Night Boat. Alan Spence

by bandits who threaten him with knives, and he invokes Guanyin, the knives will shatter into pieces.

      If someone is pushed into a pit of fire and invokes Guanyin, the pit will be turned into a cooling pool.

      I wrote these lines beside my other notes. I read on, finally reached the last page.

      When the Buddha had spoken this sutra, all the great assembly rejoiced and received his teaching, and they made obeisance and withdrew.

      I closed the book and sat in silence for a long time. Aeons. Kalpas. Then I returned it with reverence to its special niche in the library.

      The priest realised I had read the whole sutra, from cover to cover.

      Well, he asked, what have you learned?

      I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.

      Are you banging at the gates of Paradise? he asked. Ready to ascend into Nirvana?

      Still I was silent.

      Is this the silence of the enlightened man, or are you just dumbstruck, stupefied?

      I cleared my throat.

      It was not what I had expected.

      Ah.

      This time it was the priest who let the silence sit there. After a while he spoke again.

      And what did you expect?

      I do not know.

      But you know it was not this.

      Not this. Something more.

      I thought of my mother, her eyes shining, chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. I felt disloyal. I thought of the passage describing those who disparage the sutra, the hundreds of painful rebirths they have to endure. I felt a twinge of fear.

      There are many beautiful passages, I said. Absolute jewels. But they are buried.

      Hidden, he said. For you to discover.

      But forgive me, they are hidden amongst so much dross, they are hard to find.

      That may be the point.

      Endless lists, I said, endless arguments about procedure and hierarchy, endless incantations. Then page after page of teaching through parables, simple tales of cause and effect.

      It had all come out of me in a rush. I bowed.

      Forgive me, I said again.

      There is nothing to forgive, he said. Perhaps some day you will read it again, perhaps in another life, and it will speak to you more directly.

      Perhaps, I said, not believing it for a moment, and feeling empty and bereft as though I had been cheated or had lost something precious.

      TWO

      FLOATING WORLD,

      FLOWER-PATH

      By the time I was eighteen, in spite of the skimpy rations at the temple – the basic diet of rice and greens, a little fish from time to time – I had grown taller. And doing my share of the physical work – weeding and tending the garden, sweeping and cleaning, working in the kitchen – had made me strong. I liked nothing better than walking beyond the village and into the foothills, but also along the Tokaido and through the neighbouring towns, amazed at the passing show, the constant stream of people flowing to and from the capital. There were pedlars and salesmen and merchants touting their wares, quack doctors and medicine men, farmers taking their crops to market, geisha with their quick mincing steps in thick-soled clogs, samurai swaggering down the middle of the road, demanding respect, aristocrats carried in their palanquins, actors and acrobats, travelling storytellers with their portable kamishibai screens.

      In the post-station at Ejiri, close to the temple, was a courtyard where groups of travelling players would sometimes perform. I heard that a troupe from Edo was passing through and would be presenting a drama based on the tale of the Forty-seven Ronin. I had been struggling in my meditation, and I thought it might lift my spirits to see the play, so I made my way to Ejiri in the early evening, and took my place among the audience gathering in the courtyard. There was a sizeable crowd, a few of my fellow monks among the villagers and townsfolk, the merchants and their families. A little platform had been built where the wealthier and more prominent patrons could sit and watch the performance in comfort.

      As the sky darkened and the lamps were lit, I looked around me, took it all in. I remembered the puppet show I had seen with my mother, how it had opened my eyes and changed my life, and I felt an anticipation overlaid with something bittersweet I couldn’t quite name, a kind of yearning for something I didn’t know.

      Everyone knew the story of the Forty-seven Ronin. It was based on real events that had happened only a year ago, but had already become a legend throughout the whole land.

      A group of forty-seven samurai had avenged the death of their lord, Asano, by murdering the man responsible, a court official named Kira. Because they had done this out of loyalty, they were allowed a noble death themselves by committing seppuku.

      The incident had inspired poetry and painting – I myself had seen a number of woodblock prints depicting the ronin – and plays based on the story drew huge audiences all over Japan. The government in Edo had banned any contemporary reference in the drama, so the play was set in the distant past, four hundred years ago, and all the names were changed. But the audience knew the real story that was being re-enacted. These heroes were men from their own time who had only recently walked the earth.

      Because I had arrived early I had a good position, next to the viewing platform. As I looked across I was momentarily distracted by a young girl seated at the front of the platform, very close to me. She caught my eye, then immediately looked away, flustered, and hid her face behind a paper fan, but just that glimpse of her beauty had unsettled me.

      The lights around the courtyard flickered, and the drama began with the thud of a drum, the shrill wail of a flute, and for the next hour reality shimmered and wavered. We were here in this courtyard, in the post-station at Ejiri, watching seven actors move through each scene, chant their scripted lines. But at the same time, at the same time, we were in Edo, looking on as the forty-seven ronin waited patiently and took their revenge on the villain Kira, walked through the snow to place his head on their lord’s grave, then sit in a half circle and fall on their own swords.

      This floating world of theatre was a thing of magic and enchantment. As the ronin fell forward they let out a collective death-cry that sent a chill down the spine. It was terrifying and magnificent, and the crowd were so caught up in the action many of them also cried out. A group of young men who had arrived late were particularly carried away, and they climbed up at the back of the little grandstand and pushed forward for a better view.

      What happened next was as strange and dreamlike as anything I had just seen on the stage. Everything seemed to slow down, as sounds and movements were heightened, intensified. I heard a cracking, straining noise and the shouts grew louder. The young girl was looking straight at me, her mouth open, confusion and alarm in her eyes. Then everything was shifting, moving, as the platform collapsed. The girl pitched forward, throwing out her arms to protect herself, and without thinking I stepped forward and caught her, cushioned her weight and broke her fall. Her head cracked against mine and I stumbled a little but managed to step back and lift her clear as the others fell around her.

      She clung to me and I held her safe. I could feel her small body shaking. I could smell her perfumed clothes, her hair, and that irrepressible little dragon reared between my legs again, roused, and I chanted the Daimoku quickly to myself, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, trying to calm it down.

      Then an older man was at my side, speaking to me.

      I thank you for saving my daughter, he said. But now I think you can put her down.

      I set