Seiobo There Below (9 page)

right
hand, then raises it with both at once to hold it
horizontally
, and with his
left
hand he places it into the ashes, while his gaze passes all around the incense-stand, then he bows to the altar, places his hands together, takes two and a half steps to the right, then once again moves to the right, and with that he returns to his place, then turning to the left he makes two and a half steps again, and stands before the main prayer bench, which has been placed between the three abbots and the altar, but by then the recitation of the first great sūtra has long since begun to resound to the rhythm of the mokugyo — the Sacred Water-Prayer, addressed to the Mahasattva Bodhisattva, followed by the brief three-line invocation to Avalokiteśvara, so that the ceremony then goes beyond the boundaries of prayerful activity, that is, while the entire gathering in resounding chorus, under the direction of the voice of the jikijitsu, chants in special unison: all that is unclean and foul and decayed and impure is now being made pure here; the abbot slowly bows toward the altar, then raises a tiny water bowl prepared in advance, in which one single tiny tree-branch is blossoming, he raises the little branch with the middle and index fingers of his left hand, then with the middle and index fingers of his right hand he bends it into a ring, so that the bottom of the stem passes through it, tying the ring into itself, exactly at the point when the sūtra, in the voice of the jikijitsu, as it rises out of the chorus, indicates that this entire hall and the whole of this place are being purified by this moment of the ritual and the prayers, the voice of the jikijitsu soars above the chorus of monks, which at times seems to resound with higher ascendancies in some distant, ever so distant rapport — then, along with the clang of the gong dying out, the enchantment of this purification dies away, and from that point on, for quite a while and without the jikijitsu, only the congregation has the word, the word which is understood by no one now, or perhaps was never understood by anyone, as the gathering now recites in broken Sanskrit:

NA MO HO LA TA NO TO LA YEH YEH
NA MO A LI YEH P’O LU CHIE TI SHUO
PO LA YEH P’U T’I SA TO P’O YEH MO
HO SA TO P’O YEH MO HO CHIA LU NI . . .

and the mokugyo beats in the same rhythm as the words, and at times the large gong sounds, the gathering visibly recites with confidence that of which no one understands one single word, but they know that the kinhin is to follow, that is from this point on, they move from their places and in single file, one nicely after the other, they circumambulate the great hall, with the jikijitsu in front, after him the mokugyo-beaters, and only then the monks, according to rank, age, authority, and prescribed order, they go in circles, they pronounce the sacred dhāranīs, resounding in a tongue incomprehensible to them; last to come are the women and at the very end are the three abbots with their accompanying monks, they just circle and circle around and around along the walls of the hall, away before the altar; and so that the procession can finally come to an end, the host-abbot stops his colleagues when they reach the spot in front of the altar, in an arc, then taking up their original places — and the congregation too returns to its original place — the jikijitsu stands again by the front entrance, from where he directs the ceremony, he raises his voice and in this raised voice recites the last words of the dhāranī, according to which:

LA TA NO TO LA YEH YEH NA MO A
LI YEH P’O LU CHI TI SHUO P’O LA YEH
SO P’O HO AN HSI TIEH TU MAN TO LA
PO T’O YEH SO P’O Ho

so that here, his voice, descending at the very last line, slows down and expands like a river flowing into the ocean, and he begins already the recitation of the Hannya Shingyō — the Heart Sūtra — then the Mahāprajñāpāramitā, then the praise of Avalokiteśvara, then the Song of Parināmanā, and at last the Triple Vow, after which the entire gathering bows three times before the altar, each time to the clashing of the great gong, in the knowledge that the altar-place has been purified, so that the first chapter of this particular coming together and return has been concluded, and now the next may commence, in which, as an invocation, the four strong, young monks who one year ago took the Buddha out now bring in, underneath a golden brocade, and with small cautious steps, the Amida Buddha of the Zengen-ji, raise it to the altar, someone pulls away the silk cloth that had been covering the Buddha’s seat, and they place Him there, Him whom they have awaited for so long, and for whose gaze so many hundreds of pairs of eyes, in the crowded hondō, are now contending.

