Temple Of Dawn (19 page)

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Authors: Yukio Mishima

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Contrary to this, Mahayana Buddhism, especially the Yuishiki school, interpreted the world as a torrential and swift rapids or a great white cascade which never pauses. Since the world presented the form of a waterfall, both the basic cause of that world and the basis of man’s perception of it were waterfalls. It is a world that lives and dies at every moment. There is no definite proof of existence in either past or future, and only the present instant which one can touch with one’s hand and see with one’s eyes is real. Such a world concept is unique to Mahayana Buddhism; reality exists in the present only, there being no past or future.
But why should this be called “reality”?
If we can recognize a narcissus by seeing it with our eyes and touching it with our hands, at least the narcissus and its immediate environment exist at the moment of touching and seeing.
That much is confirmable.
But then, if we are asleep and if a narcissus is placed in a vase by our pillow during the night, can we prove the existence of the flower at every moment during our sleep?
Thus, if our eyes are gouged out, our ears, nose, and tongue cut off, if we depart our body and our consciousness is extinguished, does the world of the narcissus and its environment continue to exist?
But the world
must
exist!
The seventh consciousness,
manas
, may affirm or deny the world, depending on its attachment to self. Honda could say that since there was a self, that as long as that self continued to perceive, even after the loss of all five senses, there existed about him his fountain pen, vase, ink bottle, red glass pitcher and on it the white cross of the window frame forming a smooth curve reflecting the morning light, his copy of the
Compendium of Laws
, paperweight, desk, wall panel, framed pictures—his world which was a carefully arranged extension of these small objects. Or he might say that as long as self-consciousness (the self) existed and perceived, the world was nothing more than a phenomenal shadow, a reflection of the ego’s perceptions; the world was nothing and therefore nonexistent. Thus the ego would with arrogance and pride try to treat the world as its own, like a beautiful ball to kick about.
But the world
must
exist!
Yet in order for it to do so, there must be a consciousness that will produce it, make it exist, make the narcissus be, that will guarantee the existence of these things at every moment. This is the
alaya
consciousness, as constant as the North Star, which is awake at every moment during the long dark nights, making such nights exist in fact, incessantly guaranteeing reality and existence.
But the world
must
exist!
Even if all consciousnesses to the seventh should claim that the world were nonexistent, or even though the five senses were completely destroyed and death occurred, the world would exist as long as there was
alaya.
Everything exists through
alaya
, and since it does, all things are. But what if
alaya
were extinguished?
But the world
must
exist!
Therefore,
alaya
consciousness is never extinguished. As in a cascade, the water of every moment is different, yet the stream flows in torrential and constant movement.
Thus,
alaya
consciousness flows eternally in order to make the world exist.
For the world
must
at all costs exist!
But why?
Because only by the existence of the world—world of illusion—is man given the chance of enlightenment.
That the world must exist is thus the ultimate moral requisite. This is the supreme answer of the
alaya
consciousness as to why the world must be.
If the existence of the world—the world of illusion—is the ultimate moral requisite,
alaya
consciousness itself, which produces all phenomena, is the origin of that moral requisite. But the world and
alaya
consciousness, or
alaya
and the world of illusion that gives birth to phenomena must be said to be interdependent. For if
alaya
does not exist, the world does not come into being; but if the world is not,
alaya
is deprived of samsara and reincarnation in which
alaya
itself is the migrating essence, and the way to enlightenment will be forever closed.
Thus it is through this highest moral requisite that
alaya
and the world are mutually dependent; the existence of the
alaya
consciousness depends on the very necessity that the world exist.
Yet only the immediate present is reality, and if the ultimate authority that guarantees momentary existence is
alaya
, that
alaya
that brings about all worldly phenomena exists at the point where time and space intersect.
Honda was able to grasp, albeit with difficulty, that here was born the unique Yuishiki theory of cause and effect being at once simultaneous and alternate.
Now for Buddhist theory to be authentic, there must be textual proof that it is part of the teaching of Gautama Buddha, and the Yuishiki school found just that in the following
gatha
, the most difficult in Mahayana Abhidharma sutras.
All dharma are stored in consciousness,
And consciousness is stored in all dharma.
The two become mutual causes
And always mutual results.
Honda interpreted this passage as meaning that according to the law of continuous cause and effect characteristic of the
alaya
consciousness, the world observed at the momentary section of the present might be described as being sliced like a cucumber into momentary slices of present that are observable one after the other.
The world is born and dies at every instant, and on each momentary cross section appear three forms of endless births and deaths. One is “seeds producing the present world,” then “the present world ‘perfuming’ the seeds,” and last, “seeds producing seeds.” The first is the form in which the seed causes the present world to materialize, and naturally it includes momentum from the past. There is a trail from the past. The second shows the present world being “perfumed” by
alaya
seeds and becoming future phenomena. Naturally uneasiness over the future casts its shadow. But this does not mean that all seeds are “perfumed” by the present and produce present phenomena. Some seeds, even though being tainted, are merely succeeded by other seeds. These are the third kind of seed. And their causes and effects alone do not occur simultaneously, but follow a time sequence.
The world manifests itself through these three forms, and everything occurs in an instantaneous present.
But the first and second seeds are born anew simultaneously, influence each other, and perish in the same instant. The momentary cross sections, inherited only by these seeds, are discarded as the seeds move from section to section. The structure of the human world is formed of thin slices of instants, infinite in number, pierced through by the skewer of the seeds of the
alaya
consciousness. And the thin slices representing so many instants are both pierced and discarded in each minute segment of time.
Samsara and reincarnation are not prepared during a lifetime, beginning only at death, but rather they renew the world at every instant by momentary re-creation and destruction.
Thus the seeds cause this gigantic flower of delusion called the world to bloom at every point in time, abandoning it at the same instant. But the succession of seeds producing seeds demands the help of karma seeds, as we have said. These karma seeds come from the “perfuming” of the momentary present.
The true meaning of Yuishiki is that the whole of the world manifests itself now in this very instant. Yet this instantaneous world already dies in the same moment and simultaneously a new one appears. The world which appears one moment is transformed in the following and thus continues on. Everything in the entire world is
alaya
consciousness.
20
 
