things are illusion. What abides even for a moment? People do not know this principle. It is said, “Do evil on a lucky day and it will surely turn out ill; do good on an unlucky day and it will surely turn out well.” Fortune and misfortune depend on people, not on days.note

Someone learning archery faced the target holding a pair of arrows. The teacher said, “A beginner should not hold two arrows. Relying on the second, you grow careless with the first. Each time, without thought of hitting or missing, think only that this one arrow must settle it.” With only two arrows, in front of the teacher, would anyone think of being careless with one? Yet even if one is not aware of one’s own slackness, the teacher knows it. This warning applies to everything. Those who study the Way think in the evening that there will be a morning, and in the morning that there will be an evening, and expect to practice diligently later. How much less do they know that slackness lies within a single instant! Why is it so very hard to do a thing at once, in this very moment of thought?

“There was a man selling an ox. The buyer said he would pay the price the next day and take the ox. During the night the ox died. The would-be buyer gained; the would-be seller lost,” someone related. Hearing this, a person sitting nearby said, “The owner of the ox did indeed suffer a loss, but he also gained greatly. The reason is this: living things do not know how near death is. So it was with the ox, and so it is with people.

When the Tokiwai Chancellor was on his way to court, a guard of the Northern Quarter carrying an imperial letter met him and got down from his horse. Later the Chancellor said, “Guard So-and-so dismounted while carrying an imperial letter. How could such a man serve His Majesty?” and the guard was dismissed. One should hold up an imperial letter from the saddle and show it; one should not dismount, they say.note

“When fixing the cord to the loop on a box, on which side should it go?” I asked a person versed in court precedent. He replied, “There are two views, fixing it on the roller side or on the cover side, so neither is wrong. On letter boxes it is mostly put on the right; on toiletry boxes it is also usual to put it on the roller side.”note

There is a plant called menamomi. If someone bitten by a viper crushes this plant and applies it, it heals at once, they say. It is worth learning to recognize it.note

Countless are the things that attach themselves to something and wear it down and ruin it. The body has lice; the house has rats; the country has thieves; the petty person has wealth; the gentleman has benevolence and righteousness; the monk has the dharma.

I once looked at a book called, I think, Ichigon hōdan, in which the sayings of venerable holy men had been written down. These are things that struck a chord with me:

Item: When you wonder whether to do something or not, it is generally best not to.

Item: One who thinks of the next life should not own even a pot for pickling in bran. To own fine things, down to the sutras one carries and one’s own sacred image, is pointless.

Item: For a recluse, the best way is to manage to get by without missing what one does not have.

Item: The high-ranking should become low-ranking, the wise foolish, the rich poor, the able incapable.

Item: Aspiring to the Buddha’s Way is nothing special. To become a person of leisure and not concern oneself with the affairs of the world is the foremost way.

There were other things too, but I do not remember them.note

The Horikawa Chancellor was a handsome and wealthy man who loved extravagance in everything. When his son, Lord Mototoshi, had been made Superintendent of the Imperial Police and business was being conducted at the office, the Chancellor found the Chinese chest in the office hall unsightly and ordered it to be splendidly remade. But this chest had been handed down from ancient times; no one knew its origin; it was several hundred years old. “Public property passed down through the generations takes its age and wear as its distinction. It cannot lightly be replaced,” said the officials versed in precedent, and so the matter was dropped.note

The Koga Chancellor, at the palace, asked for water. When the attendant of the Housekeeping Office brought it in an earthenware cup, he said, “Bring a magari,” and drank from a magari.note

A certain noble, serving as presiding officiant at the banquet for the appointment of ministers, went up into the hall without taking the edict from the Secretary who was holding it. It was an extreme breach of etiquette, yet he could hardly go back for it, and he was at a loss, when Yasutsuna, a Secretary of the sixth rank, persuaded a lady-in-waiting, veiled in her robe, to carry the edict and hand it to him discreetly. It was splendidly done.note

The Major Counselor Lay Monk Mitsutada, Director of the Board of Censors, was to preside over the demon-expelling ceremony and asked the Minister of the Left of Tōin about the order of proceedings. “There is no better plan than to take that fellow Matagorō as your teacher,” said the Minister. This Matagorō was an old guardsman, well versed in court ceremonies. Once, when Lord Konoe took his seat in council, he forgot his kneeling mat and was calling for the Secretary, when Matagorō, who was tending the fire, murmured quietly, “Should you not call for your kneeling mat first, my lord?” It was quite delightful.note

At the Daikakuji palace, the courtiers in attendance were making up riddles and solving them when the physician Tadamori came in. Lord Kinakira, the Jijū Major Counselor, turned him into a riddle: “Tadamori, who does not look like something from our land.” When someone solved it, “A Chinese sake jar,” and they all laughed together, Tadamori grew angry and left.note

In a run-down house where no one came, a woman was living shut away with nothing to do, at a time when she had reason to keep out of sight. A certain gentleman, meaning to visit her, came there secretly while the evening moon was still faint. A dog barked at him furiously, and a maidservant came out and asked, “Where are you from?” He had her show him in at once, and went inside. The forlorn look of the place made him ache to think how she could be living there.note

Snow lay unmelted in the shadow of a building on the north side, frozen hard, and the shafts of a carriage drawn up against it glittered with heavy frost. The dawn moon was bright, yet not perfectly clear. On the gallery of a secluded temple hall, a man who looked to be of no ordinary standing sat with a woman on the sill, talking—about what, I wonder? It seemed their talk would never end. Her head and figure looked very fine, and a fragrance beyond words drifted over all at once: delightful. The snatches of their voices that reached me now and then made me long to hear more.

Saint Shōkū of Mount Kōya was on his way up to the capital when, on a narrow path, he met a woman on horseback. The man leading her horse led it badly and made the holy man’s horse fall into the ditch. The holy man, in a vile temper, rebuked them: “What unheard-of violence! Of the four classes of disciples, mark you, nuns are inferior to monks, lay brothers are inferior to nuns, and lay sisters are inferior to lay brothers. For a mere lay sister to have a monk kicked into a ditch is a wickedness without precedent!” The man leading the horse said, “What are you saying? I can’t make head or tail of it.” At this His Reverence grew even more furious and shouted roughly, “What did you say? You unpracticed, unlearned lout!” Then, looking as though he felt he had said something unspeakably outrageous, he turned his horse around and fled. It must have been a most venerable quarrel.note

Men who can promptly give a fitting answer when a woman speaks to them are rare, they say. So in the time of Retired Emperor Kameyama, some mischievous court ladies would test the young gentlemen whenever they came to court by asking, “Have you heard the cuckoo yet?” A certain Major Counselor, I believe, answered, “Someone as insignificant as I has not been able to hear it.” The Palace Minister of Horikawa said, “I think I heard it at Iwakura.” “This one is faultless.note

No one begrudges a moment’s time. Is this because people understand it well, or because they are foolish? To put it for the foolish and idle: a single coin is a trifle, yet pile them up and they make a poor man rich. That is why merchants are so keen to save each coin. An instant passes unnoticed, yet if instants keep going by without stopping, the time to end one’s life arrives all at once. So one who follows the Way should not begrudge the days and months far ahead. One should begrudge letting this present moment of thought pass in vain.