The leader of the ceremony, the jikijitsu, strikes the gong three times; according to precept the large drum then sounds too, and in the space of the hondō above the gathering a greater ceremoniousness than before can be felt, leading the less well-informed among them to think, well, at least now they’re finally going to take the brocade off and we can finally get to see the Buddha; but no, they are wrong, the time for that has not yet come, now it is time for the three abbots to pray together; after what is known as the purification of the lotus throne, the emphasis of the ritual in this crucial second part shifts onto the abbots, and there are more offerings made with the incense, then the recitation of the sacred names, and after the three abbots kneel down together, the congregation, under the leadership of the jikijitsu, begins to sing the Amida-kyō, in which the sūtra, with miraculous power and at length, venerates the Amida Buddha and the inconceivable greatness, timelessness, harmony, and fragrances of the Pure Land; then there comes the time to acknowledge defilements, where one must kneel down at the end of every sentence, even the three abbots kneel, and recite with them, and all those taking part in the ceremony kneel down at the end of each sentence as well, we have produced hellish karmas, they all murmur — the mokugyo sharply cracks underneath the thin stick — through desire, through hatred, and through impatience we bring them forth and sustain them in time, the source of what we all are is our mere bodies, our mere words, and our mere minds, and we
deplore this greatly now
; this is what they murmur, they sing this in a louder, unifying harmony, then everyone rises and now, somehow, the emphasis shifts to where it should be; the three abbots, that is, again take up the direction of the ceremony, so that from this point on they are the ones who grant permission to speak, and they grant it right away: three times in order, the wish is chanted that glory may come to the monastery, to the Three Jewels of Mahāyāna, and now the eldest and most respected monk, having earlier been prepared, is called forward to go to the incense stand to complete the ritual of incense-purification; then when the jikijitsu causes the gong to sound, and during its long reverberation the document called the Announcement of Explication is placed in the monk’s hands, the smoke snakes upward, entwines around the old man and the document as well, and he begins, his head trembling, in a tremulous voice, to read aloud that here and now appears the Body of the Buddha, here illuminates the karma that brings happiness to all living beings, and the magnificent Form, in its own boundlessness, is unmoving, and this place is now the hall of the Exaltation of the Light, that we, within the Eastern Realm, are on the island known as Japan, where this monastery belonging to the Rinzai lineage is located, the old monk reads in his tremulous voice that now here they have sung a few sacred sentences with the gathering, with which the Dharma is protected, and pure faith remains preserved; he then lowers the document, for the next few sentences no paper is needed, and he announces that the monastery has collected every donation it possibly could in order to protect the sacred statue of the Amida Buddha from the harm of centuries, and now the day has come when, this protection ensured, they have received Him back, and He shall be placed back there, from whence He was earlier taken, so He has arrived, murmurs the old monk, behold the auspicious, happy, great day, and they have gathered in this hall, which is the space of contemplation, that is to say of the soul, and they have come here together, because for them both this space and this soul are of the utmost necessity, and he leans once again over the text, and reads out that the return of the Amida was the heart’s desire of the faithful, and the hope of those who await from it the renewal of their faith, to receive, in the barren, ruinous heat, the cool relief of the tree of Dharma, may the garden wreathed in gold again be tended for the prayers to come, for they are now making a vow, he says, looking up from the document, and they make this vow with great joy, and they make this vow precisely today, in the year 2050 on the fourteenth day of the third month in between the morning hours of nine and ten o’clock, they make a vow, and they have set the lotus throne back in its place once again, and once again they survey the entire magnificent Form, truly complete, and they trust that once again they shall see the Precious Light and they supplicate and, bowing their heads, they utter the profound wish that this treasure-laden throne shall be resplendent until the end of time, when the body itself shall vanish, and that the light between the Buddha’s eyebrows may once again issue forth, and that one ray of this light may spread across the entire Realm of Dharma; I, says the old monk showing his hands folded in prayer, and bowing his head, I bow my head, and I fold my hands in prayer, and everything good shall like a tree take root, the utterance of the feelings arising in our hearts, the feelings drawn in by the happiness and wisdom emanating from the altar, we supplicate in gratitude and thanks, he continues, movingly, wishing tranquility and peace for the Son of the Sun and the people, we wish for the Dharma once again to be majestic