Clear skies, not a cloud.
Not too hot, not too cold.
One of the most beautiful days of the year.
As if lured by the sunshine, I took a stroll around the Higashi Betsuin where my father is laid to rest.
The temple grounds were deserted, and the large, glittering temple complex was magnificent.
As I sat on the tatami mats and stared at the paintings of Shinran Shonin, I thought to myself, “Oh, Shinran Shonin was a Buddhist monk of paradise.
I suddenly understood that Shinran Shonin wanted to create the image of paradise not in the afterlife, but in this secular world.
However, we do not go as far as faith, or rather, we cannot.
I think it would be easier if I could chant “Namu amidabutsu shin,” or “Namu amidabutsu shin,” from my heart and believe in it, but perhaps from that moment on I would not be able to write a novel, and there would be no need for me to write a novel.
I don’t want to do that.
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Christianity
Hiroyuki Itsuki and Shinran Shonin
Kazuhira Tatematsu and Zen Master Dogen
The Novelist and the Problem of Faith
Novelists, after all, may be lost lambs wandering in search of truth. Rather, I felt that they must be.
Culture is the accumulation of things that our predecessors have created after wandering and wandering.
Nanmu…
I want to disappear like that, autumn dusk.
