The following chapter is from Reading the Heart Sutra by Hiromi Ito, originally published in Japanese in 2010 and translated into English below for the first time by Jeffrey Angles. A renowned poet, Ito first came to national prominence in Japan in the 1980s for her groundbreaking writing about pregnancy, childbirth, and female sexuality. In Reading the Heart Sutra, she examines a number of Buddhist texts and reflects on them in the context of her own life as she navigates motherhood, loss, and caring for her aging parents. Over the course of the next year, Tricycle will be publishing the English translation of the book serially, with one chapter released each month. Read the first four chapters here.
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So, in the last chapter, I talked about how I’ve spent lots of time and effort trying to find a way to help my father die peacefully. . . . He’s still alive, and I’ve got doubts.
They’re about the pure land.
I don’t totally get it.
If it’s possible to get there, of course I want him to go. Definitely. More than anything. However, going to the pure land isn’t like going to math class or something. Just wanting to get there doesn’t change a thing. But what is the pure land anyway? Where is it? What kind of place is it? Why is it so desirable? I’m a serious person by nature, so I ought to think this through. As I started to, I quickly realized Dad probably doesn’t have any clear image of the pure land that might comfort him.
Dad had abandoned the family grave. He spent his whole life never thinking about his ancestors at all. He’s old, tired, and his imagination has dried up. He no longer feels like living, but he doesn’t want to die either. I don’t think he’s thought much about religion at all, but I still want him to die in peace. So, what am I supposed to do . . .?
I’d been mulling this over for a while when a friend of mine in Germany sent me an email. I had sent him my book The Disappointment of Women, and he wrote this in response.
“When I was reading it, I had the radio on, and one of the FM channels was playing a vocal piece by Mahler. The glorious voice of the German tenor seemed to fit strangely well with the spoken voice of the female protagonist describing her disappointment.”
Hmmm. Gustav Mahler. I hadn’t thought of him.
I’m not sure which Mahler my friend heard, but the Mahler that immediately popped to mind was the Mahler I knew.
I’m not a gigantic Mahler worshipper. I’m not in love with him, but I do listen to him from time to time. When I do, it’s usually on in the background while I’m doing something. That means I’m probably not the most serious listener, but there’s one piece by Mahler that I sometimes put on. Usually, I don’t try to understand the German lyrics, but the music puts me in a quiet, calm mood.
I’m talking about Das Lied von der Erde. “The Song of the Earth.”
The recording I’ve got is the one with Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. What I remember most is Kathleen Ferrier’s beautiful voice.
By wishing for it, a vision of the pure land had been presented to me.
I remember hearing the expression, “Wait long enough, and fair weather will come for your voyage out to sea.” True enough. There’s another one. “When one god abandons you, another will pick you up.” Maybe so. Then there’s the expression, “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Interestingly, this last one comes from the Bible—a whole different religion completely.
By wishing for it, a vision of the pure land had been presented to me. That’s what it felt like when I read my friend’s email. Don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t been to the pure land yet. I wasn’t thinking about whether I want to or even ought to go there myself. It was more like I was standing in front of a restaurant and happened to catch a really good, tantalizing whiff of the delicious food being prepared inside.
Anyway, back to Das Lied von der Erde.
In the last movement, about two minutes from the end, there’s a place where the contralto just repeats a single word, which she holds for long stretches of time. By listening carefully and—I probably should add—peeking at the CD liner, I found that she’s singing the word Ewig, meaning “eternal.”
Until that point, the music is fairly uniform. It’s as if the instruments and singers are walking through darkness, carelessly running into each other, but occasional glimpses of brightness peek through here and there, but finally, at the end, we emerge fully into the light. There, the word eternal hovers in the air, allowing us to see into the distance. The word feels so raw and emotionally charged that I feel like I can see the pale light of eternity.
The lyrics of this last movement come from two poems by Meng Haoran and Wang Wei, which Mahler has combined with a few of his own additions. The last word comes from a poem by Wang Wei.
