Yoshida Kenko
THE QUEST FOR solitude, whether it be for the space of an hour or a lifetime, has been a part of nearly every one’s experience. And although few are drawn to it as a permanent way of life, there has been a sufficient number to attract the interest of the historian as well as the serious student of religion. Nearly all solitaries have fled the world in order to seek a higher and fuller life- away from the tumult of the crowd. The chains of the world weigh heavily on them. “What do we want most to dwell near to?” wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. “Not too many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar room, the meeting-house … but to the perennial source of our life … “
One of these solitaries, who would undoubtedly have remained obscure if it were not for a slim volume of his writings, was Yoshida Kenko, a Japanese court official and nobleman who renounced a life of luxury and ease for one of frugality and simplicity. And although he was born nearly seven hundred years ago, his thoughts and expressions create a sense of timeless ness which serves to bridge the distance of the centuries.
The story of Kenko the monk is so typically Japanese in its subtle intertwining of irony, quiet wisdom, and reflectiveness that one is tempted to regard it as a tale of fiction. But the character of this fourteenth-century Buddhist monk possesses that noble and enduring quality which at once reassures us that though such men are indeed rare, they are true. And, as history has shown, their worthiness is often communicated to us through their writings. In the case of Kenko these are few. But those we do have display a depth of insight and beauty of expression which cannot fail in some measure to touch all those who sincerely search, as he did, for inner peace and joy.
Yoshida Kenko was born in the year 1283 in a small village near Kyoto, Japan. He died in the spring of 1350 at the age of sixty-eight. He spent more than half his life – until the age of forty-two- among the world of men as a nobleman and court official. Grief over the emperor’s death severed Kenko’s link with the world of pomp and wealth and drew him for the remainder of his days to the life of a simple hermit and monk.
He loved solitude. After he had made up his mind to leave the world, he determined not to choose the communal life of a monastery, but a small house in the wilds of Arashiyama some distance from the busy rush of Kyoto. Near his hut, still runs a narrow river, which hurls itself down upon the quiet valley below, winding through deep gorges carpeted with bristling pines. Even now the place is described as intimate and natural and must have been more so during Kenko’s time. Those who have chosen to spend their lives alone invariably select places like Arashiyama. It is the companionship of trees, streams, birds, flowers – and not men – that they seek. These become their companions and sustainers. As one of them, a Zen monk, wrote long ago:
The wind gives to me Enough of fallen leaves
To make a fire.
Not all of Kenko’s days were spent alone. Occasion ally he would visit some old friend in Kyoto, but his persistent yearning for the contemplative life would invariably lead him back to his little hut. “To live devoted to the Lord Buddha in the mountain solitudes is never wearisome,” he wrote on one occasion, “and it drives away the clouds from the thoughts, leaving them clear and serene.”
A decided advantage of the solitary life is its removal from any externally imposed routine. One more or less lives and works as one pleases. In this regard, Kenko proved no exception – particularly where his writing was concerned. Inspiration ruled his creative efforts. When an idea or memory came to him, he simply wrote it down on a scrap of paper, stuck it to the wall of his hut, and then promptly forgot about any further writing until another flash set him going again. Many years after his death a friend collected these scraps of paper and had them published, at which time they became known as the Tsure-zure Gusa. They were soon treasured by cultured Japanese for their mixture of delicate beauty and sound wisdom and have persisted in popularity to this day.
Individuals like Kenko, who have chosen to flee the embrace of society to live by themselves, usually arouse in others a mixed reaction of curiosity and antipathy. For although people have always been vaguely fascinated by hermits, anchorites, and the like, they have also generally resented the fact that such men should find the company of others so unnecessary. Even if such a reaction is immature, it is an understandable one. For by choosing to withdraw from society, the solitary is, in effect, saying:
“I’m sorry, but what you offer is not enough. I want something more.” Of course, there is the very strong chance that the “something more” will not be enough either. He might easily go mad or become an incurable egocentric. The approbation of society provides most men with sufficient self-confidence and encouragement to lead reasonably happy, useful lives. In addition, such approval gives us a valuable measure of our own character; thus, we are less likely to become anti-social or grow destructive personalities. But the solitary, driven to this extreme way of life by an overpowering desire to insulate himself from the rush of men, is thoroughly prepared to forsake these supports.
