The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Read online

  While I watched this impressive incense ceremony, I wondered whether, when the time came for me to attend the succession ceremony at the Golden Temple, I would announce the name of the Superior as custom demanded. Perhaps I would break the seven-hundred-year-old custom and announce some other name. The coldness of the Abbot's chamber on this early spring afternoon, the redolent odor of the five types of incense, the diadem that glittered behind the Three Utensils and the resplendent halo that surrounded the main Buddha, the brightness of the surplices worn by the officiating priests... and what if one day I should find myself here performing the Shihoko incense ceremony? I imagined myself in the form of a priest undergoing this ceremony of inauguration. Inspired by the stringent atmosphere of the early spring, I should betray the old custom cheerfully. The Superior would be in attendance; hearing my words, he would be speechless with amazement and pale with anger. For I should pronounce a name other than his. Another name? But who is this other teacher who has instructed me in the true way of enlightenment? I am stuck for his name. It is blocked by my stuttering and will not issue from my mouth. I stutter; and, as I stutter, that other name begins to come out-“Beauty,” I start to say, and “Nihility.” Then all who are present burst out laughing, and I stand there awkwardly rooted to the spot amidst their laughter.

  I abruptly awoke from my daydream. The Superior had some office to perform and I, as his acolyte, had to assist him. It was a proud thing for an acolyte to be present at an occasion like this; this was especially so in my case, since the Superior of the Goiden Temple was the main guest among those officiating at the ceremony. When my Superior had finished burning the incense, he struck a blow with the mallet known as the "white hammer," thus attesting to the fact that the priest who had today been installed as the Superior of this temple was not a ganfuto, that is to say, a clerical impostor. He intoned the traditional formula and struck a loud blow with the white hammer. Then I realized afresh the miraculous power that this Superior of mine possessed.

  I could not stand the way in which the Superior passed over the recent event in silence, especially since I had no idea of how long this silence would continue. If I myself was endowed with some form of human feeling, why should I not expect corresponding human feelings from people, like the Superior, with whom I was in contact? Whether they be feelings of love or of hate. I now got into the wretched habit of examining the Superior's expression on every possible occasion, but never once could I detect any special feelings in that face of his. His absence of expression was not even equivalent to coldness. It may have signified contempt, but, if so, this was not a contempt for me as an individual, but rather something universal, something, for instance, that he directed towards humanity in general or even towards various abstract conceptions.

  From about this time I forced myself to conjure up the image of the Superior's animalian head and of the indecent physical functions that he performed. I imagined him in the process of defecating, and also pictured him as he slept with that girl in the rust-vermilion coat. I saw his expressionless features relax and a look, which could be one of either laughter or pain, appear on his face as it became languid from physical pleasure.

  The appearance of his soft, sleek body as it melted into the equally soft, sleek body of the girl and as the two became virtually indistinguishable. The way in which his swollen stomach pressed against the girl's swollen stomach. Yet, strangely enough, however vigorous my imagination became, the Superior's expressionless features were always instantly linked in my mind with the animalian expression that belongs to defecation and to sexual intercourse, and nothing ever emerged to fill the space between the two. One extreme was transformed directly into the opposite extreme, without any of the intervening rainbow-like shadings of everyday life to connect them. The only thing that provided the slightest connection was the rather vulgar rebuke that the Superior had addressed to me on that afternoon: “You little fool, are you trying to follow me?”

  After I had become exhausted from thinking and from waiting, I was finally seized by an obstinate desire: it was simply to catch a distinct look of hatred on the Superior's face. The plan that I formulated in consequence was mad, childish, and quite clearly to my disadvantage; but I was no longer able to control myself, I did not even take account of the fact that this prank of mine would merely confirm the Superior's previous misunderstanding of me when he thought that I had been following him on purpose.

  I met Kashiwagi at the university and asked him the name and address of the shop. Kashiwagi gave me the information without even enquiring about my purpose. I promptly went to the shop and examined numerous photographs of post-card size showing the famous geishas from the Gion district. At first the girls' faces with their heavy make-up all looked the same, but after a while a variety of tones began to emerge vividly from the pictures. Through the identical masks of powder and rouge I could now distinguish the delicate shades of their respective natures-gloominess or brightness, nimble wits or beautiful dullness, ill-humor or irrepressible gaiety, misfortune or luck. Finally I came on the picture for which I was searehing. Owing to the bright electric light in the shop, the reflection of the image glittered on the glossy paper and it was hard to get a good view of the photograph, but as the reflection settled down in my hands, I could see that this was indeed the face of the girl in the rust-vermilion coat.

  “I should like this one,” I said to the shopkeeper.

  My peculiar boldness at this time corresponded precisely to the fact that, since I had embarked on this plan of mine, I had changed completely and become light-hearted and full of an inexplicable joy. My original idea had been to choose a time when the Superior was away and thus to conceal from him who had done the deed; but my new spirited mood now led me to carry out the plan boldly in such a way that there would be no mistaking my responsibility.

