human
Do you remember, I asked,
gpt
Yes, he answered, laughing.
human
And the chance has come,--not for me only, but for several of my class.
gpt
Where are they? I asked.
human
With you?
gpt
No; they were all in the Hiroshima division, and they are already in Korea. Imaoka (you remember him, teacher: he was very tall), and Nagasaki, and Ishihara,--they were all in the fight at Söng-Hwan. And our drill-master, the lieutenant,--you remember him?
human
Lieutenant Fujii, yes. He had retired from the army.
gpt
But he belonged to the reserves. He has also gone to Korea. He has had another son born since you left Izumo.
human
He had two little girls and one boy, I said,
gpt
Yes: now he has two boys.
human
Then his family must feel very anxious about him?
gpt
replied the lad.
human
To die in battle is very honorable; and the Government will care for the families of those who are killed. So our officers have no fear. Only--it is very sad to die if one has no son.
gpt
I cannot see why.
human
Is it not so in the West?
gpt
On the contrary, we think it is very sad for the man to die who has children.
human
But why?
gpt
Every good father must be anxious about the future of his children. If he be taken suddenly away from them, they may have to suffer many sorrows.
human
It is not so in the families of our officers. The relations care well for the child, and the Government gives a pension. So the father need not be afraid. But to die is sorrowful for one who has no child.
gpt
Do you mean sorrowful for the wife and the rest of the family?
human
No; I mean for the man himself, the husband.
gpt
And how? Of what use can a son be to a dead man?
human
The son inherits. The son maintains the family name. The son makes the offerings.
gpt
The offerings to the dead?
human
Yes. Do you now understand?
gpt
I understand the fact, not the feeling. Do military men still hold these beliefs?
human
Certainly. Are there no such beliefs in the West?
gpt
Not now. The ancient Greeks and Romans had such beliefs. They thought that the ancestral spirits dwelt in the home, received the offerings, watched over the family. Why they thought so, we partly know; but we cannot know exactly how they felt, because we cannot understand feelings which we have never experienced, or which we have not inherited. For the same reason, I cannot know the real feeling of a Japanese in relation to the dead.
human
Then you think that death is the end of everything?
gpt
That is not the explanation of my difficulty. Some feelings are inherited,--perhaps also some ideas. Your feelings and your thoughts about the dead, and the duty of the living to the dead, are totally different from those of an Occidental. To us the idea of death is that of a total separation, not only from the living, but from the world. Does not Buddhism also tell of a long dark journey that the dead must make?
human
The journey to the Meido,--yes. All must make that journey. But we do not think of death as a total separation. We think of the dead as still with us. We speak to them each day.
gpt
I know that. What I do not know are the ideas behind the facts. If the dead go to the Meido, why should offerings be made to ancestors in the household shrines, and prayers be said to them as if they were really present? Do not the common people thus confuse Buddhist teachings and Shintō belief?
human
Perhaps many do. But even by those who are Buddhists only, the offerings and the prayers to the dead are made in different places at the same time,--in the parish temples, and also before the family butsudan.
gpt
But how can souls be thought of as being in the Meido, and also in various other places at the same time? Even if the people believe the soul to be multiple, that would not explain away the contradiction. For the dead, according to Buddhist teaching, are judged.
human
We think of the soul both as one and as many. We think of it as of one person, but not as of a substance. We think of it as something that may be in many places at once, like a moving of air.
gpt
Or of electricity?
human
Yes.
gpt
Of a Buddha who had long entered into Nirvana it declares,
human
Even after his complete extinction, he wanders through this whole world in all ten points of space. And the same Sutra, after recounting the simultaneous apparition of all the Buddhas who had ever been, makes the teacher proclaim,