The Pure Land (40 page)

Her son, Shinsaburo. But no longer hers. In reality, never had been. Not Guraba’s either, or Tsuru’s. How could anyone own another? This young man was living the life he had to, following his karma, as they all followed theirs.

The family group headed on up Minami Yamate to their home. Ryonan took the coin from her bowl, kissed it. For the first time since she’d taken her vows, there were tears in her eyes.

She had kept the coin, turned it now in her wrinkled hand. She would give it to Gisho, along with her few other meagre possessions. She would take nothing with her.

She had already given Gisho her tea-bowl, seen the momentary flutter of alarm in the girl’s eyes, the apprehension, the half-knowing fear of what the gift might mean.

She had said often enough she would be like the nun Eshun. When it’s my time, she said to Gisho, I’ll tell you, and I’ll go.

Eshun had reached the age of sixty, announced she was leaving the world. She had a funeral pyre built, then sat cross-legged in the middle of it, had it set alight.

As the flames rose, a monk shouted in to her, Is it hot in there?

She shouted back, What a stupid question! And she died, and burned.

When it’s my time, I’ll tell you, and I’ll go.

The look in Gisho’s eyes.

It was time.

She turned her attention once more to the scroll with her unfinished calligraphy, the tanka poem.

The great master Genshin had described the Pure Land as absolute perfection, said the way to attain its bliss was by chanting the name of Amida, the Buddha of compassion.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

Once again she loaded the tip of the brush with ink, wrote the character with a single, confident flourish.

Jodo
. Pure Land.

There.

It was done, complete.

She laid down the brush, rang the iron bell to summon Gisho, tell her.

The two headstones stood side by side, a few feet apart, in the Sakamoto Cemetery. The one on the left was taller, narrower, carved with Japanese script.
Tsuru Glover. 1850–1899
. Ryonan knew enough of English notation, its alphabet, to read the inscription on the other stone.
Thomas Blake Glover. 1838–1911
.

A visitor to the monastery had told her the year before, had read an account in the newspaper. Guraba-san, the visitor said, had been a great man, one of the founders of modern Japan. He had died in Tokyo after a long illness, been cremated, the ashes brought back to Nagasaki and buried here. The casket had been carried in procession through the town, led by his son, Tomisaburo. Many dignitaries had attended, including some who had travelled all the way from Tokyo.

Ryonan had thanked the visitor, vowed to come here and pay her last respects when the time came.

She bowed to Glover’s gravestone, asked the blessings of Amida Buddha to guide him on his continuing journey. Then
she bowed to Tsuru’s grave, wished the same for her, that she too in her turn might receive the Buddha’s blessings.

Acceptance. Forgiveness. May all sentient beings become enlightened.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

She took the rolled-up scroll from her sleeve, read once more her final tanka poem, her jisei, nodded approval at the calligraphy.

A few simple offerings had been left in front of the graves; a sake flask, a holder for sticks of incense, a handful of flowers in an earthenware jar. She placed the scroll beside them, bowed, moved on.

According to Genshin, she had read, all the pleasures and glory of the world are as nothing, a drop in the ocean, compared to the beauty and delight of the Pure Land. The Land itself is made of emerald, and in each of its precincts are millions of temples, pagodas of silver and gold. In the gardens are silver ponds, covered with lotus blossoms that sparkle in myriad colours. Birds of every description hover in the air, singing, and above them soar the sweet-voiced
Kalavinka
, winged beings with the faces of beautiful women. Crystal streams and rivers flow sparkling across the landscape, bordered by sacred trees. The trees have silver stems and golden branches and blossoms of coral and pearl. From the trees hang jewelled cords, each attached to a sacred bell, ringing out
the message of the Supreme Law. The air is filled with intoxicating fragrance, the sweetness of flowers, the richness of incense. The sky never darkens, shines with endless light, and petals eternally rain down. Sweet music constantly flows, from nameless musical instruments that play themselves, without being touched, and celestial beings endlessly sing in praise of Tathagata Buddha.

She stopped for breath halfway up the hill, near Ipponmatsu where her son might still be living. She wished him well. May he one day attain enlightenment. She carried on up the slope.

The going was hard, and she sweated in spite of the autumn cool. The old shrine at the top of the hill had fallen into disuse, lay abandoned, a ruin. A good place for her to sit and rest her old bones.

She leaned against a stone wall, sheltered, warmed a little by the late afternoon sun. From here she could see the city spread out below. Near Ipponmatsu were a few other western houses, a settlement. She looked beyond them, past the pleasure quarter, down to the harbour, Dejima Island. She had looked out at this with Guraba-san, a lifetime ago.

Things changed, did not change. Now there were the docks and the factories, the shipyards, but beyond all that, the hills across the bay, swathed in the rich red of the maple trees in their full autumn glory.

This.

Somewhere in the distance, hidden from view, was the temple where she’d lived through all these years of struggle, striving to be true to the Buddha-way.

This too.

A dream.

Carrying on the air she heard the harsh rasping cry of a cicada. Soon its day would be done, just its dried-up husk remain. Cutting across it came the cry of a shrike, piercing and melancholy, and beating across the sky came a flight of wild geese, a straggled line, rehearsing their departure.

She caught the scent of woodsmoke, and she breathed it in, bittersweet incense, sat up and focused her gaze.

Genshin had written that the power of concentration, awakened imagination, can lead directly to the Pure Land. Focus on a single lotus flower can open out to infinity, beyond all horizons. He spoke of meditation on the lotus seat in which the Buddha sits, the lotus of the heart.

Up here there were no lotuses blooming, only a scraggy chrysanthemum hugging the wall, a scatter of morning-glories.

She smiled at them and they nodded, acknowledging her gaze.

She slowed her breathing, felt it come and go of itself.

The lotus of the heart. She felt it open, petal by petal.

The jewel in the lotus.

Om
.

The city sparkled beneath her. This place. This time. The Pure Land.

One day it would all be dust again. Civilisations came and went, rose and fell. Tathagata breathed in, breathed out.

Form is emptiness.

She sat as the light began to fade and the evening grew chill. But nothing touched her. She had gone beyond it all.