ONE FOR THE ROAD

[Excerpt from NOVEL CLUTCH - A Bilingual Novela Written In Hiroshima, Japan]

J. CUASAY

I called to say...
Hello to your machine.
And it called me back to say
"I understand."

I've been on the roller-coaster of renewal decisions. Cramming my mind with the density of alternatives. Last night, at midnight in Japan, American University called to congratulate me. "You've been accepted to the Film and Video Program. What's your documentary about ?" I must have been dreaming.

It's about dreams. A journey/journal of Dreams.

Yesterday I celebrated 2 years with my beloved overseas. The irony of course was that I had to call past 11pm for the lower rates, but before midnight so that we could share the same day. The Irony and Paradox of being together AND apart. (My hand trembled as I thought of another year here in Japan to celebrate three.)

Dichotomies.
A dichotomy is when you count to THREE to resolve
the problems of TWO.

Last night too, I entered Kogenji, a temple on my island that few locals know the traditional name for. - Still less know the PATH OF BUDDHA that winds up and behind the mountain by my school. There are several meditation spots and one or two FUDOIN. My predecessor told me that few people know about that place and even less travel it. But everytime I've gone up the mountain, I've been greeted by farmers and older people out picking MIKAN, offering sweet potatoes, or harvesting bamboo. Up there, in the quiet and the wind, I could certainly spend another year.

But down closer to earth, nearer my hearth is Kogenji. I was invited there by the head priest. He's also a professor of Education and Religion in Kyoto, so his invitation to discuss Buddhism was both gracious and academic.

For 5 long hours of Japanese, we poured over the history of Buddhism, methods of meditations and a famous Shinran Parable. - Mostly though, we transferred mystical issues on to a map of New York. - My old home where he had spent several years completing his Masters degree. Actually, he quit NYU somewhat disillusioned by its methods. And I confessed too that I, myself, had failed a Buddhism class in college.

I must confess now that at least another hour or so was devoted to touring the garden grounds and pouring over antiques and relics. He even showed me a corner of the temple that used to be the first elementary school of the town where I teach now--800 years ago... I saw photos of his parents and ancestry who minded the shop through the years. -And of course there were traditional observances of other rituals like reciting the NAME, eating mikan, strawberry shortcake, yakiniku, drinking ocha and biiru. Red-eyed into the night we talked until the stars dimmed and the night lights stopped pulsing.

The parable we read impressed me. I quoted back the Japanese phrase to him in my translated English:

     "Perhaps you are enlightened," he smiled waving his hand. 
     "Yes, but..."
     "Yes. Go and study and come again."

So between the hectic schedules, Kanji lists, a peace conference and the Ekiden I couldn't make...juggling renewal, taming elementary kids, developing a phonics teaching plan and sifting through Grad School acceptance letters, the parable SITS.

It goes something like this:

Awakened ! One journeys to a place where two rivers meet.
One is a river of Fire flowing south, the other a river of Water flowing north.
Where they meet, there is a path 5 inches wide heading west.
This is the Pure Land Path.

	          	                            "Go west, paradise is there. 
	 	                                     You'll have all that you can eat 
		                                      Of Milk and Honey over there..." 
		                                      Natalie Merchant--Tigerlily 
 












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