"Spiritual foundations of reconstruction and rebuilding " [1924] by Nakagiri Kakutarō—An essay written following the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923

Ruins of the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo (picture source)

 In his 1972 autobiographical essay, My Soul’s Pilgrimage—One Aspect of the History of Japanese Free-Religion, Imaoka Shin’ichirō-sensei mentions someone called Nakagiri Kakutarō 
[中桐確太郎]: 

“Through Tenkō-san I found the free-religious stance I had learned from Ebina [Danjō]-sensei, Anesaki [Masaharu]-sensei, and [Tsunashima] Ryōsen-sensei confirmed in practice—and I was shown a religious landscape wholly different from anything I had previously known. Tenkō-san’s religion bore not the least whiff of academicism; even so, it was compelling enough to win the assent of Nakagiri Kakutarō-shi, a logician who was at that time a professor at Waseda University.”

Nakagiri Kakutarō is also mentioned in a much longer (still unpublished) autobiographical piece from 1974 called Unforgettable Memories of Respected Teachers and Friends. In this Imaoka-sensei wrote:

“Tenkō-san did not gain [his] enlightenment through the teachings of saints and sages but through the failure of his business. However, Tenkō-san never acted as if he were the founder of a religious sect. Instead, he humbly learned from saints and sages of all times and places, sought dialogues with famous and unknown religious people regardless of their denomination, and particularly received guidance from Nakagiri Kakutarō-shi, who was a professor at Waseda University and a fellow student of [Tsunashima] Ryōsen-sensei’s.” 

Now, in preparing the footnotes for a selection of Imaoka-sensei’s most important essays on free-religion that I hope to publish in the near future, naturally, I needed to write one for Nakagiri Kakutarō and, in order to do that properly I have begun to dip my toes a little into his thinking. 

So far, the only text of his that I have properly explored (and so far translated) is a short essay called Spiritual foundations of reconstruction and rebuilding [復興改建の精神的基礎] in which he reflects on what he thought should be the appropriate response to the horrific Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. 

Having now spent a fair bit of time with this essay, I think it’s well worth reproducing here, primarily because I found it a very moving document and it says things that remain highly relevant to us today. But I think it’s also worth reproducing because, in it, Nakagiri Kakutarō speaks about the “horizontal infinite” [横の無限] and the “vertical infinite” [縦の無限], two terms which are, I feel, directly reflected many years later in two terms used by Imaoka-sensei in his 1980 Sunday talk given to the Tokyo Kiitsu Kyōkai called, The Faith of Returning-to-One (Kiitsu) in the section where he is talking about his eighth “Principle of Living” which speaks about placing trust/having faith in free-religion (jiyū shūkyō). In this Sunday talk Imaoka-sensei speaks about both a “horizontal returning-to-one (kiitsu)” [横の帰一] and a “vertical returning-to-one (kiitsu)” [縦の帰一].

Is there a direct reflection/connection here? Perhaps, perhaps not. 

However, in all cases, Nakagiri Kakutarō strikes me as a very interesting free-religious figure to explore further. To this end I have started slowly to translate his 1919 book of essays written for, and about, Tenkō-san’s Ittōen community in Kyoto. It’s called Accompanying the Prayer of Radiant Light [光明祈願にそへて]. It looks very, very intriguing to me and, after only a cursory look at its contents, I have already discovered that Nakagiri Kakutarō was, along with Tenkō-san, one of the people who authored the “Kōmyō Kigan” or “Prayer for Light (Provisional)” that my friend Miki Nakura and I translated last year. 

So, keep your eyes peeled for updates about this book of essays . . .   

—o0o— 

Spiritual foundations of reconstruction and rebuilding [1924]
復興改建の精神的基礎

by Nakagiri Kakutarō
中桐確太郎

A Google Docs version which includes footnotes can be read at this link 

 Digital source for Japanese text:
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/ja/pid/921842/1/1

1

Su Dongpo [蘇東坡] once sang: “When your legs are spent, the mountain grows lovelier still; don’t use your limited strength to chase the boundless” [『脚力盡時山更好、莫將有限趁無窮』]. And when your once-strong legs are exhausted—when you cannot take even one more step—an even lovelier prospect opens out before your eyes and rekindles that longing to pursue. Knowing all the while that limited strength cannot possibly reach it, and yet still not ceasing to pursue the limitless [無窮], that is indeed human life [人生].

