unlucky,” he says. “I felt so sorry for them. Eight adults right here on this little road died, then twelve more were found. Twenty are still missing.”
The abbot and Fukan-san took turns performing funeral ceremonies. At the first one, the young nun said there were forty bodies and forty hastily made coffins because the crematorium had been washed away. Just out of monastery, she wasn’t sure she could do it. “I opened my mouth and a chant came out. I got to the end without faltering.”
When she had to give the dedication and say a few words, she says, “All I could think of to say was, ‘Return to the sea.’ Later, I called my teacher at the monastery and asked her about it. She told me the words didn’t matter as much as the way the heart was speaking.”
The abbot: “We had ceremonies here for the dead, even when there were no bodies. Two families in our
sangha
are missing four family members. Only one has been found. But there are still seven missing. Another neighbor never found his family at all. He read in the newspaper that they had died.”
The police told the residents to leave the bodies as they found them, as if the river was a crime scene, but the survivors ignored the order and kept searching, and digging, and carrying the dead to Shounji. Funeral services continued. A man who once taught at the Ookawa Elementary School returned to help and still walks the river.
“But the most courageous of them all,” the abbot says, “is a young woman who was on pregnancy leave. She had her baby just before the earthquake. But her older daughter, a sixth grader at the Ookawa School, was washed away and hasn’t yet beenfound, so Naomi, the mother, got a license to drive a backhoe. Now she digs for the missing every day. Not only for her own daughter, but for the children of other survivors. So far she hasn’t found anyone, but she won’t give up,” the abbot says, holding his hand against his heart.
The abbot looks tired so we stand to leave. I ask about Kannonji, the temple up the road. He says all that’s left of it is the huge bell, the
bonsho
, traditionally hit with a large stick. I suggest they bring it to Shounji and ring it at New Year’s to commemorate the dead and those who survived. He says, “Good idea!” His wife agrees. The mood brightens.
The gentle abbot smiles, then frowns: “But if they rebuild Kannonji, we’ll have to take it back.” I suggest jokingly that they put wheels on it and have the monks push it back and forth. Fukan-san looks at me: “But I’m the only monk!” Laughter. I tell her I’ll come and help push. It’ll be good Buddhist practice, I say.
* * *
Every instant is death; every instant is birth … there’s nothing you can grasp onto. The impermanence of the rebirth is the continuity of it.
— TRUNGPA RINPOCHE
* * *
It’s what I call “pure bardo.” Neuroscientists have named it the “wave of death,” referring to a strong wave-shaped signal in the brain that continues after death, after the oxygen supply has been cut off, pressing scientists to ask, When does life end? It represents what Anton Coenen, a science writer, called “the ultimate border between life and death, a massive signature, an eerie shudder of activity that goes beyond the end of breathing.”
Night
The surface of the mind trembles without cease,
Like the surface of the waters,
And like the waters
It assumes the shapes of those forces
That press upon it.
— ROBERTO CALASSO
Hard rain begins and crustal instabilities cause the ocean bed to keep moving. Sea foam clobbers city’s edge and young waves shoulder Honshu’s fractured spine. Two more shakes before dawn, one with a distant tsunami-warning siren. For the very old it must be reminiscent of the Second World War, when Sendai was obliterated and news came of the mysterious A-bomb, twice dropped. In the
Mainichi News
, a woman tells a reporter that she’s lost houses twice: once in Nagasaki and again
The abbot and Fukan-san took turns performing funeral ceremonies. At the first one, the young nun said there were forty bodies and forty hastily made coffins because the crematorium had been washed away. Just out of monastery, she wasn’t sure she could do it. “I opened my mouth and a chant came out. I got to the end without faltering.”
When she had to give the dedication and say a few words, she says, “All I could think of to say was, ‘Return to the sea.’ Later, I called my teacher at the monastery and asked her about it. She told me the words didn’t matter as much as the way the heart was speaking.”
The abbot: “We had ceremonies here for the dead, even when there were no bodies. Two families in our
sangha
are missing four family members. Only one has been found. But there are still seven missing. Another neighbor never found his family at all. He read in the newspaper that they had died.”
The police told the residents to leave the bodies as they found them, as if the river was a crime scene, but the survivors ignored the order and kept searching, and digging, and carrying the dead to Shounji. Funeral services continued. A man who once taught at the Ookawa Elementary School returned to help and still walks the river.
“But the most courageous of them all,” the abbot says, “is a young woman who was on pregnancy leave. She had her baby just before the earthquake. But her older daughter, a sixth grader at the Ookawa School, was washed away and hasn’t yet beenfound, so Naomi, the mother, got a license to drive a backhoe. Now she digs for the missing every day. Not only for her own daughter, but for the children of other survivors. So far she hasn’t found anyone, but she won’t give up,” the abbot says, holding his hand against his heart.
The abbot looks tired so we stand to leave. I ask about Kannonji, the temple up the road. He says all that’s left of it is the huge bell, the
bonsho
, traditionally hit with a large stick. I suggest they bring it to Shounji and ring it at New Year’s to commemorate the dead and those who survived. He says, “Good idea!” His wife agrees. The mood brightens.
The gentle abbot smiles, then frowns: “But if they rebuild Kannonji, we’ll have to take it back.” I suggest jokingly that they put wheels on it and have the monks push it back and forth. Fukan-san looks at me: “But I’m the only monk!” Laughter. I tell her I’ll come and help push. It’ll be good Buddhist practice, I say.
* * *
Every instant is death; every instant is birth … there’s nothing you can grasp onto. The impermanence of the rebirth is the continuity of it.
— TRUNGPA RINPOCHE
* * *
It’s what I call “pure bardo.” Neuroscientists have named it the “wave of death,” referring to a strong wave-shaped signal in the brain that continues after death, after the oxygen supply has been cut off, pressing scientists to ask, When does life end? It represents what Anton Coenen, a science writer, called “the ultimate border between life and death, a massive signature, an eerie shudder of activity that goes beyond the end of breathing.”
Night
The surface of the mind trembles without cease,
Like the surface of the waters,
And like the waters
It assumes the shapes of those forces
That press upon it.
— ROBERTO CALASSO
Hard rain begins and crustal instabilities cause the ocean bed to keep moving. Sea foam clobbers city’s edge and young waves shoulder Honshu’s fractured spine. Two more shakes before dawn, one with a distant tsunami-warning siren. For the very old it must be reminiscent of the Second World War, when Sendai was obliterated and news came of the mysterious A-bomb, twice dropped. In the
Mainichi News
, a woman tells a reporter that she’s lost houses twice: once in Nagasaki and again
Similar Books
