Nanao Sakaki (1923-2008) was not a Kyoto writer, but a wandering poet who belonged to everywhere and nowhere. By all accounts he led a remarkable life and wrote remarkable poems. Some folks in Kyoto had the pleasure to know him, particularly Ken Rodgers who accompanied him on a tour to Australia. Thanks to Ken for supplying the piece below by Robert Lee, which first appeared in the Kyoto Journal.
***************************** Extracted from Robert Lee’s tribute to Nanao Sakaki ‘Transnational Poet Wanderer’ in Kyoto Journal, no. 78, p.127ff;
There was the first meeting with Snyder and Ginsberg in Kyoto in 1963 and then Snyder’s invitation to him to visit America in 1968 (California and the West Coast of mountain and ocean, Manhattan and Greenwich Village). Subsequent visits include poetry readings with Waldman, Ginsberg, and others, notably at Naropa in 1981. In June 1988 he asked Ginsberg, Snyder, McClure and Waldman for help in raising money to protect the blue coral reef in Ishigaki-jima against becoming a new airport landing-strip. Their poetry reading in San Francisco served as publicity and a fund-raiser. Sakaki’s message to this Beat consortium he included in his Japanese collection CHIKYU B (1989), with a translation into English under the title “Save Shiraho’s Coral Reef” in Nanao or Never (“this Kamikaze project” he calls the planned landing strip).
In an interview with Trevor Carolan, Sakaki explained very succinctly what kind of Zen he adheres to: “ Most Zen is uninteresting to me …It’s too linked to the samurai tradition – to militarism. This is where Alan Watts and I disagreed: he didn’t fully understand how the samurai class with whom he associated Zen were in fact deeply Confucian: they were concerned with power. The Zen I’m interested in is China’s Tang dynasty variant with teachers like Lin Chi. This was non-intellectual. It came from farmers—so simple. Someone became enlightened, others talked to him, learned and were told, Now you go there and teach; you go here, etc. When Japan tried to study this it was hopeless, the emperor sent scholars, but with their high-flown language and ideas they couldn’t understand.” (Nanao or Never).
Nanao’s reputation spread and in the sixties when Allen Ginsberg went to Kyoto to visit Gary Snyder, they were told they had to meet Nanao so they did and they all became fast friends and they invited him to go to America which he did. He spent about ten years in America – in San Francisco and New Mexico and in the mountains and desserts. A friend of mine who knows Nanao says that Nanao walked from New York to California and back and forth a number of times and up to Alaska and so forth. All the walking stories I’ve heard about Nanao seem to me to add up to more miles than one could cover in a lifetime. But whatever he’s walked, it’s been one whole heck of a lot.
Folks at the SF Zen Center got to know Nanao because he never had a place of his own or any money so one of the communal houses near Zen Center would take him in as an honored guest. But he just wrote poetry and philosophized and didn’t tend to do the dishes so, after a while, he’d be passed on to another Zen Center house or hippy commune. And he’d write poetry and publish books and go to events like be-ins and concerts. He didn’t always get his way. Kyokes in Kyoto was working at an environmental center on Yoshida mountain by the Yoshida shrine on the West side of the city – the same place where landscaper and Nanao buddy Sogyu is now. They were running a little hostel there a few years ago at quite reasonable rates and Nanao showed up and wanted a room for free and thought his name would do for legal tender but she said he’d have to pay like everyone else so he went off and found somewhere else.
“His poems were not written by hand or head, but with the feet. These poems have been sat into existence, walked into existence, to be left here as traces of a life lived for living…” Gary Snyder, Foreword, Break the Mirror
(The below is an oral transcription of Nanao put into poetic form by Steve Brooks)
ENVIRONMENTAL CASE: NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS AND EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN
Fifteen nuclear power plants north of Kyoto, I visit there many times I stay at Shingon or Zen temples that are anti-nuke. Mostly Japanese Buddhists very conservative, they never talk about nuclear power issue but the monks at those temples shout, “no nukes, no nukes!” Kyoto is so close to the plants, only 100 miles and wind always blowing: Kyoto to Osaka to Kobe Because of wind course if something happens millions of people must die. Already the government thinks 5 million will die if some- thing happens to a power plant. Like an earthquake.
ZOOM TALK ON GION FESTIVAL BY CATHERINE PAWASARAT ( July 19)
A reminder of what Kyoto has missed this year (Photo by Catherine Pawasarat)
This year, sadly, Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri is not taking place. A festival founded to prevent epidemics has been cancelled because of an epidemic. It’s an unfortunate irony, but as Catherine Pawasarat pointed out in her two hour presentation it is by no means the first time in the festival’s long history that it has not been held. Founded in 869, the festival suffered its longest disruption for over 30 years after the Onin War devastated the city in the late fifteenth century. From being an imperial sponsored event, it morphed into one funded by patronage by Kyoto’s kimono merchants.
The talk covered numerous aspects of the festival, indicative of just what a rich heritage it represents. The main points included:
– the speaker’s personal involvement, which began 30 years with work for the festval shrine, Yasaka Jinja, as professional translator, followed by personal friendship with many of the key figures.
– her realisation that the festival was in essence a grand shamanic event to draw down spirits through tall spires and into the chigo (young boys who act as receptors or vessels; there used to be one on each float). Hypnotic music, humid heat and overcrowded conditions promote a change of consciousness in participants.