So what is the infinite [無限]? Although there are many thorny debates, I shall provisionally take it to mean this: it is a state of mind [境地] in which one has escaped captivity to the finite [有限の囚はれ]. Understood this way, for the time being one can say that the infinite [無限] has two aspects: a vertical and horizontal [縦と横との二相].

The horizontal infinite [横の無限] is felt when one awakens to the truth that all things [一切の萬有] and oneself are, in their original nature, one body [本來一體]. I call this the spiritual experience [霊的體驗] of the oneness-of-self-and-others [自他一體]. When this experience enters consciousness [意識] it becomes, in knowing [知], a sense of self-and-other as one [自他一體の感]; in emotion [情], a delight [愉悦] that accompanies liberation of the self [自我解放]; and in intent [意], a desire [欲求] concretely to manifest [具體的に顕彰] this feeling and this emotion. I take love [愛] to be the mind’s awareness [心識] that together carries these functions of knowing, feeling, and willing [知情意]. But pure love [純なる愛] does not come from the expansion of the self [自我の擴張]; it is realised by breaking through the barriers of one’s own self-attachment [我執]. Even though we—finite beings bound to body and mind [身心]—are ordinarily captive to a love that is impure and imperfect [不純にして不完全なる愛], it is surely a fact that, consciously and unconsciously [有意識的無意識的に], we harbour a deep longing at our centre: to move from the narrow to the wide, from the low to the high, and at last to reach that spiritual experience [霊的經驗] of being one body with all others [一切他と一體].

The vertical infinite [縦の無限], as it might be called, can be divided into a quantitative and a qualitative form [量的と質的]. Quantitatively, it is the wish to live on endlessly [無限に生き永らへること]. Of all human desires, the strongest—the demand to live—has this as its first aim, and its centre is commonly taken to be the appetite [食欲]. Every form of struggle for survival, from predation [弱肉強食] to world war [世界の大戦争], as well as dreams of elixirs of immortality [不老不死の霊薬] or techniques of rejuvenation [若返り法], are all expressions of that demand. And when people see that, in this present world, the hope for the infinite cannot finally be fulfilled, they come to long for an imperishable life [朽ちざるの生命] in the last age [末世]. In fact, nearly all religions [宗教] have arisen in response to this longing.

However, the individual [個體] cannot escape death. Doubting whether post-mortem life [死後の生活] is truly credible, human beings sought another route: reproduction [生殖]—leaving descendants [子孫] and transmitting the lineage through countless generations [萬代]. Hence the strength of sexual desire [性欲], and the claim that the twin desires of food and sex [食色二欲] are the foundations of human longing. Either way, this is the “infinite” in terms of sheer quantity that all people equally seek.

What I call the qualitative infinite [質的無限] is the limitless activity and development of one’s innate capacities [天賦の性能]. The extraordinary abundance of civilisation—material and spiritual alike [物質的及び精神的の兩面]—has been produced by this. And one of the most urgent human hopes existing in the human breast [胸臆] is freedom [自由]; and freedom, in the end [畢竟するに], means letting one’s innate capacities unfold and develop in every direction, unhampered by obstacles [何等の障碍]. Thus people chase the infinite [無限] without ceasing. When one desire is satisfied, a new one arises; when one ideal is realised, a fresh ideal is born there again.

Why does this happen? Just as a peach seed sprouts, puts forth leaves, extends branches, becomes a trunk, blossoms, and finally bears fruit, that which is hidden within develops and unfolds stage by stage. Is it not because each of us carries infinitude [無限性] within? Horizontally, all beings are originally one [一體]; vertically, reality is a beginningless and endless substance [無始無終の本體]; and within it are seeds of capacities that can unfold without limit [無限に開展すべき性能を種藏]. Put differently: each person is, in substance [實質], originally infinite [本来無限], and life is the effort to give that infinitude concrete expression [具體的に顕彰]. I feel that if one recognises life as “the striving to concretely manifest one’s own original infinitude,” doubts and problems alike begin to settle. 

