r***@yahoo.com
2005-02-14 21:59:45 UTC
The Human Revolution
by Myo Goku
1.1 Dawn
Nothing is more barbarous than war. Nothing is more cruel. And yet, the
war dragged on.
Nothing is more pitiful than a nation being swept along by fools.
For eight years, the people had endured their sufferings 'in stoic
silence, though many had lost parents and children in the holocaust.
But by July 1945, the Japanese were filled with dread, awaiting the
imminent 'invasion of their homeland by the American forces.
It was 7:00 in the evening on July 3. Outside the forbidding iron gates
of Toyotama Prison, a small group had been waiting silently, staring in
at the deserted grounds. Nearly two hours had passed, and a grim
silence reigned.
The prison was surrounded by a high concrete wall whose mass had
absorbed the sultriness of the day and, as dusk fell, seemed stubbornly
to hold the heat. Another stifling day at the end of the rainy season
was drawing to a close, and now a cool breeze came softly stealing in
from the Musashino forest.
A gaunt, middle-aged man hurriedly emerged from a small iron door to
the right of the main gate. He carried a large bundle wrapped in a
scarf, and in his haste he stumbled. Those waiting outside the gate
cried out and rushed toward him.
"Oh!" He halted abruptly and looked up. His glasses shone in the dusk.
"lkue! You came to meet me? Is our house safe?"
"It hasn't burnt. Everyone's fine."
"Good, good. Don't worry anymore. I've really caused you a lot of
trouble, haven't I" The man spoke quickly, in a compassionate voice, to
his wife.
"Welcome back, Uncle."
"Kazuo, you came, too?"
"Welcome back!"
"Sister, you, too? It was good of you to come." His wife, his sister
and her son had all come to meet him.
Wrapped in a light cotton yukata, his tall frame seemed almost buoyant.
The breeze parted his robe, and for a moment his legs could be seen,
emaciated as two sticks. His wife, Ikue, who had been about to smile,
was shocked and grabbed for the large bundle, but his nephew Kazuo
stopped her and hoisted it to his shoulder.
"Hey, this is heavier than I thought!"
Bright smiles crossed their faces. They were caught up in a kind of
excitement. Though their hearts were bursting with the things they
wanted to say, words failed them. They began walking in silence along
the high prison wall.
The two women wore baggy mompe (pantaloons), and their air-raid hoods
were tossed back over their shoulders. The boy, his steel helmet
dangling on his back, was wearing leggings. All were dressed in
readiness for the air raids that might come at any moment. The
middle-aged man striding with chest out thrust at the head of the group
presented an extraordinary sight, as though he had just come from the
public baths.
The incessant bombing raids had shrouded the entire city in darkness as
black as the despair in the people's hearts. The veil of night fell
unobserved.
At the end of the long wall they turned right onto Nakadori Avenue in
Araicho. It was nearly deserted. A bit further, houses lined the street
to the right, but on the left, like a yawning hole, was an endless
stretch of burnt-out fields and shadowy ruins.
The man in the yukata stopped abruptly and peered into the darkness as
though to confirm the evidence of his senses.
"How horrible!"
He expelled a deep breath and then walked on. Night after night, he had
watched the tiny window high in his solitary cell aglow with the lurid
reflection of fires. At those times, he would listen for the eerie wail
of the air-raid sirens and sink into deep thought, wondering about the
course of the war. Tonight he was actually seeing the destruction for
the first time.
The previous November, the United States Air Force had launched the
indiscriminate bombing of Japanese cities from their bases in the
Marianas. By May 1945, incendiary bomb raids had gutted most major
cities including Tokyo and Osaka, and then from June on, smaller
outlying cities were attacked almost daily. At this point in the war,
nearly 3 million homes had been reduced to ashes. There were more than
600 thousand dead and wounded, and another 10 million war victims in
the streets.
He, of course, had no way of knowing such details, but he felt
instinctively that things had reached this point. As they walked, he
asked his wife about each of their relatives and friends. He learned
that the downtown district had been virtually devastated, and that
barely half of his acquaintances in the uptown Yamanote section
survived. And still the war dragged on.
"How long will they continue this folly?" He almost spat out the words
to no one in particular. His voice faded into the night but his anger
smoldered.
All men desire peace and happiness. There should be no war. Who enjoys
it? Who profits by it? Neither the victors nor the vanquished.
Throughout modern history, Japan had plunged into the holocaust of war
once every decade, risking the nation's future, and each time the
people had suffered immense sacrifice and misfortune. How could this
evil destiny be broken?
The thoughts that crossed his mind were worlds apart from those of the
average Japanese *in that war-torn era. Even in prison he had felt no
sense of guilt; indeed, he had no cause to. Neither did he feel remorse
nor any need for self-reflection. But the senseless fanaticism of the
military government - even his countrymen were violent and irrational!
He knew with total certainty that this insanity stemmed solely from
state-imposed Shinto, the national religion and spiritual mainstay of
the military regime.
He had just turned 45. He had weighed 165 pounds before his
imprisonment; now he was down to 102.
To some, he might appear to be only one among many unconvicted persons
imprisoned during the war. But the middle-aged man with shaven head and
the odd summer robe was Josei Toda.
His mentor, President Makiguchi, had left the prison gates only in
death. Now he had passed through those gates alive. The two laws of
life and death are the mysterious function of ichinen, and the ichinen
for kosen-rufu he shared with President Makiguchi had in no way
altered. Through the bonds of mentor and disciple and the ultimate Law
transcending life and death, he had inherited the lifeblood of
religious revolution.
Above all he burned with a desire for revenge, but he had no thought of
political retaliation against the military government. It was an unseen
enemy he confronted, and in his heart, he vowed to avenge his aged
teacher who had died in the prison where Toda himself had languished
for more than two years. He swore vengeance, too, for the sufferings of
his own family and the millions of others who had been reduced to such
misery. Buddhism is win or lose, and he had to prove that justice will
triumph.
Seldom can we say a government or social system is solely responsible
for the people's suffering. Nichiren Daishonin taught that a more
fundamental cause lies in mistaken religions and philosophies, and Toda
knew the unerring truth of that insight through his own experience.
The knowledge was by no means new to him. The fierce wartime struggle
of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai -with Tsunesaburo Makiguchi as president and
himself as general director - had sprung from that conviction. Even
now, leaving prison, his faith in that principle remained unbroken. Yet
much as he disliked to, he had to admit that the times were against
him, and up tiff now, his struggle had been a failure.
He halted suddenly and gasped as a sharp pain shot through his chest.
The scorched, sour smell of charred debris still lingered in the
street. Slowly he began walking again down Waseda Avenue.
All the houses were blacked out; only the pale concrete pavement shone
faintly in the dark. After a while they turned right and headed toward
Nakano Station at the end of the street. They could see the hooded
lights on the platform twinkling in the distance. All they had to do
now was catch the train.
At the left was a low stone wall overgrown with weeds. Toda stopped and
lowered himself slowly to the ground, breathing hard.
"Why don't we rest a bit?" he said.
"Whew!" His nephew Kazuo immediately swung the large bundle from his
shoulder. "This thing's sure heavy, Uncle."
"It's full of books, that's why. Finally, I could do some studying."
While he talked, he scratched busily at his side.
"Anyone have a handkerchief?"
His wife handed him one and was about to sit next to him when he said
jokingly, "Don't come too close, or you'll get one of my souvenirs."
"Souvenirs?"
"Lice, my new blood relatives. They're cute little fellows."
Ikue leapt back in horror, and the others burst out laughing.
Taking a deep breath, Toda mopped his forehead and the back of his
neck. He relaxed and drank in the pure air of freedom. How sweet it
tasted after two years in a prison cell!
A cool wind caressed his cheek. People hurried along the street without
noticing the four sitting there in the darkness.
The night sky stretched out endlessly; not a star could be seen in the
dark heavens. Yet Toda was conscious of a light that burned in the
depths of his being. No one else could see it, nor had he the means to
impart it to others. It was a flame kindled in the darkness of his
solitary cell, and as long as he lived, it would never be extinguished.
It was a flame that would never waver, even in the winds of an unstable
world. He reaffirmed this to himself and felt satisfied.
Suddenly his mood was shattered by a swarm of mosquitoes attacking his
face and legs. "This is awful!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet as he
shooed them away. "Let's go."
The four began walking slowly toward Nakano Station.