– the festival is held in the rainy season when in former times diseases such as cholera and dysentry were rife. It was a sickly time of year, followed by the season of death in August.
– at the core of the month-long events is a spiritual festival featuring three mikoshi (portable shrines) which are moved from Yasaka Jinja to the stopping place (tabisho) in Shijo Street.
– the three mikoshi are for the presiding deity, storm kami Susanoo no mikoto, together with his wife Kushi-Inada in the second mikoshi and their eight children in the third.
– the two processions of floats (34 in all) are put on for the purpose of pleasing the kami and promoting their transformation from angry spirits to benevolent. Each float has its own deity or deities.
The impressive parade of floats with their enormous shamanic spires (Pawasarat)
In recent years the festival has faced difficult challenges. These include the erosion of tradition; decline of the kimono businesses that sponsored floats; loss of traditional townhouses to modern blocks and hotels; aging festival organisers, increased mobility and declining number of young people willing to assume responsibility.
On the other hand, there are positive signs. Crowd funding succeeded in restoring the long defunct Ofune float. University students have given support and acted as volunteer workers at the festival. Ritsumeikan is running a Virtual Gion Festival project, which will greatly aid research. Attention from modern industry has resulted in unexpected connections, such as robotic interest in the Praying Mantis float mechanics. There is greater female involvement, and architects are developing sympathetic designs which retain traditional features.
All in all, this was a wide-ranging and informative talk that drew attention to the extraordinary cultural wealth of this multi-faceted festival. Some mistakenly think of it as simply a procession of floats, but as Catherine demonstrated in this richly illustrated talk, it is far, far more than that.
Taken overall, the festival virtually lasts all year when one takes preparations and practice into account. The actual events take place over the whole month of July, with a variety of rituals, dances and events, some of which constitute a whole festival in themselves. One such is the Byobu Festival, when traditional houses or shops display their most valued items. For those who’d like to know more, Catherine has a book coming out in August, full of insider information from her long friendship with participants. And if you can’t wait till then, take a look at her website here.
A festival with great popular as well as cultural and historical appeal (photo Pawasarat)
For a video of the full talk, please see this youtube link:
Given that you live in New York, could you explain why you want to belong to Writers in Kyoto?
I have visited Kyoto several times since my son made it his home. In that time, I have found an unusual connection to the city that isn’t explained only by my connection to him. When I visit, besides the joy of being in an exciting and beautiful place, I experience a peacefulness that I believe is innate to the city. Even with the increased tourism, there remains a sense of tranquility. I miss the city when I am not there, and when I am in Kyoto, I feel like I belong.
That famous Japanese paradox, especially noticeable in Kyoto, of celebrating the traditional while indulging in modernity, is such a rich resource for story writers. I have written short stories set in Japan with many more on the back burner.
I intend to make my visits to Kyoto more frequent and lengthier. I am looking to have a connection to the city beyond my son’s very busy life. Being a part of WiK is a wonderful way for me to have my own community.
Your son is apparently engaged with media production in Kyoto. Could you tell us more about that?
I’d love to! Alessandro is a director, producer, and digital artist. He creates traditional and 3D media for cultural preservation/promotion of Kyoto traditions and artistry for local and international audiences. Some of his more prominent projects include partnerships creating 3D content for Gion Matsuri, Furoshiki Paris, and exhibiting Kyoto culture with Virtual Reality at the Grammy Awards. Most recently he is a member of SKYART, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Kikai. I am very proud of him and the niche he has made for himself as a foreign artist breaking into the Japanese market.
For a long time you wrote secretly but only recently after turning 50 decided to go public. Why was that?
My personal story doesn’t start in the same way as many other writers. I wasn’t writing from an early age and submitting to story contests. I didn’t get degrees in Creative Writing or English. But at the same time, since I felt these credentials were necessary to claim the title of writer, I always remained under-confident. I wrote but I never did anything with my writing and I certainly didn’t want to share with anyone my pipe dream of being a published writer. I suffered from imposter syndrome. Luckily, my confidence grew as I aged, and seven years ago my husband Denis and I (semi-)retired. We moved to the countryside with the intention that I would write seriously and pursue publication. It was a big step for me since I had never taken the small steps that many writers take. At a certain age, I guess I felt that I had the right to assert my dreams and try them out and hopefully not fall on my face.
Design by Sachi Mulkey (Kyoto)
Some members of WiK might well want to emulate your success. What advice would you have for them?
Besides finding a supportive community, which you all have here with WiK, I would say networking was the most important thing I did to promote my writing. By attending writer conferences and other events I met accomplished authors I admired, I met struggling new writers who helped me understand I wasn’t alone, I found Beta readers and critique partners, and I had the opportunity to pitch to agents and publishers. Becoming a part of the writing community allowed me to believe getting published was just a matter of time and gave me the tools and the confidence to pursue it.
Your competition is most noticeably different in that you give few guidelines. You accept all types of writing in the same competition. I have found that prose, poetry, essays etc are generally separated into different competition categories. But it is the writer’s ability to capture the essence of Kyoto that you seek, regardless of form. The lack of prompt and strict guidelines must make it hard for the judges, but at the same time it is obvious that you know what you are looking for when you see it. The three winning pieces from this year are so effectively evocative of Kyoto – all beautiful, all winners.
You write in three different genres, novels, short fiction and flash fiction. How do you feel about the differences between them, and which is your favourite?
This is an impossible question. When I’m working on a novel, the characters, the long story arcs and sub-arcs draw me in and keep my mind churning. Once I delve into the world, I have trouble stepping out.