And yet—if that is truly so—should we not live with a generous composure [綽々たる余裕]? Not rushed, not restless [焦らず躁がず], but ascending step by step, following the proper order [順を踏んで], delighting in each new vista, unfolding the immanent endlessness [内在の無窮] in a spirit of a freely playing samadhi [遊戯三昧]? And yet, if one looks at the actuality of life [人生の實際], we see the opposite, one is always hurrying towards the satisfaction of desires [欲望満足] with stubborn attachment [頑強なる執着] and an irritated feeling of anxiety [いら／＼したる不安の念]. What, then, is the reason for this?

I take this to come from a kind of resistance that one’s original infinitude [自己本来の無限性] makes against the partiality of knowledge [知識の偏頗]. Human knowledge [知識] sees only the one aspect that appears on the surface [外部にあらはるゝ一面] and cannot penetrate the inner, immanent real aspect [内在の實相]. It declares the human being to be only finite [單に有限なるもの] and tries to measure everything by that yardstick. This may be unavoidable given how knowledge is formed—but our original infinitude cannot remain at peace with such a judgement. It seeks to affirm itself. The restless anxiety that accompanies the realisation of our endowed nature [賦性] buds from here.

Religion [宗教], I take it, is what breaks through this cloud of delusion [迷雲] and brings us to experience [體驗] our original infinitude. Every religion, by some method, aims at such experience. I shall not pursue details here; but when, through religious experience [宗教的體驗], one breaks the delusion [迷雲] caused by clinging to partial human knowledge [執知], and realises one’s original infinitude, one feels that this very world—just as it is—becomes heaven and pure land [天國淨土], radiant in auspicious solemn splendour [瑞嚴莊麗]. This is what Śākyamuni [釋尊] felt when, seated beneath the Bodhi tree [菩提樹], he saw the dawn star and thoroughly attained great awakening [大悟徹底]. The scriptures depict it in beautiful words. That Christ [基督] must have had a similar experience can be seen in his words stating that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of the lilies of the field. So, too, with other saints and sages [聖者方]: their expressions differ with circumstance and attainment, but it can scarcely be doubted that the experience is fundamentally the same. 

When, having attained great awakening thoroughly, one contemplates the real aspect of the universe [宇宙の實相], this world is, just as it is, heaven and the pure land [天國淨土]. Yet when one returns and looks again at everyday world of reality [現實の世界], one feels that this world remains a world of suffering [娑婆世界] (saha-world), a world of sorrows and grief, and even a hell [地獄]. In terms of intellectual knowledge this a contradiction, but for saints and sages it is an experienced fact.

Therefore there arises a prayerful vow [祈願]—that somehow one might remove the sufferings and calamities of this hell, make this world of suffering (saha-world) a pure land [淨土], and bring heaven [天國] into this world [此世]. Where this prayerful vow wells up, there the great activity of great compassion [大慈悲の大活動] appears; and what must not be overlooked here is the feeling of repentance [懺悔の念] that necessarily accompanies a person who has had such an experience. There are various kinds of repentance, but what appears in such a person is this: the evils, sins, and sufferings [罪惡苦惱] filling this world of suffering (saha-world), which may be called a hell like a burning house [火宅], are, in the final analysis, one’s own responsibility—thus one seeks to bear that sin oneself. The mendicant life of black robes and broken bowl [黑衣破鉢の托鉢生活] after Śākyamuni’s [釋尊] attainment of awakening may be its manifestation. And Christ’s [基督] ascent of the cross [十字架] may, I think, have been the blood of repentance [懺悔の血] by which he bore the sins of the world. Even the forty-eight great vows [四十八大願] of the Tathāgata [如来] beyond the world [超世] can, indeed, be seen as the Tathāgata’s repentance. And such repentance is not only something that saints and sages [聖者方], past and present, equally felt in some form, but is also, I think, a real feeling that those who have some measure of religious experience [宗教的經験] can personally enter into each at their own level.

Above, I have been rather rough and ready, but my point is this: if life means giving concrete expression to our original infinitude [自己本来の無限性], then this is what we see in the lives of the saints and sages who have grasped that infinitude. They are those who, having seen this world as just as it is a pure land [淨土] whilst simultaneously identifying with its sins and suffering, have continually striven self-sacrificially through repentance and prayer to bring the Pure Land into this world. But why have I set this out? It is for no other reason than that I believe such a view of life [人生観] and spiritual attitude [精神的態度] should form the spiritual foundation for dealing with the present disaster  [今の災禍]. From this standpoint, I wish to consider a little the trends of thought that have appeared in society following the disastrous earthquake disaster [震災後].

