By Robert Weis
Time has stopped at Wachi Station, where my companion and I are waiting to meet our host, Mr Yamada. I watch the tiny movements of a swallow patiently building its nest under the roof of the grocery shop where we drink coffee. Delicious. My thoughts wander as I follow the comings and goings of this small travelling creature, and I remember why I am here at this place, at this time. For me, for whom the Côte Vermeille of my childhood already represented a mysterious and exotic land, my thirties were the gateway to the world, the journeys to distant countries, Morocco, India, South Korea, Japan. Life is an exciting journey, and it was precisely a passion, an attraction to the aesthetics of Japanese gardens and the magic of small trees – the art of bonsai – that, from my adolescence, made me dream of Japan, of a Japan anchored in its ancestral nature and its unchanging seasons, its mountains cloaked in misty forests, its rural hamlets populated by strange inhabitants wearing straw hats and small statuettes with monks greeting the traveller at the corner of a hidden garden… This dreamed Japan was as distant as a planet in a far-off galaxy: It seemed to me that, to get there, I needed a kind of secret initiation, the codes of which I did not know. Years passed, the process of living took all my time: there was none left for anything else. A lot of reading nevertheless gave a glimpse of a different world: the art of erecting stones, the Japanese aesthetic according to Donald Richie, the Zen of Dogen and D. T. Suzuki, the poems of Basho, Shiki, Santoka and Soseki, so many travelling souls who became faithful companions of my keen desire to decipher the world. This first trip to Japan was so eagerly awaited that it caught me off guard: we are never ready to live our destiny, we just have to get used to it.
Yamada-san arrives with a big smile, and we are soon driven through the Miyama Valley in his old Toyota. The path to his house is marked by a gigantic bulbous tree; according to Yamada-san, its age is estimated at 1,000 years! I find it difficult to identify the exact species, but I am fascinated by its almost human presence, as one can be fascinated by the presence of a person who emanates experience and wisdom. Trees are the writers of time, they record and observe in silence, and it is this silence of eternity that deserves our respect. In Japan, remarkable natural elements such as old trees are regarded as deities: the huge trunk is wrapped with a rope, a shimenawa, indicating veneration as an expression of the spirit of nature. Not surprisingly, a Shinto shrine stands nearby, next to the road leading to Suisen-an, the residence where we will be staying for the next two days. In Bäume, Hermann Hesse wrote: “He who has learned to listen to the trees no longer wishes to be a tree. He desires to be nothing but what he is. This is home. This is happiness.”
Happiness clearly lies in this house, made so welcoming by the omotenashi, the all-Japanese hospitality, of Mr. Yamada and his wife, who do everything to make us feel comfortable. The spacious living room is bordered on the side by a bay window with a view of the valley below; an ikebana is set on a stool, with a Japanese lily in the centre of the composition. In the extension of the living room, a space with tatami mats on the floor serves as a bedroom: it can be closed with sliding doors to ensure privacy at night. On the living room table, two cups of roasted tea and chestnut wagashi have been prepared for us. Our hosts retreat, leaving us to immerse ourselves in the darkness of the place, an atmosphere that was so familiar to me thanks to Tanizaki’s classic In Praise of Shadows.
“What is the right way to live?” This question comes to mind as I think of the old tree and Yamada-san, a kindly, vigorous sixty-year-old. I suspect that a possible answer lies here, in this remote valley in the north of Kyoto Prefecture, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Yamada-san bought the land and house he lives in with his wife many years ago, and the landscape has changed with him. He tells us that in the past he planted not only rice fields, but also sakura (ornamental cherry trees) along the road, so that he could admire them in the years to come. This consideration for our surroundings is something I have often observed in Japan: the patience of the gardener who does not think of immediate gratification but plants a seed and waits to receive the fruits – perhaps, one day. Is this the meaning of aging well? To improve things little by little, year by year, embracing the uncertainty that accompanies all change?
At lunchtime, Yamada-san asks us to accompany him to the small garden behind the guesthouse. When he whistles, we wonder what will happen. A few seconds pass and we get the answer: a hawk appears from the mountains and dives towards us. Yamada-san throws a piece of raw chicken into the air and the hawk, obviously used to the ritual, catches it in flight and disappears into the green hills. Is living in touch with nature, with one’s own nature, the secret of a good life?
The next morning, the mountains emerge from the mist like mysterious islands rising from the waves. Mi-yama, the magic mountain. I get up early and sit in front of the big bay window watching the mist rising, at an imperceptible pace. This meditative view resonates within me: I feel the call of this world that seems so familiar, a familiarity embodied by a thousand-year-old tree. And I desire nothing more than to stay in this moment, which is sufficient to itself, to empty my soul in order to nourish it with the fruit of this moment.
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For other writing by Robert Weis, see Mind Games in Arashiyama, or 71 Lessons on Eternity. For more on his travels, see his account of a walk from Ohara to Kurama here, or his spiritual journey to Kyoto here. His account of Nicolas Bouvier in Kyoto in the mid-1950s can be read here.
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