The challenge of writing a flash fiction nugget that imparts everything is intoxicating. Once I start, I can’t stop until I have something viable to refine. Sometimes the story I want to tell can’t work as flash so I turn it into a short story. But when I succeed at a good piece of flash, I am particularly proud of myself. I feel as if I discovered or rather uncovered something.
If I had to choose, I have a love affair with the short story. It’s the perfect storytelling length. I write until I’m done and I find most of my stories run about a similar size
From your experiences with literary matters and publishing in the USA, do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about the future from the viewpoint of authors?
I am feeling optimistic. Smaller presses are popping up everywhere. The internet has made community much easier to sustain, and along with it, support, promotion etc. When I entered the field I wasn’t as optimistic. As far as I could tell there were just a few big publishing houses and no way to gain access. But as I researched, I realized that there are plenty of publication avenues.
I also learned about the power of the internet to reach readers and publication opportunities. For example, I started writing short stories and flash between finishing my first novel and getting up the nerve to find a publisher. I found it easy to locate short fiction competitions and to stay in touch with the community of writers pursuing these competitions.
I am happily discovering that smaller presses are more willing to accept your work as it exists, less interested in fitting you into a tried and true box that they know will sell. It seems that smaller publishers are in it for the long haul with their writers, it’s not as necessary to make a bang right out of the box. Overall, I think there is room for all of us.
This report is posted in conjunction with WiK’s upcoming members-only guided tour of the museum on Sept 26. For further details, please see the righthand column under News or click on this link.
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Just opposite the eastern entrance of Mibudera, famous for its Mibu kyogen, lies the Kyoto Netsuke Museum. Established in 2007 by an avid collector, it is the only dedicated netsuke museum in Japan and houses more than 5000 pieces, the largest collection of netsuke worldwide.
Netsuke are little carved objects ranging from the size of a walnut to that of a ping-pong ball. Originally purely functional, they were intended to prevent losing things like inro (medicine containers) or yatate (tobacco pouches) that were tied to a man’s obi. A cord was fastened to the pouch, with the netsuke on the other end, and then the pouch was hung onto the obi with the netsuke as a kind of button to prevent it slipping.
It is said that Tokugawa Ieyasu used netsuke when out and about, and over time, with the rise of the merchant class in the Edo period, the little carvings became a fashionable status symbol for men akin to expensive watches today.
Since everybody could make and wear netsuke, they were often used to convey the wearer’s personal tastes. Zodiac symbols and other animals were a favourite, as well as carvings inspired by folklore, ancient tales or Buddhist teachings. Human figures were also popular; some carvings lampooned foreigners, and for the especially daring, nude females were produced.
As mentioned above, the museum currently holds more than 5000 netsuke. About 10% are antiques from the Edo period, but since one of the museum’s missions is to pass on the art to the future, pieces by modern artists have been collected as well. While traditionally ivory and wood were used for netsuke, modern carvers employ all kinds of material, including synthetic resins.
Every month, the Netsuke Museum has a special exhibition that focuses on a specific theme or a particular (contemporary) artist. While the carvings can be enjoyed purely for their artistic merit, those with a greater knowledge of Japanese culture will find allusions to stories, history, or even individual figures, which will make a visit even more satisfying.
Another point of interest: this is not merely the only museum in all of Japan with a focus on netsuke, but it is moreover housed in the only remaining samurai residence left in Kyoto. The building is believed to have been built in 1820 for the Kanzaki family, who were one of the Mibu Goshi warriors who became farmers in the Edo period. It has been lovingly restored and is now a tangible cultural property of Kyoto City. So even if you tire of the netsuke, you can always turn your attention to the building!
Out on the islands Lights are turning on Sea at springtime
(Masaoka Shiki)
The Inland Sea sparkles in the hot afternoon sun, my eyes are blinking, white skin gently burning. It truly is a romantic idea that brought me here, to the shores of a sea that is hiding its true nature under the appearance of a borderless lake, dotted with islands and rocks, thousands of them. A book first of all, The Inland Sea, narrating Donald Ritchie’s quest for a lost maritime Japan, a need for inner peace finally, triggered by this name, Inland Sea, that promises stillness and introversion. Impossible not to get lost, then, in this infinite multitude of islands between Miyajima and Shodoshima, the two extremes of my journey during these early May days. And here I am, in the middle of Japan, hitting the sea towards the islands of Kasaoka, a tranquil community in Okayama province, towards my hoped for harbour of peace for the coming days.
Shiraishijima, literally White Rock Island, is set to be my shelter during the busy Golden Week. It immediately appears as a miniature universe, a world resembling the world. An izakaya filled with habitués where shochu is flowing continuously in a joyful hustle and bustle, a beach bar run by an American-Australian couple, a handful of small pensions, family-run, a guesthouse for international travellers which commands a splendid view over the beach (those sunsets!), a grocery store and an alcohol shop. What else would you need? And there is yet more to be discovered: a Buddhist temple is tucked away in the green heart of the island, and then there is this not-to-be-missed panoramic hiking trail, including some easy boulder climbing that grants spectacular postcard views of the Inland Sea. A hidden beach on the back of the island, accessible by a narrow footpath through the jungle-like forest. Finally, the icing on the cake, and maybe the most surprising of all, a pilgrimage path, hidden in the intimacy of the forest that retraces the 88 sacred places of the Shikoku pilgrimage.
