[A Matter of Custom]
There is a nice old priest of the Zen sect,—past-master in the craft of arranging flowers, and in other arts of the ancient time,—who comes occasionally to see me. He is loved by his congregation, though he preaches against many old-fashioned beliefs, and discourages all faith in omens and dreams, and tells people to believe only in the Law of the Buddha. Priests of the Zen persuasion are seldom thus sceptical. But the scepticism of my friend is not absolute; for the last time that we met we talked of the dead, and he told me something creepy. "Stories of spirits or ghosts," he said, "I always doubt. Sometimes a danka[1] comes to tell me about having seen a ghost, or having dreamed a strange dream; but whenever I question such a person carefully, I find that the matter can be explained in a natural way.
"Only once in my life I had a queer experience which I could not easily explain. I was then in Kyūshū,—a young novice; and I was performing my gyō,—the pilgrimage that every novice has to make. One evening, while travelling through a mountain-district, I reached a little village where there was a temple of the Zen sect. I went there to ask for lodging, according to our rules; but I found that the priest had gone to attend a funeral at a village several miles away, leaving an old nun in charge of the temple. The nun said that she could not receive me during the absence of the priest, and that he would not come back for seven days.... In that part of the country, a priest was required by custom to recite the sûtras and to perform a Buddhist service, every day for seven days, in the house of a dead parishioner.... I said that I did not want any food, but only a place to sleep: moreover I pleaded that I was very tired, and at last the old nun took pity on me. She spread some quilts for me in the temple, near the altar; and I fell asleep almost as soon as I lay down. In the middle of the night—a very cold night!—I was awakened by the tapping of a mokugyo[2] and the voice of somebody chanting the Nembutsu[3], close to where I was lying. I opened my eyes; but the temple was utterly dark,—so dark that if a man had seized me by the nose I could not have seen him [hana wo tsumarété mo wakaranai]; and I wondered that anybody should be tapping the mokugyo and chanting in such darkness. But, though the sounds seemed at first to be quite near me, they were somewhat faint; and I tried to persuade myself that I must have been mistaken,—that the priest had come back and was performing a service in some other part of the temple. In spite of the tapping and chanting I fell asleep again, and slept until morning. Then, as soon as I had washed and dressed, I went to look for the old nun, and found her. After thanking her for her kindness, I ventured to remark, 'So the priest came back last night?' 'He did not,' she answered very crossly—'I told you that he would not come back for seven days more.' 'Please pardon me,' I said; Mast night I heard somebody chanting the Nembutsu, and beating the mokugyo, so I thought that the priest had come back.' 'Oh, that was not the priest!' she exclaimed; 'that was the danka.' 'Who?' I asked; for I could not understand her. 'Why,' she replied, 'the dead man, of course![4] That always happens when a parishioner dies; the hotoké comes to sound the mokugyo and to repeat the Nembutsu ...' She spoke as if she had been so long accustomed to the thing that it did not seem to her worthwhile mentioning."
[1] Danka or danké signifies the parishioner of a Buddhist temple. Those who regularly contribute to the support of a Shintō temple are called Ujiko.
[2] The mokugyo is a very curious musical instrument of wood, in the form of a fish's head, and is usually lacquered in red and gold. It is tapped with a stick during certain Buddhist chants or recitations, producing a dull hollow sound.