Tokyo: The life of a literary giant begins with home self-defense!

Chapter 34 A Mayfly Sees the Blue Sky (2 in )

"Stay...here?"

Taro Ono was stunned for a moment, he turned around and looked around.

Looking through the window, I saw a few lights on outside.

This small village hasn't seen any new faces for a long time. More and more people are leaving here. Dead grass and old crows will settle here in a few years, and this place will most likely be uninhabited.

"No?" Longchuan Che picked up the tissue and wiped his mouth.

"It's not impossible." Ono Taro twitched his lips. Although the royalties from Shinchosha were not much, it would definitely be enough to support his life. He was just a little curious why Ryukawa Toru was staying here.

"An old man from Quannan once said that one should settle down in a place where one's heart is at peace. I have lived in Shanzhong Lake for more than ten years. I can't say that I feel at peace here, but I can still say that I like this place."

Ryukawa Toru was halfway through his speech when he noticed Ono Taro frowning, and he reacted and added.

"It's Lord Su Wenzhong."

Su Shi, whose posthumous name was Wen Zhong, was also known as the Old Man of Quannan in the mountains and fields.

During the Kamakura period, a large number of Song Dynasty poems were introduced into Japan, among which Su Shi's poems attracted much attention and he was considered a celebrity in Japanese history. It took a young man's reminder for me to realize this.

Ono Taro coughed lightly.

"Mr. Longchuan likes to practice calligraphy?"

Taro Ono kept silent about the matter of increasing the manuscript fee and turned his gaze to a corner of the living room.

There was the paper that Ryukawa Tetsu usually used for writing, as well as the brush he made today.

"Ang, yes."

After eating, I feel better. As for the issue of royalties, it is a matter of who can sit still the longest. Ryukawa Toru believes that as long as Ono Taro can see the value of "Snow Country", he will not give up. So the original contract for the work turned into a stay-at-home contest.

The two men were fiddling with paper and pen around the table. Mrs. Takeda came over and handed them some snacks and a pot of sake.

Before leaving, Mrs. Takeda glanced at Ryukawa Tetsu, and Ono Taro said with some regret:
"Ms. Takeda is really nice."

Taro Ono looked at the virtuous woman and praised her for eating and drinking for free and entertaining her in every possible way.

Takako Takeda made a surprisingly good impression on this guest from Tokyo. Ryukawa Toru sneered and said nothing.

The woolen tip of the brush splashed black ink on the white paper. In addition to the purple-hair brush made today, Longchuan Che also made goat-hair and wolf-hair brushes.

Purple is suitable for small regular script, while wool is softer and suitable for running script and cursive script.

"The winter moon is accompanied by the clouds, and the wind and snow soak the moon."

Watching Ryukawa Toru writing, Ono Taro pinched his chin.

"Leading it vertically downwards, flowing up and down, it is indeed the way of the two kings."

"The calligraphy of the two Wangs is rich and diverse in style, including "Aunt's Letter", "Lie Yuyi Lun", "Duck Head Pill Letter" and "Thirteen Lines". It is difficult to avoid them when practicing calligraphy."

Ryukawa Toru nodded at Ono Taro. Although the calligraphy of the Two Wangs is now considered by many people to be flat and vulgar, it is actually caused by many people's focus on appearance and fast-food style imitation.

“Most people who don’t study Wang Xizhi deeply can only copy the Lanting Preface and at most the Ji Zi Sheng Jiao Preface. In fact, they can also copy the Sangluan Tie and Huangting Jing.”

After saying this, Longchuan Tetsu picked up his pen and wrote "Spring flowers, autumn moon, azaleas, summer, winter snow, cold and chilly."

The boys wrote two kinds of calligraphy, one of which is restrained, reserved and calm, while the other one is extroverted, bold and elegant.

These two are the characteristics of the brushwork of the Two Wangs. Ono Taro nodded in admiration.

"You are young, but your writing is sophisticated. You are really talented."

Taro Ono shut up immediately before he finished speaking, because his thoughts at this moment were similar to what Tanaka Koizumi had thought this afternoon.

It's all because he's young and a little contemptuous.

"Try it?" Longchuan Che put the brush on the pen holder beside him. He picked up the cup skillfully and poured a glass of sake into his drink.

"You're not yet twenty years old, are you?" Ono Taro looked strange as he held the brush. In Japan, people are not allowed to drink alcohol before they reach the age of twenty, the rite of passage for adults.

"Why are you so long-winded?"

Longchuan Tetsu held his face with a indifferent expression. It seemed that he was always lukewarm when interacting with the editor-in-chief, while Ono Taro, who was very popular in the past, seemed like a dog pursuing a goddess.

"Nuh-huh, me? You..."

Ono Taro was very angry. After thinking for a while, he snorted and wrote:
"To learn the Buddhist path is to learn oneself. To learn oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be verified by all dharmas. To be verified by all dharmas is to let go of one's own body and mind and the body and mind of others."

Looking at the words written by the other party, Longchuan Che narrowed his eyes and smiled: "A ready-made case in the True Dharma Eye?"