The lights in the station and on the train were also dimmed. As if by
prearrangement, all the male passengers wore military caps and
leggings, and some had steel helmets or air-raid hoods slung from their
shoulders. The few women on board all wore mompe, and they too carried
air-raid hoods.
In the midst of this somber group there suddenly appeared a man in a
light cotton yukata. He was immediately the object of suspicious
stares. The yukata, the most ordinary of summer garments, seemed
grotesque and out of place here, though *in reality it was the war that
made everything normal seem strange. Totally unaware of the distortion
*in their own thinking, the passengers glared at the gaunt stranger
with eyes that branded him a traitor.
Josei Toda was unconcerned by their hostility. On the train, in the
streets, wherever he went, he was a leader who always loved and
appreciated the common people.
The people are as hardy as weeds. Yet, in places where even weeds won't
grow, how can trees and flowers flourish? The people are often
mightier, their thinking closer to the truth, than philosophers or
statesmen.
Toda craned his thin neck and began talking freely with the passenger
beside him, an energetic-looking man of about 50 who held a battered
pot and wash basin tenderly on his lap as though they were great
treasures. He eagerly recounted for Toda the details of a major bombing
raid that had occurred one evening in May.
"Hellfire couldn't be more horrible! By daybreak the whole place had
burned to the ground - nothing left standing but an air-raid shelter
here and there. Ours happened to be fairly solid, so now we're living
in it - all four of us."
Hearing his tale, Toda suddenly recalled the Great Kanto Earthquake Of
1923, just three years after he had come down from Hokkaido. Downtown
Tokyo had burned for two days. A single blanket or a radish was worth a
king's ransom. He had been a young man Of 24 then, but even now, he
could still taste the first food he'd eaten in the four days following
the disaster - a bowl of soybean soup that had seemed like the greatest
delicacy on earth.
He asked the older man, "Was it anything like the fire after the Kanto
quake?"
"Oh, no. There's no comparison. This was three times bigger and five
times more terrifying. But where were you?"
"Me? I..." Toda faltered. He couldn't very well say he had been in
Toyotama Prison.
"I was evacuated out near Ome for a while"
"Really? I lost my house in the quake, too, so this is the second time.
Being burned out twice in your life is just too much. The earthquake
was a natural disaster, so you can't really get angry. This time it was
the Yanks. Whenever I think about it, I get so mad I.... This stupidity
is more than a man can bear! just what does the military intend to do?
It's like kids fighting grownups. Exactly..."
Suddenly he caught himself and looked around in terror. Toda tried to
continue the conversation but the man would only answer in brusque
monosyllables. He must have remembered the kempei-tai, the dreaded
military "thought police" who were rumored to be everywhere.
At Shinjuku Station, Toda and his party transferred to the Yamate Line.
He continued talking eagerly to anyone nearby. People were taken aback
by this oddly dressed man, but soon, disarmed by his easy manner, they
told him in detail about their tragedies.
As the train pulled into Harajuku Station, the passengers suddenly rose
'in a body and bowed reverently toward the right-hand side of the
tracks. Toda peered out the window but could see nothing except a
thickly wooded area. Only when they neared Shibuya Station did he
realize they had passed the inner garden of the Meiji Shrine.
He muttered to himself, "Religious ignorance has destroyed our country"
"The gods will not hear false prayers," Nichiren Daishonin taught.
Japan despised the true teachings of Buddhism, so the shoten zenjin
would not protect her. President Makiguchi had upheld those teachings
and died for them, imprisoned by the military regime.
A look of sudden grief crossed Toda's face. He stopped talking and
stared out the window at the burnt fields stretching into the murky
night. Out in that darkness, people groveled, bowed under unimaginable
burdens of terror and despair. He thought hard about those people, who
were trapped by sufferings yet endured so patiently.
Today, everyone in Japan has heard of Josei Toda as a great leader of
people in his age, but in those clays, almost no one even knew his
name. The few who did, knew him from the propagation activities of the
Soka Kyoiku Gakkai or they were authorities concerned with him only
because of his indictment under the notorious Public Security
Preservation Act, the so-called blasphemy law.
The Public Security Preservation Act was abolished by order of U.S.
General Douglas MacArthur immediately after the war, and many innocent
"thought criminals" were released. Since then, not a single instance
has occurred in which national security was jeopardized because of the
abolition of that law. This alone is proof that it merited repeal.
Originally intended to suppress communism, it eventually netted the
government a host of innocent victims. Guiltless individuals had their
entire lives ruined. The number of those victimized by the Public
Security Preservation Act in 194S alone is beyond imagination. Toward
the end of the war, the law became an instrument of suppression, used
exclusively to protect the interest of the military government, who
interpreted it to suit their own ends.
We must reconsider the spirit of the law. Any measure designed to
protect a mere handful of privileged people is likely to be
unreasonable and inflict misery and suffering on many others.
In spite of the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom,
President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi died in prison because of that infamous
act. What a glaring contradiction! Some people say there are more
criminals outside the jails than inside. That must surely have been so
if a man concerned about his homeland, one who strove on behalf of the
people, could be locked in prison, while others who led idle
existences, duped the public and helped degrade society were allowed
their freedom. Human standards of truth and falsehood, good and evil,
seemed to be completely reversed.
Who is qualified to judge another? Without knowledge of the great and
immutable Law, it is impossible. justice can never prevail until it
adopts that fundamental Law as its standard.
General Director Josei Toda had been released after more than two years
of solitary confinement. He was one step away from starvation, and
every one of his enterprises had collapsed.
Toda was well known among the younger generation under the name of
Jogai Toda, author of an examination primer tided Guidebook to
Mathematics Through Reasoning. This highly original text had already
sold more than a million copies, and there may well be several million
people, who, in their youth, happily passed their college entrance
exams by conquering their weakness in mathematics with the aid of this
book. They will probably remember the name Jogai Toda as long as they
live.
At that time, however, no one recognized the tall, middle-aged man, an
oddly dressed passenger on a filthy Yamate train with its windows
smashed.
Toda listened eagerly. The topic was incendiary bomb casings.
"That Yankee steel is first rate. I tried making a shovel out of it.
It's terrific!" one man began explaining authoritatively, with large
gestures.
"That's true," another broke in. "I made a fine kitchen knife. You can
get ten knives out of one bombshell."
"Ten? Go on. Five or six, maybe," said a small man who had been silent
until then.
The "Inventor" of the kitchen knife replied heatedly, "That's nonsense.
You can easily get ten!"
The workmen stubbornly refused to agree.
Toda smiled. He wanted to compliment these men for their
resourcefulness in making knives and shovels from fragments of the
enemy bombshells.
He rose and started to approach the men, but at that moment the train
slowed and entered Meguro Station. Stepping off the train, he turned
and called, "Well done, friends! Make all the shovels and kitchen
knives you can!"
For a moment, they looked at each other in bewilderment, thinking that
one of them must know the man. When they realized he was a complete
stranger, they burst into delighted laughter.
The train pulled out with the workers still aboard. They caught sight
of the man in the yukata standing on the dark platform and leaned out
the windows, waving excitedly and called, "Good ni-i-ight!"
The unexpected approval from a total stranger seemed to have suddenly
bolstered their confidence.
Toda climbed the stairs of Meguro Station, stairs he had not trod in
more than two years. Each step seemed filled with memories. The climb
was a great strain on his weakened body. When he finally reached the
top, he had to stop and rest a moment after passing through the
turnstile.
His wife, Ikue, and his sister and nephew drew close as though to
protect him. Ikue went out into the street alone to search in the
darkness for a taxi, but none were running in those bleak times. An
empty streetcar was waiting at the end of the line. Going by trolley
would be the surest way of getting home to Shirogane. She returned to
tell the others.
Toda nodded and strode ahead of the group. He walked on alone past the
streetcar to the other side of the road. The others hurried after him.
"Dear, let's take the streetcar," Ikue called.
"We will. I just want to look over here for a moment."
Glancing back at his wife, Toda indicated the direction with a thrust
of his jaw. They all crossed after him and took a road angling toward
the right. It descended in an easy slope. Off to the right were the
charred ruins of the Jisshu Gakkan, a private school Toda had once
operated.
Blackened fields stretched before them in the eerie silence. Their
footsteps rang out like the last sound on earth. Construction,
destruction. Destruction, construction. Is this the perpetual cycle of
all things? is it impossible for humans to build a lasting,
indestructible society? For nations to cooperate and live in peace?
Everything had been razed. Though the ruins had weathered more than two
months since the air raids, a scorched smell still hung in the air.