(All photos courtesy Robert Weiss)
I am given accommodation at the
International Villa under the guidance of the friendly manager couple Ayumi and
Moyo – the flowering red azaleas provide a poignant contrast with the blue
skies, and the elegant austerity of the villa architecture, with large bay
windows where the sky and the sea meet in infinite reflections. Amy, expat and
good island soul, invited me to a religious ceremony during the afternoon, when
the birth of the Buddha is celebrated at the local temple. The island community
is already gathered as we reach the place and take the opportunity to bathe the
Buddha and drink sweet tea handed out by volunteers. This is also the occasion
to have a rare glimpse of the local dance tradition, the Shiraishi Obon dance,
usually performed on the beach during the Day of the Dead in summertime. The
evening inaugurates itself through an epic sunset, with the industrial skyline
of Fukuyama as a charming yet haunting background silhouette. A freshly married
couple from Kyoto, Yama-chan and Mai-chan, share a cocktail with me at Mooo
Bar, we exchange business cards and would meet again later on my journey. On an
island, there are few people but many encounters, the slow way of life promotes
sociability, and the evening fades into darkness around a bonfire at Sanchan’s
pub, with grilled oysters from the neighbouring island waters and shochu, of course.
On the subsequent morning, I make it
to the trailhead of the Pilgrimage Path. The complete loop can be done, in as
far as the shrines are accessible and depending on the vegetation, in a whole
day, or on two shorter days. Amy gets me dressed in the traditional pilgrimage
gear: the hat and a pilgrimage stick that would later be useful on some
slippery slopes. The route of the Pilgrimage Trail passes under trees most of
the time, a perfect feature for a hot and sunny day: wild flowers, ferns,
bamboo groves can be admired along the way, and of course, the 88 little
Boddhisattva and Jizo statues, typically hidden under a rock, or inside a cave.
Quietness is a major attraction of the trail and I find myself lost in
self-consciousness in the midst of the forest, albeit never far away from a
settlement. And a question keeps returning to my mind: What was it that I was
looking for?
The answer might be: my steps had led me on a path to a harbour of peace inside myself. In this inner sea, fortunately enough, I found an island.
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To learn more about Amy Chavez, click here. For a visual and verbal account of a longer stay on Shiraishi, see this posting by John Dougill.
Sutoku in Kyoto – emperor, poet, rebel, yōkai By Nicholas Teele
Emperor Sutoku (Wikicommons)
Sutoku, the 75th emperor of Japan (reigned 1123-1142), is known to those with an interest in Japanese literature primarily for a poem included in a 13th century anthology of poetry, the Hyakunin Isshu (1235 AD); for students of history he is known as a rebel and the catalyst of one of the most significant power shifts in Japanese history; and for those with an interest in fantasy, horror, and magic he is known as an onryō, or yōkai.
Born in 1119, he was named Akihito, although we will refer to him as Sutoku, the name given to him after his death. According to genealogical records, his father was emperor Toba (1103-56); however, in the next century a story surfaced that not Toba but the retired emperor Shirakawa was Sutoku’s father. His mother, Fujiwara Tamako (Shōshi), was the daughter of Fujiwara Kinzane. As a child she was adopted by Toba’s grandfather, Shirakawa, and he eventually had her marry Toba. She is said to have been exceedingly beautiful, promiscuous, and very intelligent. After becoming empress she was given the name Taikenmon’in.
Sutoku was enthroned in 1123, when he was four, and
married a few years later. His empress, Kiyoko (1122-1182), was also called Kōkamon’in.
She was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tadamichi (1197-64) who served as Regent or
Chancellor during the majority of Sutoku’s life. She became consort in 1129,
and empress in 1130. She was eight, he was eleven. The emperor and empress got
along well but had no children.
Meanwhile, Toba’s attention shifted from Taikenmon’in to Fujiwara Nariko (1117-1160), who became his new favorite and received the name Bifukumon’in. In 1139 she had a boy, who was given to Kiyoko to raise. However, Sutoku wanted his own child. Whether or not it is because in 1139 he founded a temple, Jōshō-ji, (which was located where Kyoto’s Exhibition and Trade Center in Okazaki Park stands today) is unknown, but the next year Sutoku got the child he hoped would be his heir when his concubine Hyōenosuke no Tsubone gave birth to a boy.
Houkongou-in garden (courtesy garden-guide.jp)
In 1141, Sutoku was forced to abdicate, and the baby which Toba and Bifukumon’in had given to Sutoku’s wife to raise was enthroned. He was later given the name Konoe. Taikenmon’in, seeing that her influence on Toba had all but disappeared, became a nun and moved to Hōkongō-in, where she died in 1145. The temple is known today for the beauty of its garden and its flowers (http://houkongouin.com).
As a retired emperor, Sutoku had his own palace.
Although it no longer exists, the well that was on the palace grounds remains,
on Nishi no Toin, just down from Sanjo. Called “yanagi no mizu,” (water of the
willow), the well’s water has been used over the centuries by many people,
including Sen no Rikyu. A dyeing company has the land now, and when I visited
the shop I was invited in and given a glass of the well water – it was
delicious. (Banba Senkogyo, 77
Ryusuicho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto http://www.black-silk.com/contents/about/yanagi/ )
Sutoku had a great interest in poetry. In the early 1140’s he gave an assignment to a select group of poets for each to submit a one hundred poem sequence. Sutoku himself participated, and the poem selected for the Hyakunin Isshu was among the poems in his sequence. There were thirteen participants, among whom were Fujiwara Akisue and his son Akisuke (leaders of the Rokujo group of poets), Fujiwara Shunzei (who was using the name Akihiro), and two of Taikenmon’in’s Ladies in Waiting. Completed in 1150, the sequence was named for the year period in which it was finished, Kyūan, and called the Kyūan Rokunen Hyakushu, Hundred Poem Sequences of the Sixth year of Kyūan.
