2011年3月14日。
東日本大震災の直後、著者は二条城で撮影した写真を見返しながら、母の生死への祈りと、自らの自然への感応力について深く考える。
写真に写り込んだ奇妙な像、鯉や鳥との交感、修学院離宮や南禅寺天授庵での体験、そして空海の「空と海」の逸話を通して、自然、魂、祈りが一つに結びつく感覚が綴られている。
March 14, 2011.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the author looks back at photographs taken at Nijo Castle while praying for his mother’s survival and reflecting on his own acute sensitivity to nature.
Through a strange image captured in one photograph, moments of communion with carp and birds, memories of Shugakuin Imperial Villa and Nanzen-ji Temple’s Tenjuan, and the story of Kūkai and the “sky and sea,” the text records a profound sense in which nature, spirit, and prayer become one.

読者の方は既にお気づきかも知れないが、昨日、私は、予定通り向かった二条城で
2011-03-14
読者の方は既にお気づきかも知れないが、昨日、私は、予定通り向かった二条城で、ただひたすら自分の母親と対話していたのでした。
生きていてくれることを祈ってはいるけれど、10％の覚悟も持ちながら3月11日以来、過ごしていた訳ですが。
帰宅して写真を取り込んでＰＭＢでそのままスライドショーにして見た時に、胸がつまりました。
全ての写真が、その通りだったから。
トルストイが、「アンナ・カレーニナ」、の冒頭で書いた通り、「幸福な家庭はみな似たりよったりだが、不幸な家庭は様々である」。
私の人生が世間的に言えば全く幸福ではなかった様に、当然ながら、母親の人生も全く幸福なものではなかった。
今しがた、仕事が一段落した後に、昨夜掲載した写真を見て驚いた。
23：03分.20秒に投稿した写真の中に奇妙なものが映っているのです…
画面右端の一番前の石橋の所です。
この時、なにかごみが飛んで来るような風は吹いていなかったのに…
あんまり考えると妙な事に成りますから。
ただ言える事は、私の写真をご覧頂いて来た方は、お分かりだと思いますが…私は、宮沢賢治に負けないほどの、極めて強い自然に対する感応力も授かっている人間ではあるのです…
このことは、いずれ掲載する、今年1月29日に永観堂の後に訪れた、南禅寺・天授庵…此処は本当に素晴らしい所…♪How fair this spot♪By サラ・ブライトマン…なのですが…
此処の鯉たちは、どう考えても、何度見ても、あの日、私と交感していたとしか思えないのです。
私が何事か感応した場所に、必然の様に、鳥や鯉が現れるのは偶然ではないと私は思っているのです。…
他の誰とも違う摩訶不思議な何かを発散している私に、彼らが反応するのだ…
私は、そう感じているのです。…
まぁ、普通に考えても、日本有数の名所・旧跡に行って、長時間、鯉や鳥たちの写真を撮っている人間も、そうはいない訳で。
未だに全く掲載していない修学院離宮などは、鳥捕りの親方に逢いに行った様なものですから。…
桂離宮や修学院離宮に行った事のある人で写真を撮られる方はご存知かと思いますが、自分の心が感応したら、納得するまで、その場で写真を撮り続ける私には地獄の様な場所…
既述したように、様々な形で200億円超の納税を果たした仕事を為し、今は、こうして21世紀を確立する文章を書き続けている私も、まるで、そこらの変なおっさんか…まぁ、そうかもしれませんが…小学生扱い。
「あなた、さっきから何度か遅れてますよ。1度目じゃないですよ」、等と、後ろを付いてくる係員に2度ほど注意を受けた時には、写真を撮る気も失せた…
前と後ろをサンドイッチして案内されるのです…
前の人は説明係…
そもそも、あんな形で物をみて、正法眼蔵なぞ起きる訳もない…
後略。
洞窟の中で空海が目にしていたのは空と海だけであったため、空海と名乗った
2011-03-14
前章の写真の事を、昨日、同行してくれた専務に話したところ、「あれぇ、ここには確か、鴨がうずくまっていたはず…」。
確かに、此処の岩陰には鴨がこちらに背を向けて、じっとうずくまっていたのです。
私は、家康殿との会話口調で、「見てみぃ、鴨も今回の天災地変を悲しみ、じっとうずくまっておるぞ」、と話したのですから。
その鴨が写っていず、この奇妙な物が映っている訳です…
そばで一緒に、この写真を見ていた専務は、「お坊さんが袈裟を着て手を合わせている様に見える…」。
自席に戻った専務が…
「洞窟で悟りを開いた空海が見ていたものは、空と海だった…」と言った。…
と。
仏道修行…ウィキペディアより。
黒字強調は私。
延暦12年（793年）、大学での勉学に飽き足らず、19歳を過ぎた頃から山林での修行に入ったという。
24歳で儒教・道教・仏教の比較思想論でもある『聾瞽指帰（ろうごしいき）』を著して俗世の教えが真実でないことを示した。
「聾瞽指帰」は、後に序文と巻末の十韻詩を改定、『三教指帰』（さんごうしいき）と改題されている。
この時期より入唐までの空海の足取りは資料が少なく断片的で不明な点が多い。
しかし吉野の金峰山や四国の石鎚山などで山林修行を重ねると共に、幅広く仏教思想を学んだことは想像に難くない。
『大日経』を初めとする密教経典に出会ったのもこの頃と考えられている。
さらに中国語や梵字・悉曇などにも手を伸ばした形跡もある。
ところでこの時期、一沙門より「虚空蔵求聞持法」を授かったことはよく知られるところである。
『三教指帰』の序文には、空海が阿波の大瀧岳や土佐の室戸岬などで求聞持法を修ましたことが記され、とくに室戸岬の御厨人窟（みくろど）で修行をしているとき、口に明星が飛び込んできたと記されている。
このとき空海は悟りを開いたといわれ、当時の御厨人窟は海岸線が今よりも上にあり、洞窟の中で空海が目にしていたのは空と海だけであったため、空海と名乗ったと伝わっている。…
後略。
③ 原文に忠実に英訳して、私のスタイルで出す
Readers may already have noticed, but yesterday, at Nijo Castle, where I went as planned,
March 14, 2011
Readers may already have noticed, but yesterday, at Nijo Castle, where I went as planned, I was doing nothing but speaking inwardly with my mother.