Still, he must be prepared for many battles within. The peace of isolation can be quickly broken by the intrusion of irrelevant notions or disturbing distractions and obsessions- all of them upsetting to the mind. By renouncing diversion, the solitary also renounces the protective wall he has for years constructed around the inner recesses of his mind. Like angry devils suddenly released from captivity, thoughts long-buried fly out to haunt and torment him, and he is forced at last to confront the inconsistent and incomprehensible things of life instead of simply ignoring them. But all these struggles are willingly faced by the solitary if he is convinced that behind the world he has forsaken lie only temporal happiness and passing joys; and that in the apparently barren life he has adopted there is the seed of a lasting and eternal joy which will one day germinate. One of these men, an anonymous Christian recluse, makes good his point when he writes:
In the midst of a civilization visibly crumbling away before us, the vision of men and women going apart into solitude – for the quest still goes on – silently, yet stridently bears witness to the reality of the unseen, to the lord ship of mind over matter, to the supremacy in man of the spirit. It trumpets abroad the tremendous question: What exchange shall a man give for his soul?
Although we cannot with any certainty attach a religious motive to Thoreau’s famous two-year period of solitude, we can see the characteristics which mark him a true solitary. “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time,” he wrote in Walden. “To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.”
Now, we might well ask the question: What enables the solitary to escape the punishments of loneliness? Kenko suggests the reason:
If a man should desire the Great Adventure, he cannot have it both ways, nor can he succeed also in the beloved affairs of the world. Difficult as it may be to bid fare-well to duty, he should ruthlessly set it aside. But he argues far otherwise, “Such and such a thing must be at tended to, or people will certainly laugh at me.” When I consider the years I spent in arranging such matters it would be sheer weakness to fly off to some new notion in such hot haste.
Well, that is his point of view, but if he accepts it the world strengthens its bonds, and preoccupations crowd in upon him in endless procession, and the moment of relinquishment will never arrive.
What does this tell us? That if we wish a higher life, we must eventually abandon the vain pleasures of the world and the attachments they breed- in short, conquer desire. It is unfulfilled desires which torment the lonely person. The solitary has learned to go beyond them. Desireless-ness is the foundation of spiritual life. If we are controlled by something finite, something which has the capacity to cause us pain and distract our minds from higher aspirations, how is it possible to grow in spirit? Naturally, temptations assault everyone. But when man surrenders to an obsessive self-concern- as certainly the lonely are apt to do – he is marked for sorrow. It is desire which nourishes the small self, and it is this self which every aspirant is eventually required to transcend.
Of course, Kenko must have been aware that not everyone is suited for monastic life. It takes a particular type of individual to exchange the pleasures and diversities of the world for a life of sameness and simplicity. But at the same time, he was aware there are a number of people who in the face of problems and woes, attempt to escape them through retreat to the forest or cave. “For my part,” he wrote, “if a man drops into the monastic way simply because life has treated him unkindly, I can not think well of it. I like better those who are glad to choose solitude and to pass their time in such retirement that none seek them anymore.”
Despite the quiet flow of his life, there is no record that Kenko ever found a single day of it dull or boring. He wrote on one piece of paper:
What sort of creatures are they who find life tedious? I cannot understand the drift of such thoughts. Well indeed is the life of him who lives in solitude! If we live according to the world’s measure our hearts move to the rhythm of wealth and reputation. If we must have friendly social relations, how can we insist upon truths which would offend those we meet? We must jest, argue, quarrel, be merry and always amid uncertain conditions. Thoughts flit hither and thither; advantage and disadvantage appear and disappear. A drunkard’s dream, inebriate and inebriating, a noisy activity stupefying and lapsing into dullness as age creeps on. And in this all ends. True pleasure lies in extricating oneself from this sort of business, in forsaking human relations, and laying worldly affairs aside. Even if the absolute truth of the universe be too high for understanding, much peace can thus be attained.