The poet Saigyo was a friend of Sutoku and his poetry circle (Wikicommons)
The next year, Sutoku commanded Akisuke to compile an imperial anthology of poetry. Completed in about 1151, it was given the title Shikawakashū. The anthology is interesting because it comes at the end of the predominance of the Kokinshū style and sets the stage for the beginning of a new style that culminates in that of the Shinkokinshū. Shunzei, who was young and relatively unknown at this time, was later to edit an imperial anthology himself, the Senzaiwakashū, which is known for its poems with yūgen, depth and mystery. He was also to head the Mukohidari poetry group, which was to eclipse all others. The famous poet priest Saigyo who knew Toba, Taikenmon’in, Shunzei, Sutoku, and the others, had one of his poems included in the Shikawakashū, although as an anonymous poem.
The emperor Konoe died in 1155. It was rumored that
Sutoku was somehow involved in the young emperor’s illness, and even
suggestions that he had used curses and evil magic to hasten the lad’s
death. Sutoku (and apparently many
others) believed that Sutoku’s own son would be enthroned next, but Toba chose
Sutoku’s younger brother, the man known in history as Goshirakawa.
Sutoku was enraged. When Toba became sick, and his
condition worsened, Sutoku began plotting. As Toba’s death approached, Sutoku
moved to the Tanakaden in the Toba Palace to be close to his father.
Built by the Emperor Shirakawa just south of the capital near what was then the juncture of the Kamo and Katsura Rivers, the Toba Palace must have been an opulent array of magnificent buildings and gardens. The following photograph, taken of an illustration at the onsite display, shows what the area may have looked like.
Walking a bit south and then west from Kintetsu Takeda station, one arrives at Anrakujū-in, which is the location of emperor Toba’s tomb. That of the emperor Konoe is close by, as is the emperor Shirakawa’s. Walking on westward, through the Jonan-gu shrine, and crossing the highway, one comes to the Toba Palace Park. Historical markers roughly between Anrakujū-in, the park, and the Kyoto Minami IC of the Expressway, indicate where other parts of the Toba Palace area were. One of them, a bit northwest of Shrirakawa’s tomb, is the Tanakaden, the place where the retired emperor Toba died.
The Hogen Rebellion of 1156, led by Sutoku (Wikicommons)
After Toba’s passing, in July of 1156, Sutoku mounted a rebellion with the intention of overthrowing Goshirakawa and installing his own son as emperor. The event is known as the Hogen Rebellion, or Hogen Insurrection (to use Sansom’s translation of Hogen no Ran). It was an event of enormous importance in Japanese history. The story is told in the Hogen Monogatari (translated most recently by Royall Tyler in Before HEIKE and After: HOGEN, HEIJI, JOKYUKI. 2016).
Just a few days after Toba’s death, to everyone’s
surprise Sutoku left the Tanadaken and moved to the Shirakawa Kitaden, a
palatial area which had been built by Shirakawa. (Today, a stele at the
northwest corner of the Kyoto University Kumano Dormitory on Marutamachi marks
the site of the Shirakawa Kitaden.) As
he plotted with his advisors, Sutoku put out the call for his supporters to
gather with their troops. At the same time Goshirakawa’s advisers realized what
was happening and made their own plans. Among Goshirakawa’s supporters were Fujiwara
no Tadamichi (the father of Sutoku’s wife Kiyoko), Taira no Kiyomori, and
Minamoto no Yoshitomo. Afraid that waiting would mean defeat, Goshirakawa agreed
to attack before dawn.
The fighting was fierce, but Sutoku’s men held firm. Minamoto no Yoshitomo, worried that with time passing more of Sutoku’s men might arrive to support him, sent a message from the front line to Goshirakawa about what to do, and was ordered to set fire to the mansion housing Sutoku and his advisors. Caught unawares, Sutoku and his forces panicked and scattered in disarray. Together with a few of his closest retainers, Sutoku escaped up into Mt. Nyoi, on past the part of the mountain now commonly referred to as Daimonji-yama, and spent a miserable night there before he decided to give up and become a priest. The next day he managed to get to Ninna-ji (just west of Ryōan-ji) where his (and Goshirakawa’s) brother was a priest. There he took priestly vows and shaved his head. It was quickly decided that Sutoku would be sent into exile.
Ninna-ji, where Sutoku’s brother was installed as priest (photo John D.)
Sutoku was taken back south of the capital and put on a boat which would take him to exile in today’s Sakaide, in Kagawa prefecture. His son took priestly vows at Ninna-ji, and may have stayed there, or may have gone with his father. The boy’s mother, Hyōenosuke no Tsubone, went with Sutoku. Kiyoko stayed behind, and became a nun. Many of Sutoku’s supporters were executed.