2

This great, disastrous earthquake [大震災]—and the vast conflagration [大火災] that followed—brought misery so overwhelming that people felt a profound inner shock [一大震動], and various kinds of thought [いろ／＼の思想] were, as if anew, called awake [呼び醒された] again. When one sees that the result of three hundred years of effort [三百年来の努力の結果] has, by the shaking of a few minutes [數分間の震動], largely reduced to ruin [大半潰滅に歸し去つた], one cannot help feeling the immense power of nature [自然] and the surprising weakness of human contrivance [人爲]; —this is what immediately appeared in the impressions of many people. Even so, the great majority of our nation [我が國民] have not, for that reason, fallen into a deep, world-weary pessimism [厭世思想], nor are there very many who have been plunged into extreme despair [自暴自棄].

For a time, there were quite a few who took it to be heavenly chastisement [天譴]. Yet among those struck by the disaster were countless people thought to be sinless [何の罪なしと思はれしもの], and many who became sheer victims. Meanwhile, among those who escaped there were not a few who, one might say, would be more deserving of heavenly punishment [天罰]. Seen in this light, the “fairness” of the event is highly doubtful; and even if one insisted that punishment was deserved, could one really regard as the intention of a compassionate God [慈悲ある神] a devastation so atrocious that even human beings would shrink from inflicting it? In short, a disaster such as this is neither God’s will [神意] nor heavenly chastisement: it is simply one phenomenon produced when a part of the Earth [地球の一部分], obeying its natural laws [自然の法則], shifted slightly [微動]. And if one reflects further, the shaking itself was not, in fact, so enormous; the greater destruction was caused by the fires [失火] that accompanied it. This disaster could have been avoided if only the fire-prevention equipment [防火の設備] had been adequate. Even if the earthquake had been even more powerful, we would have had nothing to fear as long as proper earthquake-resistant equipment [耐震設備] were in place.

Nor is it only earthquakes. Nature’s workings [自然の活らき] store up countless sources [甚だ多く貯藏] of human misery—violent winds [暴風], floods [出水], eruptions [噴火], and more. Nature, of course, has neither will [意志] nor purpose [目的], yet for human beings it must be said to be coldly cruel [冷酷なる殘忍性]. There are even those who preach that humanity’s mission [人類の使命] lies in lethally wiping out [致死的に抹殺する] the life of nature [自然の生命], precisely because it bears such cruelty.

From that standpoint, life’s meaning [人生の意義] lies in conquering nature [自然を征服], exploiting it [利用], and thereby opening up and advancing culture [文化]. Those who simply submit to nature [自然に屈服し], endure it [之に忍従し], and do not strive to create their own way of living [自己の生活を創造すること] must finally perish. It is claimed that this can only be achieved by following the guidance of the intellect [理智] of human culture [人間文化] and bringing science to its perfection. Thus one hears rhetoric like this, as Chiba Kameo-shi [千葉龜雄氏] argues in Fujin Kōron [婦人公論]: 

“In short, the future light of human reason [人類理知の將來の光り] depends entirely on humankind rebelling against nature [自然に反逆し], freeing itself from nature, conquering it, and reinstating [復權] humankind to the status of creators of the world [世界の創造主]. Then earthquakes, fires, eruptions—none of these will any longer matter; science will have conquered everything [科學が一切を征服], human activity will be so prepared that it can ignore whatever nature does, and science will have built an imperishable fortress [不滅の堅城] for humankind.”

I shall provisionally call this position “nature-conquestism” [自然征服主義], and there are by no means few people after the earthquake who adopt this standpoint. I am not trying to critique it here, but what do “rebellion” [反逆] and “conquest” [征服] actually mean? If nature [自然] has no will and no purpose, “rebelling” against it is a strange way of putting it. We are born in nature and we die in nature. Our bodies, while we live, cannot finally escape the Earth’s motion [地球の運轉]; and even if one day we fly fast enough to break free of its gravitational pull [地球の引力], we still cannot step outside the scientific laws [科學的法則] that govern the natural world [自然界]. Even if one says “conquer nature”, as Lord Bacon [ベーコン卿]—the so-called father of science [科學の祖]—suggested, this can only mean following nature’s laws [自然の法則に從ひ] and moving in harmony with them [之に調和して行く]. Culture [文化] is surely completed through a creative life [創造的生活] that harmonises with nature [自然と相和し] and moves towards becoming one with it [自然と相和しこれと一になりて行く]. Why, then, must we reach for such arrogant words [驕語] as “rebellion” and “conquest”?