A man known as a famous tree climber had someone climb a tall tree under his direction to cut the top branches. While the climber was at heights that looked very dangerous, the master said nothing. Only when the man was coming down and had reached about the height of the eaves did he call out, “Careful now! Watch yourself on the way down.” I said to him, “At this height he could jump down. Why say that now?” He answered, “That’s just it. While his head is spinning and the branches are dangerous, he is afraid on his own account, so I say nothing. Mistakes always happen once you reach the easy places.” He was a humble commoner, yet his words accord with the warnings of the sages. In kickball too, they say, once you have kicked the ball out of a difficult spot and think the rest is easy, it is sure to drop.

I asked a man said to be expert at sugoroku the secret of his play. He said, “You must not play to win; you must play not to lose. Work out which move is likely to lose fastest, avoid it, and choose the move by which you will lose more slowly, even by a single square.” This is the teaching of one who knows his art, and the way to govern oneself and keep a country secure is the same.note

“People who love go and sugoroku and spend their days and nights at them commit, I think, a wickedness worse than the four grave offenses and the five heinous crimes.” These words of a certain holy man have stayed with me, and I find them splendid.note

Would anyone raise a matter that needs to be done at leisure with someone known to be leaving for a distant province tomorrow? Those busy with a sudden crisis, or deep in grief, pay no attention to other matters and do not inquire after others’ sorrows and joys; nor does anyone resent their not asking. So it should be the same for someone who has grown old or is beset by illness—let alone one who has left the world. Among the ceremonies of human life, which is not hard to forgo?

When someone past forty has a love affair, if it is kept quiet, what can one say? But to talk openly of love between men and women, and to joke about other people’s affairs, is unbecoming and unsightly. In general, things unpleasant to hear and see: an old person mixing with the young and talking to amuse them. Someone of no account talking about a person of renown as if they were on intimate terms. A poor household fond of drinking parties, putting on a show to entertain its guests.

Once, when the Minister of Imadegawa was on his way to Saga, at a place near the Arisu River where water was running across the road, Saiōmaru drove the ox hard, so that the water kicked up by its hooves splashed right up onto the front board. Tamenori, who was riding at the back of the carriage, said, “What an absurd boy! Who drives an ox at a place like this?” The Minister’s mood darkened, and he said, “You could never know more about driving a carriage than Saiōmaru. It’s you who are absurd,” and he knocked Tamenori’s head against the carriage. This famous Saiōmaru was Lord Uzumasa’s man, the ox-driver kept for His Majesty’s use. The ladies-in-waiting in Lord Uzumasa’s household were named, one Hizasachi, one Kotozuchi, one Hōhara and one Otoushi.note

At a place called Shukugawara, a great many boroboro had gathered and were reciting the nembutsu of the nine grades, when a boroboro came in from outside and asked, “Is there among you a boro called Iroshi-bō?” From among them came the answer, “Iroshi is here. Who is it that asks?” “My name is Shira Bonji. I was told that my teacher, a man called so-and-so, was killed in the eastern provinces by a boro named Iroshi. I hoped to meet that person and settle my grievance, so I have come asking for him.”note

In naming temples, and all sorts of other things too, people of old did not strain in the least; they simply named things as they were, without fuss. Nowadays the names sound as if people had pondered deeply, trying to show off their cleverness—very tiresome. With people’s names too, trying to use unfamiliar characters is pointless. To seek out the novel in everything and to like unconventional views is, they say, the sure mark of shallow learning.

There are seven kinds of people who make bad friends. First, those of high and noble rank. Second, the young. Third, those who are never ill and are robust. Fourth, those who love drink. Fifth, fierce and valiant warriors. Sixth, liars. Seventh, the greedy. There are three kinds of good friends: first, friends who give you things; second, doctors; third, friends who are wise.

On a day you eat carp soup, they say, your sidelocks will not come untidy. Since glue is made from it too, it must be a sticky thing. Carp alone may be carved even in His Majesty’s presence, so it is a noble fish. Among birds, the pheasant has no equal. Pheasant, matsutake mushrooms and the like may hang in the Oyudono without impropriety; anything else is distasteful. Once, when the Lay Monk of Kitayama saw a wild goose on the black shelf in the Oyudono of the Empress’s quarters, he wrote to her as soon as he got home: “A creature like that sitting on Her Majesty’s shelf just as it was, in its natural form—I have never seen such a thing, and it is unseemly. It must be because there is no one competent in attendance.”note

The fish called bonito, from the sea at Kamakura, is held to be unrivaled in those parts, and it is much prized these days. Yet an old man of Kamakura told me, “Until we were young, this fish was never served before people of quality. Not even servants would eat the head; it was cut off and thrown away.” In these last days of the world, it seems, even things like this make their way into the highest circles.

Of things from China, we could do without all of them except medicines. As for books, many have already spread through this country, so we can copy them. It is very foolish to load ships on the hard voyage from China with nothing but useless things, crammed in tight, and bring them across. “Do not treasure things from afar,” and again, “Do not value goods hard to obtain”—so the books say, I believe.note

Of the animals people keep, horses and oxen—it is pitiful to tie them up and make them suffer, but since we cannot do without them, what can be done? Dogs surpass even people at guarding and keeping watch, so one should certainly have one. But since every house has one, there is no need to seek one out specially to keep. All other birds and beasts are useless. Running beasts are shut in cages and fastened with chains; flying birds have their wings clipped and are put in cages, and their sorrow as they long for the clouds and pine for the fields and hills never ceases.

Among human accomplishments, the first is to be well versed in letters and to know the teachings of the sages. Next comes writing a good hand: even if one does not make it one’s main pursuit, one should learn it, for it is an aid to scholarship. Next, one should study medicine. Caring for one’s own body, helping others, and fulfilling the duties of loyalty and filial piety are all impossible without medicine. Next, archery and horsemanship are counted among the Six Arts, and one should certainly gain some knowledge of them. Letters, arms and medicine: none of these may be lacking. No one who studies them can be called idle.note

Someone who spends the time doing useless things may be called a fool, or one who does wrong. For the sake of the country and of one’s lord there are many things one cannot avoid doing, and one should realize that the leisure left over is small. What a person cannot avoid providing for is, first, food; second, clothing; third, a place to live. The great needs of human life are no more than these three. Not to be hungry, not to be cold, not to be exposed to wind and rain, and to live quietly: that is happiness. But everyone falls ill, and when illness strikes the suffering is hard to bear. Medical care must not be forgotten. Adding medicine, to be unable to obtain these four things is poverty. To lack none of the four is wealth. To seek and strive for anything beyond the four is extravagance. If one is frugal in these four, who would find them insufficient?

The monk Zehō, though he had no cause to feel ashamed among the scholars of the Pure Land school, did not set himself up as a learned man. He simply recited the nembutsu morning and night and passed his life in peace. That is a way of living I would dearly like for myself.note

Someone who had been bereaved invited a certain holy man to the Buddhist service on the forty-ninth day. His sermon was splendid, and everyone wept. After the officiant had gone, the listeners were saying to one another, deeply moved, “Today it felt more sacred than ever.” In reply, someone said, “Well, naturally—a man who looks that much like a Chinese dog.” At that the emotion evaporated, and it all became funny.note

“When a gambler’s losses have hit bottom and he is about to stake everything he has left, do not play against him. You should recognize that the moment has come when his luck will turn and he will win again and again. Someone who knows that moment is called a good gambler,” someone said.

When changing something brings no benefit, it is better not to change it.