Kenko’s writings reveal another characteristic to mark him as a healthy-minded solitary – his love of beauty. Simply because he looked upon the world as transitory does not mean that he denied its loveliness. On the contrary, he embraced it, but lightly and with dispassion. Note in the following selection how poetically he describes the passing seasons, yet, at the same time, maintaining a respectable distance between himself and the subject. Observe how few references he makes to his feelings or to what the scenes create in him. Only in the final sentence does he intrude:
How profound is the interest of the revolving pageant of the seasons! Spring, summer, autumn, and winter encircle us in tum. The universal feeling is that autumn makes the deepest appeal to sentiment. That is true but, O how enchanting is the spring when the singing birds return on a warm spring breeze! How sweet the sunshine! It is a stirring of spring within us to see the grass thickening beneath the fences on a mild misty day and to watch the early budding of the flowers. Rain and wind follow and disturb our thoughts with pity, until the lengthening leaves break out in green flame upon all the trees. There is a strange fascination in the withered leaves of winter, and in watching their fall at the edge of the brook on a cold morning when the frost rims them with white glitter and the morning mist rises like breath from the stream. I find all this very lovely.
Wisdom is eternal and universal. It is bound by no religion or philosophy, neither does it recognize time or place. We are drawn to the thoughts of this unusual Japanese monk because the truths expressed in his writings harmonize to some degree with the Truth that is in us all and struggles for expression. “The egg is the world, and the bird breaks the shell; afterwards, it flies toward God . . .” wrote Hermann Hesse in his novel Demian. Whether we prefer to regard the world as transitory and unreal or as a joyful manifestation of His power, we will, sooner or later, have to break its shell and fly to God. This, the wise tell us, is man’s ultimate purpose in life. To realize it means constant struggle against not only the impulses of our lower nature, but victory as well over the more subtle, refined temptations of the intellect and ego. We can extend Hesse’s simile further. We are bound by five shells or “sheaths” – the physical body, the breath (or “vital” force), mind (i.e., the mind that receives sense impressions), intellect, and ego. When, one by one, these are pierced through by spiritual effort and God’s grace, then He, the supreme Self, is found; the Atman is revealed, the ever-blissful soul of man.
As a way of life, solitude offers small evidence for providing man with a final solution to the problem of existence. In fact, the majority of the world’s saints and thinkers have generally lived in close association with other men. And it has some great dangers. By removing himself from society, the solitary escapes any objective or corrective evaluation of his own behavior. In time, the abnormal may appear normal to him, the destructive, harmless. To lead balanced, productive lives, most of us need the reinforcement and love of others. Naturally, there are always exceptions, such as Kenko and Thoreau, and from such exceptions the world has profited. For by their experiment with life they have been able to pass on to those who would listen some essentials of happiness: freedom from attachment, simplicity in living, love of nature, and removal from distraction. And somehow we stand in awe of these men who have flung aside honor and wealth to travel an unmarked and lonely road.
Clive Johnson
SELECTIONS FROM KENKO THE MONK
For my part, I say fix your mind on the most important object before you. Choosing that and discarding all the rest, work at it with a will. In one day or even one hour many things will present themselves for decision. Choose the best of them for yourself and lose not a moment in attacking it. If you are attacking everything, you conquer nothing.
A moment’s indolence may condition the indolence of a lifetime. Fear it!
Resolving on a certain course, why trouble your head if you do not shine in other matters, and why be moan the slanders that may assail you? Nothing worth doing can be accomplished without devotion to that and neglect of all else.
We should relish this world while keeping the next in mind, following the Way of the Buddhas. This is to comprehend true beauty.
