Buddhist short stories

As mentioned before, I have been reading some short stories in Japanese (simplified Japanese for foreign readers) in order to improve my reading ability. I recently read a couple short stories by a well-known and tragically short-lived author, Akutagawa Ryōnosuke (芥川龍之介), and enjoyed both. The first one was the “Spider’s Thread” or kumo no ito (蜘蛛の糸) while the second was called “Nose” or just hana (鼻).

As stated in the other post, the story behind the Spider’s Thread was that the Buddha dwelt in the Pure Land one morning, and came before a beautiful pond of lotuses. There, between two lotuses, the water was so clear that he could see all the way down into Hell, where a man named Kandata wallowed in a pool of blood and in darkness. The Buddha felt great pity for him, and since Kandata had once spared a spider from being stepped on, lowered a spider’s thread all the way down to rescue Kandata. Kandata grabbed the thread and started climbing up, but before long, he noticed others in Hell climbing up too. Kandata didn’t want to break the thread, so he tried to kick them off, which only made things worse, and the thread broke, causing all of them to fall back into Hell. The Buddha watches all this unfold, and at end of the text (in my simplified Japanese version) thinks to himself:*

カンダタは、自分だけ地獄からでようとしたから、また地獄に落ちてしまった。「自分一人」が大切だったから。

kandata wa jibun dake jigoku kara de yō to shitakara, mata jigoku ni ochite shimatta. “Jibun hitori” ga taisetsu datta kara.

My rough translation: Because Kandata tried to get out of Hell by himself, in the end, he fell back in. This is because he only thought of himself.

So, the lesson of course is that one cannot live for their own survival. If Kandata had let everyone climb the thread, they might have all escaped and reached the Pure Land. In other words, salvation does not depend only one one’s self. I thought that was a pretty cool story.

The other story, “Nose”, starts with a Zen monk named Zenchi who has a huge nose. His nose reaches down to his chin, and it’s hard to eat with it, so his pupil has to use a plank to hold it out of the way. Zenchi is said because people stare at his nose so much, and he feels alone because no one has a nose like him. He tries various cures, but to no avail. One day his pupil comes back from Kyoto with a cure that a doctor told him and they try it out. They soak the huge nose in hot water, and the pupil steps on it, until all this awful stuff came out. The repeat the process over and over until Zenchi’s nose is normal size. At first he’s thrilled, but then he notices that people are laughing more than before. People are now bored with Zenchi because his nose is normal or they are jealous of Zenchi’s happiness, and this makes Zenchi more miserable, so he takes his anger out on his pupil. He feels bad about this, and wishes he had his big old nose again, so one night he sleeps out in the cold, and the next morning his nose is back to its old form. Satisfied, he enjoys the autumn morning peacefully.

I like this story too in that it shows how satisfaction came more from his mind, and not from his appearance. He just needed a change in attitude.

Since Buddhism hasn’t been in the West very long, good Buddhist literature beyond self-help books or technical research, is pretty hard to come by, so it’s cool to read these kinds of things from a culture like Japan that has been molded by Buddhism more. I enjoy Miyazawa Kenji’s stories for the same reason.

Separately, I hope to post sometime soon on how Buddhism has affected the language too (more than I would have expected).

Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. No Japanese translation today. The story is too familiar to Japanese audiences, and translations take about 3x as long.

* – Full text here. The pertinent line is:

自分ばかり地獄からぬけ出そうとする、犍陀多の無慈悲な心が、そうしてその心相当な罰をうけて、元の地獄へ落ちてしまったのが、御釈迦様の御目から見ると、浅間しく思召されたのでございましょう。

One character was missing online, marked by the ※, but thanks to Robert (see comments below) for finding it!