In the shadows of the trees
None challenge so wretched a pilgrim as this
To Love’s Tomb
The autumn hills
The River Katsura
Boats in the moonlight rowed by whom?
I cannot see….
But rowed by whom!
Oh, too, too painful….
Here on this withered stump of tree
Let me sit and collect my senses.
First Priest: Come on. The sun is down. We must hurry on our way. But look! that old beggar woman sitting there on a sacred stupa. We should warn her to come away.
Second Priest: Yes, of course.
First Priest: Excuse me, old lady, but don’t you know that’s a stupa there you’re sitting on? the holy image of the Buddha’s incarnation. You’d better come away and rest some other place.
Komachi: The holy image of the Buddha you say? But I saw no words or carvings on it. I took it for a tree stump only.
First Priest: “Withered stumps
Are known as pine or cherry still
On the loneliest mountain.”
Komachi: I, too, am a fallen tree.
But still the flowers of my heart
Might make some offering to the Buddha.
But this you call the Buddha’s body. Why?
First Priest: The stupa represents the body of Kongosatta Buddha, the Diamond Lord, when he assumed the temporary form of each of his manifestations.
Komachi: In what forms then is he manifested?
First Priest: In Earth and Water and Wind and Fire and Space.
Komachi: The same five elements as man. What was the difference then?
First Priest: The form was the same but not the power.
Komachi: And what is a stupa’s power?