There are many parasitic things in the world which destroy the objects upon which they batten. Such are vermin about the body, mice in the house, traitors to the country, wealth to an avaricious man, earthly desires to the spiritual man, religious dogma and ceremonies to the monk.
When I reflect upon the thought of mankind and its purpose, I compare it to a man who models a snow image of the Buddha and proposes to decorate it with precious substances and jewels in spring and to build a temple to house it. But can the snow tarry until spring? Truly a man’s life is like an image of snow thawing and wasting daily.
The shoals of the Asuka river shift every year. So also change the conditions of men’s lives. Time passes. Events fall behind us and fade. Pleasure and sorrow succeed each other. The garden of prosperity becomes a wilderness. The house remains, but the masters flit through it and change. I long to hold conference with the noble people of old, but, alas! themselves, their houses, and even their tombs have passed away.
He little knows the world who says that a man can live in whatever manner he wishes, and that at home and in the usual social relations he can lead the religious life adequately. I cannot think this is so. We monks, unlike ordinary people, desire to live so that we may transmit the Unchanging Law of Changes, and how is this to be done if we are to serve the Emperor or to be troubled with family concerns? It is for me to cling to the Unchanging and having resolved to follow the Buddha we must also follow the quiet life. Yet if we live in the mountains we must defend ourselves from cold and hunger. So, while I declare that the return to epicureanism and fine clothes kindles the flame of worldly desire and renders the religious life impossible, I cannot agree with the extreme view that the monk’s life must be wholly desireless. Surely, he also must have his desires, though very unlike those of the impassioned worldling. It must be permitted to him to desire his humble bed, his poor clothing, his one bowl of food, his vegetable soup, and these frugal desires are soon satisfied. As to his inward life, if he is free from false shame and pays reverent attention to his rule, he will soon learn to distinguish the right from the wrong in this matter. But being mortal and longing for enlightenment, we monks must certainly surrender the world, for if we lead the ordinary life we shall soon be overcome by passionate desires, and so far from attaining the wisdom of the Buddhas we shall sink into the ignorance of animals.
“It is not well to stay for age in travelling the Way. Do not the graves of early youth cry loud against delay?”
Ah, it is when unheralded sickness grips a man and the world forsakes him that he begins to taste the pangs of unavailing regret for the irretrievable. Regret! The mildest form it can assume is remorse for the misspent moments of the past: the doubt instead of decided action, the foolish hurry in the place of wise delay. But when the end is at hand how useless is regret!
There is the story of a long-dead sage. When people pressed upon him for his counsel in important affairs of their own and of other peoples’ he habitually replied: “But I myself am plunged even now into anxiety respect ing an important transaction. At this very instant it may turn into frightful urgency,” and so saying he would turn a deaf ear and immerse himself in meditation.
Sexual desire is an impulse which leads men into ridiculous, situations. Here the nature of man is certainly folly. Strange to think what agonies men have suffered from a passion for some woman, and how a woman may lie tossing all night careless of all else and enduring inconceivable miseries from this passion. Such is the power of love. But the truth is that it is rooted in deep things much beyond our knowledge and its source is far away indeed. There are desires attached to all the six senses, yet all but this one may be conquered. And from this neither the old nor young, the wise or foolish are exempt.
I do not deny that this is a transitory world, and that our dwellings are only temporary shelters, but since we have to live here, I like to see them furnished with taste.
In the overabundance of certain things, I find vulgarity. Thus, I object to an overcrowding of furniture in the sitting-room, to a whole bunch of writing-brushes beside the ink-slab, too many images of the Buddha in the chapel, too great a profusion of stones, trees and grass in a garden. too many children in a house, too many words to a friend, too verbose dedications of sacred offerings.
Why be so toilsomely luxurious in a world not permanently our own? And who can promise that these things may not perish in fire and end only as smoke defiling the sky?