Toda sat down on a nearby cornerstone.
"Do you have a cigarette?" he asked, as though suddenly struck by the
idea.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
Ikue rummaged in her purse and handed him several government-rationed
cigarettes. She had carefully placed them there, intending to give them
to her husband as soon as he was released, but she had forgotten until
this moment.
He inhaled rapturously. The white smoke spiraled into the darkness.
This charred ruin had once been his castle. In 1922, when Tsunesaburo
Makiguchi was transferred from the post of principal at Mikasa
Elementary School to the same post at Shirogane Elementary School, Toda
had resigned his position as an elementary school teacher. The
following year, he opened his own private school, the Jisshu Gakkan. He
was 24 and the lord of his own castle. There he could practice the
system of value-creating education expounded by his master, Makiguchi,
without the slightest interference.
Even the dullest child could be an excellent pupil - that was his
conviction. His educational methods were practical and effective. In
fact, his grade school students consistently passed any examination
they desired in order to enter first-rate schools.
Word spread among the young boys and girls in the Shirogane
neighborhood that the day school was a waste of time and they would be
better off going to Toda's night classes. The regular schools,
municipal elementary schools, were left far behind. Honest but
incompetent teachers were enraged at the mere mention of the Jisshu
Gakkan. Their former pupils were happily gathering every evening at the
new night school.
A philosopher once said that the purpose of education is not to produce
machines but to develop people.
Education is undeniably the most crucial factor 'in the development of
human character. Education is an art whose basic methods are determined
by the pedagogical ideals of the educator.
Those who receive training in perception from a great educator bent on
perfecting his student's character are fortunate indeed.
In that respect, Toda's method was superb. He appealed to the
insatiable curiosity of the young and taught them to recognize
mathematical concepts by means of concrete examples. Through repeated
exercises of their reasoning power, he was, without their knowledge,
instilling in them an understanding of highly complex and difficult
principles. His methods were not only interesting but completely
logical and gave the children a chance to delight in their studies.
Nothing is sharper than the mind of a young pupil; it responds as
quickly as mercury in a thermometer.
Toda would come into the classroom with a broad smile, saying) "Hi,
everybody!" The mischievous boys immediately scrambled for their seats
and greeted him *in unison, "Good evening!" Their eyes glittered 'in
happy anticipation of another exciting adventure.
Smiling, he began to speak. "Does anybody here want a dog?" The room
was instantly still.
"I'll give one to anyone who wants it."
"Give it to me, sir!"
"No, no. To me!"
"Please, may I have it?"
"I want it!"
The whole room was in an uproar. Looking around with a satisfied grin,
he said, "Well, who shall I give it to?" Then he turned toward the
blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk.
Smack 'in the center of the blackboard he wrote In bold strokes the
character for "dog" and asked the children, "What's this?"
"Dog!"
"Is it really a dog?"
"Yes," they all responded.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course!"
"Then you may have him if you wish."
The children were confused for a moment, but soon one boy shouted, "Go
on ... it's only writing." The whole class burst into laughter.
Toda pointed at the character on the blackboard and said, "It's a dog,
isn't it? Go ahead, you may have him."
It was definitely a dog, but not one the children could take home. They
were bewildered, unable to find the flaw in their reasoning. Toda
explained that it was an abstract symbol for "dog." By repeating
interesting examples of this kind, he implanted in their young minds
the concept that mathematics is a study based upon symbols, and soon
they began actively applying their new-found knowledge for themselves.
Good seeds yield strong plants and eventually bear beautiful blossoms.
Good children will become fine young people, who in turn will develop
into excellent leaders of society.
Toda had his lessons printed up and handed them out to his students as
a text. Later, at the urging of others, he compiled these lessons and
published them as the Guidebook to Mathematics Through Reasoning under
the pen name of Jogai Toda. The book proved to be a creative
masterpiece whose record-breaking sales enabled its author to start a
publishing company.
Toda's business acumen eventually enabled him to establish several
other publishing firms. He also started a finance company that grew to
where he could open a stock brokerage in Kabutocho, the financial
center of Japan.
On July 4, 1943, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was suddenly arrested at
Shimoda, and two clays later, early in the morning, Toda was taken from
his home to the Takanawa Police Station. All twenty-one top leaders of
the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai were arrested. Toda controlled seventeen
companies at that time, as well as a coal mine in Kyushu and an oil and
fat refinery in Osaka that he was about to acquire.
A valid and profound philosophy imparts a dynamic vitality to both
human and social affairs and enables people to create greater value.
Any philosophy that fails to do so can no more benefit humankind than a
drawing of a loaf of bread can satisfy a hungry man.
The three-story Jisshu Gakkan had been Toda's citadel and the cradle of
his enterprises. Sitting there now amid the charred remains, he felt
like a man contemplating the ruins of a castle that had just fallen. He
stayed Just long enough to smoke a cigarette, but his memory raced back
through the years. Summer weeds were already poking through the rubble
The clumps of grass provided a haven for mosquitoes, so he couldn't sit
there long. From the scorched mound, he gazed into the darkness where
the city lay under its blackout, punctuated here and there by the
forlorn flickering of dying fires.
The four returned to the streetcar stop and sat down in the empty car.
Neither the driver nor the conductor were in sight, but when the bell
sounded at the station office, they came hurrying out and the streetcar
was finally on its way. Along the street stood a row of houses that had
mysteriously escaped the fires. In no time at all, the car arrived at
Shirogane-daimachi. Off to the left, where the sidewalk sloped
downward, they passed the spacious mansion of Fusanosuke Kubara, a high
government official. The trees of his estate loomed black and mute
against the night sky.
Josei Toda crossed the threshold of his house. After two years and
thirteen days, he was free at last.
The house was still the same. Finding it unchanged gave him a profound
sense of relief.
He sat down in the living room and immediately said to his wife: "I
want to change all my clothes. Roll them up and pour boiling water over
them later. I'm sick of those prison lice."
Ikue helped her husband off with his clothes and underwear and handed
him a fresh yukata. When she saw his emaciated body, she gasped in
horror. Even with his clothes on, it was obvious to her that he had
lost considerable weight, but she couldn't believe how his body had
wasted. There was almost no flesh; his arms and legs were like sticks.
He was skin and bones, except for his stomach, swollen in the last
stages of malnutrition.
She was badly shaken and had to avert her eyes.
"Dear, why don't you go upstairs and rest?"
just then her father came into the room.
"Oh, Father, I've caused you so much trouble. Thank you for taking care
of everything. Anyway, I'm home now and I'm all right." Toda
respectfully greeted his father-in-law.
"Good, good... everyone's safe. It's I who've been taking advantage of
your hospitality." Blinking the tears from his eyes, Seiji Matsui
grasped Toda's hands.
Matsui's own family had been forcibly evicted that spring and their
house demolished to make way for a fire break. He sent his family away
to the Shonan coast where they would be safe, while he stayed on with
his company and moved in with his daughter, who was living alone.
Toda's sister, Tatsu Yamamura, had also taken shelter there with her
son , Kazuo, a junior high school student, when their house burned in
the May air raids. The once-lonely house in Shirogane sprang to life
now that Toda was home from prison.
"lkue, the bath is ready," Matsui said to his daughter. Firewood was
scarce; he must have gathered it himself to heat the bath water while
she was out.
"You take yours first, Father," Toda said.
Matsui shook his head firmly. "Today, I'll bathe later."
"No, I'm going upstairs to rest a while. Please don't wait for me."
So saying, Toda went upstairs. Ikue went after him to help and found
him on his knees, bowed and motionless before the family altar.
After a while he raised his head and gazed steadily at the Gohonzon.
The bitter memories of those two years and thirteen days seemed
strangely remote, as though they had melted away in a single moment.
And in that moment, he clearly perceived his true self.
He began quietly to recite the evening prayer. Ikue joined in behind
him with her prayer heads in her hands, but she couldn't tear her eyes
from his gaunt neck. Not only his neck was thinner - when she looked at
his upright back for the first time in so long, his entire body seemed
to have shrunk. She prayed fervently to the Gohonzon for the recovery
of his strength.
At last, he began to chant daimoku. Ikue could not help weepMg, and the
tears streamed steadily down her cheeks. For the past two years, she
had prayed morning and night for her absent husband's welfare and for
his earliest possible release. Now he was home safe, 'in front of the
Gohonzon. After seemingly endless hardships, her long-cherished dream
had been fulfilled. She stifled her weeping and joined her voice with
his 'in the harmony of chanting.