among us, and we wish for the wise and beautiful path to come to the Zengen-ji monastery of Inazawa; today, he says, we have recited sūtras, and the melody, the song of this gathering, is like the brocade upon Him here in the center of the Altarplace; later on, it shall fall away and beneath it the eye shall see what it has been awaiting, and then the old man begins to say, as he lowers the document for the final time, that through the Explication just uttered he supplicates the Three Jewels to create the certainty that this Buddha statue is now perfect and without flaw, for the sacred statue of the Amida Buddha has been rectified and placed back on its base, and all of this has taken place within the framework of the ceremony conducted by jikijitsu Zhushan on the fourteenth day of the third month of the year 2050 according to the Buddhist calendar, in the presence and with the cooperation of the abbots Nanzenji-san and Tōfukuji-san; from the mouth of the monk Shooshin, he says, and he withdraws; and already the assistants have set three small tables in place of the prayer benches in front of the abbots, a piece of yellow silk is placed on each table, and finally in the center of each table a flower-stalk is placed, and already the sacred deities are being invoked in the sūtra recited by the gathering, and the abbots take up the three flower-stalks, they raise them and hold them aloft, as first the Nanzen-ji abbot joins the congregation and sings that the abbot of Nanzen-ji beholds this flower, and he holds it aloft, and supplicates with all of his heart, he calls the Lord of the World, the Master Shakyāmuni Buddha, he supplicates the Lord of Faith of the Eastern Realm, Dainichi Nyorai, who is the Tathāgata of crystal light, he supplicates and calls the Lord of Faith of the Western Realm, Amida Buddha, and the Buddha of the World to Come, Maitreya, Miroku Bosatsu, and every Buddha who can penetrate the Realm of Dharma through the air, he says, and he bows his head, adding softly that he only wishes never to break his own vows, that now, with a humble and full heart, he wishes that He for whom it is fitting should take His place upon the lotus throne, but the entire last part of his words referring to his vows is sung by the gathering as well — each person pronouncing his or her own name — and then something happens which has not happened yet, that is to say silence, and in this silence the three abbots place the three flower-stalks back onto the little tables, the sound of the hand-held gong reverberates, the congregation kneels and prostrates before the Buddha, then the shokei sings out again, everyone rises, and in the sustained silence the jikijitsu asks the participants of the ritual to call forth the Amida Buddha within their own selves, to look at the contours discernable underneath the brocade on the lotus throne, and to let millions of Amidas appear in their imaginations, this is what they must invoke, this is what they must think about, the jikijitsu’s words sound out in the silence, and with this it is the turn of the host-abbot, who lifts the single flower once again into the air and says: may the Amida fill the entire world, and look upon all the living beings, so that he and everyone present here may avoid suffering arising from Origination, and, finally, may the throne on the altar truly become a throne, but at this point the entire gathering, led by the jikijitsu, is singing, so as to invoke, with their individual and their shared strength, the Mañjuśrī Buddha, in all aspects perfected, the Samanthabhadra, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara of great compassion, in all deeds accomplished, the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, who realizes every desire, the Bodhisattvas of the ten world-directions, the Mahāsattva Bodhisattva, and their only wish — here the sūtra comes to a close, the unity of the singing enriched by a lower fifth — is never to break their vows, and that the Buddha, compassionate to all sentient beings, may appear and take His place upon the lotus throne, which stands before them covered in brocade, and when, at the last word, the shokei again is struck, everyone kneels, then they arise, for it all to be repeated first by the shikaryo, then the jikijitsu, and finally by the entire gathering, for everything to be repeated, but at the same time, somehow, everything begins to rise in the midst of this repeating, there is something now in the Hall which is difficult to put into words, but everyone present can sense it, a sweet weight in the soul, a sublime devotion in the air,
as if someone were here,