Man’s life is transitory. But if it were otherwise what a frightful monotony! If life were eternal all inter est and anticipation would vanish. It is the uncertainty which lends it fascination. Observe all life, and you will find that man’s span probably exceeds the others, and yet it resembles the ephemera which lives but a day. Death lies in wait in the evening. Does Death time his arrival to suit your pleasure? Death in his swift attack is more ruthless than the pursuing rush of flame or wave. where then shall we place the true worth of life?
Having fully realized the fleeting nature of human existence, I find every day not too long to be spent in the posture and practice of unceasing inward prayer.
Life draws near its close, but the way of peace is still distant, though sunset is in the sky. Surely it is then high time to sever all the relations of life, to abandon those loyalties and to trouble no longer about etiquettes. No doubt we shall be censured as cruel, people will call us mad, deluded, what not! But need we care for such critics – they who understand nothing of the truth? For my own part it troubles me not at all when they slander me, and I am deaf to their praise.
Don’t be too proud to ask for guidance when you don’t exactly know where you are going.
I have been reading a book in which the reflections of a wise man are recorded. Here are a few excerpts very much to my taste.
“Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.”
“He whose heart is engrossed in things spiritual should not hoard so much as a jar of rice-husks with salt. But let him remember that a well-written copy of a Scripture and a beautiful image of the Buddha are equally dangerous possessions.”
“A hermit should always manage his housekeeping carefully lest he should come to want.”
“A man of high birth should have the humility of a man of low position. A wise man should not display his book learning. A wealthy man’s tastes should be as simple as a poor man’s. A skillful man must in no case be arrogant.”
“The first principle of true service to the Buddha is to divorce the mind from all earthly considerations and never to recur to them.”
I have forgotten the rest.
Read more
SARADA DEVI
SARADA DEVI was born in the small village of Jayrambati in Bengal, India in December, 1853. She was the oldest of seven children in a large family. She said of her own parents, “My father was very orthodox and would not accept gifts from other people.
DANIEL CONSIDINE
It is both inspiring and refreshing to confront in religious writings a simple, unaffected faith in God. All too often our tendency is to weigh down religion with a cloak of learning,forgetting that saints are rarely doctors of theology. If, indeed, the ultimate nature of Truth is unity, then complexity and diversity are of the nature of the world, not spirit.
PLOTINUS
EVEN A CURSORY study of the religions of the world will reveal that among them there exist certain differences in dogma, ritual, and creed. But looking further, we discover a connecting unity, a common thread of truth, running through all faiths.
WILLIAM LAW
A STRANGELY NEGLECTED FIGURE of the 18th century is William Law (1686-1761), Anglican divine, writer, and mystic. Strange that he should be neglected, because he is not only a master of English prose, but a deep and original thinker- insofar as the discovery of truth can be called original- and a great saint.
MEISTER ECKHART
A NUMBER OF MYSTERIES and surprises surround the figure of Meister Eckhart, thirteenth-century monk and mystic. One of these is the fact that although so many of his teachings have come down to us, we know very little about his life. He seems to have lived between the years 1260 and 1328.
MIRABAI
EVERY SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT comes to know the saints as his best friends. In his pain, their words bring him loving comfort. In his joy, they carry him upward on the wings of their ecstatic songs. He grows avid for saints. And when he has exhausted the words of all the saints of the West, he is drawn inevitably to that inexhaustible mine of saints, India.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
THOMAS HAMMERKEN, born in 1380 at Kempen, Germany, lived his long life, from age twelve to age ninety-one, in a monastery. It was there, isolated from the business of the world, that Thomas grew in wisdom and spirit – exploding once and for all the notion that man must perform actions in the world in order to live a full and successful life.
BROTHER LAWRENCE
BROTHER LAWRENCE LIVES for us in one slim little volume of fifty pages called The Practice of the Presence of God. Opening this book is like opening the window to a fresh spring morning. His simple prose reflects the purity and directness of his approach to God. “You need not cry very loud,” he says in words of unadorned beauty.