Downstairs, their nephew, Kazuo, was hungry and raising a fuss. Toda's
sister was preparing a late supper. Food was scarce, and she had
gathered it at great pains, just for tonight. She had sake, fresh green
soybeans, salted cuttlefish - even a piece of cod.
Soon Toda came down from his bath, and supper began under the dimmed
lights. Ikue poured sake for her father and Toda. The house warmed with
gaiety for the first time in a long while.
Toda raised his cup. It was festive wine, his first in two years. He
took a couple sips and then abruptly set it down.
"It's bitter!"
Ikue and her father exchanged puzzled glances. There was nothing he
liked better than sake. Ikue stared at her husband in disbelief
"It can't have gone bad, can it?" Seiji Matsui took two or three sips
and shook his head. "It doesn't taste bad."
"No, Father, it's because he's weak; that's all."
Toda inverted his cup. "Well," he said, "it's no fault of the sake."
His body was so wasted he could not even tolerate his favorite wine.
Malnutrition was not the whole story. He was plagued by his old enemy
tuberculosis, as well as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, hemorrhoids
and rheumatism. He still had diarrhea, too, the classic symptom of
malnutrition. Having always been nearsighted, his eyesight was now
failing fast, and he was nearly blind in one eye.
It didn't seem to worry him. "These are delicious," he said, reaching
for the beans, and quickly demolished the plateful.
He was a shadow of a man, and gravely ill. But within his emaciated
frame lurked an indomitable spirit.
Sometimes a man whom doctors have given up for dead clings to life by a
sheer effort of will. Life holds many unfathomable mysteries that the
physical sciences alone cannot explain. Such phenomena demonstrate that
a correct concept of life views the mind and body as inseparable.
Toda related in detail all that had happened since his arrest. His
account of the detention house and prison evoked a strange world,
utterly remote from the normal realm of everyday affairs. But oddly
enough, even the desolate scenes he recreated so vividly seemed edged
with humor as he described them.
At times his listeners doubled over laughing. The house, empty of
laughter for so long, rocked with their hilarity.
No family can be free from sorrow. There are days when the wind blows
and days when the rain falls. There are somber days and days of bliss.
To spend a lifetime in continual peace and happiness is far from easy.
Peace in the family is worth more than a fortune. National leaders who
fail to give the people a chance
to create happy families cannot be called leaders.
Four days earlier, Toda had suddenly been moved from the Tokyo
Detention House in Sugamo to Toyotama Prison. No one gave him any
explanations. Today he had been paroled. Why they had chosen to release
him in such chaotic times he could not imagine, but perhaps he had
served out the remaining three years of his sentence in three days'
time. He believed in the principle of tenju kyoju (lessening karmic
retribution).
"Everything's fine now. We're all alive and here together. Ikue's safe,
Kyoichi's well at Ichinoseki, and I've got nothing to complain about.
That's fine."
Toda looked around at the faces of family and nodded thoughtfully as
though to finally convince himself. He had only one child, Kyoichi, who
was in fourth grade. When the heavy bombing began, school children were
evacuated to the countryside. One of Toda's sisters, who had married a
farmer at Ichinoseki, willingly took the boy to Eve with her while Toda
was imprisoned.
Hearing of this in his prison cell, Toda immediately wrote to his
10-year-old son.
"I hear you were sent to Ichinoseki. Lord Kusunoki Masatsura [1]
succeeded his father at age 11. You are already 10. To become a good
Japanese, you should be ready to travel alone with dignity. Live
strongly and righteously ... the basis of all discipline is to be
strong, to carry yourself confidently, like a man. First, resolve
single-mindedly, 'I will be strong! Then you can figure out for
yourself what you should do.
"I cannot see you for a while yet, but I want us to promise each other
something. Sometime in the morning, whenever it is convenient for you,
face the Gohonzon and chant daimoku 100 times. At the same time, I'll
chant 100 daimoku, too.
"In this way we can communicate our innermost thoughts just like
through a wireless. We can talk together. We will create an alliance of
father and son. Or we can include your mother, or Grandfather and
Grandmother, too, if you like. It's your decision. Please let me know
what time you choose."
Through such letters he encouraged Kyoichi from prison.
Every morning and every evening, he would chant two thousand daimoku
and then chant another hundred for each member of his family. He knew
Japan's defeat was inevitable and entrusted everything to the
Dai-Gohonzon.
There was, of course, no Gohonzon in his solitary cell nor did he have
candles or incense. He saved caps from the milk bottles they sent in to
him and strung them together to serve as makeshift prayer beads.
His was a struggle beyond description.
"Dai-Gohonzon, accept my life and the lives of my wife and son. Ikue,
Kyoichi, you may die by the swords of foreign soldiers. They may crush
and humiliate you. But the Daishonin win surely welcome you at Eagle
Peak as the wife and son of Josei Toda, a believer in the Mystic Law."
Though he himself stood at the brink of death, he prayed with
unswerving resolution. The mysterious enlightenment he had experienced
in his cell gave him full confidence *in his prayers.
Now he was free. Since his release several hours earlier, he had talked
almost without pause, as though assuring himself that his freedom after
two years in prison was real. His story was still not over, but it was
growing, late. Ikue worried for fear he would exhaust himself. Kazuo
was fast asleep in another room. Seiji Matsui and Toda's sister had
also fallen asleep.
The night was calm and still.
Then abruptly the stillness was shattered by the eerie wail of air-raid
sirens. It was just past midnight. Someone jerked the blackout curtains
across the windows. The radio reported that 120 P-51 fighters, led by
three B-29s, were approaching the mainland over Boso Peninsula.
Soon the raid alert tore through the Might sky. The family hurried into
the air-raid shelter as usual. Toda went upstairs alone.
Ikue was seized by a strange fear, something she had never felt before.
In the depths of the shelter, she could not stop trembling.
In all the dozens of bombings she had experienced, she had never once
felt frightened. The war meant nothing to her. Food shortages and the
harsh struggle to survive left her indifferent. Hemmed *in by crises,
Ikue lived with just one hope: for her husband to come home safely as
soon as possible. For two years, waking and sleeping, this thought
consumed her whole existence.
But tonight was different. Toda's release filled her world completely.
just before the sirens, ill as he was, he had told her gently: "Don't
worry anymore. I'm home now, so everything's going to be all right. You
don't have to worry about making ends meet, or about anything else."
Ikue knew then that her long struggle was over. She had won. And in
that moment, her inner world changed completely. A calm sense of
normality returned to her. Then the air-raid siren sounded, and she was
struck with terror.
Blackout curtains shrouded the windows in the upstairs room. Josei Toda
knelt before the family altar, wrapped in the ominous silence that
precedes an air raid. Placing a leaf of shikimi in his mouth, he slowly
lifted the join Gohonzon from the altar. He removed his glasses and
scrutinized each character, bending so close it seemed his face would
touch the scroll.
"It was just like this. No mistake. Exactly, just as I saw it...."
Murmuring silently, he satisfied himself that the solemn and mysterious
Ceremony in the Air he had witnessed in his cell was indeed inscribed
on the Gohonzon. Profound delight surged through him and tears streamed
down his face. His hands shook. He cried out from the depths of his
being:
"Gohonzon! Daishonin! I, Toda, will accomplish kosen-rufu!"
He felt that this resolve was burning *in his soul with an incandescent
glow. It burned in spite of him, a flame nothing could extinguish, like
the eternally glowing sunrise of kosen-rufu.
After a while he returned the Gohonzon to its altar and looked around
the room. He knew there was no one anywhere who could share what he was
feeling, and a deep loneliness swept over him. He spoke silently to
himself.
"Wait. Don't be impatient. You may have to do it slowly, but you'll do
it, whatever it takes."
In the depths of night, a bell tolling the break of day sounded in his
heart. No one else could hear it. It would take years before the waves
of that sound began, even faintly, to reach the ears of the people. Yet
dawn for Japan began in that moment. Tomorrow's history will bear this
out.
It was still so dark. The nation's outlook was black, and all around
him everything was black, too. Only in his heart was the day breaking.
"The darker the night, the nearer the dawn," he thought.
A high-pitched voice from the radio informed him that the P-51 squadron
was departing south of the Kashima Sea after bombing cities in Chiba
and lbaraki.
The all-clear sounded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Kusunoki Masatsura - heroic samurai of Japan's civil war period (c.
