[014/100] Konjaku Monogatari

What Do You See?

Konjaku Monogatari, Kawade Shobo Shinsha

Analogy

Konjaku Monogatari (ca. 1120) is Japan’s largest collection of setsuwa (anecdotal literature), spanning 31 volumes that trace the origins of Buddhism from the birth of Shakyamuni through its propagation across India, China, and Japan. The collection comprises 1,000 short tales, each beginning with the phrase “At a time now past.” They recount, with an air of plausibility, what seem like rumors: “In truth, long ago, a certain monk, a wife, or a son is said to have encountered such an experience.” One might call them “sewamono” (domestic dramas) cast in the mold of Buddhist parables.

For instance, in the tale of “Dreaming of One’s Wife at Fuwa-no-seki,” a husband traveling away from home and his wife back at the residence share the same dream. In this dream, the wife commits adultery with a youth while the husband watches through a hole in the wall. At the end of the story, the following sentence is added, almost as an afterthought: “Therefore, when one is on a journey, no matter how much you may pine for your wife and children, you must not succumb to such anxieties. It is said that dreams are solely the result of exhaustion within the five viscera and six entrails.”

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The essence of the story lies elsewhere. Yet, it may have been through these thousand short stories that Buddhism spread so rapidly among the common people.

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Absolute Space

At times, the same phenomenon occurs simultaneously for different people. About two years after my mother passed away, my father, my sister, and I all dreamed of her. What kind of dream it was, I forgot instantly. On another occasion, after parting ways with a friend, we both suddenly felt a sharp pain in our left legs. The pain vanished shortly thereafter. Perhaps the value lies not in the meaning of the dream or the pain, but in the synchronicity itself.

I visited the Kyoto Imperial Palace. The moment I stepped into the Oike-niwa Garden, I was overwhelmed by its landscape beauty. The arrangement and condition were perfect — the stony shore (suhama) lay still, the moss was soft and plush, and the pine needles appeared translucent. The mind comes to a halt, filled only by the garden. Rain was falling, and the plum blossoms were in full bloom.

The Oike-niwa is the ultimate Japanese garden, a culmination of immense wealth and supreme craftsmanship. All other gardens are modeled after it. Great industrialists of the Meiji era also created magnificent gardens: Adachi Zenko, who amassed a fortune in textiles, founded the Adachi Museum of Art, and Hara Sankei, a raw silk merchant, landscaped Sankeien Garden.

In my neighborhood, there is a plum grove and a cherry blossom park. When I view them through the “spectacles of the Imperial Palace,” I realize that the essence of the Oike-niwa resides within every garden.