The Major Counselor Masafusa was learned and a man of good character, and the retired emperor was thinking of making him a general of the palace guards. Just then one of the retired emperor’s attendants said, “I have just seen something dreadful.” His Majesty asked, “What was it?” The attendant said, “Lord Masafusa cut the leg off a live dog to feed his hawk. I saw it through a hole in the dividing fence.” His Majesty found this repugnant and hateful. His usual favor changed, and he did not promote Masafusa.note

Yan Hui’s aspiration was not to impose burdens on others. In general, one must never make people suffer or oppress any creature; not even the will of the humblest commoner may be taken from them. Then again, there are people who amuse themselves by tricking and frightening small children, or by teasing and shaming them. Grown-ups think it is nothing, since none of it is real, but to a young heart the fear, the shame and the dismay go right through them and must be truly acute. Tormenting a child like this for amusement is not compassionate.note

Nothing is better than not contending with others: bending oneself to go along with others, putting oneself last and others first. People who love winning and losing in every kind of game do so for the pleasure of winning. They are delighted that their skill is superior. It follows that losing must feel like no fun. And if one set out to lose so as to please the other person, there would be no pleasure in the game at all. To amuse oneself by making others feel let down goes against virtue.

The poor think of courtesy in terms of wealth; the old think of it in terms of strength. To know one’s limits, and to stop at once when one cannot manage, should be called wisdom. If others do not accept this, the fault is theirs. To push oneself without knowing one’s limits is one’s own fault. Poor and not knowing one’s limits, one steals; with strength failing and not knowing one’s limits, one falls ill.

The name Toba Built Road was not given after the Toba Palace was built; it is an old name. The record of Prince Rihō says, I am told, that Prince Motoyoshi’s voice, when he delivered the New Year’s Day congratulations, was so remarkably fine that it carried from the Great Hall of State all the way to the Toba Built Road.note

Someone once said, “In the emperor’s bedchamber His Majesty sleeps with his head to the east. In general one should sleep with one’s head to the east to receive the yang energy, which is why Confucius too lay with his head to the east. In arranging a sleeping hall, a pillow to the south is also common. Retired Emperor Shirakawa slept with his head to the north. North is to be avoided. And Ise lies to the south: how could he sleep with his feet toward the Grand Shrine?” However, when the emperor worships the Grand Shrine from afar, he faces southeast, not south.note

A monk who performed the samādhi rites at the Lotus Hall of Retired Emperor Takakura—a Precept Master called something or other—once picked up a mirror and gazed long at his face. He found his own ugliness and wretched looks so distressing that even the mirror seemed hateful, and from then on he dreaded mirrors and would not so much as take one in hand. He never again mixed with people. He took part only in the services at the hall, and otherwise stayed shut away. When I heard this, I thought it rare indeed. Even people who seem wise judge only others, and do not know themselves.note

A man known, I believe, as the Major Counselor Lay Monk Sukesue met Tomouji, the Consultant and Middle Captain, and said, “Whatever you might ask me, is there anything I couldn’t answer?” Tomouji said, “I wonder about that.” “Then challenge me,” said Sukesue. Tomouji replied, “I have not learned even a scrap of anything serious, so there is no point in my asking about that. Among idle trifles, though, I will ask you about something I’m unsure of.”

The physician Atsushige was in attendance on the late cloistered emperor when His Majesty’s meal was served. He said, “If you will ask me about the various dishes now being served—both how their names are written and what their properties are—I shall answer from memory, and you may check me against the Materia Medica. I shall not make a single mistake.” Just then the late Palace Minister of Rokujō arrived. “Let me, Arifusa, take this chance to learn something,” he said, and asked, “First of all, the character for shio, ‘salt’—what radical does it have?” “The earth radical,” said Atsushige. “The extent of your learning is already plain. That will do for now. There is nothing more I wish to know,” said the minister. Amid a roar of laughter, Atsushige withdrew.note

Once the Festival was over, a certain distinguished person said the leftover hollyhock was no longer needed and had all of it taken down from the blinds. I found this lacking in feeling. Yet since it was done by a person of good breeding, I thought it might be the proper thing. But Suō no Naishi wrote, “Hung up, yet no use, together with me, are the withered hollyhock leaves on the blinds,” and her personal collection says it was “written on withered hollyhock leaves hanging on the blinds of the main hall.”note

The trees one would want at one’s house are the pine and the cherry. Among pines, the five-needled pine is good too. Among cherries, the single-flowered kind is best. Double cherries once grew only in the old capital of Nara, but nowadays, I hear, they have become common everywhere. The blossoms of Yoshino and the Cherry of the Left Guard are all single. The double cherry is an odd thing. It is overdone and contorted. One could do without planting it. Late cherries are dreary as well. Those infested with insects are unpleasant. Among plums, the white ones, the pale pink ones, the single ones that bloom early, and the double crimson ones with their lovely fragrance are all delightful.note

To die and leave wealth behind is something the wise do not do. If one has stored up worthless things, it looks foolish. If they are good things, people will think one was attached to them, and that is pitiful. A great heap of them is even more of a pity. People say, “It should be mine,” and quarrel afterward, and it is an ugly sight. If there is something one means to give to someone after one’s death, one should hand it over while still alive. One may keep what cannot be done without from morning to night; beyond that, I would wish to own nothing at all.

His Reverence Gyōren of the Hidenin was, they say, of the Miura family by birth, and a warrior without equal. Someone from his home province came to visit and, in the course of their talk, said, “With people of the eastern provinces, you can rely on what they say. People of the capital are good only at saying yes; there’s no truth in them.” The holy man replied, “You may well think so. But I have lived in the capital a long time, and now that I know them well, I do not think their hearts are inferior.note

Even those who seem to have no feeling sometimes say something good. A fierce warrior from the eastern provinces, frightening to look at, asked a companion, “Do you have children?” “Not a single one,” the man answered. “Then you cannot know the pathos of things,” said the warrior. “It frightens me to think what an unfeeling heart you must have. It is through children that one comes to understand everything that moves us.” That may well be so. Were it not for the bonds of family love, would there be compassion in the heart of such a man?

When I hear people tell how splendid someone’s last moments were, it would be admirable if they said only that the person died calmly and without confusion. But foolish people pass on stories of strange and unusual signs, and praise the words and conduct of the dying in whatever way suits their own taste. I think this cannot have been what that person wished in life. This great matter cannot be judged even by a buddha in human form. Nor can the most learned scholar fathom it. If one does not stray from oneself, it does not depend on what others see or hear.

Once, when the holy man of Toganoo was passing along a road, a man washing a horse in the river was calling out, “Ashi, ashi!” (“Foot, foot!”). The holy man stopped. “How holy!” he said. “Here is a man whose good karma from past lives has come to flower. He is chanting ‘A-ji, A-ji’, the letter A! Whose horse is this? It strikes me as so very holy.” “It belongs to His Honor the Fushō,” the man answered. “How wonderful!” said the holy man. “It is ‘the letter A, originally unborn’! What a happy bond with the dharma I have made!” And he wiped away tears of joy, so they say.note

The imperial bodyguard Hata no Shigemi said of Shingan, the Lay Monk of Shimotsuke, of the Northern Guard, “This man has the look of one who will fall from a horse. He should be very careful.” This did not seem very likely, but Shingan fell from his horse and died. People thought that a single word from a master of his art was like a god’s. Someone asked him, “What was the sign?” He said, “His seat was extremely round, like a peach, and he liked spirited, unruly horses, so I gave him that sign. When have I ever been wrong?”note

The Abbot Myōun met a physiognomist and asked, “Am I perhaps in danger from weapons?” “Indeed, you have that sign,” said the man. “What sign is it?” asked the abbot. “You are someone who should have no reason to fear injury, and yet you have thought to ask such a thing, even in passing. That itself is already a sign of the danger,” he replied. Sure enough, the abbot was struck by an arrow and died.note

The idea that someone who has had moxibustion in many places is impure for the rites of the gods is something people have started saying only recently. It does not appear in the codes and regulations.