1324-1348). He was the son of Kusunoki Masashige, well-known as the
Emperor's loyal follower.
by Myo Goku
1.1 Dawn
Nothing is more barbarous than war. Nothing is more cruel. And yet, the
war dragged on.
Nothing is more pitiful than a nation being swept along by fools.
For eight years, the people had endured their sufferings 'in stoic
silence, though many had lost parents and children in the holocaust.
But by July 1945, the Japanese were filled with dread, awaiting the
imminent 'invasion of their homeland by the American forces.
It was 7:00 in the evening on July 3. Outside the forbidding iron gates
of Toyotama Prison, a small group had been waiting silently, staring in
at the deserted grounds. Nearly two hours had passed, and a grim
silence reigned.
The prison was surrounded by a high concrete wall whose mass had
absorbed the sultriness of the day and, as dusk fell, seemed stubbornly
to hold the heat. Another stifling day at the end of the rainy season
was drawing to a close, and now a cool breeze came softly stealing in
from the Musashino forest.
A gaunt, middle-aged man hurriedly emerged from a small iron door to
the right of the main gate. He carried a large bundle wrapped in a
scarf, and in his haste he stumbled. Those waiting outside the gate
cried out and rushed toward him.
"Oh!" He halted abruptly and looked up. His glasses shone in the dusk.
"lkue! You came to meet me? Is our house safe?"
"It hasn't burnt. Everyone's fine."
"Good, good. Don't worry anymore. I've really caused you a lot of
trouble, haven't I" The man spoke quickly, in a compassionate voice, to
his wife.
"Welcome back, Uncle."
"Kazuo, you came, too?"
"Welcome back!"
"Sister, you, too? It was good of you to come." His wife, his sister
and her son had all come to meet him.
Wrapped in a light cotton yukata, his tall frame seemed almost buoyant.
The breeze parted his robe, and for a moment his legs could be seen,
emaciated as two sticks. His wife, Ikue, who had been about to smile,
was shocked and grabbed for the large bundle, but his nephew Kazuo
stopped her and hoisted it to his shoulder.
"Hey, this is heavier than I thought!"
Bright smiles crossed their faces. They were caught up in a kind of
excitement. Though their hearts were bursting with the things they
wanted to say, words failed them. They began walking in silence along
the high prison wall.
The two women wore baggy mompe (pantaloons), and their air-raid hoods
were tossed back over their shoulders. The boy, his steel helmet
dangling on his back, was wearing leggings. All were dressed in
readiness for the air raids that might come at any moment. The
middle-aged man striding with chest out thrust at the head of the group
presented an extraordinary sight, as though he had just come from the
public baths.
The incessant bombing raids had shrouded the entire city in darkness as
black as the despair in the people's hearts. The veil of night fell
unobserved.
At the end of the long wall they turned right onto Nakadori Avenue in
Araicho. It was nearly deserted. A bit further, houses lined the street
to the right, but on the left, like a yawning hole, was an endless
stretch of burnt-out fields and shadowy ruins.
The man in the yukata stopped abruptly and peered into the darkness as
though to confirm the evidence of his senses.
"How horrible!"
He expelled a deep breath and then walked on. Night after night, he had
watched the tiny window high in his solitary cell aglow with the lurid
reflection of fires. At those times, he would listen for the eerie wail
of the air-raid sirens and sink into deep thought, wondering about the
course of the war. Tonight he was actually seeing the destruction for
the first time.
The previous November, the United States Air Force had launched the
indiscriminate bombing of Japanese cities from their bases in the
Marianas. By May 1945, incendiary bomb raids had gutted most major
cities including Tokyo and Osaka, and then from June on, smaller
outlying cities were attacked almost daily. At this point in the war,
nearly 3 million homes had been reduced to ashes. There were more than
600 thousand dead and wounded, and another 10 million war victims in
the streets.
He, of course, had no way of knowing such details, but he felt
instinctively that things had reached this point. As they walked, he
asked his wife about each of their relatives and friends. He learned
that the downtown district had been virtually devastated, and that
barely half of his acquaintances in the uptown Yamanote section
survived. And still the war dragged on.
"How long will they continue this folly?" He almost spat out the words
to no one in particular. His voice faded into the night but his anger
smoldered.
All men desire peace and happiness. There should be no war. Who enjoys
it? Who profits by it? Neither the victors nor the vanquished.
Throughout modern history, Japan had plunged into the holocaust of war
once every decade, risking the nation's future, and each time the
people had suffered immense sacrifice and misfortune. How could this
evil destiny be broken?
The thoughts that crossed his mind were worlds apart from those of the
average Japanese *in that war-torn era. Even in prison he had felt no
sense of guilt; indeed, he had no cause to. Neither did he feel remorse
nor any need for self-reflection. But the senseless fanaticism of the
military government - even his countrymen were violent and irrational!
He knew with total certainty that this insanity stemmed solely from
state-imposed Shinto, the national religion and spiritual mainstay of
the military regime.
He had just turned 45. He had weighed 165 pounds before his
imprisonment; now he was down to 102.
To some, he might appear to be only one among many unconvicted persons
imprisoned during the war. But the middle-aged man with shaven head and
the odd summer robe was Josei Toda.
His mentor, President Makiguchi, had left the prison gates only in
death. Now he had passed through those gates alive. The two laws of
life and death are the mysterious function of ichinen, and the ichinen
for kosen-rufu he shared with President Makiguchi had in no way
altered. Through the bonds of mentor and disciple and the ultimate Law
transcending life and death, he had inherited the lifeblood of
religious revolution.
Above all he burned with a desire for revenge, but he had no thought of
political retaliation against the military government. It was an unseen
enemy he confronted, and in his heart, he vowed to avenge his aged
teacher who had died in the prison where Toda himself had languished
for more than two years. He swore vengeance, too, for the sufferings of
his own family and the millions of others who had been reduced to such
misery. Buddhism is win or lose, and he had to prove that justice will
triumph.
Seldom can we say a government or social system is solely responsible
for the people's suffering. Nichiren Daishonin taught that a more
fundamental cause lies in mistaken religions and philosophies, and Toda
knew the unerring truth of that insight through his own experience.
The knowledge was by no means new to him. The fierce wartime struggle
of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai -with Tsunesaburo Makiguchi as president and
himself as general director - had sprung from that conviction. Even
now, leaving prison, his faith in that principle remained unbroken. Yet
much as he disliked to, he had to admit that the times were against
him, and up tiff now, his struggle had been a failure.
He halted suddenly and gasped as a sharp pain shot through his chest.
The scorched, sour smell of charred debris still lingered in the
street. Slowly he began walking again down Waseda Avenue.
All the houses were blacked out; only the pale concrete pavement shone
faintly in the dark. After a while they turned right and headed toward
Nakano Station at the end of the street. They could see the hooded
lights on the platform twinkling in the distance. All they had to do
now was catch the train.
At the left was a low stone wall overgrown with weeds. Toda stopped and
lowered himself slowly to the ground, breathing hard.
"Why don't we rest a bit?" he said.
"Whew!" His nephew Kazuo immediately swung the large bundle from his
shoulder. "This thing's sure heavy, Uncle."
"It's full of books, that's why. Finally, I could do some studying."
While he talked, he scratched busily at his side.
"Anyone have a handkerchief?"
His wife handed him one and was about to sit next to him when he said
jokingly, "Don't come too close, or you'll get one of my souvenirs."
"Souvenirs?"
"Lice, my new blood relatives. They're cute little fellows."
Ikue leapt back in horror, and the others burst out laughing.
Taking a deep breath, Toda mopped his forehead and the back of his
neck. He relaxed and drank in the pure air of freedom. How sweet it
tasted after two years in a prison cell!
A cool wind caressed his cheek. People hurried along the street without
noticing the four sitting there in the darkness.
The night sky stretched out endlessly; not a star could be seen in the
dark heavens. Yet Toda was conscious of a light that burned in the
depths of his being. No one else could see it, nor had he the means to
impart it to others. It was a flame kindled in the darkness of his
solitary cell, and as long as he lived, it would never be extinguished.
It was a flame that would never waver, even in the winds of an unstable
world. He reaffirmed this to himself and felt satisfied.
Suddenly his mood was shattered by a swarm of mosquitoes attacking his
face and legs. "This is awful!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet as he
shooed them away. "Let's go."
The four began walking slowly toward Nakano Station.
The lights in the station and on the train were also dimmed. As if by
prearrangement, all the male passengers wore military caps and
leggings, and some had steel helmets or air-raid hoods slung from their
shoulders. The few women on board all wore mompe, and they too carried
air-raid hoods.