However, when one considers it, I believe that the reason such arrogant words have come to be used is precisely because humans possess the intuition [霊感] that originally they are infinite beings [本來無限]. That nature can, in an instant [一瞬時], destroy what human beings have built with painstaking effort is undeniable—this disaster proves it. From one angle, nature appears a cold and cruel destroyer [冷酷残忍なる破壊者]; its vast power [雄大なる力] is almost beyond measure and it makes one’s hair stand on end just by seeing the traces of its destruction. Yet human beings behave as though even such violence were nothing [ものゝ數とせざる]: again and again [八顛九起], they spring up from the ashes [灰燼], turn to the work of reconstruction [復興], rouse the powers of reason [理知], and declare war on these things forever [永遠に此等と戦を宣せん]. One could not dare do this without some kind of self-awareness [自覺] of possessing a power capable of standing firm against grand and infinite nature [雄大無限の自然]. Were a person truly to admit their own powerlessness, they would give up, would wound themselves, and would end by surrendering and submitting to it. This dogged and unyielding spirit of struggle [強頑なる奮闘力] arises from an unconscious—or latent [潜在的に]—self-awareness that one is infinite. Thinking in this way, here too we must recognise that human beings are striving to give concrete expression [具體的に顕彰] to their own original infinitude [自己本来の無限性]. And moreover, when that infinitude is truly embodied [體現], it is precisely when one becomes one with nature [自然と一となり] and harmonises with it [自然と融和]. Even if, through intellectual power [知力], we perfect science [科學を完成] and make use of nature [自然を利用し]—or even seem to contend with it [之と相争ふ]—this too will, of itself, turn into a freely playing samadhi [遊戯三昧]. Such a state of being would, I think, allow one to remove the elements of anger [怒り], envy [妬み], and hatred [憎悪] from what is commonly called “rebellion”  [反逆]. “Conquest” [征服] is not necessarily unacceptable; only one cannot help but hope that it will be recognised that these actions must be carried out with precisely such a state of mind [心境]. 

3

When the disastrous earthquake and conflagration [震災劫火] reduced half the Imperial Capital [帝都] to ruin, the notion of “heavenly chastisement” [天譴] struck like lightning, piercing the hearts of people everywhere, echoing and resonating [反響し、共鳴] through all quarters of society [社會の各方面]. Some may have tried to dismiss it, troubled by doubts about the extent and degree of the damage [禍害の及ぼされたる範圍と程度]; yet it is undeniable that, at least for a time, it made a solemn, sobering impression in many people. Is this really nothing more than religious superstition [宗教的迷信] born of scientific ignorance [科學的無知]?

According to the confessions [敬虔なる科學者の告白] of devout scientists, the progress of science [科學の進歩] is still in its infancy [未だ幼稚], and that what it has so far clarified is no more than a tiny portion of the sand on the shore [濱の眞砂の一少部分]. If that is so, then to dismiss “heavenly chastisement” outright would surely be a violation of one's scientific conscience [科學的良心]. Yet, at the same time, what grounds are there for deciding that this particular disaster [此度の災禍] was, specifically, heavenly chastisement? I suspect that while the deep reflection [深省を發せしめられ] and acute self-reproach [切に自責] prompted by this disaster are facts of lived experience, the act of extending this experiential fact to attribute it to heavenly chastisement is an inference [推断] arising from faith [信仰によれる]. If it is an inference, it goes without saying that it need not be limited to one interpretation. Yet be that as it may, I think, there are many who do take this disaster as a heavenly chastisement. How, then, do they explain themselves to those who doubt it? Ikuta Chōkō-shi [生田長江氏], writing in the magazine Taiyō [『太陽』], puts it like this:

“Even for those who think in this way (that is, sceptically towards heavenly chastisement), I want to say: ‘So-called heavenly chastisement as admonition [懲戒] may call individuals to moral responsibility [道徳的責任] and urge reflection—and it may also call the group itself to moral responsibility [團體そのもの] and urge reflection.’ 