People over forty who have moxibustion but do not burn the sanri point will suffer from rushes of blood to the head. One should always apply moxa there.note

Do not hold deer antler to your nose and sniff it. They say it has tiny insects that crawl in through the nose and eat the brain.

People setting out to acquire a skill often say, “While I can’t do it well, I’d rather not let anyone know. Better to learn it properly in private and then come forward; that would be truly admirable.” But people who say this never master a single art. Take someone who, while still utterly unformed, mixes with the experts, is not ashamed to be criticized and laughed at, and goes on unperturbed, working hard. Even without natural talent, if such a person does not stall on the way or take it lightly, and keeps at it for years, they will in the end reach the rank of master ahead of a gifted person who does not work at it. Their skill will mature, others will acknowledge them, and they will win an unrivaled name.

Someone said: “An art in which you have not become skilled by the age of fifty should be given up. There is no future left in which to work hard and learn it. People cannot bring themselves to laugh at an old person, and for the old to mingle with the crowd is pointless and unsightly. On the whole, it is fitting and desirable to stop all one’s activities and have leisure. Whoever spends a lifetime caught up in worldly affairs is the lowest kind of fool. Things you would like to know you may study and ask about, but once you have grasped their gist, you should stop as soon as you are no longer in the dark. Best of all is never to have wanted anything in the first place.”

Saint Jōnen of Saidaiji, bent at the waist and white of eyebrow, looking every inch a man of great virtue, came to the palace. Lord Saionji, the Inner Minister, said, “How venerable he looks!” and showed every sign of reverence. Lord Suketomo saw this and said, “It is only that he is old.” Some days later, Suketomo had a shaggy dog led over, wretchedly old and wasted, its fur coming out in patches. He sent it to the Inner Minister with the message: “This one looks venerable.” So they say.note

When the lay monk Tamekane, the Major Counselor, was arrested and led off to Rokuhara surrounded by warriors, Lord Suketomo saw this near Ichijō and said, “How enviable! If one is to live in this world, that is the kind of memory to have.”note

This same man was once sheltering from the rain at the gate of Tōji, where people with disabilities had gathered. Seeing that their hands and feet were twisted and bent back, every part of them unusual and strange, he thought each of them a curiosity without equal, well worth cherishing, and gazed at them. Before long his interest ran out; they seemed ugly and distasteful to him, and he thought that nothing beats what is plain and ordinary. After he went home, it struck him that his recent fondness for potted trees, for which he had sought out strangely bent and twisted ones to delight his eyes, was no different from cherishing the misshapen. He lost all pleasure in them and had every tree planted in a pot dug up and thrown away. That was just as it should be.

Whoever means to go along with the world must first know the right moment. Things done at the wrong moment grate on people’s ears and go against their feelings, and nothing comes of them. One must be alert to such moments. Only falling ill, giving birth and dying take no account of the moment. They do not hold off because the timing is bad. The true great matter—the passage through arising, abiding, changing and perishing—is like a raging river in full flood. It does not pause for an instant; it goes straight on.note

For a minister’s grand banquet, it is the usual practice to ask permission to use a suitable residence. The Minister of the Left of Uji held his at the Higashi-Sanjō mansion. It was then serving as the imperial palace, but because he asked for it, His Majesty moved elsewhere. Even without any special connection, it is established precedent to borrow the residence of an imperial lady or the like, so they say.note

When we take up a brush, we feel we must write something; when we take up an instrument, we want to make it sound. When we take up a cup, we think of wine; when we take up dice, we think of throwing them. The mind is always stirred by contact with things. One should never, even in jest, toy with what is not good. If we glance at a single line of the sacred teachings, somehow we see the passages before and after it as well. All at once we may correct the faults of many years. Had we not happened to open that text just then, would we ever have known this?

A certain personage once asked me, “How do you understand the practice of throwing out what is left at the bottom of the cup?” I answered, “It is called gyōtō, so I suppose it means throwing out what has congealed at the bottom.” “Not so,” came the reply. “It is gyodō, ‘the fishes’ path.’ You leave a little to flow and rinse the place your lips touched.”note

“The knot called minamusubi gets its name because the threads, tied over one another, look like the shellfish called mina,” a certain eminent person told me. To say nina is a mistake.note

Is it wrong to say that one “strikes” (utsu) a plaque when hanging it over a gate? The lay monk of the Second Rank of Kadenokōji said “hang” (kakuru) a plaque. Is it also wrong to say one “strikes” viewing stands for a spectacle? To “strike” an awning is ordinary usage, but for stands one should say “set up” (kamauru). To say one “burns” a goma is also bad; one says “perform” a goma, or “do” a goma. “In gyōbō, too, it is wrong to pronounce the character for ‘dharma’ unvoiced, as hō; it is said voiced, as bō,” said the Sōjō of Seikanji. Everyday speech is full of such things.note

Some say the cherry blossoms are at their height one hundred and fifty days after the winter solstice, others seven days after the equinox, but seventy-five days after the first day of spring is seldom wrong.note

A lay servant-monk at Henjōji had for some time been feeding the birds of the pond, scattering grain right inside the hall. He would open a single door, and when countless birds had gone in, he went in after them, shut them in, and caught and killed them one by one. The commotion sounded so dreadful that a boy cutting grass heard it and told people. The village men rose up and went in to look: among the great wild geese flapping in panic was the monk, striking them down and wringing their necks. They seized him, and the village handed him over to the Office of the Imperial Police. He was made to wear the birds he had killed around his neck and was thrown into prison. This was when the Major Counselor Mototoshi was Superintendent of the Police.

The masters of yin and yang once disputed whether the character 太 in taishō should be written with its dot or without. The lay monk Morichika said, “Lord Konoe, the Regent, has an imperial diary written on the back of an old document in Yoshihira’s own hand. In it the character is written with the dot.”note

When people meet, they never fall silent for a moment; there is always talk. Listen to it, and most of it is useless chatter: idle rumors about the world, the rights and wrongs of others—for oneself and for others alike, much is lost and little gained. Yet while they talk, neither side realizes that it is useless.

A man from the eastern provinces mixing among people of the capital; a man of the capital going east to make his way; monks of the exoteric and esoteric schools who have left their home temple and mountain—whenever people mix with others who are not of their own kind, it is unsightly.

When I look at what people are busy with, it is like making a snow Buddha on a spring day, then busily preparing ornaments of gold, silver and jewels for it, and setting out to build a hall and a pagoda. Can one wait for the building to be finished and enshrine it properly? Even while a life seems to last, it is melting from below like the snow, and still we keep busy, waiting on so very many things.

It is common for someone engaged in one art, attending a gathering of another, to say, “Ah, if only this were my own field, I would not be looking on from outside like this,” and to think so in their heart; but this seems to me very bad indeed. If you envy an art you do not know, just say, “How enviable! Why did I never learn it?” To bring out one’s own knowledge and compete with others is like a horned beast lowering its horns, or a fanged beast baring its fangs. For human beings, virtue lies in not boasting of one’s merits and not contending with others.