"Shoboganzo" is a culmination of the Zen thought of Dogen, a great monk who went to Song Dynasty to seek Buddhist teachings during the Sakyamuni period in Japan. The line "Singing spring flowers, autumn moon, cuckoos in summer, winter snow and the chill" written by Ryukawa Tetsu was also from him. However, the calligraphy written by Ono Taro was not from Dogen, but from his master.

"Yes, it is the Dharma seal that Zen Master Rujing gave to Monk Daoyuan."

Taro Ono looked at Ryukawa Toru with a smile. Most of these writers had sufficient knowledge reserves. When he was proposing words, Ryukawa Toru was taken advantage of by the other party who was his master, so he rolled his eyes.

The two, one big and one small, who met for the first time, were chatting happily about writing on the snow and the moon. Mrs. Takeda, who was watching this scene from a distance, also rolled her eyes.

"Mr. Longchuan also studies Zen?"

As he drank cup after cup of sake, Ono Taro gradually felt groggy. He looked around at the words written by Ryukawa Tetsu. Most of them were about Zen Buddhism, such as the Lotus Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. Most of the waka poems were written by the monk Dogen.

"What I worship and what forms the basis of my literature is the theory of knowledge of 'subject and object are one' in Eastern Zen Buddhism."

Ryukawa Tetsu slowly put away the words written by Ono Taro. For writers and poets, the more famous they are, the more works they have written and the more valuable their words are. Unfortunately, I don't know if Ono Taro saw through it, as he stopped writing except for a paragraph about the Buddhist allusion of "detachment of body and mind" at the beginning.

"'Subject and object are one', subjective freedom in the universe is that self and others are one, all things are one, and the universe and all things are nothing?" Ono Taro was stunned. The other party's epistemology unexpectedly fits the writing concept of the nothingness of everything in Snow Country.

What kind of person would incorporate Zen into his or her artistic outlook on writing?

Taro Ono looked at Toru Ryukawa and smacked his lips.

The other party's ability to write about Snow Country did not seem to be a gift from talent, but rather a result of the accumulation of knowledge and literary charm.

Longchuan Che, who was pretending to be cool, lamented in his heart at this moment that what he said were not his own thoughts, but the artistic views of that great writer.

Taro Ono has been unwilling to increase his royalties, so Toru Ryukawa is going to give him a drastic measure.

“I like to use symbolic language to express the life of nature and the fate of man.”

While Longchuan Tetsu was talking, he continued to write with the brush.

“Zen Buddhism does not worship idols. Although there are Buddha statues in Zen temples, there are no Buddha statues, paintings, or scriptures in the practice halls and meditation halls. One just closes one’s eyes, remains silent for a long time, and sits motionless. Then, one enters a state of no thoughts and no ideas, and extinguishes the self into nothingness.”

Ryukawa Toru looked at Ono Taro.

"Mr. Ono, what did you think of?"

Ono Taro's face was a little red, he frowned and said:

“Western nihilism?”

"wrong."

Longchuan Che continued speaking.

"Everything is free, boundless and endless."

"The Zen Master Dogen who sang about "the cold winter snow" and the Shonin Myoe who sang about "the winter moon parting the clouds" were both from the era of the Shin Kokin Wakashu."

Myoe and Saigyo also gave each other songs and talked about songs.

Master Xixing often came to talk to me and said that the songs I sang were completely unusual.

Although I express my feelings in flowers, azaleas, the moon, snow, and all things in nature, I mostly regard these things I hear and see as false.

And the words he chanted were not sincere.

Although the song is about flowers, it does not actually feel like a flower; although the song is about the moon, it does not actually feel like the moon.

Ryukawa Toru stared at Ono Taro and continued speaking.

"Mr. Ono, what do you think this is?" The man was silent for a moment, then spoke calmly.

"Motoori Norinaga opposed the pursuit of knowledge through investigation of things and focused on intuitive emotional expression, which is the essence of our country's mono no aware."

The flowers praised are not flowers, the moon praised is not the moon, the Snow Country written by Ryukawa Tetsu is full of beautiful and delicate descriptions of snow, but what is written is a sense of nothingness in the world of ice and snow.

Taro Ono suddenly understood why the other party wrote "Snow Country".

There is the beauty of nothingness, purity and sadness in the ice and snow. Japan's culture of mono no aware has nothingness, fatalism, pessimism and decadence, the pursuit of fleeting and ultimate beauty, and the desire to dig out beauty from nature and people. All these are in line with Ryukawa Toru's Snow Country.

"You want to write about everything in one stroke?"

Taro Ono suddenly slapped the table.

At this moment, he was even angrier than when he was offended by Tanaka Koizumi in the afternoon. His hair and beard stood on end, and he looked like an angry tiger.

The Shincho era is fierce, and one person is guarding Shinchosha, Japan's highest literary temple. Now a young man says he wants to completely write about Japan's mono no aware culture.

Ryukawa Toru's words were too arrogant, and Ono Taro suddenly realized that he was wrong.

This young man does not criticize the society. Instead, he uses delicate writing to describe the distant green hills and the touching story in the snowy country.

But beyond the surface, what he wanted to do was to be the founder of modern Japanese literary history.