Take the case of a certain thief [一人の泥棒]. One could say this thief steals with his hand, not his foot; yet if the whip falls on his foot, it is not “unfair”, because the punishment addresses the responsibility of the whole body, the whole personality [人格], and the pain is felt by the whole. I doubt that even the likes of Akutagawa-shi [芥川氏] and Kikuchi-shi [菊池氏] would laugh at those words. Why? Because that punishment is not so much the result of questioning the hand’s responsibility as it is the result of questioning the responsibility of the entire body [身体全部] and the entire personality [人格全部]; and because it is presupposed that the pain is felt by the whole [全體] this can urge general self-reflection [全體的反省].

Unless one is a member of Japan’s peculiar breed of ‘men of letters’ [『文士』種族]—who, steeped in the hollow, modern, European-style individualism [近代的歐巴的個人主義], and not yet awakened from its confusion, remain emotionally underdeveloped and impoverished to an extreme degree—most solid, commonsensical people would, both intellectually [理智] and emotionally [感情], readily acknowledge that just as each individual possesses a life and a will [生活と意志], so too do groups. Consequently, groups, much like an individual, ought to be regarded as morally responsible and be subject to demands for reflection and repentance” [改悛].”

This is a coherent and striking explanation, and there is no need to contest it. Yet if we take one step further, we must ask: how far does the group [團體] extend—this group that, like an individual, has life and will, can be held morally responsible, and can be summoned to reflection and repentance? Such a group exists only insofar as its members share, mutually, the feeling of oneness-of-self-and-others [自他一體]. Moreover, such a feeling of oneness-of-self-and-others is not something that ought to be limited to a particular kind of group-life [特殊の團體生活]. As Sakuma Shōzan-ō [佐久間象山翁] said—“After the age of twenty, I came to know one is bound to one’s country; after thirty, I realised one is bound to the world; and after forty, I understood one is bound to the entire globe” [「余年二十以後、乃知有繫一國、三十以後乃知有繫天下、四十以後乃知有繫五世界。」]. If this feeling of oneness-of-self-and-others develops and one comes to feel oneself one with all others [一切萬有と一體], then from such a state [境地] how ought one to understand heavenly chastisement [天譴]? At such a time, when one sees the disaster as something the self has inflicted upon the self [自己が自己に加へたる災禍], one cannot help but be influenced, at least in part, to interpret it as a form of “reprimand” [懲罰としての推断]. And yet, the feeling of reflection and self-reproach [反省自責の感] is a fact. Then how is one to understand it?

I said earlier that when one comes to feel oneself one with all others [一切他と一體] and truly grasps one’s original infinitude [無限性], one sees this world is, just as it is, to be heaven and the pure land [此世は此儘天國淨土]. If one could genuinely sustain that vision, then earthquakes, fires, floods, and every disaster would at least lose the sting of anguish and torment [悩みと悶えとの刺]. The saying “If one extinguishes the mind, even fire is cool” [心頭を滅すれば火亦涼し] should not be dismissed as merely a careless remark of a Zen monk [禪僧の放言]; nor should the way martyrs [殉教者] from olden times have willingly accepted cruel executions [惨酷なる處刑] be waved away as mere stubborn endurance [痩我慢]. Yet when we cannot respond to a natural disaster [天然の災禍] like this—when we feel acute anguish and fear [甚だしき苦悩と恐怖]—it is because we have not yet fully reached realisation of our original infinitude [本来の無限性に體達し得ざる]; and what prevents us is, chiefly, our captivity to self-attachment [我執]. Confronted now with an extraordinary crisis [非常の大事變] we awaken to this, and shame [慚愧] and self-reproach [自責] cannot help but rise within us.

I also said earlier that the true meaning of life [人生の眞義] lies in concretely manifesting one’s original infinitude [自己本来の無限性を具體的に顕彰]; in other words, it is nothing other than opening and revealing [開顯] heaven and the pure land [天國淨土] within this world [此世]. For heaven and pure land, in short, is a land of freedom [自由の國土] built upon the foundation of love [愛の基礎]; and love is the concrete demand of feeling self-and-other-as-one [自他一體感], and freedom is the active unfolding and development [活動發展] of each person’s endowments [稟賦]. The chief reason this world remains saha [娑婆], a sorrowful world [憂き世], is that the workings of love [愛の活らき] are thin and cramped [稀薄狹隘]. Therefore, what must be done in this world is, first, in order to generate and spread love [愛を發生弘布], to cause each person’s endowments actively unfold and develop. Yet the many obstacles that accompany the imperfection of body-and-spirit [身神] prevent this demand from being fully satisfied.