When an old person has an outstanding talent in some one thing, and people say, “After this person is gone, whom shall we ask?”, then they are a champion of old age, and their living on is not in vain. Even so, if that talent has no rusty spots at all, it looks graceless, as if they had spent their whole life on this one thing. Better to say, “I have forgotten it now.” Even if one knows a great deal, to air it carelessly makes people wonder whether one’s learning is really so great, and mistakes are bound to slip in. Saying “I do not know it for certain” makes one seem all the more a true master of the art. Worse still is when someone one cannot very well contradict holds forth, with a knowing air, about what they do not know, and one has to sit there listening, thinking “That is not so”—that is truly miserable.

Someone told me, “The expression ‘the ways (shiki) of such-and-such’ was not used until the reign of Go-Saga; it is a word that has come in only recently.” Yet the Ukyō no Daibu of Kenreimon’in, describing how she returned to serve at the palace after Go-Toba ascended the throne, wrote: “Though nothing has changed in the ways of the world…”note

It is not good to go visiting someone without any particular reason. Even if you go on business, you should leave quickly once it is done. Staying a long time is very tiresome. When people sit facing each other, words multiply, the body tires, and the mind is not at rest. Everything else is held up while time slips away; it does neither side any good. But it is also bad to speak as though you were annoyed. When you are not in the mood, it is better simply to say why. When someone of like mind, whom one would gladly sit with, has nothing to do and says, “Stay a little longer—let us take our ease today,” that surely falls outside this rule. Ruan Ji’s green eyes are something everyone ought to have. It is very pleasant when someone comes for no particular reason, chats at leisure and goes home. And it is a great joy to receive a letter that says no more than, “It has been so long since I last wrote.”note

In the shell-matching game, a player who leaves the shells in front of them and looks around elsewhere, casting an eye into the shadow of others’ sleeves and under their knees, finds that meanwhile someone else has covered the shells right in front of them. A good player does not seem to strain after shells far off, and appears to cover only those nearby, yet covers a great many.note

In youth, blood and spirit overflow within, the heart is moved by things, and the passions are many. One puts oneself in danger and breaks easily, like a jewel sent rolling. Loving finery, one squanders one’s wealth; then one throws it all away and shrinks into the moss-colored sleeves of a monk. The bold spirit runs high and quarrels with others; the heart is full of shame and envy; what one likes changes from day to day. One gives oneself up to love and dotes on feeling, acts with reckless dash and ruins a body that could have lasted a hundred years, and envies the examples of those who lost their lives, never thinking of keeping oneself whole and long-lived. To be drawn after one’s passions and wreck oneself, becoming a tale told for ages—that is what youth does.

Very little is certain about Ono no Komachi. Her decline appears in a work called Tamatsukuri. There is a theory that Kiyoyuki wrote it, but it is included in the catalog of the writings of the Great Master of Kōya, and the Great Master passed away early in the Jōwa era (in 835). Was Komachi in her prime after that? It is still unclear.note

They say that a dog good for hunting with small hawks, once used with large hawks, becomes useless with small ones. Taking up the great and discarding the small—this is truly how it is. Among the many human pursuits, none has a deeper savor than delighting in the Way. This is the truly great matter. Once someone has heard the Way and set their heart on it, what pursuit would they not let go? What else would they busy themselves with? However foolish a person may be, are they to fall short of the mind of a clever dog?

There are many things in this world I do not understand. On every occasion, people begin by pressing wine on others and making them drink by force, and they think this fun—why, I cannot understand. The drinker grimaces as if it were unbearable, frowns, tries to pour it away when no one is looking, tries to slip off; and they catch hold of the drinker, hold them back and make them drink for no good reason. Then even a dignified person suddenly turns into someone out of their mind and makes a fool of themselves, and even a healthy person becomes, before your eyes, gravely ill and collapses, insensible. On a day meant for celebration, it must be appalling.

The Kurodo, the “Black Door” room, is where the Komatsu Emperor, after he came to the throne, regularly went on doing the humble cooking he had done for amusement when he was still a mere subject, for he had not forgotten it. It is called the Black Door, they say, because it was blackened by the smoke of the imperial firewood.note

There was once to be a game of kickball at the residence of the Prince of Central Affairs in Kamakura. It had rained, and the garden was not yet dry, and they were discussing what to do. Then Sasaki, the Lay Monk of Oki, presented a great quantity of sawdust that he had loaded onto carts. It was spread over the whole garden, and the mud gave no further trouble. “What rare foresight, to have collected it all!” everyone said in admiration. When someone told this story, Middle Counselor Yoshida remarked, “Was there no provision of dry sand?” and I felt ashamed. The sawdust that had been thought so splendid was a vulgar and irregular expedient. It is established precedent, they say, that the person in charge of the garden arrangements should have dry sand ready.note

Some retainers of a certain household, having watched the sacred kagura dances at the Naishidokoro, were telling people about it: “So-and-so was carrying the Sacred Sword.” Hearing this, one of the ladies inside said quietly, “When His Majesty goes to another hall, it is the sword from the Daytime Chamber that is carried.” That was admirable. She was, I am told, a long-serving Assistant Handmaid of the palace.note

The holy man Dōgen, a monk who had been to Song China, brought back a complete set of the scriptures and installed it at a place called Yakeno, near Rokuhara. He lectured especially on the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, and he named the temple Nālandā. This holy man said: “It has been handed down, as the view of the Gō Governor-General, that the main gate of Nālandā faces north. But this does not appear in the Record of the Western Regions or in the Record of Faxian; there is no evidence for it anywhere. I wonder on what learning the Governor-General based it. It is doubtful. That the Ximing Temple in China faces north is, of course, beyond question.”note

Sagichō is the burning of the mallets used in the ball games of the first month, which are brought out from the Shingon-in to the Shinsen’en and burned. When people chant in their merrymaking “at the pond where the dharma is fulfilled,” it is the pond of the Shinsen’en they mean.note

“In ‘Fure fure koyuki, Tanba no koyuki’—‘Fall, fall, little snow, little snow of Tanba’—the snow is called koyuki, ‘powder snow,’ because it looks like rice that has been pounded and sifted. It ought to be ‘tamare koyuki,’ ‘pile up, little snow,’ but people mistakenly say ‘of Tanba.’ After that one should sing ‘on the fences and in the forks of the trees,’” a learned man told me. I wonder whether it has been sung that way since long ago. The diary of the Sanuki no Suke records that Retired Emperor Toba, when he was a small child, said these words while snow was falling.note

Takachika, the Shijō Major Counselor, had dried salmon served at His Majesty’s table. Someone said, “Surely such a lowly thing is not to be served to His Majesty.” Hearing this, the Major Counselor replied, “If salmon were a fish never served to the emperor, that would be one thing. But what could be wrong with salmon dried plain? Is dried sweetfish not served?”

An ox that gores people has its horns cut, and a horse that bites people has its ears cut, as a mark. If the owner does not mark them and lets them injure someone, the fault is his. A dog that bites people must not be kept. All these are offenses. This is a prohibition of the legal code.

The mother of Tokiyori, Governor of Sagami, was called the Zen Nun Matsushita. Once, when she was to receive the Governor at her home, the nun was cutting out and repapering, with her own hands and a small knife, only the torn places in the sooty paper sliding screens. Her brother Yoshikage, Vice-Governor of Akita Castle, who was seeing to the preparations that day, said, “Let me take that and have one of my men do the papering.note

Yasumori of the Jō family, Governor of Mutsu, was a horseman without equal. When a horse was led out for him, if he saw it clear the threshold in one easy leap with its feet together, he would say, “This is a high-spirited horse,” and have the saddle moved to another. And if it stretched out its legs and struck the threshold, he would say, “This one is dull and will cause an accident,” and would not ride it. Would someone who did not know the art be so cautious?note

A horseman named Yoshida said to me: “Every horse is a formidable creature. You must understand that human strength cannot contend with it. Before you ride a horse, first look it over well and learn its strong points and weak points. Next, check whether there is anything unsafe in the bit or the saddle, and if anything troubles you, do not gallop that horse. The one who never forgets these precautions is what we call a horseman. This is a secret of the art.”

