Chapter 7 Teachers

Teachers (sensei)

Both you and me,

our lifetimes are as momentary as the dew.

Recognize that life is precious.

Do not waste it.

We talked this way until sunrise.

My grandmother was my first sensei. O-bā-san, as I called her, taught me from my earliest days the proper way for a young lady to behave. When I was a toddler, if I sat with my legs sticking straight out, Grandmother would remind me to sit with my legs folded under. I could not sit this way for long so she corrected me gently but frequently. She loved sewing and made many kimono for me. She also made little rice-filled balls stitched together from petal shapes cut from her own baby clothes. I always remember her sewing. She used to like taking me along with her when she went to Senso-ji, the Kannon temple in Asakusa, or visiting her friends. She did everything tadashiku, very properly. For example, she always put on new underwear when she went out “in case something happened,” that is, in case she was hospitalized. She was a very caring person. She loved looking after others and helped many people, such as the students at Teikoku University in Tōkyō. Many of them rose to high positions in society. Later they turned around and invited her for meals and asked for her advice.

O-bā-san advised me to study traditional aspects of culture, not to become a teacher but as pastimes. It was the thing to do in those days. In addition to shamisen, ikebana and shodō, I also studied buyo, traditional dance. I did not study long because the war started and we were not allowed to do those things, to play around, since there was a war on, no money, no food, people dying.

Oishi Takako was my first calligraphy teacher. She taught me from the time I entered secondary school until I married, two years after graduation. After that came the war and then I was looking after my children. Ten years passed. Then I began studying with the same teacher for another ten years. Finally, I received my shodō license. Now I have been teaching shodō myself for over fifty years.

Oishi-san’s teacher, Onoue Saishu, was good friends with my grandfather’s brothers. Because of this connection, I came to meet my teacher. Oishi-san studied traditional-style hiragana, Heiangana, which is about 1,300 years old, with her sensei. I studied Heiangana with Oishi-san and now I am teaching this traditional style to my students. It is also called sōsho, “grass hand,” a cursive style of calligraphy which abbreviates and links the characters to create a flowing, graceful effect.

Oishi-san was very strict. She taught me how to properly care for the calligraphy tools: fude, brush, sumi, ink, and washi, paper. She had an extremely busy teaching schedule. As soon as she finished one class, she had to move on to another. She taught in a cultural school as well as giving private lessons. Her private lessons were rather expensive but very good. She had a waiting room outside the classroom where people would line up for their lessons. It must have been hard for her teaching so many people individually. She also taught private group lessons. I attended individual lessons because I wanted to become good at calligraphy. We had a long connection, over seventy years. She died about three years ago, in 2002.

Hirayama-sensei, my tea ceremony teacher, lived in Ōsaka when I was living in Nara. She taught me the essential techniques of sadō. I was in my forties when I began studying the way of tea with this sensei, who was in her seventies, so there was a difference of thirty years between us. Now I myself am an old lady. Her legs were bad, like mine now, and sometimes she could not kneel in seiza position. She often took me to tea ceremonies in Kyōto.

Matsumoto Jitsudo was the chōrō, head priest, at both Saidai-ji and Hozan-ji in Nara. He had a very gentle face and spoke very calmly and quietly. He was dedicated to renovating dilapidated temples in the Nara area and was well known for this work. His motto was, “Be strict on yourself but be kind to others.” Another saying was, “Humans cannot live alone, they need other people, so we must give thanks to everyone around us.” Those were some of the guiding principles he taught me. I went on in my life to try to live up to his teachings.

I first met Matsumoto-san after I moved from Tōkyō to Nara. One day I went to pray at Hozan-ji. At that time there was a tea ceremony room in the temple where you could go to drink some tea after praying. A man was setting up the room for a tea ceremony. Ito-san was not a sensei but he knew about the equipment. I said I was coming to Hozan-ji for the first time to pray, having recently moved to Nara from Tōkyō. Ito-san offered to introduce me to Matsumoto-san. It was not usually easy to meet the chōrō. I do not know why Ito-san offered to do this. Perhaps it was because I had come all the way from Tōkyō or perhaps he thought I was a true believer. It must have been my destiny on the Buddhist path. My first impression of Matsumoto-san was that he was really kind-hearted. Sometimes he would perform the tea ceremony after prayers. We would talk and I learned the real heart of sadō from him.

          Matsumoto-san was also very good at shodō. He wrote a single kanji (from kan “Chinese” + ji “letter, character”) for me, wa (peace), which is still one of my greatest treasures. I met with this chōrō when I would go to pray at these two temples. I felt he gradually came to understand my Buddhist beliefs and we became friends. He came three times to see my shodō exhibitions when they were held in Tōkyō. Each year, in order to help my Cultural Academy, he donated three kakijiku, shodō scrolls, to be sold. I was very grateful because not only I but also my students could benefit from his art and wisdom. Everything he talked about was so wonderful.

When he was around ninety, he fell sick and retired as chōrō of Saidai-ji and Hozan-ji. He moved to a smaller temple where he was cared for by a family living at the temple. I went to visit him. When I saw him I felt as if he had given up being an elite priest and just seemed like a nice old man. I thought that was a good thing, because when you are chōrō you have to shoulder a lot of responsibilities and you are very busy but now he had none of those concerns. There was a little child near him in the room calling out, “O-jī-chan, O-jī-chan!” He seemed so happy now, a grandfather enjoying the comforts of a simple life. Three months later he died.

When I was about thirty-five, I met Komatsu Chiko, who was niso, head nun,

 of Jakko-in in Kyōto. When we met the first time, I felt a strong connection. I felt that something inside me, my inner feeling, could be understood by her. I felt that this woman could sense my belief in the one truth just in one meeting. It was miraculous.

Chiko-san was very busy. She wrote Waga Omou: Budda to Heiwa e no Michi, a big book, which was translated into English as The Way to Peace: The Life and Teachings of the Buddha. It contains the prayer to Kannon-sama, which I write out every day in shodō, as a spiritual practice. She also went to Sri Lanka and founded a school there. Even though she was so busy, she would invite me to come visit her at Jakko-in in Kyōto. We would spend time talking and take lunch together. Even during the mealtime some interesting Buddhist teaching would appear. For instance, one time a butterfly landed while we were eating and Chiko-san said, “The butterfly is also a deity, because who made the butterfly? So let us pray to the butterfly.”

Jakko-in is a very peaceful place. The garden is very beautiful. I went every year to be with my religious teacher. Tragically, the temple burned to the ground a few years ago, apparently an act of arson. No one knows why. Chiko-san was deeply shocked by this incident. After that she did not invite me to come and soon after she died, in 2002.

I learned so much from these visits. One time Chiko-san opened the shojō and saw the maple leaves changing color in autumn. She said, “What beautiful momiji they are. But when those leaves first appear, they are all green, all the same color. Depending on how they get hit by the rays of the sun or the wind and rain, they get changed and that makes them beautiful. When they fall from the tree, they are all different. Humans are the same. Now when I go to hospital and see the babies in the newborn ward, I think, they are all like young momiji.”

You have to feel this way inside. My religious teacher always felt like that but it was not so easy for me. Chiko-san was so much greater because she could feel that way all the time. I have to try harder to feel the connection with the universe. It seemed so easy for her. These conversations with her were like that, so good.