In the midst of this somber group there suddenly appeared a man in a
light cotton yukata. He was immediately the object of suspicious
stares. The yukata, the most ordinary of summer garments, seemed
grotesque and out of place here, though *in reality it was the war that
made everything normal seem strange. Totally unaware of the distortion
*in their own thinking, the passengers glared at the gaunt stranger
with eyes that branded him a traitor.
Josei Toda was unconcerned by their hostility. On the train, in the
streets, wherever he went, he was a leader who always loved and
appreciated the common people.
The people are as hardy as weeds. Yet, in places where even weeds won't
grow, how can trees and flowers flourish? The people are often
mightier, their thinking closer to the truth, than philosophers or
statesmen.
Toda craned his thin neck and began talking freely with the passenger
beside him, an energetic-looking man of about 50 who held a battered
pot and wash basin tenderly on his lap as though they were great
treasures. He eagerly recounted for Toda the details of a major bombing
raid that had occurred one evening in May.
"Hellfire couldn't be more horrible! By daybreak the whole place had
burned to the ground - nothing left standing but an air-raid shelter
here and there. Ours happened to be fairly solid, so now we're living
in it - all four of us."
Hearing his tale, Toda suddenly recalled the Great Kanto Earthquake Of
1923, just three years after he had come down from Hokkaido. Downtown
Tokyo had burned for two days. A single blanket or a radish was worth a
king's ransom. He had been a young man Of 24 then, but even now, he
could still taste the first food he'd eaten in the four days following
the disaster - a bowl of soybean soup that had seemed like the greatest
delicacy on earth.
He asked the older man, "Was it anything like the fire after the Kanto
quake?"
"Oh, no. There's no comparison. This was three times bigger and five
times more terrifying. But where were you?"
"Me? I..." Toda faltered. He couldn't very well say he had been in
Toyotama Prison.
"I was evacuated out near Ome for a while"
"Really? I lost my house in the quake, too, so this is the second time.
Being burned out twice in your life is just too much. The earthquake
was a natural disaster, so you can't really get angry. This time it was
the Yanks. Whenever I think about it, I get so mad I.... This stupidity
is more than a man can bear! just what does the military intend to do?
It's like kids fighting grownups. Exactly..."
Suddenly he caught himself and looked around in terror. Toda tried to
continue the conversation but the man would only answer in brusque
monosyllables. He must have remembered the kempei-tai, the dreaded
military "thought police" who were rumored to be everywhere.
At Shinjuku Station, Toda and his party transferred to the Yamate Line.
He continued talking eagerly to anyone nearby. People were taken aback
by this oddly dressed man, but soon, disarmed by his easy manner, they
told him in detail about their tragedies.
As the train pulled into Harajuku Station, the passengers suddenly rose
'in a body and bowed reverently toward the right-hand side of the
tracks. Toda peered out the window but could see nothing except a
thickly wooded area. Only when they neared Shibuya Station did he
realize they had passed the inner garden of the Meiji Shrine.
He muttered to himself, "Religious ignorance has destroyed our country"
"The gods will not hear false prayers," Nichiren Daishonin taught.
Japan despised the true teachings of Buddhism, so the shoten zenjin
would not protect her. President Makiguchi had upheld those teachings
and died for them, imprisoned by the military regime.
A look of sudden grief crossed Toda's face. He stopped talking and
stared out the window at the burnt fields stretching into the murky
night. Out in that darkness, people groveled, bowed under unimaginable
burdens of terror and despair. He thought hard about those people, who
were trapped by sufferings yet endured so patiently.
Today, everyone in Japan has heard of Josei Toda as a great leader of
people in his age, but in those clays, almost no one even knew his
name. The few who did, knew him from the propagation activities of the
Soka Kyoiku Gakkai or they were authorities concerned with him only
because of his indictment under the notorious Public Security
Preservation Act, the so-called blasphemy law.
The Public Security Preservation Act was abolished by order of U.S.
General Douglas MacArthur immediately after the war, and many innocent
"thought criminals" were released. Since then, not a single instance
has occurred in which national security was jeopardized because of the
abolition of that law. This alone is proof that it merited repeal.
Originally intended to suppress communism, it eventually netted the
government a host of innocent victims. Guiltless individuals had their
entire lives ruined. The number of those victimized by the Public
Security Preservation Act in 194S alone is beyond imagination. Toward
the end of the war, the law became an instrument of suppression, used
exclusively to protect the interest of the military government, who
interpreted it to suit their own ends.
We must reconsider the spirit of the law. Any measure designed to
protect a mere handful of privileged people is likely to be
unreasonable and inflict misery and suffering on many others.
In spite of the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom,
President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi died in prison because of that infamous
act. What a glaring contradiction! Some people say there are more
criminals outside the jails than inside. That must surely have been so
if a man concerned about his homeland, one who strove on behalf of the
people, could be locked in prison, while others who led idle
existences, duped the public and helped degrade society were allowed
their freedom. Human standards of truth and falsehood, good and evil,
seemed to be completely reversed.
Who is qualified to judge another? Without knowledge of the great and
immutable Law, it is impossible. justice can never prevail until it
adopts that fundamental Law as its standard.
General Director Josei Toda had been released after more than two years
of solitary confinement. He was one step away from starvation, and
every one of his enterprises had collapsed.
Toda was well known among the younger generation under the name of
Jogai Toda, author of an examination primer tided Guidebook to
Mathematics Through Reasoning. This highly original text had already
sold more than a million copies, and there may well be several million
people, who, in their youth, happily passed their college entrance
exams by conquering their weakness in mathematics with the aid of this
book. They will probably remember the name Jogai Toda as long as they
live.
At that time, however, no one recognized the tall, middle-aged man, an
oddly dressed passenger on a filthy Yamate train with its windows
smashed.
Toda listened eagerly. The topic was incendiary bomb casings.
"That Yankee steel is first rate. I tried making a shovel out of it.
It's terrific!" one man began explaining authoritatively, with large
gestures.
"That's true," another broke in. "I made a fine kitchen knife. You can
get ten knives out of one bombshell."
"Ten? Go on. Five or six, maybe," said a small man who had been silent
until then.
The "Inventor" of the kitchen knife replied heatedly, "That's nonsense.
You can easily get ten!"
The workmen stubbornly refused to agree.
Toda smiled. He wanted to compliment these men for their
resourcefulness in making knives and shovels from fragments of the
enemy bombshells.
He rose and started to approach the men, but at that moment the train
slowed and entered Meguro Station. Stepping off the train, he turned
and called, "Well done, friends! Make all the shovels and kitchen
knives you can!"
For a moment, they looked at each other in bewilderment, thinking that
one of them must know the man. When they realized he was a complete
stranger, they burst into delighted laughter.
The train pulled out with the workers still aboard. They caught sight
of the man in the yukata standing on the dark platform and leaned out
the windows, waving excitedly and called, "Good ni-i-ight!"
The unexpected approval from a total stranger seemed to have suddenly
bolstered their confidence.
Toda climbed the stairs of Meguro Station, stairs he had not trod in
more than two years. Each step seemed filled with memories. The climb
was a great strain on his weakened body. When he finally reached the
top, he had to stop and rest a moment after passing through the
turnstile.
His wife, Ikue, and his sister and nephew drew close as though to
protect him. Ikue went out into the street alone to search in the
darkness for a taxi, but none were running in those bleak times. An
empty streetcar was waiting at the end of the line. Going by trolley
would be the surest way of getting home to Shirogane. She returned to
tell the others.
Toda nodded and strode ahead of the group. He walked on alone past the
streetcar to the other side of the road. The others hurried after him.
"Dear, let's take the streetcar," Ikue called.
"We will. I just want to look over here for a moment."
Glancing back at his wife, Toda indicated the direction with a thrust
of his jaw. They all crossed after him and took a road angling toward
the right. It descended in an easy slope. Off to the right were the
charred ruins of the Jisshu Gakkan, a private school Toda had once
operated.
Blackened fields stretched before them in the eerie silence. Their
footsteps rang out like the last sound on earth. Construction,
destruction. Destruction, construction. Is this the perpetual cycle of
all things? is it impossible for humans to build a lasting,
indestructible society? For nations to cooperate and live in peace?
Everything had been razed. Though the ruins had weathered more than two
months since the air raids, a scorched smell still hung in the air.
Toda sat down on a nearby cornerstone.
