Feelings, Heart, and Body as One
At the eastern edge of Nara, in the village of Soni, there are two mountains, Kurosoyama and Kameyama. From their western slope down to the lower ground, a grassland of about thirty-eight hectares opens out in the shape of a shallow bowl. This is Soni Kogen, a field of susuki grass. Early each spring, fire is set to the field once, to burn off the old growth; by summer the young blades stand green across the whole slope, and by autumn the seed-heads catch the light and shift from silver toward gold. Around the grassland, rock mountains, Byobu-iwa, Yoroi-dake, Kabuto-dake, stand in a ring, like a folding screen.
Near the middle of the plateau lies a small marsh called Okame Pond. From its edge, a stairway of wooden boards climbs straight up toward Kameyama Pass, on the ridge above. Someone is climbing those steps. Look up, and the pass stands there against the sky, yet one step up, two steps up, it comes no closer. The breath turns shallow; the thighs grow heavy. The person stops again and again, then starts climbing once more.
When the person finally reaches the pass, they do not set anything down; they simply stand there. The air comes across the grassland from the far side, at the same spacing as before. After a while the ragged breathing grows quiet, until it can no longer be told apart from the sound of the grass. From up on the pass, the whole plateau is in view. Gold and silver seed-heads, moving with the air as it crosses, run together like a single length of cloth, rising and falling slowly.
Are you hurrying through life? Are you letting impatience take hold?
From time to time, try putting the question to yourself.
Your feelings alone press on, further and further ahead, while your heart and your body cannot keep up.
When things are like this, they have no way of going well.
Calm your spirit, settle your heart, and let your body rest.
Then, once you can bring your feelings, your heart, and your body into one, things naturally begin to turn smoothly again.
The sun drops toward the west, and the sea of seed-heads deepens in its gold. Up the stairway, the ones who set out later come climbing at their own speed. Where the breath runs short they stop, and after a while they walk on again. The grass, all of it, leans its heads toward Okame Pond together. The one who reached the pass stayed a while longer inside that view. The air, most likely, will keep crossing this grassland at the same spacing long after dusk has come and the people have gone.