  It was still my duty to deliver the morning newspaper to the Superior's room. One morning in March, when the air was still chilly, I went as usual to the entrance of the temple to fetch the paper. My heart was pounding as I extracted the photograph of the Gion geisha from my pocket and inserted it into the newspaper.

  The morning sun shone down on the sago palm that grew in the center of the courtyard surrounded by a circular hedge. The rough bark of the palm's trunk was vividly shaded off in the sunlight. On the left was a small lime tree. A few belated finches on the branches made a soft chirping that sounded like the rubbing of rosary beads. It seemed strange that there should still be finches at that time of the year, but that minute expanse of yellow down, which I could see by the rays of the sun that pierced through the branches, could belong to no other type of bird. The white pebbles lay peacefully on the courtyard.

  I made my way carefully along the corridor so as not to wet my feet in the puddles that remained here and there from the recent mopping. The door of the Superior's office in the Great Library was firmly closed. It was still so early in the morning that the whiteness of the paper sliding-door shone brightly.

  I knelt down outside in the corridor and said as usual: “May I enter, Father?” At the word of acknowledgment from the Superior, I pushed open the sliding-door, entered the room and placed the lightly folded newspaper on a corner of the desk. The Superior was busy with a book and did not look into my eyes. I retired from his presence, closed the door, and walked slowly along the corridor back to my room, making a special effort to remain calm.

  When I reached my room, I sat down and gave myself over entirely to my throbbing excitement until the time came for me to leave for the university. Never had I looked forward to anything in my life with such anticipation. Though I had made my plan with the expectation of arousing the Superior's anger, the scene that I now envisaged was filled only with the dramatic passion of the moment when two human beings come to understand each other.

  Perhaps the Superior would suddenly burst into my room and forgive me. And if he forgave me, perhaps for the first time in my life I should reach that pure, bright state of
feeling in which Tsurukawa had always lived. The Superior and I would embrace each other, and all that would remain thereafter would be our regret that we had not arrived sooner at a mutual understanding.

  This dream did not last long, but it seems quite inexplicable that even for a short time I should have given myself over to such idiotic fancies. When I thought about it calmly, I realized that, while I had been incurring the Superior's anger by this act of utter folly, thus removing my name from the list of possible candidates for succession, and thus, in turn, myself paving the way for a situation in which I could never possibly hope to become the master of the Golden Temple—during all this time I had been so absorbed with my immediate objective that I had actually forgotten my lifelong devotion to the Golden Temple itself.

  My attention was concentrated on listening for any sound that might come from the Superior's room in the Great Library. I could hear nothing.

  Now I began to wait for the Superior's violent rage, for the thunderous shout that he would roar out. I felt that there would be no regrets on my part even if I were assaulted, kicked onto the floor, and made to shed blood. But there was complete silence in the direction of the Great Library; not a sound approached me as I sat waiting in my room.

  When finally the time came for me to leave the temple and set out for the university, my heart was utterly worn out and desolate. I was unable to concentrate on the lecture and, when the instructor asked me a question, I gave a completely inappropriate answer. Everyone laughed at me. I glanced at Kashiwagi and saw that he alone was indifferent to all this and was gazing out of the window. He was undoubtedly aware of the drama that was taking place within me.

  When I returned to the temple, nothing had changed. The dark, musty eternity of the temple life was so well established that there could be no possible discrepancy between one day and the next.

  Lectures on the Zen canon were held twice a month and this happened to be one of the days. Everyone in the temple congregated in the Superior's quarters to hear him deliver his lecture. It occurred to me that he might well use his talk on the Mutnonkan scriptures as a pretext to censurc me in front of all the others. I had a special reason for believing this. From the fact of my sitting directly opposite the Superior at his lecture that evening, I felt that I was inspired by an exceedingly incongruous type of manly courage. It seemed to me that the Superior would respond to this by himself displaying a manly virtue: he would break through all hyprocrisy and confess his deed before everyone in the temple and, having done this, would censure me for my own shabby action.

  The inmates of the temple all foregathered under the dim electric light with copies of the Mumonkan text in their hands. It was a cold night, but the only form of heating was a small brazier placed next to the Superior. I could hear people sniffing. They sat there, young and old, with the shadows making gradations of light on their bent-down faces; and there was something ineffably powerless about their expressions. The new apprentice, who worked as a primary-school teacher during the daytime, was a near-sighted young man and his spectacles kept on slipping down the bridge of his meager nose.

  I alone was conscious of power in my body. At least that is what I imagined. The Superior opened his text and looked round at us all. I followed his gaze. I wanted him to see that I was most certainly not casting down my eyes. But when his eyes, surrounded by their fleshy wrinkles, came to me, they showed not the slightest interest and moved on to the next person.

