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What is pain to a man? A privilege! Masking pain is the measure of a man.
Never forget Japmen’re six-faced and have three hearts. It’s a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show his very special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except himself alone, hidden only God knows where.
How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.
“Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for ‘love’ as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.”
Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth?
One of our first poems ever written—it’s in the Kojiki, our first history book that was written down about a thousand years ago—perhaps that will explain what I’m saying: “Eight cumulus arise For the lovers to hide within. The Eightfold Fence of Izumo Province Enclose those Eightfold clouds— Oh how marvelous, that Eightfold Fence!
Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don’t give way to the seven, you’re patient, then you’ll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.’ ”
How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade.
“But the stink, Mariko-san!” “That’s a small price to pay for so much bounty, neh? Just do as we do, open your eyes and ears and mind. Hear the wind and the rain, the insects and the birds, listen to the plants growing, and in your mind, see your generations following unto the end of time. If you do that, Anjin-san, soon you smell only the loveliness of life. It requires practice … but you become very Japanese, neh?”
“Patience means restraining yourself. There are seven emotions, neh? Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn’t give way to these, he’s patient.