In every art, a professional, even an unskilled one, will always surpass a skilled amateur when the two are set side by side. The difference is that the one is unremitting in his care and never takes things lightly, while the other simply does as he pleases; they are not alike. This holds not only for the arts and their practice: in conduct and attentiveness generally, to be clumsy but careful is the root of gain, and to be clever but self-indulgent is the root of loss.

A certain man made his son a monk, telling him, “Study, learn the principle of cause and effect, and make preaching your means of earning a living.” Following his father’s instructions, the son, in order to become a preacher, first learned to ride a horse. He had no palanquin or carriage of his own, and he thought that when he was invited to officiate at a service and they sent a horse to fetch him, it would be mortifying to fall off for want of a firm seat. Next, thinking that if he were offered sake after a service, a monk with no accomplishments at all would leave his patron cold, he learned to sing what are called sōka.note

A wife is something a man should not have. I find it admirable to hear, “He has always lived alone.” When I hear that someone has become so-and-so’s son-in-law, or has taken some woman into his house and is living with her, I think very much less of him. One cannot help guessing, meanly, that he has decided some ordinary woman is wonderful and settled down with her; or, if she is a fine woman, that she must dote on him and watch over him as her own precious Buddha. In short, one is bound to think, “So that is all he amounts to.”

People who say that things lose their luster after nightfall are a disappointment. The brilliance, the ornament and the colors of all things are splendid only at night. By day one may well wear plain and sober attire. At night, glittering, showy dress is best. With people’s looks too, lamplight makes the handsome more handsome; and a voice heard speaking in the dark, if it is a thoughtful one, is most appealing. Scents too, and the sound of instruments—it is at night that they are most splendid.

It is good to visit the gods and the buddhas on days when no one else goes, and at night.

When an ignorant person sizes up others and thinks he knows the extent of their intelligence, he will never be right. A clumsy fellow who is sharp and skilled only at go sees a wise man who is poor at the game and decides that he falls short of his own intelligence; a master of some craft sees that others do not know his craft and thinks himself superior. This is a great mistake. The monk of scriptural learning and the Zen master of silent realization each measure the other and think the other inferior; both are wrong. What lies outside one’s own sphere one should not dispute, nor pronounce upon as right or wrong.

The eye with which a master sees people cannot err in the slightest. Suppose, for example, someone concocts a lie and deceives people with it. Some, guileless, take it as true and are fooled exactly as they are told. Some believe it too deeply and go on to embellish the lie with elaborate understandings of their own. Some think nothing of it and pay no attention. Some feel a little doubtful and sit pondering, neither believing nor disbelieving.

Someone was passing along the Koga causeway when he saw a man in a kosode and wide ōkuchi trousers pushing a wooden statue of Jizō down into the water of a rice paddy and carefully washing it. As he watched, unable to make sense of it, two or three men in hunting robes came up, said, “So here he is,” and led the man away. It was the Koga Inner Minister. In ordinary times he was a person of great dignity and distinction.note

When the sacred palanquin of Tōdaiji was returning to its seat from the Wakamiya shrine at Tōji, the senior nobles of the Minamoto attended it. This lord, as Commander of the Guards, was clearing the way ahead. The Chancellor of Tsuchimikado asked, “Would it be proper to call out the warning cry before a shrine?” He answered only, “The conduct of the escorts is a matter known to the house that bears arms.” Afterwards he said, “This Chancellor has read the Hokuzanshō, but he seems not to know the view of the Saikyūki. The god has a retinue of evil demons and evil spirits, and because they are to be feared, there is good reason to clear the way all the more at a shrine.”note

The term “fixed-quota” is not used only of monks at the various temples: “fixed-quota palace maids” appear in the Engishiki. It is a general term for public servants whose numbers are fixed.note

Besides the “nominal assistant governor,” there is also such a thing as a “nominal secretary.” It is in the Seiji yōryaku.note

Gyōsen, Hōin of Yokawa, once told me: “China is a country of ryo; it has no ritsu tones. Japan is a country of ritsu alone; it has no ryo tones.”note

Wu bamboo has narrow leaves; river bamboo has broad ones. The clump near the palace channel is river bamboo; the one planted toward the Jijūden hall is Wu bamboo.note

Of the stupas called “Ordinary Folk Withdraw” and “Leave Your Carriage,” the outer one is “Leave Your Carriage” and the inner one is “Ordinary Folk Withdraw.”note

Nothing in writing says that because the tenth month is called kaminazuki, the month without gods, rites for the gods should be avoided in it. No authoritative text says so either. Still, perhaps it has the name because the various shrines hold no festivals in that month. There is a view that in this month all the gods gather at the Great Shrine of Ise, but there is no authority for that either. If it were so, Ise would surely make it a special festival month, yet there is no such precedent. There are many precedents for imperial visits to shrines in the tenth month. Most of them, however, are inauspicious precedents.

The practice of hanging a quiver at a place under imperial censure has died out, and no one now knows it. When His Majesty is ill, or generally when the world is in turmoil, a quiver is hung at the Gojō Tenjin shrine. The god Yuki Myōjin at Kurama is also one at whose shrine a quiver was hung. When the quiver carried by a constable of the Imperial Police was hung at someone’s house, no one went in or out. After the practice died out, it became the custom in our day to put a seal on the house instead.

When a criminal is beaten with a rod, he is brought to the flogging frame and tied to it. They say that no one now knows what the frame looks like or how one is brought to it.

The written oath invoking the Great Master on Mount Hiei was first written by the Sōjō Jie. Written oaths have no standing in law. In the holy reigns of old, no act of government whatever was carried out on the basis of written oaths; it is in recent times that the practice has spread. Also, according to the codes, water and fire are not regarded as subject to pollution, but the vessels that hold them may be.note

When the Tokudaiji Minister of the Right was Superintendent of the Imperial Police, a council of the Police Office was being held at the middle gate when the ox of the official Akikane broke loose, climbed onto the wooden dais of the Superintendent’s seat, and lay there chewing its cud. Everyone said it was a grave portent and that the ox should be sent to a yin-yang diviner. The minister’s father, the Chancellor, heard of this and said, “An ox has no judgment. It has legs; where would it not climb? There is no reason to take from a poor, feeble official the wretched ox he happened to come to work with.” He had the ox returned to its owner and the mat it had lain on replaced. No misfortune of any kind followed, so they say. It is said: “If you see a strange thing and do not treat it as strange, the strangeness undoes itself.”note

When the ground was being leveled to build the Kameyama Palace, a mound was found where countless large snakes lay coiled together. People said they were the gods of the place and reported the matter, and an imperial inquiry came: “What should be done?” Everyone said, “If they have occupied this ground since long ago, they cannot lightly be dug up and thrown away.” This minister alone said, “What curse could creatures living on the sovereign’s land bring upon the building of an imperial residence? Spirits and gods are not perverse; they will not take offense. Simply dig them all up and throw them away.” So the mound was broken up and the snakes were thrown into the Ōi River. No curse whatever followed.note

In tying the cord of a sutra scroll and the like, it is the usual practice to cross it diagonally from above and below and draw the head of the loop out sideways from between the two strands. The Sōjō Kōshun of Kegon’in untied one done that way and had it retied. “This is the fashion of recent days. Quite distasteful,” he said. “Done properly, it is simply wound round and round, and the end of the loop is tucked in from top to bottom.” He was a man of the old school, one who knew things of this kind.

