THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN
STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE (AICHI) [[10]]
CHAPTER I
THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of Feelings.—Havelock Ellis.
One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he answered, "I am."
We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing, Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[ [11]] "Contrary to the principles of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the way of improvement.
The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (Bimbogami). He said that the Spirit visited a man when he became rich—in order to bring curios to him; and again when he became poor—in order to take them away from him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him again.
Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition. People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad influences of civilisation.
Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young people—formerly young men used to visit the factory girls—but it was rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.