Kanji Press

Some years ago, after receiving the tonsure, I¹ visited various famous temples. About the beginning of the tenth month, I finally arrived at the Hasedera Temple.² At the sunset I heard the evening bell sounding so lonely and saw the lonesome sight of autumn leaves blown by the wind.

After reciting a sutra at the Kannon Hall of the temple, I looked around and saw a nun quietly praying near me while fingering her rosary beads. Moved by the sight, I recited a poem,

Hearing my poem, the nun saw me and caught my sleeve asking, “Oh, how are you?” It was my former wife with whom I was once very intimate.³ I was surprised and asked her, “Why have you received the tonsure?” At first she was too tearful to speak, but after a while, she began to tell her story.

“Since you left me after you received the tonsure, I didn’t know what to do and began to wander around from one place to another. The sound of evening bells made me feel tearful, while the sound of the birds at dawn deepened my loneliness. As my sadness about life increased and became intolerable, I finally cut my hair and became a nun about the third month of last year.⁴

“Since leaving my daughter with her aunt,⁵ I have been living in Amano village on Mount Kōya.⁶

“You left me and so I would have vainly held a grudge against you if you had associated with another woman. But I see you seem to be pursuing the Way, so now I feel no grudge against you. On the contrary, I am grateful that you gave me a chance to enter the Way. When I was separated from you, I wished to see you on the Pure Land after our death, but now unexpectedly seeing you here like this is like a dream.” While she spoke, the nun could not stop her tears.

At this, I was likewise overwhelmed to learn she had received the tonsure and I wept to learn that she bore no grudge against me. However, unable to remain there any longer, I instructed her about some teachings from a sutra, and then left, promising to visit her at her home.

When I had been living with her, I believed she was a wise person but never thought she was like this. A woman usually holds a grudge about some trifling matter when things do not turn out well for her. She is constantly annoyed by unbearable feelings rising one after another, and in this way she spends her life in a futile way.

On the contrary, my wife turned the sadness caused by separation from her husband to an opportunity of entering into the Way; she even had left her cherished daughter behind. Wasn’t this something most noble of her to do?

Although, embarrassed and ashamed of this story,⁷ I could not resist writing it down ignoring anyone who might criticize me.