A man was disputing someone else’s rice field. He lost the suit, and out of spite he sent men off, saying, “Go and reap that field and take the crop.” On the way they began by reaping every field they passed. Someone said, “This isn’t the field in dispute. Why are you doing this?” The reapers answered, “We have no right to reap that one either, but since we’re on our way to do wrong anyway, why not reap wherever we like?” Their reasoning was very amusing.

Of the yobukodori, the “calling bird,” people say only that it belongs to spring, and nothing records clearly what kind of bird it is. In a certain Shingon text there is a procedure for performing the rite of summoning the soul when the calling bird cries. This bird is the nue. In a long poem of the Man’yōshū the words run on: “the long spring day when the haze rises…” The nue bird, too, seems from this to resemble the calling bird.note

Nothing at all is to be relied on. Foolish people rely deeply on things, and so they come to resentment and anger. Do not rely on power: the strong are the first to fall. Do not rely on wealth: it is easily lost in a moment. Do not rely on learning: even Confucius did not meet with his time. Do not rely on virtue: Yan Hui, too, was unfortunate. Do not rely even on your lord’s favor:

The autumn moon is lovely beyond all measure. Anyone who thinks the moon is always like this and cannot tell the difference must be sadly lacking in feeling.

When putting fire into the brazier in His Majesty’s presence, one does not pick it up with tongs. It should be transferred directly from the earthenware vessel. One must therefore take care to stack the charcoal so that it does not roll off. On an imperial visit to Yawata, an attendant in white ritual robes was arranging the charcoal by hand, and a man versed in court precedent said, “On a day when one is dressed in white, there is no harm in using tongs.”

The piece of music called Sōfuren is not named for a woman’s longing for a man. It was originally Sōfuren in other characters, “the lotus of the minister’s residence”; the characters merely sound alike. It is the music from the time when Wang Jian of Jin, as minister, planted lotuses at his house and loved them; from this a minister’s residence came to be called the “lotus residence.” Kaikotsu, likewise, is really Huihu. There was a fierce foreign people, the land of the Huihu, the Uighurs. After this people submitted to the Han, they came and performed the music of their own country.note

Taira no Nobutoki, in his old age, told this story of former days: “One evening the Lay Monk of Saimyōji sent for me. I said I would come at once, but I had no proper robe, and while I was fussing about, another messenger arrived: ‘Can it be that you have no robe? It is night, so never mind how you look; come quickly.’ So I went in a limp old robe, just as I was at home. He came out carrying a sake flask with some earthenware cups and said, ‘Drinking this sake alone felt lonely, so I sent for you. But there is nothing to go with it. The household will all be asleep by now. Search everywhere for anything that might do.’ So I lit a torch and searched every corner, and on a shelf in the kitchen I found a little earthenware dish with a bit of miso stuck to it. ‘This is what I have managed to find,’ I said, and he said, ‘That will do nicely.’ In fine spirits we went through several rounds, and he was thoroughly enjoying himself.note

The Lay Monk of Saimyōji, on the occasion of a visit to the Tsurugaoka shrine, first sent a messenger to the Lay Monk Ashikaga, Master of the Left Stables, and then called on him. The entertainment provided was this: with the first round, dried abalone; with the second, shrimp; with the third, rice cakes; and that was all. Present were the host and his wife, and the Sōjō Ryūben, who sat as one of the host’s party. “Now, the Ashikaga dyed cloth you give me every year: I have been looking forward to it,” said the guest. “It is ready,” said the host, and had thirty pieces of variously dyed cloth made up into robes by the women of the house right there before him, and sent them on after him. Someone who saw it at the time was alive until recently, and he told me about it.note

A certain very rich man said: “One should set everything else aside and devote oneself single-mindedly to acquiring wealth. If you are poor, there is no point in living. Only the rich count as people. If you mean to acquire wealth, you must first of all train yourself in the right frame of mind. That frame of mind is nothing other than this: dwell in the thought that human life lasts forever, and never for a moment contemplate impermanence. This is the first precaution. Next, do not satisfy every need. As long as one lives in this world, one’s wishes, for oneself and for others, are without number.

Foxes do bite people. At the Horikawa mansion, an attendant had his foot bitten by a fox while he slept. At Ninnaji, a lowly monk was passing in front of the main temple at night when three foxes leaped on him and bit him. He drew his sword to fend them off and stabbed two of the foxes. One he stabbed to death; two got away. The monk was bitten in many places, but came to no harm.

The Shijō Middle Counselor once told me: “Tatsuaki is a man of distinction in his art. The other day he came and said, ‘It is the height of rashness and most presumptuous of me, but I have privately thought that there is something slightly doubtful about the fifth hole of the transverse flute. The reason is this. The kan hole is hyōjō, and the go hole is shimomu; between them shōzetsu is left out. The jō hole is sōjō; next, fushō is set aside, and the shaku hole is ōshiki; after that, rankei is set aside, and the chū hole is banshiki; between the chū and the roku there is shinsen. In this way, between each pair of holes one tone is stolen. Only the go hole has no mode between it and the jō hole, and yet the holes are spaced equally, so its sound is unpleasant. So when one blows this hole one must always draw the lips back, and if one fails to, it does not match the other instruments. Few people can play it well.’note

When I said, “In everything the provinces are coarse and boorish, but the dance music of Tennōji alone need not feel ashamed beside the capital,” a musician of Tennōji told me: “The reason the music of this temple is so well tuned to its standard, and the instruments sound so finely in harmony, better than anywhere else, is that we take as our standard the pitch from the Prince’s time, which still exists today. It is the bell in front of the Rokujidō. Its sound is right at the center of ōshiki.note

“In the Kenji and Kōan eras (1275–1288), on festival day the hōmen wore as ornaments horses made from four or five lengths of curious dark-blue cloth, with manes and tails of lamp-wick rush, fixed to hunting robes with spiderwebs drawn on them, and they paraded along telling the meaning of some poem. We saw it all the time, and it seemed to us done with real wit,” the old police clerks still say today. Nowadays the ornaments grow more lavish with every passing year, extravagant beyond all measure. They load themselves with all sorts of heavy things and have others hold up their left and right sleeves. They do not even carry their own halberds, and they pant for breath—a truly ugly spectacle.note

Jōganbō of Takedani once called on Her Majesty Higashi-Nijō-in, and she asked him, “For memorial services for the dead, what brings the greatest merit?” He answered, “The Mantra of Light and the Hōkyōin Dhāraṇī.” His disciples said, “Why did you answer that way? Why didn’t you say that nothing surpasses the nembutsu?” He replied, “It is our own school, so I very much wished to say so. But I have never come across a sutra passage that clearly teaches that invoking the Name as a memorial offering brings great benefit. If she had asked me further where it says so, what could I have answered? So I relied on what is firmly grounded in scripture and named this mantra and dhāraṇī.”note

The minister known as Tazu no Ōidono had the childhood name Tazu-gimi. It is a mistake to say that this was because he kept cranes.note

The yin-yang master Arimune, a lay monk, came up from Kamakura and paid me a visit. The moment he stepped in, he admonished me: “It is shameful and quite improper that this garden is so uselessly large. One who knows the Way devotes himself to planting. Leave a single narrow path and turn all the rest into fields.” Truly, leaving even a little land idle serves no purpose. One should plant things to eat, and medicinal herbs.