"Extremely arrogant, extremely arrogant."

Taro Ono tore up all the words written by Toru Ryukawa like a madman. He paced back and forth in front of the dining table, watching Toru Ryukawa try to rush up to him three or two times, but stopped himself.

"Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know what the last book that represented the essence of mono no aware was?"

"Mono no aware, elegance, mystery, the culture that the whole country admires, how can you describe it clearly in just 80,000 words?"

"So it's not 80,000 words, it's a trilogy, totaling 220,000 words." Longchuan Che looked calmly at Ono Taro who had lost control. The torn papers fell into this small house like white snow.

"Ha, how stupid." Ono Taro sneered. He picked up his briefcase and was about to leave the house and leave Ryukawa Toru.

Signing contracts suddenly became unimportant to him, and he wanted to teach this ignorant young man a lesson.

Anyone can write the word "mono no aware", but it is hard to write it completely and express it in the way of modern literature.

Taro Ono didn't believe anyone could do it.

His teacher had tried but failed, so he also tried, then gave up writing and became an editor at Shinchosha.

The word "mono no aware" runs through almost the entire history of Japan. No one can fully describe it, and everyone is just trying to get a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg.

"Are you afraid of me?"

When the other party was about to go out, Longchuan Che called him again.

The wind and snow outside hit Taro Ono's black coat. He turned and looked coldly at Toru Ryukawa.

"I'm afraid you'll die too soon."

Everyone wants to write about the essence of mono no aware, and everyone can write about it, but no one has ever dared to speak it out.

It would be fine if you added a little bit of the spirit of mono no aware into your work, but you said it in front of a writer.

This feels no less than if you said you wanted to use one work to represent the entire country and nation.

"It's okay to be a little crazy, but you dare to say such things in front of others," Ono Taro sneered. "One word from each person can drown you."

"Just because you think I can't ignore me is fine."

Longchuan Che pieced the torn pieces of paper together, and that was one of the sentences he had written.

"If you ask, you will be answered. If you don't ask, you will be embodied. Bodhidharma has everything in his mind."

This is a waka poem by Japanese monk Ikkyu. Ryu Che actually likes another Zen saying of his more.

"It is easy to enter the Buddhist world, but difficult to enter the demon world."

Ryukawa Toru spoke coldly, looking at Ono Taro who he told to just ignore him.

"It's easy to enter the Buddhist world, but difficult to enter the devil world?" Taro Ono, who was standing at the door and watching coldly, was suddenly stunned.

It is easy to enter the Buddhist world, but difficult to enter the devil world. This sentence can be interpreted in many ways, but it undoubtedly fits his state of mind at this time.

The so-called entering the devil's world is interpreted in Zen Buddhism as an illusory world piled up by desires and expectations.

What is the highest spiritual world for a writer?
It is my own book, my own work.

Their demon world is the one that can be passed down through the ages and represent an era.

Can Longchuan really not do it?

Looking at Ryukawa Tetsu sitting at the table, Ono Taro seemed a little dazed.

Those trivial and delicate descriptions of dialogues, mountains, cedar trees, moths, and phantoms on the car windows are as fluent as poetic prose. After sitting in a long tunnel across the county boundary in the cold and clear snow country, he records a pure and transparent world and the beauty of Japan's mono no aware.

He was angry because Longchuan Che might be able to do it, and he couldn't control himself because Longchuan Che might enter that demonic world.

The other person can do what you can't do.

Taro Ono is actually no different from Tanaka Koizumi in the afternoon.

"what would you like?"

Taro Ono's voice was a little hoarse.

'I just want to increase my royalties.'

The conversation between the two almost encompassed the thoughts of the author of "Snow Country". Longchuan Che felt that it seemed a bit cheap to talk about money at this time.

"When the Japanese Wen Gong saw me, it was like worshipping ghosts and gods, like seeing the blue sky."

When Longchuan Che said this, the light in the cabin flickered.

Suddenly, Taro Ono, whose mood was fluctuating and whose face was filled with the smell of alcohol, raised his eyebrows and walked forward.

At the dining table, on the snow paper.

An old man in a black kimono was sitting there.

He wrote "Thousand Cranes" at the age of 40, "Snow Country" at the age of 48, and "The Old Capital" at the age of 60.

He is a master of Japanese literature and a fascinating literary writer.

He lived a lonely life, and used his pen to write about Japan's modern history, showcasing Japan's classical aesthetics.

Through Ryukawa Toru's eyes, Ono Taro seemed to see the old man who committed suicide by swallowing a gun.

He tied himself, his literature, and himself closely together with the "beauty of mono no aware".

He is the one who can truly capture the essence of mono no aware.

"Who are you..."

Taro Ono's body trembled a little. He saw the highest pursuit of Japanese literati in this old man.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but also like this world.

The editor of Shinchosha walked tremblingly to the side of Ryukawa Tetsu and picked up the brush on the table unconsciously.

A distracted editor, a Japanese writer.

Struggle, pain, contemplation.

Finally, he trembled as he handed over the pen in his hand, and said with a trembling voice...

"Please write, sir."

(End of this chapter)