and it is most evident on the faces of the non-believers, the merely curious, the tourists, in a word the faces of those who are indifferent, it can be seen that they are genuinely surprised, because it can be felt that something is happening, or has happened, or is going to happen, the expectation is nearly tangible, although everyone knows exactly what it is that is happening, or is going to happen, no one has any doubt at all that perhaps there will be another, and then still another, and then still yet another sūtra, another supplication, another prayer, another vow, and they will yank the covering off the statue, and everyone will finally see the Amida, but that is precisely the curious thing: everyone knows what will follow, and of course when it will follow, still everyone stands dumbfounded, and looks, looks until it ensues that the host-abbot arises, holding aloft a stick of incense, kneels, rises, the gong is heard, and the abbot recites: Revered One of the Returning World, of whom there is none higher, today, according to the teachings, I venerate your throne, I only wish that you might kindly receive it, that every Buddha and Bodhisattva now present here in this room may see and feel that there are no more obstacles, this place has been blessed through the tranquility of an unnameable peace; the abbot speaks and speaks without error and everyone hears precisely what is being said, but from here on the general attentiveness becomes somehow so diffused in expectation that the individual components of the ceremony fall apart, the gathering at one point pays attention to the abbot’s words, as he is just now stating that Amida’s body is golden, His eyes illuminating the four seas, the light streaming forth from them circling Mount Sumeru five times, and at another point the jikijitsu strikes the gong; here, a few people on the left-hand side of the hall bow down, then a few voices are raised again, and then those standing on the right-hand side bow down; then the eloquent voice of the Nanzen-ji abbot can be heard, as he speaks of his wish to be reborn in the Pure Land of the Western Realm, for nine different kinds of lotus flowers to be his mother and his father, that as these flowers open may he glimpse the Buddha, and that he may awaken to the great truth of non-birth, words that nearly dissolve into the ones spoken by the Tōfuku-ji abbot to the right of the host-abbot, saying, namely, may every single Buddha appear in the world, because of one single great thing, and may the entire consciousness of the thus enlightened Buddha, he supplicates, be present here, and may all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have mercy upon all living beings, may their causes be perceived and may they be led to the Dharma, may they receive enlightenment as to the non-self-evidence of knowledge, for
knowledge lies within the baneful obscuration of the cause of suffering
, and that is why we are here, who, upon this day, in the year 2050 on the eleventh day of the third month, have come here to consecrate the statue of the Amida Buddha, for him to make us understand, says the abbot of Tōfuku-ji, that this statue before us is knowledge given form, but it is not knowledge itself; at that point, however, a kind of disorder begins to arise in the hondō, some kind of confusion in the devotion, or more precisely it is the confusion of the devotion itself, as the strength begins to seep out of the words, they blur into each other, no longer is each word built upon the next, but the words begin to mean the same thing one after the other, this confusion is significant, as is obvious, significant, as it, so to speak, indicates the path upon which the gathering has been lead by the words, to that point where only the consummation of the final moment is necessary, and then truly everything is taking place in this spirit; it could not be stated that the gathering is really concentrating on the most essential elements of the ceremony; they do not notice, for example — or it may be that in the crowd of people they cannot see — that the abbots, before their words just uttered, have each taken up a mirror from the tables placed before them, wiping it with a fine cloth, and then all three have turned the mirrors toward the Buddha; the gathering — at least most of them — are gaping here and there, most of them can only hear what the host-abbot is saying, for right at this moment he is saying that we who consecrate the Buddha are in no way identical with the consecration, we only now do, in the name of the Buddha, what is required, it is not we who can approach Him, but rather that He penetrates us completely with His wisdom, He, the Buddha, who is present here, the imperceptible and supreme Form in its own infinite radiance, that if we speak, the abbot’s veiled, weary voice is heard, if we recite sūtras, through these utterances the light of the Buddha illuminates billions and billions of worlds; that much is heard, then their attention is led by the gong and the great drum, so that they no longer can make out the words of the abbot of the monastery as he says that the wisdom of the Buddha, at the same time, finds a means within us, having taken physical form, returns back to each one of us — that already goes unheard, only the clanging of the gong, and the deep thumping of the drum, but by now it is so hard to pay attention to anything at all, the gathering has by now been here for hours, legs, backs, heads ache; and the scene is swimming before their eyes, nonetheless, at such times, who can say what is essential and what isn’t — one thing is certain: whether there is tiredness here or there, no one wants to miss out on the essence, so that the great majority of them shift their heads back and forth, now trying to listen attentively, now trying to see what is going on, the boundary, in a word, between the important and the less important begins to blur; this has not been, up until now, a cause for concern, but from this point on the monks themselves are not even certain that they are taking in the most essential elements of what is happening in the hondō; all, however, monks and visitors alike, are certain that the ceremony is moving forward,