Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey (48 page)

T
HAT EVENING, THE
mood at Sh
j
shinin was fraught with excitement and expectation. “Hello! Welcome back!” Furuie greeted me. For the first time, Yanagi seemed relaxed and happy. Ry
shin was coming! Ry
shin would be here tonight, and I would have the chance to meditate with him! They were ecstatic, and I wondered again what exactly was going on in the temple. I had an hour before dinner, so I took a bath. Then, since Sh
j
shinin offered free Internet access, I sat down and began to do a little digging. It didn’t take too long for me to find what I was looking for.

A decade ago, Sh
j
shinin had been in the care of a priest called Yamagishi Shungaku, who had passed away unexpectedly in 2003. On K
yasan, temples are not handed off to the eldest son but instead follow the old way in which the current head priest chooses a successor from among his disciples. Yamagishi, the old head of Sh
j
shinin, had wanted Ry
shin.

However, another priest named Kuri, who already had one temple of his own, submitted a claim asserting that
he
was the designated
heir; the paper work did not clarify how or why he came to make such a statement. In the initial settlement of this dispute, the K
yasan bureaucracy allowed Kuri to look after Sh
j
shinin for a year. Then the position was to go to Ry
shin. In the meantime, Ry
shin could keep his room at Sh
j
shinin while working a day job at the visitors’ center and also acting as a “priest for hire.” But Kuri never signed the agreement. Instead he submitted yet another document to K
yasan, asking to be paid a fee equaling the amount of $280,000 to release his claim. And here is an example of the kind of “nuance” that the Japanese prize in their communication; K
yasan responded to this claim with silence, which meant that the bureaucracy condoned Kuri’s behavior.