While in exile, Sutoku repeatedly pleaded with the
imperial court to be allowed to return to the capital. He copied sutras and had them sent to
Goshirakawa to show his sincerity, but the emperor rejected them, and all of Sutoku’s
pleas. There were rumors that Sutoku was
using his own blood to write with, instead of black ink. There were fears that
the sutras he copied contained some kind of special power, and curses, and were
part of a plot to regain the throne.
Strange disasters in the capital, especially involving those who had
opposed him were blamed on Sutoku, with his evil magic, such as the deaths of
Bifukumon’in in 1160, and Fujiwara no Tadamichi in 1164, six months before
Sutoku’s own death.
Sutoku died in 1164 and is buried on Mt. Shiramine, in
Kagawa (https://www.kunaicho.go.jp/ryobo/guide/075/index.html), next to Shiramine-dera,
one of the 88 Shikoku pilgrimage temples. Although he never returned physically
to the capital, some said that his revengeful spirit did, and rumors continued
that Sutoku was responsible for deaths and natural disasters that followed. It said he had become an onryō (wrathful
spirit), tengu, or yōkai.
Sutoku as demon (courtesy yokai.com)
After Sutoku died, a woman who had been one of his favorites, Awa o Naishi (also pronounced Awa no Naiji), built a memorial to him in Kyoto where she and others prayed that his soul might find peace. Called the Sutoku Tenno Gobyō, it is located in the Gion area, just behind the Kaburenjo (https://ja.kyoto.travel/kiyomori/detail/022.html). Awa no Naishi had lived not far away, near the site of what is now the Yasui Konpira-gu shrine, and today Sutoku is one of three kami worshipped there. (http://www.yasui-konpiragu.or.jp/en/about See also the recent post in Green Shinto, http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2020/05/26/animism-2-syncretic-yasui/ )
Later, after the fall of the Taira in 1185, Awa no Naishi moved to Jakkō-in, in Ohara, where she was lady in waiting to Taira no Tokiko, better known as Kenreimon’in, the daughter of the great Taira leader, Taira no Kiyomori. Kenreimon’in had been empress of the emperor Takakura, and she was the mother of the child emperor Antoku, who was drowned at Dan no Ura in the defeat of the Taira, in 1185. (http://www.jakkoin.jp/en/) In the Tale of the Heike, there is a moving account of the retired emperor Goshirakawa going to Jakkō-in to visit her, and being surprised to see Awa no Naishi there as well. They all cry as they remember the wars set in motion by Sutoku’s futile insurrection. The story is also in the Noh play Ohara goko.
The Hogen Rebellion of 1156 saw the rise of Taira no
Kiyomori and Minamoto no Yoshitomo, who had supported Goshirakawa. In 1159, the
Taira and Minamoto clans turned on each other in the Heiji Rebellion. The Taira won with Kiyomori at their head,
but in 1180 the Genpei wars started, again between the Taira and the Minamoto,
and this time the Taira were crushed and the victorious Minamoto, under
Minamoto no Yoritomo, took control, and set up the Shogunate in Kamakura. Sutoku’s
insurrection also resulted in the revival of the death penalty, and of the exile
of an emperor; it had been centuries since either penalty had been imposed.
In 1177 it was decided that the name Sutoku would be used
to refer to the man who had been the 75th emperor of Japan. In 1184,
after a number of incidents attributed to Sutoku’s revengeful rage, the emperor
Goshirakawa tried to calm and pacify the spirit of his deceased older brother.
He held memorial services at Jōshō-ji, the temple Sutoku had founded in 1139,
and at the Awata-gu, a shrine Goshirakawa had built at the site of the Shirakawa
Kitaden, which had been the center of the fighting in the Hogen Insurrection. The
Awata-gu is gone, having been destroyed by war in the fifteenth century, but a
statue thought to have been there, the Sutoku Jizo (also referred to as the
Hitokui Jizo – ‘people-eating Jizo’), can be seen at Sekizen-in (which is a few
minutes walk east from Higashi-oji, on Kasugakita-dori, one block north of Marutamachi). A sign in front of the statue says “Do
not take pictures of it.”
Sutoku’s place among the ranks of onryō (wrathful spirits) and yōkai (monsters) was secured in the 18th century with Ueda Akinari’s “Shiramine,” the first story in his Ugetsu Monogatari, translated by Anthony Chambers (Columbia, 2007) as Tales of Moonlight and Rain. “Shiramine” is the tale of a visit by the famous poet-monk Saigyo to pray at the mausoleum of Sutoku on Mt. Shiramine. In the story, Sutoku’s spirit appears and converses with Saigyo. Sutoku, looking dreadful, haggard, ragged, long straggly hair, gangly, and with a bellowing, angry, revengeful and wrathful voice, boasts about the death and destruction he has caused with his curses, and promises more carnage to come. Saigyo encourages him to reform, and says he will keep praying for him.
In 1868, as the Meiji period began, Sutoku’s spirit was finally allowed to return to Kyoto and a shrine was built for his spirit and that of another exiled emperor, Junnin (8th century). The shrine, called Shiramine-gu (after Sutoku’s mausoleum in Kagawa prefecture) is on Imadegawa, just east of Horikawa (http://shiraminejingu.or.jp/english/.
The poem Shunzei’s son Teika selected for the Hyakunin Isshu, which Sutoku had written for the Kyūan Hundred Poem Sequences several years before his revolt and exile, reads like the passionate call of a man for a dream which was never to come true.
瀬をはやみ se wo hayami 岩にせかるる iwa ni sekaruru 滝川の takigawa no われても末に warete mo sue ni 逢はむとぞ思ふ awan to zo omou
The rapids so fast that though the large rocks blocking the waterfall river split the flow, it will join again — I so want to be with you again!