"Do you have a cigarette?" he asked, as though suddenly struck by the
idea.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
Ikue rummaged in her purse and handed him several government-rationed
cigarettes. She had carefully placed them there, intending to give them
to her husband as soon as he was released, but she had forgotten until
this moment.
He inhaled rapturously. The white smoke spiraled into the darkness.
This charred ruin had once been his castle. In 1922, when Tsunesaburo
Makiguchi was transferred from the post of principal at Mikasa
Elementary School to the same post at Shirogane Elementary School, Toda
had resigned his position as an elementary school teacher. The
following year, he opened his own private school, the Jisshu Gakkan. He
was 24 and the lord of his own castle. There he could practice the
system of value-creating education expounded by his master, Makiguchi,
without the slightest interference.
Even the dullest child could be an excellent pupil - that was his
conviction. His educational methods were practical and effective. In
fact, his grade school students consistently passed any examination
they desired in order to enter first-rate schools.
Word spread among the young boys and girls in the Shirogane
neighborhood that the day school was a waste of time and they would be
better off going to Toda's night classes. The regular schools,
municipal elementary schools, were left far behind. Honest but
incompetent teachers were enraged at the mere mention of the Jisshu
Gakkan. Their former pupils were happily gathering every evening at the
new night school.
A philosopher once said that the purpose of education is not to produce
machines but to develop people.
Education is undeniably the most crucial factor 'in the development of
human character. Education is an art whose basic methods are determined
by the pedagogical ideals of the educator.
Those who receive training in perception from a great educator bent on
perfecting his student's character are fortunate indeed.
In that respect, Toda's method was superb. He appealed to the
insatiable curiosity of the young and taught them to recognize
mathematical concepts by means of concrete examples. Through repeated
exercises of their reasoning power, he was, without their knowledge,
instilling in them an understanding of highly complex and difficult
principles. His methods were not only interesting but completely
logical and gave the children a chance to delight in their studies.
Nothing is sharper than the mind of a young pupil; it responds as
quickly as mercury in a thermometer.
Toda would come into the classroom with a broad smile, saying) "Hi,
everybody!" The mischievous boys immediately scrambled for their seats
and greeted him *in unison, "Good evening!" Their eyes glittered 'in
happy anticipation of another exciting adventure.
Smiling, he began to speak. "Does anybody here want a dog?" The room
was instantly still.
"I'll give one to anyone who wants it."
"Give it to me, sir!"
"No, no. To me!"
"Please, may I have it?"
"I want it!"
The whole room was in an uproar. Looking around with a satisfied grin,
he said, "Well, who shall I give it to?" Then he turned toward the
blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk.
Smack 'in the center of the blackboard he wrote In bold strokes the
character for "dog" and asked the children, "What's this?"
"Dog!"
"Is it really a dog?"
"Yes," they all responded.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course!"
"Then you may have him if you wish."
The children were confused for a moment, but soon one boy shouted, "Go
on ... it's only writing." The whole class burst into laughter.
Toda pointed at the character on the blackboard and said, "It's a dog,
isn't it? Go ahead, you may have him."
It was definitely a dog, but not one the children could take home. They
were bewildered, unable to find the flaw in their reasoning. Toda
explained that it was an abstract symbol for "dog." By repeating
interesting examples of this kind, he implanted in their young minds
the concept that mathematics is a study based upon symbols, and soon
they began actively applying their new-found knowledge for themselves.
Good seeds yield strong plants and eventually bear beautiful blossoms.
Good children will become fine young people, who in turn will develop
into excellent leaders of society.
Toda had his lessons printed up and handed them out to his students as
a text. Later, at the urging of others, he compiled these lessons and
published them as the Guidebook to Mathematics Through Reasoning under
the pen name of Jogai Toda. The book proved to be a creative
masterpiece whose record-breaking sales enabled its author to start a
publishing company.
Toda's business acumen eventually enabled him to establish several
other publishing firms. He also started a finance company that grew to
where he could open a stock brokerage in Kabutocho, the financial
center of Japan.
On July 4, 1943, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was suddenly arrested at
Shimoda, and two clays later, early in the morning, Toda was taken from
his home to the Takanawa Police Station. All twenty-one top leaders of
the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai were arrested. Toda controlled seventeen
companies at that time, as well as a coal mine in Kyushu and an oil and
fat refinery in Osaka that he was about to acquire.
A valid and profound philosophy imparts a dynamic vitality to both
human and social affairs and enables people to create greater value.
Any philosophy that fails to do so can no more benefit humankind than a
drawing of a loaf of bread can satisfy a hungry man.
The three-story Jisshu Gakkan had been Toda's citadel and the cradle of
his enterprises. Sitting there now amid the charred remains, he felt
like a man contemplating the ruins of a castle that had just fallen. He
stayed Just long enough to smoke a cigarette, but his memory raced back
through the years. Summer weeds were already poking through the rubble
The clumps of grass provided a haven for mosquitoes, so he couldn't sit
there long. From the scorched mound, he gazed into the darkness where
the city lay under its blackout, punctuated here and there by the
forlorn flickering of dying fires.
The four returned to the streetcar stop and sat down in the empty car.
Neither the driver nor the conductor were in sight, but when the bell
sounded at the station office, they came hurrying out and the streetcar
was finally on its way. Along the street stood a row of houses that had
mysteriously escaped the fires. In no time at all, the car arrived at
Shirogane-daimachi. Off to the left, where the sidewalk sloped
downward, they passed the spacious mansion of Fusanosuke Kubara, a high
government official. The trees of his estate loomed black and mute
against the night sky.
Josei Toda crossed the threshold of his house. After two years and
thirteen days, he was free at last.
The house was still the same. Finding it unchanged gave him a profound
sense of relief.
He sat down in the living room and immediately said to his wife: "I
want to change all my clothes. Roll them up and pour boiling water over
them later. I'm sick of those prison lice."
Ikue helped her husband off with his clothes and underwear and handed
him a fresh yukata. When she saw his emaciated body, she gasped in
horror. Even with his clothes on, it was obvious to her that he had
lost considerable weight, but she couldn't believe how his body had
wasted. There was almost no flesh; his arms and legs were like sticks.
He was skin and bones, except for his stomach, swollen in the last
stages of malnutrition.
She was badly shaken and had to avert her eyes.
"Dear, why don't you go upstairs and rest?"
just then her father came into the room.
"Oh, Father, I've caused you so much trouble. Thank you for taking care
of everything. Anyway, I'm home now and I'm all right." Toda
respectfully greeted his father-in-law.
"Good, good... everyone's safe. It's I who've been taking advantage of
your hospitality." Blinking the tears from his eyes, Seiji Matsui
grasped Toda's hands.
Matsui's own family had been forcibly evicted that spring and their
house demolished to make way for a fire break. He sent his family away
to the Shonan coast where they would be safe, while he stayed on with
his company and moved in with his daughter, who was living alone.
Toda's sister, Tatsu Yamamura, had also taken shelter there with her
son , Kazuo, a junior high school student, when their house burned in
the May air raids. The once-lonely house in Shirogane sprang to life
now that Toda was home from prison.
"lkue, the bath is ready," Matsui said to his daughter. Firewood was
scarce; he must have gathered it himself to heat the bath water while
she was out.
"You take yours first, Father," Toda said.
Matsui shook his head firmly. "Today, I'll bathe later."
"No, I'm going upstairs to rest a while. Please don't wait for me."
So saying, Toda went upstairs. Ikue went after him to help and found
him on his knees, bowed and motionless before the family altar.
After a while he raised his head and gazed steadily at the Gohonzon.
The bitter memories of those two years and thirteen days seemed
strangely remote, as though they had melted away in a single moment.
And in that moment, he clearly perceived his true self.
He began quietly to recite the evening prayer. Ikue joined in behind
him with her prayer heads in her hands, but she couldn't tear her eyes
from his gaunt neck. Not only his neck was thinner - when she looked at
his upright back for the first time in so long, his entire body seemed
to have shrunk. She prayed fervently to the Gohonzon for the recovery
of his strength.
At last, he began to chant daimoku. Ikue could not help weepMg, and the
tears streamed steadily down her cheeks. For the past two years, she
had prayed morning and night for her absent husband's welfare and for
his earliest possible release. Now he was home safe, 'in front of the
Gohonzon. After seemingly endless hardships, her long-cherished dream
had been fulfilled. She stifled her weeping and joined her voice with
his 'in the harmony of chanting.
