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Asahara Saichi and His Experience of Emptiness |
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| Author |
Sato, Kemmyo Taira
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| Source |
The Middle Way: Journal of the Buddhist Society
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| Volume | v.79 n.1 |
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| Date | 2004.05 |
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| Pages | 38 - 48 |
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| Publisher | The Buddhist Society |
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| Publisher Url |
http://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/
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| Location | London, England, UK [倫敦, 英格蘭, 英國] |
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| Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | From a talk given at the Buddhist Society, January 2004 |
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| Abstract | Asahara Saichi (1850-1932) was a Shin Buddhist devotee of the kind we call myokonin. The word myokonin is used for devout followers of the Shin Buddhist tradition who lived their lives with pure faith in Amida Buddha. Generally speaking, the myokonin were characterized by their piousness and unworldliness, their gaiety and good nature and, above all, their deep sense of spirituality. According to the records of myokonin, such as The Biographies of Myokonin and The Further Biographies of Myokonin, published in the late Edo period, most of the myokonin were actually illiterate. Despite this lack of formal education, however, or perhaps even because of it, their spirit was pure and unaffected. They were able to give expression to what they inwardly experienced as a result of their attentive listening to the Buddha Dharma. When they tried to express themselves, whether in words or actions, what they said or did came straight from the heart and pointed directly to the truth of what they had experienced.
Influenced by the successful publication of The Biographies of Myokonin and The Further Biographies of Myokonin, which together recorded the words and deeds of some 150 myokonin, there later appeared other biographies, principally in the form of booklets such as The Record of the Way of Life of Shoma (Shoma Arinomama No Ki). These biographies, however, were all compiled by Shin Buddhist priests and were based on interviews and secondary reports. Thus descriptions of the words and deeds of the myokonin are interspersed with the commentaries and interpretations of the compilers themselves, presenting difficulty for us to make contact with the myokonin's living personalities.
It is in this respect that the diaries of Asahara Saichi are of such special interest, providing as they do a personal record of his own spiritual insights, set down day after day over a period of 18 years, from the autumn of 1913 until his death early in 1932.
As Saichi, a geta-maker by trade, sat carving his wooden clogs, he would note down verses on shavings and little pieces of wood. These jottings are artless expressions of his inner, spiritual life, his very lack of erudition making them all the more vibrant and alive. As more and more verses accumulated, Saichi copied them into school notebooks. Saichi is believed to have been composing verses at an average of two a day throughout the last 17 years of his life. The poems he wrote in his diaries are estimated to number upwards of ten thousand.
Before starting to discuss the content of Asahara Saichi's poems, however, I would like to tell you an interesting little story taken from The Record of the Way of Life of Shoma. This is so you can get a slightly fuller picture of the myokonin by learning about another of their kind. In contrast to Saichi, who was a poet, Shoma (1799-1871) was a man of action. Saichi has had enormous influence on those interested in Shin Buddhism by virtue of the very spiritual poetic expression he gave to his innermost thoughts and experiences. Shoma, on the other hand, impressed those around him by his sayings and actions, all of which proceeded directly from his everyday experience of living his life happily with Amida Buddha.
The following is an anecdote from the 83 accounts compiled in The Record of the Way of Life of Shoma. Shoma is believed to have been a part-time worker throughout his life, and on the day this story took place he was working for a temple on a voluntary basis.
This is my translation of the story. Article 41, 'It's Amida-sama who saves you!'
This article is based on an event that took place while Shoma was staying at Koshoji Temple at Kida county in Sanuki province. Out of gratitude for all that had been done for him, Shoma worked very hard for the temple. One day while he was pounding rice in a stone mortar, his sleeves held up by a straw rope and his hair knotted in place by lengths of straw, Shoma received a vi |
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| ISSN | 00263214 (P) |
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| Hits | 3940 |
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| Created date | 2009.09.30 |
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| Modified date | 2020.11.04 |
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