On the second screen of today’s Yahoo Home page, there was a news item that made people a little lonely. The headline was called “10 years of the tokusatsu monk who was beaten down by the new crown to pray for the Great Earthquake and the disaster area standing at the Ginza intersection.
Some of you who have passed by Ginza may remember him. For the past 10 years, he has been standing at the Ginza 4-Chome intersection with a straight figure, quietly reciting sutras such as “praying for world peace, health and equality of people.
I saw him on the news once in the past, something to the effect that he was born in the 1950s as a city boy in Tokyo, longed to be a musician, and went to New York in the 1970s, where everyone in Japan wanted to go at the Time. He really started a band with dirty dreadlocks, and at the same time, he worked as a furniture worker and sold second-hand clothes to make a living, and lived in America for 20 years. When I reached middle age, I returned to Japan and helped my adventurer friends to do some odd jobs, such as setting up camps in Antarctic base camps and Dakar rallies, which are always fun. I am also an adventurer, I love nature, and my interests are surfing, climbing, fishing, and participating in many environmental activities.
Halfway through his 40s, he was introduced to a monk he met at a second-hand clothing store where he worked and went to Mt. The reason was not said personally, but after his death a friend recalled, “I was shocked to learn that he had become a monk, and that he wanted to do work that could save people from suffering and that had a value of living. “In August 2010, he began his Torah practice at Ginza Masa Center, which he had known well from before. “Let’s just stand for 1,000 days! ” he thought. But monastic Life also requires financial support, so he worked part-time at a yakitori restaurant making take-out bento in the morning and started standing on the street chanting only after noon. He would wear the same clothes in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and his foot pockets would get soaked with sweat in the heat of the day, and he would put on a few extra baby warmers in the winter when it was too cold.
Six months after standing at the Ginza 4-Chome intersection, the March 11 earthquake struck East Japan, and it was after that that some people saw him for the first time. He went to the disaster area at that time and witnessed a large number of bodies being hastily buried without condolences, driving around in his car and holding white chrysanthemums to pray for the souls of the dead. In today’s news report, the abbot who led him to the monastery said the sight of those remains left the still-qualified man overwhelmed with grief and fear, calling in tears and saying, “It was too much to bear. “That’s when he supposedly decided that he would console the spirits of those who died in the earthquake and would pray in the mantle until the end of his life.
He went to Tohoku once a week at first, then once a month until his death. It was not uncommon for people to come and pour out their troubles outside of chanting on street corners on weekdays. He also went to volunteer activities at a friend’s non-profit organization.
His last appearance on the Ginza street corner was on December 26, 2020. When Tokyo issued its first declaration of emergency last April, he wavered briefly, but finally chose to continue standing on the street. He was hospitalized on the first day of 2021, and after 18 days, at the age of 66, he passed away on a winter evening. In two months, the 10th anniversary of the March 11 earthquake will be celebrated in March this year, and according to his plan, he should be appearing in Tohoku to pray for the people who have died for 10 years.
Below today’s news, many people are talking about the clips of his encounter with him in Ginza, and some people met him in Tohoku and saw him in Minamisanriku and Miyako City standing still facing the rubble or the marker for the search of the remains, and bowing deeply in prayer, “looking like he was really crying inside “.
I have seen a newspaper photo from 2012, in Sendai, one year after the first anniversary of the earthquake. He was standing in the snow in his monk’s robe, facing the fierce Pacific Ocean, looking very cold, yet very unshakable. Just by looking at that back, you can understand the phrase “crying inside”. There are certainly people who put on a show in this world, but there are also people who walk sincerely, and you can tell by looking at their backs.
A monk has a monk’s job. A man who gambles his life and chants for all beings is the best monk. “So says one comment. But he always lived alone in the world and died without his Family, a word that Japanese people used to say over the years: dying alone.
Was he alone? Later, in another blog by someone who mourned him, I read a letter from a mother who said, “My daughter, who is 10 years old, goes to Ginza every week to see Master Shogun Wangetsu. We first met when she was 2 years old, and last year we finally exchanged contact information. I was still thinking about how it was fate when I heard that Master Satsuki was sick in a fight, and soon afterwards the news came that he had passed away. My daughter was overly sad and broke down in tears, shouting like crazy: absolutely not! About this master, I regret very much because I knew nothing about it, and today I saw your blog, if only I had known this and could have done something for him. I took my daughter to Ginza today to mourn, where she has also been silently crying, I said to her: life does not lie in the length, but in how much you put in, with the heart to live. “
There were many mourners who left flowers and letters on the corner of Ginza, and there was a leaf that had been plasticized with the words, “A very gentle and beautiful person who has been standing in this place. “
I felt a little lonely because on my long list of “people I want to interview” was this name: Takahide Motoyuki. I used to want to ask him what kind of troubles people in Ginza had. I can’t ask him now. Life is very unpredictable and fast, and the unpredictability of other people’s lives is something we can’t catch in time. The actual fact is that you will not want to come to a particular chicken Soup conclusion at this moment, saying that you should seize the moment to do what you want to do immediately and so on. It’s just that tonight I was really thinking: the life of a person is such a length of life, very random, but each has a way to live, with the one that is not measured by the ruler to live, with the one that only you can live, is probably the meaning of freedom. Besides, it is good to leave something for the earth.
When a person died two weeks ago, there was one less person who sincerely prayed for the world to become a better place. The weight of the earth, quietly, is a little lighter than a grain of dust. Then I would like to pray for the earth for a while today, and hope that the earth will sleep well today.
Shu Suyi: I have met this toga monk countless times in Ginza 4-chome, standing alone in the street, but you never notice how many waves are behind him. Death is always anxious to unravel countless mysteries, even if he has decided to leave his past behind before he was born. “A man gambled his life to chant sutras for all beings. “Today, think of mourning an ordinary, because of the death of the new crown, who had met countless times in passing but knew nothing about him.
@KimSeungChiAaron: I had the privilege of standing across from him six years ago, for about five minutes, I think, and felt that people around me were blowing by like the wind, and there was only the monk and me in the world. Thank you for those five minutes, and thank you to him, the practitioner of Ginza.
Recent Comments