Wang Wei’s poem is pretty much there in Mahler’s lyrics, but they don’t leave quite as poignant an impression. The poem is serene and unhurried in its sadness. I can tell Wang Wei was influenced by Buddhism. That much I can detect just from the liner notes.
下馬飲君酒
問君何所之
君言不得意
歸臥南山陲
但去莫復問
白雲無盡時
Dismounting, I offer wine to drink
And ask where you will go
You say you’ve haven’t fared well
You’ll return to rest by the southern mountains
Then just go, I will not ask again
White clouds stretch on, endlessly
This poem went through a long game of telephone, in which some poets who knew Chinese translated the original, then a poet who didn’t know Chinese did his own arrangement and published it. Mahler then made his own adaptations and set it to voice, producing the music we hear today. When Mahler first saw the poem, it wasn’t written in kanji but was spelled out in letters.
A man is thinking hard about death. He’s at his wit’s end. He’s depressed. Everything gets on his nerves. He’s started thinking about suicide. His wife is a lot younger, and their relationship isn’t going well. She might even have another man on the side. He’s given up on himself and feels desperate. He knows his heart is bad, but even so, he decides to have a drink. (At least, this is the scene I imagine. Who knows? Maybe I’m just projecting.)
Mahler has taken this poem and transformed it. It’s as if the narrator is even more world-weary and perhaps even suicidal. It’s almost as if he peers into the abyss of death before encountering a pure vision stretching on and on.
And then, that vision reached me. Here I am. I am going through menopause, but I am extremely healthy. However, I am spending all my time thinking about my parents’ health, and since I’ve got such an active imagination, I keep thinking about what death will be like for them when it finally comes. I am completely obsessed with death.
I wanted to know the meaning of the pure land. It’s because I wanted to know so much that these words really struck me. However, I don’t understand a lick of German, and my CD liner had an English translation, but when I try to read a lot of English, my mind goes blank, and I glaze over. Once again, I wanted to try to take these words in hand and make them my own.
So, I asked a friend who lives in Germany to explain the German lyrics to me word by word, giving me English equivalents. I took that and polished the language into Japanese. The results weren’t that radically difficult from what I found in the liner note’s English translation, but by doing it this way, every one of the words felt fresh and intense, making their way into my heart.
This piece reached me through the single, final word sung by the contralto Kathleen Ferrier. I wonder if Mahler experienced something similar when he encountered the poem by Wang Wei. The original poem has been somewhat rearranged for Mahler’s version, so I’m not quite sure where to draw the line between the two. Still, when I call out to the text, “Hey, Wang Wei, where are you?” I feel like I can hear a muffled voice calling back from somewhere deep inside, saying, “Hey, I’m here, I’m here!”
Dad never read the sutras or recited the nenbutsu. He lived through the 1960s with its nihilistic, despondent attitude, elevated only by its infusion of jazz. I remember that before the war, Dad used to play the horn in a band; in fact, he used to do some of the big, key notes in “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Now, Dad’s really hard of hearing, but if I share Mahler’s song and allow it to flow into his ears note by note, word by word—the same words Kathleen Ferrier sang so beautifully—perhaps he’ll be carried away by the music. And perhaps they will carry him where he needs to go.
The Song of the Earth: The Farewell
His friend dismounted from his horse
He handed him a parting cup of wine
And asked,
Where will you go?
Why has fate befallen you?
The friend responded in a low voice
You have been a good friend
I am so weary of life
What shall I do next?
Where shall I go from here?
Perhaps I’ll wander the mountains
But I shall do so alone from here on out
For I want to spend my time in silence
I will return to my homeland
The place that calls to me
And never leave again
With a still, calm heart
I shall await my final hour
Spring will come to the rich earth
Flowers will bloom and green will grow
As far as the eyes can see
The distant sky will fill with pale light
As far as the eyes can see
Onward to eternity, to eternity
To eternity, to eternity, to eternity
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