Sutoku becoming a vengeful demon on his death, painted by Utagawa Yoshitsuya
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For an interview with Nick Teele, see here. For his account of reviving a Kyoto Pilgrimage of 33 Temples, see here.
My Project – Drawing 100 things in my house As some of you know, my house is undergoing a big change this year, as my son is moving in with his family. They are renovating, moving furniture, etc. and in the process, a lot of old items are coming to light.
While sorting mountains of things that haven’t seen the light in decades, I decided to undertake a project to draw 100 things in my house. I was inspired to do this by a very stylish collection of the same type that I saw in Miidera Temple in Otsu. While mine isn’t going to be as beautiful as that, at least I hope it will preserve the look of the house and the things in it for future generations to enjoy.
How far along am I in this project? I have just finished #9. Well, I don’t have much time to do it, my days are very full with helping with the renovation work as well as my garden and other writing. Still, if I do it whenever I have time (one drawing takes about 3 hours), I feel confident that at some point I will have all 100 drawings.
I hope you enjoy this little taste of my latest project. Please excuse the poor quality of the pictures. When the whole collection is finished, I plan to photograph them properly, shrink them down from postcard size to about 10 x 6 cm, and make them into a card set.
[Visit Rebecca’s website and blog at rebeccaotowa.com. For her self-introduction see here, and for a review of her book of short stories, The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper, see here.]
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100 pics 1 – A view of the rear garden with centuries-old plum tree and hand-carved stone lantern. The lantern will survive the renovation in a different place, but the tree is coming down. The building is the eastern storehouse, which will become the master bedroom.
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100 pics 2 – a garden tool for cutting things, I use it to cut rice straw for mulch. The wooden part is so long because when you are using it, you have to step or kneel on it to steady it. Still works after God knows how long, without sharpening.
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100 pics 3 – Sewing tool used in traditional Japanese sewing, this little item clamps the material so it will stretch tight and enable the tiny stitches used in making kimono, etc.
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100 pics 4 – Old metal lock (I think… I don’t have a key to it) from a wooden door that is no more, outer door of the main storehouse. I admit I am glad to see these doors replaced by metal sashes, as they were very flimsy and I wondered which typhoon would bring them down.
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100 pics 5 – Old-fashioned pillow. Ladies would use this type of pillow under their neck to preserve their elaborate hairstyles. As one who never under any circumstances sacrifices comfort for style, I wince at the discomfort these ladies must have suffered.
This is the fourth extract from the final chapter of In My Own Way, the autobiography of Alan Watts which came out in 1972 (he died the next year). Interestingly, Watts was inspired in his early teens by Lafcadio Hearn founder of the Lost Japan genre, and like his predecessor he bemoans the industrialisation which is replacing the traits of traditional Japan. He writes too of his visit to Koya-san (The extracts below are taken from pages 351 and 356.)
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I have visited Kyoto four times, and will snatch at any opportunity to go there again, despite the plastic fury which which Japanese industrialism is destroying the country. Kyoto is now dominated by a colossal plastic phallus in full erection from the roof of the Station Hotel, and most ‘modern’ buildings look as if they had been put together from sheets of acetate and crimped tin, and the whole industrial project is a frantic success because there are no squares like Kyoto squares. Nevertheless, Kyoto has civic pride in its ancient traditions and monuments, so that there is some resistance to an aesthetic debacle which is perhaps the world’s major illustration of the proverb that the worst is the corruption of the best.
When Oliver Andrews was there with me he remarked that Kyoto somehow reminded him of Hermann Hesse’s Castalia, for, as the greatest international center of Buddhist culture, it is a curiously cosmopolitan city, frequented by pleasantly eccentric people from all over the world. In Kyoto one never feels ‘out of things’ as one can in Miami, Cape Town, Melbourne, or other such places with vast concentrations of people who have nothing very interesting to do. I have my eye on a virtually unused temple in the grounds of Nanzenji – a quiet place by the aquaduct. Will someone please let me have it for a year?
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Unburdened by a Christian upbringing, Gary Snyder has the humorous attitude to religion so characteristic of Zen. We found him in a Japanese-style cottage, close to the Daitokuji monastery in Kyoto, where he was making a twelve-year study of the Zen way of life. He is like a wiry Chinese sage with high cheekbone, twinkling eyes, and a thin beard, and the recipe for his character requires a mixture of Oregon woodsman, seaman, Amerindian shaman, Oriental scholar, San Francisco hippie, and swinging monk, who takes tough discipline with a light heart. He seems to be gently keen about almost everything, and needs no affectation to make himself interesting. He has taken to wife Masa, a beautiful but gutsy Japanese girl from the southern islands, who looks you straight in the eye, does not simper and giggle, gives no mock humility, yet has a quiet naturalness. Their living room is adorned with two large and colorful scrolls bearing those Shingon diagrams of multitudinous Buddha-figures, and so abounds with Buddhist ceremonial tools that Gary called it ‘the safest place in the galaxy’.
After we have taken a communal bath in a huge cauldron over a wood fire, much saké is downed, and apropos of ku, the clear void, Gary suggests that we incorporate the ‘Null and Void Guaranty and Trust Company’ with the slogan, ‘Register your absence with us; you can take it with you!’ Later I had some business cards printed for him to this effect, naming him as the company’s nonrepresenative. I wonder, why is it that we can’t stop laughing at the notion that none of us really exists, and that the walloping concreteness of all the hard facts to be faced is an energetic performance of nothingness?
