Kouya Hijiri: CHAPTER １

"… Then I pulled out the map again, from my bag". Said the monk, "The road I was on was so remote that I wanted to check it against a map. The burning sun was so strong I had to shade the map against the glare with my wooden hat, like this." He put his fist to his brow.

"I was on the way from Hida (Gifu) to Shinshu (Nagano) , walking along a trail in the deep mountains, isolated from everything. It was around noon, and it was a hot day. There wasn't even a big tree in whose shade I could rest. All I could see, wherever I looked, were the deep mountains, hiding birds and even clouds with their vastness. Except for myself, there wasn't a living thing in sight."

And so the monk began to tell his story to me.

We were sleeping in the same room in an inn at Tsuruga (Hukui). The monk laid down on his bed, with his face in his pillow. The whole time he spoke, he would never raise his head. He only looked down, reaching into his memories of the past.

We had met each other on a train from Kakegawa in Shizuoka. I took no notice of him at first, as he sat quietly in a corner of his seat with his head down. At Nagoya all the passengers left the train except for myself this monk. This train left Shinbashi in Tokyo at nine thirty last night, and when we arrived at Nagoya at noon. We went to Nagoya station and bought the same lunch boxes, bento boxes. When I opened mine and saw the simple food inside I complained out loud "Its only a lot of cheap vegetables." The monk laughed when he heard me. This opened the way for us and we began to talk. The monk told me he was going to visit his fellow monk in Eiheiji temple in Kyoto after first spending the night in Tsuruga, where we found ourselves now. I was on my home to Wakasa, so we decided to travel together.

He was from Mt Kouya. He was a mild, ordinary man, about forty years old or so. He was dressed warmly in an overcoat with a muffler, a Turkish style hat, wool gloves, white tabi socks and Geta. He looked rather more like a master Haiku poet than a monk. It was only much later that I came to learn that this unimpressive looking person was in fact a famous priest, Shucho of Rikumin-ji Temple, well known from the wisdom of his preaching.

"Where will you be staying in Tsuruga?" he asked me.

"Its so uninteresting to stay at an inn alone, " I complained, "The maids doze on duty. Servants give you hollow, obsequious compliments. One of the worst things is they always turn the lights out as soon as we finish dinner, as though the day were over. I can never sleep until late at night, and I can't stand being packed off to bed so early like a little child. I'd rather stay together with you, if you don't mind."

The monk kindly agreed to my suggestion. He told me "I usually stay at an inn called Katori-ya whenever I'm in Tsuruga. They closed down the inn after the master's daughter died, but they still welcome their former guests and take good care of them. If you don't mind, we can stay there."

Then he finished his lunch box and laughed heartily. "It really is just a bunch of cheap vegetables!" He was more cheerful then he seemed.