At this point, what lies in the heart as a natural demand [自然の要求] becomes a demand of what ought to be [當爲]—that is, a moral demand [道徳的要求]. But who can honestly feel they are satisfying that moral demand adequately? In ordinary life [平生] our sense of responsibility [責任感] often sleeps, as though numbed. Only when one encounters an extraordinary incident [非常なる事變] is one awakened, as if anew. Since the feeling of responsibility is proportional to one’s virtue [徳], it will of course vary from person to person; yet it is natural that, after this disaster, everyone—each to their own degree—felt reflection and self-reproach strike the heart like an electric shock [電感].

Why, then, do people experience this as heavenly chastisement [天譴] or spiritual chastisement [霊譴] and the like? Because to become one with all others [一切他と一體] and spiritually experience the absolute infinite [絕對無限] is not a state in which one can remain for long [長く住することを得ざる]. One must quickly return to the individual self [個我] that is bound up with body and spirit [肉體精神に即しつゝある]. And yet, when one looks back and longs for that spiritual state, one calls it God [神], names it Buddha [佛], calls it Heaven [天], or speaks of “seeing God” [見神] or “dharma-joy” [法悦], and so forth. It is like colourless light: refracted by what it passes through, it gives forth many colours. So too the deep reflection and self-reproach described above is coloured in different ways according to the supporting conditions [所縁], and it is natural that it can come to be felt as a warning from heaven [天の警告] or as reprimand [懲罰].

And moreover, those who believe in heavenly chastisement [天譴] are those who believe in heaven [天] and believe in God [神]. The God who reproves [譴責] and urges reflection and repentance [反省改悛] is a God of justice, yet is also inherently a God of compassion [慈悲の神]. Those who believe in such a God can find joy even in hardship [艱難にも喜び] and receive comfort even in sorrow [憂患にも慰め]; they habitually give thanks, taking disaster as love’s whip [愛の鞭] and as heaven’s grace [恩寵]. Why is this possible? As I see it, such holy joy [聖悦] is nothing other than the reflection of the delight [歡樂] of heaven and the pure land [天國淨土] spiritually experienced, as described earlier.

Having observed these views concerning heavenly chastisement [天譴] in the above manner, I feel that I have been able to renew [更生] the view of life [人生観] that life is something that is seeking to concretely manifest one’s own original infinitude [自己本来の無限性を具體的に顕彰せんとしつゝある].

4

If one were to hear my statements above, some might laugh and say: this is no more than a game played with empty concepts [空疎なる概念]. Talk of heavenly chastisement [天譴] or of conquering nature [自然征服] is just the complacent thinking [呑氣なる考へ] of those who have not faced disaster [災禍] first hand, and as such, it is utterly detached from reality [緊張味を缺くこと甚だしい]. From the viewpoint of someone who has been flung—stripped bare [赤裸々]—into the very bottom of life [生活のドン底]: their house collapsed [家は崩潰し], their possessions entirely burned [財産は全く焼失し], they escaped with their life by a hair’s breadth [九死に一生], surviving only in their own body [身を以て僅かに免れたる]—such a person may well say that life’s ultimate truth [眞諦], when it comes down to it, is simply the will to live [生きんとする欲求]. Whatever has to be sacrificed, one must first survive. And for that purpose one should seek only what is truly necessary, assert the self [自我], and expand it [擴大し行く]—this, they may say, is life’s purpose.

It is certainly true that in this earthquake-and-fire disaster [震火] that side of human nature [人間性] was laid bare [赤裸々に暴露]. One person, for instance, initially helped an aged parent [老親] and they fled together, but as the flames strengthened and danger closed in, they finally made up their mind to run off, abandoning the parent. The parent clung, crying out and refusing to let go; and in the end the person loosened their sash [帯], stripped off their clothing [衣], shoved the old parent away, and survived alone—so they reportedly confessed.

Yet, on the other hand, within that Clothing Depot [被服廠] there were moving disclosures of human beauty [人情美] that were by no means rare: in order to save an ailing parent over eighty from the swirling firestorm, seven family members [眷族] held one another and shielded them—leaving only the parent behind—and all the rest died terribly [惨死] as a result.

