3rd Aug. 2019
Erika and I offered our prayer for the buried cicada again today. We wrote our message and put it in the ground. Last night I heard the cicada say, “Thank you.” When I told Erika about it, she replied, “Our hearts are connected even after death.” I was deeply touched. My heart became serene, feeling a presence connected with all living creatures, not just human beings. To be unified in our hearts even after we die brings me utmost gratitude.
At Master Idaki Shin’s lecture “Gender,” when he talked about philosophy from ancient Greece, my experience at an agora revived vividly. I learned that it was a place where Socrates and Plato engaged in dialogue and discovered philosophy. I was happy at the pleasant sense of being connected deep inside to a limitless world. At the Gender lecture today, I sensed the same space as that at the agora, an open world where a wind blew freely. It made me contemplate life. There are only men and women. I sense, more than ever, that people today are on the verge of extinction by romantic relationships that tend to cut themselves off from their surroundings and end up living thinking only about themselves. I feel the urgency to learn and acquire the essence of human beings as soon as possible. Now that a world has opened up where we can meet the Greek god of love from ancient times, my heart throbs to know that we can meet him when we express the innermost demands born from our lives. Understanding that to be in love is to be filled with energy to realize world peace, something I yearn for, I believe that Master Idaki Shin’s “Gender” lecture is pivotal. The opening line of the first letter I ever received from him was, “We fall in love, we come to know ourselves.” At that time I had no idea what it meant. I was embarrassed that I knew the words but could not understand their meaning. Now my life and my words are one. I feel excited when I express my deepest demand to head towards the future for its realization. The excitement I feel can be verbalized as love (koi), which is how I have been expressing it. For a long time I have wished to start my life over from my middle school years. My memories from back then are filled with excitement, scented with spring. Love (koi) is the perfect word for it. Was it that I met Eros, the god of love? Things from back then are starting to unfold. I still sense the excitement from my youth. However old I become, the spring from my age of fourteen remains inside me. A true spring will arrive in the future. Thank you very much.