  The lecture started. I was only waiting for the moment when suddenly it would be turned to my problem. I listened intently. The Superior's high-pitched voice droned on. Not a sound came from his inner feeling.

  I could not sleep that night. As I lay awake, I was filled with scorn for the Superior and with a desire to make fun of him for his hypocrisy. Gradually, however, a sense of regret awoke within me and began to modify my arrogant feelings. My scorn for the Superior's hypocrisy became connected in a strange way with the gradual weakening of my spirit, and finally I came to the point of thinking that, inasmuch as I now realized what a nonentity the Superior really was, my asking his forgiveness would in no way represent a defeat. My heart, having climbed to the top of a steep slope, was now swiftly running downhill.

  I decided that I would go and make my apologies on the following morning. When the morning came, I decided that I would apologize some time during the course of the day. I noticed that the Superior's expression had not changed in the slightest.

  It was a windy day. On my return from the university, I happened to open my drawer. I saw something wrapped in white paper. It was the photograph. Not a word was written on the paper. Evidently the Superior had intended to make an end of the matter by this method. He did not mean to overlook my action entirely, but to let me realize its futility. The curious way in which he had returned the photograph, however, brought a host of images flocking into my mind.

  “So the Superior has been suffering also!” I thought. "He must have gone through the most extraordinary anguish before hitting on this method. Now he must surely hate me. It is probably not because of the photograph itself that he hates me, but because I have made him behave in such an ignoble way. As a result of this single photograph, he has been made to feel that he must behave surreptitiously in his own temple. He had to walk stealthily along the corridor while no one else was about, then he had to enter the room of one of his apprentices where he had never set foot before and had to open the drawer exactly as if he were committing some crime. Yes, now he has ample reason to hate me."

  At these thoughts an indescribable joy flooded through me. Then I set myself to a pleasant task. I took a pair of scissors and cut the photograph into little pieces. Then I wrapped it securely in a strong sheet of paper from my notebook and, grasping it firmly in my hand, walked to a place next to the Golden Temple. The temple, filled with its usual gloomy equilibrium, towered into the windy, moonlit sky. The slender pillars stood close together; as the moon shone down on them, they looked like harpstrings and the temple itself looked like some huge, peculiar musical instrument. This particular impression depended on the height of the moon. Tonight there was no mistaking it. Yet the wind blew vainly through the spaces between those soundless harp-strings.

  I picked up a stone, wrapped it in the paper and pressed the package tightly together. Then the tiny fragments of the girl's face, weighed down by the stone, sank into the center of the Kyoko Pond. The ripples spread out freely and soon reached the edge of the water where I was standing.

  My sudden flight from the temple in November of that year came as an accumulation of all these things. When I thought about it later, I realized that this flight of mine, which seemed so sudden, had in fact been preceded by considerable reflection and hesitation. I preferred, however, to believe that I had been driven by some abrupt impulse. Since I was essentially lacking in anything impulsive, I was addicted to a form of spurious impulsiveness. In the case of a man who, for example, has been planning to visit his father's grave on the following day, but who, when the day comes and he finds himself in front of the station, suddenly changes his mind and decides to go and visit a drinking-companion of his, can one say that this shows any genuine impulsiveness ？ Is not his sudden change of mind a sort of revenge that he taxes on his own will? Is it not, in fact, something more conscious than his long-standing preparations to visit the grave?

  The immediate motive for my flight lay in what the Superior had clearly revealed to me on the previous day: “There was a time when I planned to make you my successor here. But I can now tell you quite plainly that I have no such intention.”

  This was the first time that I had heard anything of the sort from him, but I should really have been expecting and preparing for the announcement. I cannot pretend that it came to me as a bolt from the blue or that I was dumbfounded and panic-stricken. Even so, I like to believe that my flight was detonated by the Superior's words and caused by a sudden impulse.

  After I had made sure of the Superior's
anger by means of my trick with the photograph, I started to neglect my studies at the university. This was quite obvious. In my preparatory year's course, I had the best results in Chinese and History, scored eighty-four marks in those two courses and a total of seven hundred and forty-eight marks, thus ranking twenty-fourth in a class of eighty-four students. Out of four hundred and sixty-four hours I was absent for only fourteen. In my second year I made a total of only six hundred and ninety-three marks and sank to the rank of thirty-fitth out of seventy-seven students. It was in my third year, however, that I really began to neglect my studies—not because I had any money to waste my time with, but simply from the joy of being idle. And it so happened that the first term of the third year started just after the photograph incident.

  When the first term finished, the university sent a report to the temple and I was reprimanded by the Superior. The reason for this reprimand was that my marks were poor and that I had been absent for so many hours, but what particularly irked the Superior was that I had missed the special classes in Zen practice, which were only held for three days during the term. These classes in Zen practice were held for three days before the beginning of the summer, winter, and spring holidays—nine days in all during the year—and were conducted in the same form as those given in the various specialized seminaries.