Kukai (Kobo Daishi) — The Man Who Won Too Well with Words

A Head Like a Copper Bowl

His head looked like a copper bowl. His face looked like a cheap clay pot.

His long legs were all bone, like a heron standing by a pond. His thin neck, pulled in tight, looked like a turtle in the mud.

When he walked into town, people threw stones and broken tiles at him like rain. When he crossed at the ferry, they threw horse dung.

A young man of twenty-four wrote this about a monk in a story he made up. The monk wore rags and carried a begging bowl. He had no name worth knowing.

The writer even added a note about where this monk was born: Tado, in the province of Sanuki, on the island of Shikoku. And the monk's age was twenty-four. The same place, and the same age, as the writer himself.

The young man would later be known as Kukai. The story was called Rōko Shiiki. Later he rewrote it, and it became Sangō Shiiki, "Pointing the Way Among Three Teachings."

Not many people draw a picture of themselves that is this embarrassing.

He had started out as the hope of his family. At fifteen, he studied old Chinese books with his mother's brother, Ato no Ōtari, a scholar good enough to teach a prince. At eighteen, he entered the government university in the capital. It was the school that trained future officials.

While he was there, the old records say, a monk appeared and showed him a way to train. If you chanted a certain sacred phrase one million times, you would remember every word and meaning of every Buddhist scripture.

The young man believed it. He climbed a mountain in Awa and prayed on Cape Muroto in Tosa, at the tip of Shikoku. The valleys echoed back his voice, and the morning star appeared. That is all the record says.

He left the university.

Of course, the people around him did not stay quiet. In a preface he wrote later, he says that many relatives and friends tried to tie him down with the rope of Confucian duty: the rules about loyalty to your lord and respect for your parents.

So the young man picked up a brush and wrote.

The story begins at a rich man's house. The master, Lord Tokaku, has a nephew who is out of control. Gambling is his job. Hawks and hunting dogs are his hobby. He drinks, eats, chases women, and sleeps. When relatives get sick, he does not care. He makes fun of his father and older brothers and looks down on his elders.

Lord Tokaku asks a guest, the Confucian scholar Master Kimō, to straighten this nephew out.

"Kimō" means "turtle hair." "Tokaku" means "rabbit horn." Neither thing exists. The names are a wink: this is all made up.

But scholars say that Lord Tokaku is based on Kukai's uncle, Ato no Ōtari. The lazy nephew is said to be a real relative too.

He says it is fiction, then puts his own family on stage and beats them in an argument. For a twenty-four-year-old, that was pretty sneaky.

Master Kimō explains Confucianism. Then a Daoist hermit shows up and tears that apart. Then, at the gate, the ragged beggar monk appears. His name is Kamei Kotsuji, "the beggar with a borrowed name."

At one point in the story, someone scolds this monk harshly.

"You have parents. You have a lord. So why don't you take care of your parents, and why don't you serve your lord?"

Your relatives are ashamed because of you, the man says. Strangers cover their eyes when they see you. Change your ways and do your duty.

The monk does not argue back right away. First, he admits it.

"My old parents' hair is pure white. They are close to the end. And I am so stubborn that I have no way to repay them."

The family's money is running out, he says. The fences and the house are starting to lean. If he tries to go forward and serve, there is no lord who would hire him. If he steps back and keeps quiet, his parents are still waiting for his salary. He cannot go forward or back. All he can do is sigh.

These are lines in a story. But he gave them to a monk born in his own hometown, at his own age.

I don't want to win. I want them to understand. And since they won't, winning is all I have.

Then the monk does argue back. And in the end, he beats everyone.

He sings a long poem about how nothing in life lasts. Master Kimō and the others twist their faces as if someone had stuffed a mountain of sour pickled plums up their noses. They burst into tears, fall to the ground, and faint. The monk takes the water jar he carries and splashes it on their faces to wake them up.

It is a very dramatic way to win an argument.

In the preface, he wrote:

"I am only letting out the anger that has built up in me. Who would want anyone else to read this?"