Of these two cases, which truly touches the true essence of life? If the one who abandoned the aged parent and fled alone was afterwards tormented day and night [日夜さいなまれ] by an inner reproach [内心の呵責], and now lives in a near-deranged state [喪心者の如き状態] amid anguish [懊悩苦悶], then “sacrificing everything for the self without looking back” is hardly a path that satisfies the deepest human feeling [人間の至情]. Even if one were fortunate enough to be able to suppress [瞞着] such torment, can one truly be at peace when unforeseeable disasters—human and heavenly [人天]—always seem to surround one? And what value could any “culture of life” [人生文化] possess if it is built on such a foundation of anxiety [不安の基礎]?

In contrast to this, if a person were to break the hard shell of self-attachment [我執の堅殻を破り], become one with all others [一切他と一體], and be able to enter into one’s original infinitude [自己本来の無限性], then that is precisely to have transcended life and death [生死を超越] and entered imperishable life [不朽の生命]. One can touch the source of love [愛の本源] and be able spiritually to experience [霊的に體驗] that this world, just as it is, is heaven and the pure land [此世は此儘天國淨土]. And if, to give concrete form to that spiritual experience  [霊的體驗を具體化], each person can freely let their endowments [稟賦] actively unfold and develop [活動發展], then heaven and pure land are brought into this world [天國淨土を此世に將来する]—and this is nothing other than the creation and opening-revelation [開顯] of true culture.

People might call such a path the destruction of the individual self and personality [個我人格の滅亡]. But what, in fact, is the “I” [我]? Anyone who has experienced a love [愛の経験] that satisfies itself by offering up their own body-and-spirit [身神] as a sacrifice cannot help realising that the true “I” is not limited to the body-and-spirit one presently has [自己現有の身神に局限]. Love is the feeling of oneness-of-self-and-others [自他一體]. When one becomes one with all [一切と一體], the “I” returns into all [一切に歸入]; yet when one returns again to be bound to body-and-spirit [身神に即する], here one feels a new resurrection of the true I [眞の我の甦生]. It is said that when Śākyamuni [釋尊] was first born, he pointed his right hand to heaven [右手天を指し] and his left hand to earth [左手地を指し] and said, “Above heaven and below heaven, only I alone am honoured” [天上天下唯我獨尊]. I think that, also when he sat upright beneath the Bodhi tree [菩提樹下に端座し], thoroughly attained great awakening [大悟徹底], and was reborn into a new true I [新しき真我に降誕], he must have cried out in the same way. It is this I, felt in this way, that one senses ought to bear a unique dignity [唯一なる尊厳] throughout the whole cosmos—“above heaven and below heaven” [天上天下]. The dignity of personality [人格の尊厳] too, I think, is something that can be felt—perhaps for the first time—only in this way.

Now, alongside the rebuilding of the Imperial Capital [帝都の復興], people are also loudly calling for a rebuilding and reconstruction of spirit [精神の復興改建]. Believing that we must carefully consider what foundation ought to be set [如何なる基礎を定むる], I have stated a little of what I usually think. I had planned to go further and state that for the ground-breaking ceremony [地鎮祭], a sacrifice of repentance and service [懺悔奉仕] is required; yet now I find that I have no time left for this [餘時を有せざる]. Not only that: I humbly apologise that the above exposition too has been extremely rough and ready [甚だ粗略], and here I lay down my brush [筆を擱く].

A Google Docs version which includes footnotes can be read at this link 

Publication Details

Printed: June 9, 1924 (Taisho 13) Published: June 12, 1924 (Taisho 13) Price: 20 Sen

Editor & Publisher Yoshiei Matsushita 2-78 Hayashi-cho, Honjo-ku, Tokyo City

Printer Ichiro Nakamura 533 Shimo-Shibuya, Tokyo Suburbs

Printing Office Koeisha Co., Ltd. 533 Shimo-Shibuya, Tokyo Suburbs

Sales Office (Publisher) Furokaku Shobo 92 Hyakunin-cho, Okubo, Tokyo Suburbs Postal Transfer: Tokyo 27021

Digital source for Japanese text:

https://dl.ndl.go.jp/ja/pid/921842/1/1