Mythic Imagination by Joseph Campbell

Author:Joseph Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joseph Campbell Foundation
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

3.

Yamato-san, next morning, early, entering the temple, set to work about the altar. A special ceremony in observance of the miraculous disappearance of the treasured bodhisattva had been scheduled for that afternoon. Committees of parishioners had held a great series of extraordinary meetings during the intervening forty-odd hours, and it had been decided that at the earliest opportunity, public and formal recognition should be accorded to the disturbingly indeterminate phenomenon. The bronze lotus stem, formerly held in the bodhisattva’s left hand, had been permitted to remain, as Yamato-san had found it, lying like a long pipe stem across the heavier lotus bowl of the pedestal. And the tiara, placed by the miracle on the floor, against the wall just to the left of one of the doors, no one had yet presumed to touch.

Yamato-san puttered about the altar with a dust rag, performing the little tasks of the conscientious janitor, while his good wife, Yuriko-san—a chunky little old woman in a plain, neat work kimono, scuffing across the floor mats and chattering continuously to her spouse—made straight the remainder of the room. The two moved quickly through their tasks, each knowing precisely where the other would be every moment of the time.

When she had finished her fixing and dusting, Yuriko-san turned to the very special work for which she was particularly appreciated by the members of the congregation: her sensitive and always succinctly appropriate arrangement of flowers. A sheaf of selected twigs and sprays gathered by her husband were lying, wrapped in a newspaper, on one of the little lacquer tables against the wall. Pausing in her chatter, she opened the paper and studied the material. Yamato-san, having finished at the altar, came strolling over to her side. They studied the material together with occasional brief remarks; then suddenly her light flow of chatter resumed, and her husband turned away.

Lifting and studying the sprays one by one, his wife began her pretty task, while heavy-shouldered little Yamato-san, hiking at his belt, moved to the vestibule. He passed through the door. Almost immediately his wife heard a thud, as though something had fallen to the floor. She turned and called, but there was no reply. She called again. Setting the flowers down and calling anxiously, she shuffled across the mats. A sprig that had caught to her kimono jerked from the table a few sprays that trailed and detached themselves as she proceeded. She arrived at the vestibule, crossed the threshold, and saw her husband, lying facedown, breathing heavily.

A bodhisattva was sitting on the lotus. The flower stem in his left hand he was presenting delicately, almost girlishly. The tiara was on his head again, as though nothing had come to pass. And his bronze lips were fixed, as ever, in a gentle, strangely noncommunicative smile.

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