Ō no Hisasuke said: The lay monk Michinori chose the most interesting figures among the dances and taught them to a woman called Iso no Zenji, and had her dance them. She wore a white hunting robe, carried a short sword at her waist, and pulled a court cap down over her hair, so the dance was called “the man’s dance.” Zenji’s daughter, called Shizuka, carried on this art. This is the origin of the shirabyōshi. They sang the founding legends of buddhas and gods. Later Minamoto no Mitsuyuki composed many pieces. There are also some composed by Retired Emperor Go-Toba, who had them taught to Kamegiku, so they say.note

In the time of Retired Emperor Go-Toba, Yukinaga, former governor of Shinano, had a reputation for learning. Summoned to take his turn in a debate before the emperor on the New Yuefu, he forgot two of the virtues in “The Dance of Seven Virtues,” and was nicknamed “the Five-Virtue Youth.” He took this so bitterly that he gave up scholarship and left the world. The Archbishop Jichin made a practice of keeping by him anyone with a skill, even among the lowest servants, and treating them with kindness; so he took this lay monk of Shinano under his care.note

The Hymns for the Six Hours were compiled from sutra passages by a monk named Anraku, a disciple of Saint Hōnen, who used them for his devotions. Later a monk of Uzumasa named Zenkanbō fixed the melodic notation and made them into chant. This was the beginning of the nembutsu of the single thought. It started in the reign of Retired Emperor Go-Saga. The Hymns for the Dharma Service were likewise begun by Zenkanbō.note

The Śākyamuni nembutsu at Senbon was begun by Saint Nyorin in the Bun’ei era (1264–1275).

A good craftsman, they say, uses a slightly dull blade. Myōkan’s knife did not cut very well.note

There was a goblin in the Gojō palace. The Fujiwara Major Counselor told me: “Some courtiers were playing go in the Black Door chamber when someone lifted the blind and looked in. They turned to see who it was, and there was a fox, crouched like a person, peering in. ‘Look, a fox!’ they shouted, and it fled in confusion. An unpracticed fox must have botched its transformation.”

“The Sono no Bettō, a lay monk, was a carver without equal. At someone’s house a splendid carp was brought out, and everyone wished to see the Bettō’s carving, but they hesitated, thinking it would be awkward to ask outright. The Bettō, being a man of tact, said, ‘Lately I have been carving carp for a hundred days, and I cannot let today lapse. Please, I insist on having this one,’ and carved it. People thought this very fitting and charming. When someone told the story to the Lay Chancellor of Kitayama, he said, ‘That sort of thing strikes me as extremely tiresome. Had he said, “If there is no one else to carve it, give it to me—I will carve it,” that would have been better still. What is all this about a hundred days of carp?’ I found that delightful,” someone told me—and I find it most delightful.note

In all things, one ought to be without learning and without skill. The son of a certain man, not bad-looking, was talking with someone in front of his father and quoted from the histories. It sounded clever, but I felt that in the presence of his elder he need not have done so.

Again, at someone’s house, wanting to hear a biwa monk recite a tale, they sent for a biwa, and one of its frets had come off. “Make one and fit it,” someone said, and one of the men there, who seemed presentable enough, asked, “Is there an old ladle handle?” Looking at him, I saw that he had grown his nails long.

If you wish to be free of all faults, nothing is better than to be sincere in everything, courteous to everyone without distinction, and sparing of words. Men or women, old or young, such people are good; but above all, when someone young and good-looking speaks with propriety, it is unforgettable, and one is drawn to them. All faults come from acting the expert out of familiarity, putting on the air of being at home, and treating others with disdain.

When someone asks you something, it may be that they are not wholly ignorant of it. But to answer in a way that bewilders them, as though answering plainly would make you look foolish, is not good. Even about what they know, they may be asking because they want to be sure. And why should there not also be people who really do not know? To tell them plainly would sound mature. When someone has not yet heard of a thing, and you, going by what you know, send them nothing but “What a shocking business about that person!” so that they must write back asking what on earth has happened—that is disagreeable. Even something long common knowledge one may happen to miss; what harm could there be in telling it so clearly that nothing is left in doubt? This sort of thing is what inexperienced people do.

A house with an owner is not entered at will by idle strangers. Where there is no master, passersby wander in freely, and creatures such as foxes and owls, not kept off by any sign of people, move in as though the place were theirs, and strange shapes such as tree spirits appear. Again, because a mirror has no color or form of its own, every image comes and is reflected in it. If a mirror had color and form, nothing would be reflected. Empty space readily takes things in. That thoughts come floating into our minds one after another just as they please—is it perhaps because there is no such thing as a mind? If the mind had a master, all those many things would not come into our breast.

In Tanba there is a place called Izumo. The great shrine has been transferred there and splendidly built. The land is held by a certain Shida, I believe, and one autumn he invited Saint Shōkai and many others, saying, “Come along, let us go and worship at Izumo—I’ll treat you to rice cakes,” and took them there. Each of them worshipped and was deeply moved to faith.

Should things set on a willow-slat tray be placed lengthwise or crosswise? Perhaps it depends on the thing. “Scrolls and the like are placed lengthwise, and a twist of paper is passed between the slats to tie them on. An inkstone too is best placed lengthwise, so that the brush does not roll off,” said Lord Sanjō, the Minister of the Right. But the fine calligraphers of the Kadenokōji house never placed anything lengthwise, even casually; they always set things crosswise.note

The imperial escort Chikatomo wrote down seven items under the title of things he could boast of. All concerned horsemanship and none was of much account. With that example in mind, I too have seven things to boast of.

Item: I was going about viewing blossoms with a number of people, and near Saishōkōin we saw a man galloping a horse. “If he gallops that horse once more, it will fall and he will be thrown. Watch for a moment,” I said, and we stopped. He galloped the horse again. At the point where he reined in, he pulled the horse down, and the rider tumbled into the mud.

The fifteenth night of the eighth month and the thirteenth night of the ninth fall in the lunar lodge Lou. Because this lodge is clear and bright, these are counted fine nights for enjoying the moon.note

When the seaweed the fisherfolk gather at the Bay of Shinobu is hard to come by, and on Mount Kurabu the watchers are many, the heart that goes to her against all reason—that is what leaves so many moments of feeling, not shallow but moving, that are hard to forget. If parents and siblings give their consent and he simply brings her home and installs her, it must be quite embarrassing. Or a woman who finds it hard to get by in the world says, “If a stream would invite me,” and takes up with wealth, even if it be an unsuitable old monk or some uncouth man from the eastern provinces; the go-between makes each side sound attractive to the other, and brings home a person who does not know her and whom she does not know—how dreary!note

The roundness of the full moon does not stay even for a moment; it soon begins to wane. Someone who pays no attention may not see it change so much in a single night. An illness, too, grows worse without a moment’s pause, and the hour of death is already near.

That we are forever driven about by what goes against us and what goes our way is wholly for the sake of pain and pleasure. Pleasure means what we like and love. The pursuit of it never ceases. Of the pleasures we desire, the first is fame. Fame is of two kinds: renown for conduct and renown for talent. The second is sensual desire, the third is taste. Of all wishes, none surpasses these three. They arise from an inverted view of things and bring countless troubles. Better not to seek them.