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For previous extracts from Alan Watts, see Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.
The judges appreciated the feminine quality of this evocative piece, which skillfully recreates a moment in a person’s life. Residents of Kyoto and visitors to Japan who have had the pleasure of visiting the Ohara area would be able to imagine the story clearly, based on the vivid descriptions and their personal experiences. – Karen Lee Tawarayama
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Like an old wish dropped in water and ruined, we’d let our cows roam free, lost track of our weaving, and, like Orihime and Hikoboshi, were permitted to meet only after a year’s time: Accidentally drinking coffee under the same Kamogawa magnolia. We feigned surprise and headed north without a word until the river ended and i took off my high heels and walked barefoot down the highway. He smoked a cigarette and we sat on the curb eating ice cream in december. We didn’t say much in the forest or even after we’d arrived in Ohara, pine needles and narrow cement stairways winding up to worn-down statues, i thought of calling your name from the snow, but i didn’t. We rode the bus home in the dark and fell asleep drinking – a tiny lamp casting cat-like shadows on the wall.
The following extracts are taken from pages 347-350 of In My Own Way, the autobiography of Alan Watts.
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Ogata-sensei arranged to get us into Ryoanji -– The Temple of the Dragon Hermitage – after visiting hours, so that we could see the rock-and-sand garden in the stillness before twilight, when all the tourist and swarms of schoolchildren had left. These gardens are strictly called ‘dry landscapes,’ and though everyone has seen photographs of this one at Ryoanji they give little idea of the place itself. It reduced us to immediate silence. The camera cannot grasp the whole scene, from the tops of the pines in the background to the whole long stone-edged rectangle of raked river sand with its nine island rocks arranged by miraculously controlled accident upon their beds of moss. One sees islands in a stretch of ocean, or perhaps just rocks on a beach, and the rocks are so scattered as to suggest vast space in the sand. There is nothing for it but to sit on the long veranda and absorb. Yugen. ‘To wander on and on in a forest without thought of return; to watch wild geese seen, and hidden again, in the clouds; to gaze out at ships going hidden by distant islands.’
The garden must be seen in its total setting: the low, roofed, and damp-mottled wall along one side, with the pines above; the calm, horizontal temple buildings with their sliding screens; the luminous deep-green moss garden just around the corner; the incense, the birds, the far-off traffic, the quiet.
Less well-known, and little troubled by tourists, is a comparable garden at Nanzenji designed by Kobori Enshu, and another, marvelously designed but not quite so happily situated, in the Honzan at Daitokuji. Guidebooks and loquacious priests have invented all kinds of symbolic meanings (which may be entirely ignored) for these creations. Such considerations stand in the way of realizing that they are astonishing demonstrations of the power of emptiness, and even that is saying too much. Lao-tzu explained that the usefulness of a window is not so much in the frame as in the empty space which admits light to the house. But people of the West with their heavily overloaded ideas of God, will easily confuse the Buddhist and Taoist feeling for cosmic emptiness with nihilism – the hostile, sour-grapes attitude to the world implicit in the mechanist metaphysics of blind energy – which is hardly to be found in the Orient at all.
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Kyoto must contain thousands of tiny, tucked-away restaurants and bars in narrow streets and alleys, and also has long arcades of small shops selling colorful stacks of dried fish, huge radishes, persimmons, all types of seaweed – dried or pickled – octopuses, squid, sea bream, tuna, globefish, soybean curd, leeks, eggplant, and a multitude of vegetables, pickles, and pastes that I have not yet identified. I wish I had my own kitchen there, though I am happy to sample the restaurants, particularly the bar-type ones for sushi, tempura, and yakitori where the food is prepared right before you. … One such restaurant, which serves both sushi and yakitori, calls itself a dojo or gymnasium for saké drinking and here the cups are not only generous – as distinct from the usual minuscule one-sip cups – but the bottles mighty. Unlike the Americans, the Japanese have no sense of guilt whatsoever about drinking, and this goes for priests as well as laymen. I remember Kato-san telling me about his Zen teacher: ‘Today I had retter from my teacher. Ah so! My teacher he very drunk. Much, much saké. He rive in ronery tempuru high up in mountain. Onry way to keep warm.’
I do not, alas, speak much Japanese; only enough to direct taxis and order food in restaurants, helped out with Chinese characters in a scratchpad. Unfortunately the Japanese and the English find each other’s language is so difficult that we can only talk like children, giving a false if amusing impression of our mentalities.
I do wonder if this attitude to alcohol account for the fact that I have never seen anyone nasty-drunk, as distinct from happy-drunk, on saké, which is about as strong a drink as sherry. The Chinese drink far more fearsome liquors, mos of which taste like a mixture of paint remover and perfume (though I once had a dark brown substance as good as Benedictine), and seem to give alcohol an entirely innocent association with poetry and music (raku), which is written in the same way as happiness. Doubtless these people become alcoholics in the clinical sense, but I suspect that what we call a ‘problem drinker’ is as much a product of social context as of mere booze. Since to be drunk in Japan, and old China, is not considered a disgrace, no one drinks because he is miserable about drinking or in simple defiance of stuffily sober friends and relatives. The Japanese also observe the interesting and salutary social rule that nothing counts which is said in a bar.
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