Written at the end of 2015, this essay reflects on a return to Sendai and encounters with a former teacher and classmate, exploring the meaning of “meikyō-shisui” (a clear, tranquil mind) as the true measure of human worth. It asserts that those who faithfully fulfill their lives and professions possess the greatest dignity.

2015-12-30
What they will ultimately reach—though they themselves may not realize it—is nothing but the torments of King Enma.

Meikyō-Shisui

The other day, for some reason, this phrase came to mind.

After a complete absence of contact, like a true Urashima Tarō, I was encouraged by my sister’s words—“Everyone wants to see you”—and decided to head to Sendai on November 14.

So that it would not be too sudden, I telephoned the teacher who had been the greatest mentor of my life.

Perhaps because he is such an incomparable person, I heard a voice I had never heard in all the years since leaving my hometown.

The next day, since O—who had been with me from Yuriage Junior High to Sendai Second High School—would also attend, I called him as well, thinking it would not be good for everything to be too abrupt on the day itself.
Naturally the call became somewhat long, and his voice too was the same.

I am now convinced with great intensity.

My teacher fulfilled his vocation as an educator—his specialties must have been mathematics and music.

O graduated from Waseda’s School of Political Science and Economics, lived out the life of a banker at the very same bank as his father, and even now continues to work actively as a business professional.

I declare to Japan, to the Japanese people, and indeed to the people of the world that the greatest among human beings are people like them.

The worst are those who feel no hesitation in guiding the public toward distorted ideologies, who casually use the taxes paid with blood, sweat, and tears by those of us in the real economy to support one-party communist dictatorships, who—perhaps also out of foolish desires to enhance their own presence—provided 30 trillion yen in ODA without hesitation, fabricated issues such as the so-called comfort women problem, and sought to make the Japanese public pay one trillion yen to dubious organizations in Korea that eagerly seized upon such fabrications—figures such as the Asahi Shimbun, Mizuho Fukushima, and the so-called cultural elites led by Kenzaburō Ōe who continued to support them.
I state this unequivocally.

I will write more about this at a later date, but if I were to express the difference in a single phrase, it comes down to the words meikyō-shisui.

For distorted ideologies can never reach a state of meikyō-shisui.

What they will reach instead—though they do not realize it—is nothing but the torments of King Enma.