Spirit World
Shinto Fumetsu no oka - Home for Yokai, Meditation, Tea House, Duchess Island (108, 14, 3751) - Moderate
APPROPRIATE MUSIC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dx6erm_ctU
Stories are like human forms -- they are born, they live, they vanish, and they are reborn once again. Once told no one knows where they may go. So too humankind. Perhaps we will meet in The Pure Land, and perhaps we will not. What comes, goes. What goes, comes back.
THE OLD MAN, THE GRAVEYARD, AND THE BUTTERFLY
Once upon a time there stood a small house outside a little cemetery where an old man named Takahama lived. Because of his friendly nature all his neighbors loved him. It would have been expected that he would have marry and had posterity, but Takahama lived alone in that house from the time he was a young man. For twenty years now for he refused to have any relationships with a woman.
As happens after many years, one summer Takahama-san grew deathly ill. He realized that the yamamichi (mountain path) -- his life -- was almost at its end. He sent for his sister -- a widow and her son, who was a young man of twenty. As they tended to Takahama-san he fell asleep. A large blue butterfly flew in and settled on the dying man's pillow. Takahama’s nephew drove it away with a paper fan, but again and again it returned to the same spot on the pillow. Again and again Takahama’s nephew drove the butterfly away. Again and again the blue butterfly returned. Growing angry the young man drove the butterfly through the garden until it flittered through the open gates of the cemetery near the temple and besides Takahama's small home. It rested on a stone and then vanished.
Takahama-san's nephew, searching for the butterfly, gazed on the tombstone where he had lost sight of the butterfly. The stone bore the name, carved into the stone, “Akiko.” Below was inscribed characters that revealed this person was 18 years old when she had died -- twenty years earlier. He noted that, though she had died long ago her gravestone was well maintained. In front there were flowers and a recently-filled vessel containing water.
The young man returned to Takahama’s home and inquired about his uncle, but his mother just cried. While in the cemetery his uncle had died. "As he returned to dust, son, a smile crossed his face. It was unfortunate you were absent." Her son told her that he would honor his uncle, and mentioned that in the cemetery he had found a well-tended grave. "We can see he is honored in death, mother, much as this person -- Akiko -- has been
She took at her son. "Akiko?" she cried. "It must be that same Akiko!"
“But who is Akiko?” he asked her.
“When your uncle was young he was betrothed to a charming girl named Akiko, the daughter of one of our neighbors. But she died a very painful death shortly before they were to be married. After she was buried your uncle swore never to marry -- or even look at another women. It was then that he built this small house close to the cemetery so he could always be near her grave. All this happened some twenty years ago -- and every day for all these years your uncle visited the cemetery and prayed at her grave.
"I think that Akiko finally came for him, her soul in the form of a big blue butterfly.
Spirit World
Shinto Fumetsu no oka - Home for Yokai, Meditation, Tea House, Duchess Island (108, 14, 3751) - Moderate
APPROPRIATE MUSIC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dx6erm_ctU
Stories are like human forms -- they are born, they live, they vanish, and they are reborn once again. Once told no one knows where they may go. So too humankind. Perhaps we will meet in The Pure Land, and perhaps we will not. What comes, goes. What goes, comes back.
THE OLD MAN, THE GRAVEYARD, AND THE BUTTERFLY
Once upon a time there stood a small house outside a little cemetery where an old man named Takahama lived. Because of his friendly nature all his neighbors loved him. It would have been expected that he would have marry and had posterity, but Takahama lived alone in that house from the time he was a young man. For twenty years now for he refused to have any relationships with a woman.
As happens after many years, one summer Takahama-san grew deathly ill. He realized that the yamamichi (mountain path) -- his life -- was almost at its end. He sent for his sister -- a widow and her son, who was a young man of twenty. As they tended to Takahama-san he fell asleep. A large blue butterfly flew in and settled on the dying man's pillow. Takahama’s nephew drove it away with a paper fan, but again and again it returned to the same spot on the pillow. Again and again Takahama’s nephew drove the butterfly away. Again and again the blue butterfly returned. Growing angry the young man drove the butterfly through the garden until it flittered through the open gates of the cemetery near the temple and besides Takahama's small home. It rested on a stone and then vanished.
Takahama-san's nephew, searching for the butterfly, gazed on the tombstone where he had lost sight of the butterfly. The stone bore the name, carved into the stone, “Akiko.” Below was inscribed characters that revealed this person was 18 years old when she had died -- twenty years earlier. He noted that, though she had died long ago her gravestone was well maintained. In front there were flowers and a recently-filled vessel containing water.
The young man returned to Takahama’s home and inquired about his uncle, but his mother just cried. While in the cemetery his uncle had died. "As he returned to dust, son, a smile crossed his face. It was unfortunate you were absent." Her son told her that he would honor his uncle, and mentioned that in the cemetery he had found a well-tended grave. "We can see he is honored in death, mother, much as this person -- Akiko -- has been
She took at her son. "Akiko?" she cried. "It must be that same Akiko!"
“But who is Akiko?” he asked her.
“When your uncle was young he was betrothed to a charming girl named Akiko, the daughter of one of our neighbors. But she died a very painful death shortly before they were to be married. After she was buried your uncle swore never to marry -- or even look at another women. It was then that he built this small house close to the cemetery so he could always be near her grave. All this happened some twenty years ago -- and every day for all these years your uncle visited the cemetery and prayed at her grave.
"I think that Akiko finally came for him, her soul in the form of a big blue butterfly.