 W
HEN HONDA’S THINKING
had evolved this far, everything around him took on an unanticipated appearance.
This particular day, he happened to have been invited to a villa in Shoto in the Shibuya district concerning a prolonged lawsuit and was waiting in the second-floor reception room. No lodgings were available, and when the plaintiff came up to Tokyo on matters of litigation, he stayed at the house of some wealthy man from his home region. The owner had long since left Tokyo for Karuizawa to avoid the bombings.
The administrative suit was being conducted with a leisureliness that stood above time. It had, in fact, been initiated by a law promulgated in 1899, and the origin of the dispute itself went back to post-Restoration days several decades earlier. The accused in this case was the government, and even the defendant’s title had changed from Minister of Agriculture and Commerce to that of Agriculture and Forestry with the reorganization of the cabinet. Lawyers representing the plaintiff covered several generations, and now, if Honda, who had been entrusted with the case, won, according to the original agreement one third of the entire land accruing to the plaintiff would be his remuneration. However, he did not expect that the litigation would be over in his lifetime.
Thus he came to the Shibuya villa only to pass the time, using the work as a pretext. In reality he came in anticipation of the polished rice and chicken that his client usually brought as a gift from the country.
The client, who should have long since arrived, was not there yet. He was no doubt having difficulty with the trains.
The June afternoon was too warm for his civilian uniform and gaiters, so Honda opened the tall, oblong English window and stood by it to catch some air. Having had no military experience, he could not to this day manage his gaiters properly, and they tended to slip off his legs and to bunch around his calves, giving him the sensation of dragging a pilgrim’s bag around his legs when he walked. His wife Rié always feared that the loose gaiters might get caught in the crowded streetcars and trip him.
Perspiration seeped through the lumpy areas of the gaiters today. The vulgarly shiny summer uniform, made of some staple fiber, retained every crease, and Honda knew that the back of his jacket must be puckered into ugly wrinkles from sitting. But it was no use straightening it.
From the window, he could see all the way to the Shibuya Station area bathed in June light. The residential parts of the immediate vicinity had survived relatively intact, but the area from the foot of the plateau up to the station was freshly bombed ruins spotted with half-destroyed concrete buildings. The air raids that had razed the area had occurred only the week before, on the nights of May twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, 1945, during which a total of five hundred B-29s had fire-bombed various residential parts of Tokyo. The odor of the conflagration still remained, and the memory of the hellish scene still lingered in the light of day.
The odor, like that of a crematorium, was mixed with more ordinary smells such as those from kitchens or bonfires, commingling with the pungent tang of chemicals as in a pharmaceutical factory or machinery. The smell of burntout ruins was already familiar to Honda. Fortunately his house in Hongo had not yet been touched.
In the continuous metallic whine of bombs drilling through the night sky above, followed by a series of explosions and the release of fire bombs, he could always hear something inhuman, something like the voices of women cheering somewhere in the sky. Honda realized later that these were the cries of the damned.
In the burnt-out ruins, the debris had turned rusty, and the crushed roofs had remained untouched. Pillars of various heights stood everywhere like blackened pickets, and ashes crumbled from them to dance in the faint breeze.
Here and there something glittered brightly—for the most part, the remains of shattered panes of glass, glass surfaces burned and warped, pieces of broken bottles that reflected the sun. These little fragments harvested all the June light they could gather to them. Honda beheld for the first time the brilliance of the rubble.

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