The Wind that Perpetually Blows (Minobu Gosho)
"When the autumn evening draws on, lonesomely, the
surroundings of the thatched hermitage are bedewed, and the
spider webs hanging from the caves are transformed into
garlands of jewels. Noiselessly, deeply-tinged maple leaves
come floating on the water that pours from the bamboo pipes,
and the water, colored in pattern seems to stream
forth from the fountain of Tatsuta where the
Brocade-weaving Lady is said to abide. Behind the
hermitage, the steep peaks rear their heads aloft, where on
the slopes the trees bear the fruits of the Unique Truth,
and the singing crickets are heard among the branches. In
front, flow clear rivulets, making music like drums and
flutes, and the pools reflect the moonlight of reality as it
is. When the limitless sky of entity is clouded and the
moon shines bright, it seems as if the darkness of the
shrouding delusion was gone forever.
In the hermitage thus situated, throughout the day we
converse, and discuss the truths of the Unique
Scripture, while in the evening and late into the night is
heard the gentle murmur of the recitation of the passages
from the sacred text. Thus, we deem that to this place has
been transferred Vulture Peak, where Lord Shakya lived.
When fog veils the valley, and even when a gale is
blowing, we go to gather wood in the forest, or through the
bedewed bushes down to the dells to pick parsley leaves. . .
Reflecting on these conditions of my present life, I often
think, so it must have been with Buddha, when he was in
search of truth and disciplining himself in expiation and in
mortification.
Thus thinking, I sit on the mat of meditation, and in vision
I see every truth present to the mind, so that even the call
of a deer to its mate helps me to utter the innermost voice
of my heart. Here I realize why, being shrouded by the
heavy clouds of illusion, we transmigrate through the nine,
while the pure bright moonlight shines within me, the
illumination of the threefold aspects of reality fused into
one, and the light of the threefold introspection of one and
the same soul. Thus, I put my thoughts into verse:
Masses of clouds and thickening fog,
Heaping upon me and shrouding the world
Let them be dispelled by a freshening breeze,
The wind that perpetually blows from Vulture Peak,
Whence streams forth the air of the Eternal Truth."
The Minobu Gosho, translated By Anesaki, from "Nichiren the
Buddhist Prophet." 1917