Downstairs, their nephew, Kazuo, was hungry and raising a fuss. Toda's
sister was preparing a late supper. Food was scarce, and she had
gathered it at great pains, just for tonight. She had sake, fresh green
soybeans, salted cuttlefish - even a piece of cod.
Soon Toda came down from his bath, and supper began under the dimmed
lights. Ikue poured sake for her father and Toda. The house warmed with
gaiety for the first time in a long while.
Toda raised his cup. It was festive wine, his first in two years. He
took a couple sips and then abruptly set it down.
"It's bitter!"
Ikue and her father exchanged puzzled glances. There was nothing he
liked better than sake. Ikue stared at her husband in disbelief
"It can't have gone bad, can it?" Seiji Matsui took two or three sips
and shook his head. "It doesn't taste bad."
"No, Father, it's because he's weak; that's all."
Toda inverted his cup. "Well," he said, "it's no fault of the sake."
His body was so wasted he could not even tolerate his favorite wine.
Malnutrition was not the whole story. He was plagued by his old enemy
tuberculosis, as well as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, hemorrhoids
and rheumatism. He still had diarrhea, too, the classic symptom of
malnutrition. Having always been nearsighted, his eyesight was now
failing fast, and he was nearly blind in one eye.
It didn't seem to worry him. "These are delicious," he said, reaching
for the beans, and quickly demolished the plateful.
He was a shadow of a man, and gravely ill. But within his emaciated
frame lurked an indomitable spirit.
Sometimes a man whom doctors have given up for dead clings to life by a
sheer effort of will. Life holds many unfathomable mysteries that the
physical sciences alone cannot explain. Such phenomena demonstrate that
a correct concept of life views the mind and body as inseparable.
Toda related in detail all that had happened since his arrest. His
account of the detention house and prison evoked a strange world,
utterly remote from the normal realm of everyday affairs. But oddly
enough, even the desolate scenes he recreated so vividly seemed edged
with humor as he described them.
At times his listeners doubled over laughing. The house, empty of
laughter for so long, rocked with their hilarity.
No family can be free from sorrow. There are days when the wind blows
and days when the rain falls. There are somber days and days of bliss.
To spend a lifetime in continual peace and happiness is far from easy.
Peace in the family is worth more than a fortune. National leaders who
fail to give the people a chance
to create happy families cannot be called leaders.
Four days earlier, Toda had suddenly been moved from the Tokyo
Detention House in Sugamo to Toyotama Prison. No one gave him any
explanations. Today he had been paroled. Why they had chosen to release
him in such chaotic times he could not imagine, but perhaps he had
served out the remaining three years of his sentence in three days'
time. He believed in the principle of tenju kyoju (lessening karmic
retribution).
"Everything's fine now. We're all alive and here together. Ikue's safe,
Kyoichi's well at Ichinoseki, and I've got nothing to complain about.
That's fine."
Toda looked around at the faces of family and nodded thoughtfully as
though to finally convince himself. He had only one child, Kyoichi, who
was in fourth grade. When the heavy bombing began, school children were
evacuated to the countryside. One of Toda's sisters, who had married a
farmer at Ichinoseki, willingly took the boy to Eve with her while Toda
was imprisoned.
Hearing of this in his prison cell, Toda immediately wrote to his
10-year-old son.
"I hear you were sent to Ichinoseki. Lord Kusunoki Masatsura [1]
succeeded his father at age 11. You are already 10. To become a good
Japanese, you should be ready to travel alone with dignity. Live
strongly and righteously ... the basis of all discipline is to be
strong, to carry yourself confidently, like a man. First, resolve
single-mindedly, 'I will be strong! Then you can figure out for
yourself what you should do.
"I cannot see you for a while yet, but I want us to promise each other
something. Sometime in the morning, whenever it is convenient for you,
face the Gohonzon and chant daimoku 100 times. At the same time, I'll
chant 100 daimoku, too.
"In this way we can communicate our innermost thoughts just like
through a wireless. We can talk together. We will create an alliance of
father and son. Or we can include your mother, or Grandfather and
Grandmother, too, if you like. It's your decision. Please let me know
what time you choose."
Through such letters he encouraged Kyoichi from prison.
Every morning and every evening, he would chant two thousand daimoku
and then chant another hundred for each member of his family. He knew
Japan's defeat was inevitable and entrusted everything to the
Dai-Gohonzon.
There was, of course, no Gohonzon in his solitary cell nor did he have
candles or incense. He saved caps from the milk bottles they sent in to
him and strung them together to serve as makeshift prayer beads.
His was a struggle beyond description.
"Dai-Gohonzon, accept my life and the lives of my wife and son. Ikue,
Kyoichi, you may die by the swords of foreign soldiers. They may crush
and humiliate you. But the Daishonin win surely welcome you at Eagle
Peak as the wife and son of Josei Toda, a believer in the Mystic Law."
Though he himself stood at the brink of death, he prayed with
unswerving resolution. The mysterious enlightenment he had experienced
in his cell gave him full confidence *in his prayers.
Now he was free. Since his release several hours earlier, he had talked
almost without pause, as though assuring himself that his freedom after
two years in prison was real. His story was still not over, but it was
growing, late. Ikue worried for fear he would exhaust himself. Kazuo
was fast asleep in another room. Seiji Matsui and Toda's sister had
also fallen asleep.
The night was calm and still.
Then abruptly the stillness was shattered by the eerie wail of air-raid
sirens. It was just past midnight. Someone jerked the blackout curtains
across the windows. The radio reported that 120 P-51 fighters, led by
three B-29s, were approaching the mainland over Boso Peninsula.
Soon the raid alert tore through the Might sky. The family hurried into
the air-raid shelter as usual. Toda went upstairs alone.
Ikue was seized by a strange fear, something she had never felt before.
In the depths of the shelter, she could not stop trembling.
In all the dozens of bombings she had experienced, she had never once
felt frightened. The war meant nothing to her. Food shortages and the
harsh struggle to survive left her indifferent. Hemmed *in by crises,
Ikue lived with just one hope: for her husband to come home safely as
soon as possible. For two years, waking and sleeping, this thought
consumed her whole existence.
But tonight was different. Toda's release filled her world completely.
just before the sirens, ill as he was, he had told her gently: "Don't
worry anymore. I'm home now, so everything's going to be all right. You
don't have to worry about making ends meet, or about anything else."
Ikue knew then that her long struggle was over. She had won. And in
that moment, her inner world changed completely. A calm sense of
normality returned to her. Then the air-raid siren sounded, and she was
struck with terror.
Blackout curtains shrouded the windows in the upstairs room. Josei Toda
knelt before the family altar, wrapped in the ominous silence that
precedes an air raid. Placing a leaf of shikimi in his mouth, he slowly
lifted the join Gohonzon from the altar. He removed his glasses and
scrutinized each character, bending so close it seemed his face would
touch the scroll.
"It was just like this. No mistake. Exactly, just as I saw it...."
Murmuring silently, he satisfied himself that the solemn and mysterious
Ceremony in the Air he had witnessed in his cell was indeed inscribed
on the Gohonzon. Profound delight surged through him and tears streamed
down his face. His hands shook. He cried out from the depths of his
being:
"Gohonzon! Daishonin! I, Toda, will accomplish kosen-rufu!"
He felt that this resolve was burning *in his soul with an incandescent
glow. It burned in spite of him, a flame nothing could extinguish, like
the eternally glowing sunrise of kosen-rufu.
After a while he returned the Gohonzon to its altar and looked around
the room. He knew there was no one anywhere who could share what he was
feeling, and a deep loneliness swept over him. He spoke silently to
himself.
"Wait. Don't be impatient. You may have to do it slowly, but you'll do
it, whatever it takes."
In the depths of night, a bell tolling the break of day sounded in his
heart. No one else could hear it. It would take years before the waves
of that sound began, even faintly, to reach the ears of the people. Yet
dawn for Japan began in that moment. Tomorrow's history will bear this
out.
It was still so dark. The nation's outlook was black, and all around
him everything was black, too. Only in his heart was the day breaking.
"The darker the night, the nearer the dawn," he thought.
A high-pitched voice from the radio informed him that the P-51 squadron
was departing south of the Kashima Sea after bombing cities in Chiba
and lbaraki.
The all-clear sounded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Kusunoki Masatsura - heroic samurai of Japan's civil war period (c.
1324-1348). He was the son of Kusunoki Masashige, well-known as the
Emperor's loyal follower.
