Diabutsu has eyes
in the back of his heart where
memories fly away
At Kamakura we stop to read the sign at the entrance to the grounds of Kōtoku-in: "Stranger,
whoesoever thou art and whatsoever be thy creed, when thou enterest this
sanctuary remember thou treadest upon ground hallowed by the worship of ages.
This is the Temple
of Buddha
We join a crowd of Japanese
walking along the flagstone promenade leading to Diabutsu Amida Nyorai, a National Treasure
and one of the most famous icons of Japan. As we approach, the giant bronze
Buddha grows larger and larger, dwarfing the people standing around the granite
pedestal. The Buddha sits in serene meditation, eyes
closed, undisturbed by all the comings and goings.
Goto-sensei poses for a photograph next to the
base, which she says was destroyed by the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923.
Although Hiroko was only a toddler at the time, she vividly remembers her family fleeing to a nearby hill where they watched for three days as fire
destroyed all of Tokyo
When I walk around the statue, I notice a faint
gleam around the ears, the remains of gilding. Goto-sensei says the bronze statue, built around 1252, was originally protected from the elements by a hall. But the last of several halls was
destroyed by a tsunami in 1498 and since then the Buddha has sat in the open
air.
On the far side I am surprised to see a pair of windows on the back of
the Buddha. The bronze panels of the statue open like shutters, revealing grilled squares with no glass panes. Goto-sensei says you can go up
inside the statue and look out, but she is not interested in an ascent inside a
hollow metal shell with years of graffiti on the walls. Above our heads, rolls
of grey and white altocumulus clouds stretch away into the unbounded firmament.
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