Counting
Last summer, around bamboo-planting time, my daughter was born into this world of sorrow. In order that, though ignorant, she might come to comprehend the way of things, we named her Sato. Since celebrating her birthday this year, she has delighted in such little games as " Clappety, clappety, ah-wa-wa! Pat-a-pate, pat-a-pate, this-a-way, that-a-way! " Yet once when she saw another child her age with a windmill toy, she wanted it so badly that she put up a huge fuss. We immediately got her one, but in no time she had put it in her mouth, drooled all over it, and cast it aside, and with nary a dewdrop of attachment, straightaway shifted her attention to something else. Just when it seemed she was absorbed in smashing a rice bowl to bits, she quickly wearied of that and began tearing the thin paper off the sliding shoji door. When I praised her, saying, " Good job, good job! " she took me at my word and, squealing with laughter, began ripping away at it for all she was worth.
She has not one speck of dust in her heart, which shines bright and pure as the harvest moon; she smoothes the furrows of my heart, just as if I were watching a performance by a peerless actor. When someone comes over and says to her, " Where's the bow-wow? " she will point to a dog. When asked, " Where's the caw-caw? " she will point to a crow From her mouth down to the tips of her nails, she is sweet and overflowing with lovableness, and it seems to me she is gentler than a butterfly flitting among the first tender shoots of spring.
This child must be under Buddha's protection, for on the night before memorial services, as soon as we light the altar candles and sound the bell, no matter where she is, she quickly crawls over and folds her tiny fern-bud hands in prayer. Her voice as she chants " Nanmu, nanmu! " is so appealing, so beguiling, so irresistible, so angelic! Whereas I, who am at an age when numerous white hairs now frost my head and rippling waves furrow my brow, do not know how to entrust myself to Amida, and shilly-shally my days away, put to shame by a two-year-old. Yet the moment I leave the altar, I am sowing the seeds of hell: detesting the flies that swarm around my knee, cursing the mosquitoes that circle my table, and even drinking the sake forbidden by the Buddha.
Just about the time when the moon slips through our gate and the air grows quite cool, from outside comes the sound of dancing children's voices. She promptly throws down her little bowl and scoots out, half-crawling on one knee, calling out and gesticulating in her joy. Watching her like this, it occurs to me that one day soon I will see her grown to the age when she'll wear her hair parted and I will see her dance — a performance surely far more beguiling than the music of the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas — and I forget my waxing years, and all my cares evaporate.
She never stops moving her arms and legs for a split second all day long; she plays herself into exhaustion and sleeps until the morning sun is high. Her mother takes that time as her only holiday: she boils the rice and sweeps and tidies up the place, and fans herself to cool the sweat. Then, taking the sound of crying from the bedroom as her signal that the baby has awakened, she deftly takes her up in her arms and brings her to the field out back to pee. After that she nurses her; and as the child avidly suckles, patting her mother's chest and beaming, her mother, forgetting utterly the pain she suffered during the long months the baby was in the womb and the daily round of dirty diapers, strokes her as tenderly as if she had found a precious jewel in the lining of her robe. How extraordinarily happy she looks!
Counting
fleabites as she
gives the breast.
She has not one speck of dust in her heart, which shines bright and pure as the harvest moon; she smoothes the furrows of my heart, just as if I were watching a performance by a peerless actor. When someone comes over and says to her, " Where's the bow-wow? " she will point to a dog. When asked, " Where's the caw-caw? " she will point to a crow From her mouth down to the tips of her nails, she is sweet and overflowing with lovableness, and it seems to me she is gentler than a butterfly flitting among the first tender shoots of spring.
This child must be under Buddha's protection, for on the night before memorial services, as soon as we light the altar candles and sound the bell, no matter where she is, she quickly crawls over and folds her tiny fern-bud hands in prayer. Her voice as she chants " Nanmu, nanmu! " is so appealing, so beguiling, so irresistible, so angelic! Whereas I, who am at an age when numerous white hairs now frost my head and rippling waves furrow my brow, do not know how to entrust myself to Amida, and shilly-shally my days away, put to shame by a two-year-old. Yet the moment I leave the altar, I am sowing the seeds of hell: detesting the flies that swarm around my knee, cursing the mosquitoes that circle my table, and even drinking the sake forbidden by the Buddha.
Just about the time when the moon slips through our gate and the air grows quite cool, from outside comes the sound of dancing children's voices. She promptly throws down her little bowl and scoots out, half-crawling on one knee, calling out and gesticulating in her joy. Watching her like this, it occurs to me that one day soon I will see her grown to the age when she'll wear her hair parted and I will see her dance — a performance surely far more beguiling than the music of the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas — and I forget my waxing years, and all my cares evaporate.
She never stops moving her arms and legs for a split second all day long; she plays herself into exhaustion and sleeps until the morning sun is high. Her mother takes that time as her only holiday: she boils the rice and sweeps and tidies up the place, and fans herself to cool the sweat. Then, taking the sound of crying from the bedroom as her signal that the baby has awakened, she deftly takes her up in her arms and brings her to the field out back to pee. After that she nurses her; and as the child avidly suckles, patting her mother's chest and beaming, her mother, forgetting utterly the pain she suffered during the long months the baby was in the womb and the daily round of dirty diapers, strokes her as tenderly as if she had found a precious jewel in the lining of her robe. How extraordinarily happy she looks!
Counting
fleabites as she
gives the breast.
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