I was praying that she was still alive, yet since March 11 I had also been living with ten percent of myself prepared for the worst.
When I returned home, imported the photographs, and watched them as a slideshow in PMB just as they were, my chest tightened.
Because every single photograph was exactly that.
As Tolstoy wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Just as my own life, in worldly terms, had never been happy at all, naturally my mother’s life, too, had never been a happy one.
Just now, after work had settled down, I looked again at the photograph I posted last night and was astonished.
Something strange is reflected in the photograph that I posted at 23:03:20…
It is at the stone bridge in the foreground at the far right edge of the frame.
At that moment, no wind was blowing that would have carried some piece of trash into the scene…
If one thinks about it too much, it becomes something strange.
But one thing I can say is that, as those who have seen my photographs will understand…I am a person who has also been granted an extraordinarily strong sensitivity to nature, one that does not lose even to Miyazawa Kenji…
This is something that will become clear in photographs I will publish later, from Tenjuan at Nanzen-ji, which I visited after Eikando on January 29 of this year…
It is truly a wonderful place…
♪How fair this spot♪ by Sarah Brightman…
But the carp there, no matter how one thinks of it, no matter how many times one looks, seemed on that day to have been in communion with me.
I believe it is not a coincidence that at places where I sensed something, birds and carp appear as if by necessity.…
They react to me, who is emitting some mysterious something unlike anyone else…
That is how I feel.…
Well, even if one thinks normally, there are not many people who go to some of Japan’s most famous historic places and spend long hours photographing carp and birds.
As for Shugakuin Imperial Villa, which I have still not published at all, it was as though I had gone there to meet the master of bird-catching.…
Those who have visited Katsura Imperial Villa or Shugakuin Imperial Villa and who take photographs probably know this, but for someone like me, who continues taking photographs on the spot until fully satisfied once his heart has responded, such places are like hell…
As I have already written, even I, who performed work that resulted in more than 20 billion yen in tax payments in various forms and who now continue writing the texts that will establish the twenty-first century, am treated there like some strange old man off the street…
Well, perhaps I am…
Like an elementary schoolboy.
When I was warned twice by the attendant following behind me, saying, “You have fallen behind several times now.
This is not the first time,” I even lost the desire to keep taking photographs…
You are guided sandwiched between someone in front and someone behind…
The person in front is the explainer…
To begin with, there is no way that by seeing things in that sort of manner, any Shobogenzo-like awakening could possibly arise…
Omitted below.
Because what Kūkai saw inside the cave was only the sky and the sea, he called himself Kūkai.
March 14, 2011
When I told our managing director, who accompanied me yesterday, about the photograph in the previous chapter, he said, “Huh, I’m sure there had been a duck crouching there…”.
Indeed, in the shadow of those rocks there had been a duck, sitting still with its back turned to us.
In the tone of speaking with Lord Ieyasu, I had said, “Look, even the duck is grieving over this natural upheaval and is sitting there motionless.”
And yet that duck is not in the photograph, while this strange thing is reflected there instead…
The managing director, who was looking at the photograph together with me beside me, said, “It looks like a monk in robes, with his hands joined in prayer…”.
When he returned to his desk, the managing director said…
“What Kūkai saw when he attained enlightenment in the cave was the sky and the sea…”
That is what he said.…
Buddhist training…
From Wikipedia.
The bold emphasis is mine.
It is said that in Enryaku 12 (793), unsatisfied with academic study at the university, he entered mountain training after passing the age of nineteen.
At the age of twenty-four, he wrote the Rōgoshiki, which was also a comparative discourse on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, showing that the teachings of the secular world were not truth.
Rōgoshiki was later revised in its preface and final ten-verse poem and retitled Sangō Shiiki.
There are few materials on Kūkai’s movements from this period until he went to Tang China, and many points remain unclear and fragmentary.
However, it is not difficult to imagine that he repeatedly undertook mountain training at places such as Mount Kinpu in Yoshino and Mount Ishizuchi in Shikoku while also broadly studying Buddhist thought.
It is thought that he also encountered esoteric Buddhist scriptures, beginning with the Dainichi-kyō, during this period.
There are also traces suggesting that he extended his studies to Chinese, Sanskrit letters, and Siddham script.
It is well known that during this period he received the Kokūzō Gumonji-hō from a wandering monk.
In the preface to Sangō Shiiki, it is recorded that Kūkai practiced Gumonji-hō at places such as Ōtaki-dake in Awa and Cape Muroto in Tosa, and in particular it is written that while practicing at Mikurodo Cave at Cape Muroto, a bright star flew into his mouth.
It is said that Kūkai attained enlightenment at that moment, and because at that time the coastline at Mikurodo Cave stood higher than it does now, what he saw from inside the cave was only the sky and the sea, and thus he came to call himself Kūkai.…
Omitted below.