PEACE PILGRIM
A TRULY ALL-AMERICAN Sannyasini. That is the best way to describe this remarkable woman called Peace Pilgrim. In the traditional sense a sannyasini is a wandering nun, consumed with an eagerness to merge herself with the divine force, travelling the length and breadth of India, begging her food, sleeping where chance may bring her, sharing her spiritual thoughts with others, and just accepting what the Lord may dole out to her.
RAMPRASAD
ONE OF THE deep-rooted Hindu ideas most alien to Western minds is the idea of worshipping God as Mother, worship known as Shakti, whose logic, nevertheless, is inescapable. For it is based on the following dualistic principal: Brahman is impersonal, inactive; Divine Mother is creative, sustaining, and destructive. God has to be beyond change and activity.
THE SOUL
OF THE INDIAN
THE ORIGINAL ATTITUDE of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the “Great Mystery” that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple as it was exalted. To him it was the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
ONE OF THE greatest bhaktas (lovers of God) the Christian faith has ever known was that luminous Spanish mystic of the sixteenth century, St. John of the Cross. He was first and always a lover, and God his Beloved. But these are pale words. He was a living ember blown upon by the breath of God, an ember glowing ever brighter on account of that breath.
LAOTSE
IT is A PLEASANT legend. Lao Tan, affectionately nicknamed Laotse, the “Old Boy”, full of years and wisdom and service to his Emperor, was leaving by water buffalo for the far mountains to spend the remainder of his life in contemplation. At the gate to the Pass of Han-Ku, he was stopped by the gatekeeper, Yin Hsi, himself a philosopher, who engaged him in conversation and persuaded him finally to pause long enough to write down the essence of his lifetime of thinking.
Sojourner Truth
WHEN the spirit of the divine chooses to manifest itself in a person, it does not take into account the position of that person in society. In the continual unfoldment of spiritual genius, men and women of enormous spiritual stature have risen from the most abject conditions, and they have gone on to inspire the lives of many. Let us take a look at one called Sojourner Truth, who overcame the cruelest and most unpleasant outward circumstances to live a life that was filled with spiritual experience and faith in God – an all-consuming faith, that, coupled with her overpowering personality, helped her carve out a remarkable life of service and leadership to all people in difficult and troubling times.
KABIR
FOR OVER FOUR CENTURIES there has survived in India a group of religious men and women called the Kabirpanthis – followers of the path of Kabir. They are quiet, truth-loving, nonviolent, unobtrusive householders, somewhat like Quakers, refusing to recognize caste, seeing God in all men, seeing the same God behind all names of God. They are aspiring devotees of their great master, the fruit of his teaching. They are the molds into which the white-hot mystical love of Kabir was poured.
MASTER OF THE NAME
JEWISH HISTORY ENCOMPASSES more than forty centuries of a people’s experience. During that span there were – not counting current life – eight important eras, each lasting about five hundred years. What is remarkably significant is that in each of these distinctive periods there was at least one towering religious figure who specially endowed it with its cultural or spiritual character. Those illuminating personalities, for the successive epochs they represented, were: Abraham (for the Patriarchal stage), Moses (for the Foundation setting), Isaiah (for the Prophetic era), Mattattias (for the Priestly), Akiba (for the Rabbinic), Saadia (for the Gaonic), Maimonides (for the Philosophic), and Baal Shem Tov (for the Kabalist-Hasidic).
GERHART TERSTEEGEN
The Quiet Way
GERHART TERSTEEGEN (1697-1769), a ribbon weaver living during the eighteenth century in the middle of a remote woods outside of Mulheim, Germany, was chosen by God. He talked with God and he talked of God, and people came from as far away as England to hear him. They came by the hundreds to his cottage in the woods, and when they could not all crowd in, they used to bring ladders and boxes and sit on the tops of them to look in at him and listen through the windows.
Rabi’a
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SRI RAMAKRISHNA
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