His first preface was even rawer. What was inside him felt like a boil that had not burst yet, like a bird in a cage trying to fly. Writing would squeeze the pus out of that boil.

And yet he also added: if anyone ever picks up this scroll, please sharpen your axe first, and smash this rubble and throw it away.

He wrote that he wanted no readers. And here he was, talking to a reader, telling them to go ahead and break it.

About the beggar monk, he also wrote:

"He may look like a joke, but no one can take away his will."

He dated it: the first day of the twelfth month of the year 797.

On paper, he had won. His uncle and the lazy nephew were left bowing on the floor.

And then, for the next seven years, Kukai almost disappears from the records.

A Ship Without Papers

Tossed on the waves for more than two months.

The water ran out. The people were exhausted. The sea went on forever, and land was far away.

In the summer of 804, Japan sent ships to China, which was then ruled by the Tang dynasty. These trips carried official envoys, gifts, and students. This time a storm scattered the fleet. Of the four ships, only two made it to China.

Kukai was on the first ship, the same one as the chief envoy, Fujiwara no Kadonomaro.

Seven years had passed since he wrote his story. During those years, it is said, he trained in the mountains of Shikoku and Kii and studied at the temples of Nara. One story says that at Kume-dera temple he found a scripture called the Mahavairocana Sutra. He read it but could not understand much of it, so he decided to look for a teacher in China.

He was thirty-one. He was paying his own way. Nobody knew his name. On the second ship of the same fleet was Saichō, a monk who already had the emperor's trust.

Kukai's ship washed up far south of where it was supposed to go, at Chi'an, a small seaside place in the region of Fuzhou. It was the tenth day of the eighth month.

They had arrived. But they could not go ashore.

They said they were official envoys from Japan, but no one believed them. The local officials thought they might be pirates. The ship was moved to the port of Fuzhou, and there, the story goes, officials came on board, dragged everyone off, and sealed the ship.

The chief envoy wrote letters. Nothing changed.

So Kukai picked up the brush in the envoy's place.

The letter began by praising the Tang emperor at great length. It explained how long Japan had looked up to China. Then it came to the real problem: the missing papers.

"Bamboo tallies and bronze seals were made to stop lies and tricks. When the world is simple and people are honest, what use are documents?"

He did not apologize for the missing papers. He said that having no papers was proof that Japan was an honest country.

He admitted that the officials were only following the rules. Then he went on:

"People who come from far away have just arrived, and everywhere they turn there is worry. The fear we felt at sea still fills our chests."

After this letter, the governor, Yan Jimei, changed his attitude. The seal on the ship was removed. The group was given thirteen buildings to stay in, and food, according to accounts.

The relief did not last long.

Twenty-three people were allowed to travel on to the capital, Chang'an. Kukai's name was not on the list.

He had come to study for twenty years. If he could not get to the capital, nothing could begin.

So he wrote another letter, this time for himself. He made himself sound small and humble, and he asked to be allowed to go.

His name was added to the list.

On the third day of the eleventh month, they left Fuzhou. They reached Chang'an at the end of the twelfth month.

But two months later, the envoys went home to Japan.

Kukai stayed behind, alone. He was given a room at a temple called Ximing-si, and he walked from temple to temple looking for a teacher. Later he described himself at that time as the only one left, all by himself.

On that beach, writing opened a door. In this city, I don't even know who to write to, or what to say.

A few months later, Kukai went with five or six monks from his temple to visit Qinglong-si, the Temple of the Blue Dragon.

There they met an old monk named Huiguo. He had performed sacred initiation ceremonies for three emperors. He was the most respected master of esoteric Buddhism in the capital. Esoteric Buddhism was a secret form of Buddhist teaching, passed from teacher to student through rituals, images, and practice.

As soon as Huiguo saw Kukai, he smiled. He said, as Kukai later wrote down:

"I knew you were coming. I have been waiting a long time. It is so good that we have met today. So good."

Then the old monk went on.

"My life is almost over. And I had no one to pass the teaching on to."

Huiguo had about six months left.