2013年02月12日大日乃光２０３３号（2）
『英霊のご遺骨帰国は、ご先祖様とのご縁繋ぎ』（2）
〝他生の縁〟
“TASHOU-NO-EN” (Ties in another life)
また、「袖擦り合うも他生の縁」は、若い人に聞きますと、「他生」ではなく「多少」と勘違いしている人がかなりおられます。こう言えば、私が余程の年配者だと勘違いされそうですが、私は僧侶だから余計にこの言葉の深さを知っているだけなのです。既にその意味をご存知の方には申し訳ありませんが、敢えてお伝えします。
Above I mentioned the idiom, ”rubbing of sleeves”. Younger generation misread the two kanji (Chinese characters) of 他生to be TASHO, phonetically identical to 多少 which means more or less. Some of you may think of me as a dusty person when I speak like this. It is only because I am a monk that I get to think about the true meaning of such terminology if you knew this. I do excuse myself for delving into this but let me explain for the sake of those who are not familiar with the term.
袖を擦り合う程の些細で小さな触れ合いであっても、今生の今の人生だけではなく、前生（前世）で既に出会ったか、または来生（来世）で出会う深い縁のおかげである、という意味です。普通は来世、つまり未来の触れ合いまでは他生の縁とは申しませんが、私は敢えて、今生の深い縁は来世でのご縁に繋がっていると思うからこそ、このように書きました。
The idiom features two people who might not yet know each other, or at least so in one’s current life. When two persons’ sleeves touch and rub against one another, we consider this a sign of past or potential (future) relationship. Actually in its most common understanding of the phrase, we do not convey the sense of a “potential” encounter in ones reincarnated life due in the future. However, I dare say that it does, as our relationship of today will have links to the same in our next.
またはいつの頃からの言い習わしかは知りませんが、「親子は一生（一世）、夫婦は二生（二世）、主従は三生（三世）の契り」という言葉があります。この二生三生の生も過去の人生、現在の人生、未来の人生の事です。
There is another idiom which touches upon a related theme. “Parents and children are bound for a single lifespan（一生・一世）, husband and wife for two（二生・二世）, and the master and the apprentice for three（三生・三世）”. Here 二生三生refer to lives of one’s soul that reside in the past, present as well as the future.
生まれ変わり、死に変わりしながら、私達は親から子へ、そして孫へと命を繋いでゆくわけですが、江戸時代までの日本人は、生まれ変わり死に変わりの「輪廻転生」を明確に自覚しながら日々を営んで来たはずです。
Our souls are born into a body through reincarnation and the same body ceases to exist upon death, through which we relay our lives from parents to children, and again to grandchildren. Such cycle of life underpinned by the concept of reincarnation is something that the Japanese, up till the Edo period of the samurais, were fully aware of even in their day to day conduct.
そんな中から先の「親子は一生、夫婦は二生」「袖擦り合うも他生の縁」「お陰様」などの言葉が生まれたのだと思います。
The above examples of “parents/children single life span, husband/wife two”, “rubbing of sleeves”, and “OKAGESAMA”; these have all sprang out from the belief systems of such times.
豊かな自然に育くまれた日本人の感性
Japanese are perceptive because of the lush nature of their land.
去る一月十九日、宗教学者の正木晃先生をお招きしての講演会と対談を、熊本市内で開催しました。
On January 19th in Kumamoto City we invited Mr Akira Masaki, a religion scholar, and asked him to deliver a lecture coupled with a discussion forum.
一昨年の七月から、偶数月の第三土曜日の午後六時から二時間ほどで開催してきました「魅力ある生き方を考える集い」です。
This program was slotted into a series of lectures held on third Saturdays of every even number month. Titled “In Quest for a Life with Fulfillment”, we have been organizing this since July 2011.
正木晃先生は、「アニミズムから神佛和合へ～日本人の心の奥底をのぞく～」と題してのご講演でした。
Mr Masaki’s talk was titled “From Animism to the Harmonization of Shito and Buddhism – an Expedition into the Depth of the Japanese Psyche”.
実はこの「アニミズム」を簡単に言えば、全てのモノに命、つまり魂が宿るという素朴な宗教的な感性です。別の言葉で表せば、精霊信仰とも言われています。
Animism, to put it in lay terms, is a sensuality of people who consider that all “things” contain lives or souls rooted in a primitive belief system. It is synonymous with the belief in spirits and fairies.
一神教が広まる前の二千年、三千年、数万年前の多くの世界の諸民族の中に、このアニミズム(精霊信仰)は心の底流に有った宗教的な感情と言っていいでしょう。
Deep inside of us humans that inhabited the world of a few if not tens of thousands of years ago practiced this religious worship of “things”.
日本ではこのアニミズムが佛教と融合して「山川草木悉有佛性」…草や木などの植物や、自然の一部である山や川など、全ては佛の一部であり佛そのものとして存在しているという考え方を生み出したのです。
In Japan its indigenous animistic value systems and Buddhism blended to form what is known as山川草木悉有佛性 (san-sen-sou-moku-shitsu-u-bussho; all things in nature contain the heart of Buddha). Plants and trees, natural landscapes such as mountains and rivers, these things are all a part of Lord Buddha himself and a manifestation of his existence.
更に「草木国土悉皆成佛」とまで考えていたのです。これは植物もこの国土が象徴する大自然でさえも、全ては悟りの器であり、成佛の可能性を秘めているという考え方です。私達の先達の方々は、そこまでの思想を生み出していました。
They went further to consider not only nature but also the Nation to be a part of that (ie a manifestation of the Lord). This is to say that plants and the land on which they grow serve all of us as an environment that provide us the opportunity to seek for enlightenment. This is how our forbearers thought about “things” and postulated philosophical stand points for all of us.
このような考え方や感性を生み出したのは、日本の自然環境が豊かで美しく、四季折々に穏やかでたおやかな、変化に富んだ美しい自然に満ち満ちていたからに他なりません。
It is the natural magnificence and grace of the Japanese nature that harnessed such belief system and ethos. We in Japan are god gifted with four distinctive seasons that mutates from one to another with exuberant beauty contained within each.
ご先祖様へのご縁を繋ぐご遺骨帰國運動
Relaying the “En” (fate) from a generation to another
The Movement for Repatriation of Ashes
そんな中でも、時には台風や地震などの猛威を振るう、荒ぶる神のような自然災害ももたらしました。その中から先祖の方々は佛教的な無常観を実感し、さらには天地自然に感謝し、合わせて現在の幸せが続くことを祈り、子孫の繁栄を祈ってきたのです。
Despite all the positive elements of the seasonal beauties of Japan, the same nature has inflicted so much damage to us from time to time. These have been evidenced in the typhoons and earthquakes, disasters so severe as if God was on a rampage. Our ancestors have conceptualized MUJO (that everything is transient and hollow) and came to appreciate our land and nature, through which attitude they sought for the protection of our happiness and the longevity and prosperity of the people who have yet to come into existence.
そして多くの先祖の人々は、命の循環を生まれ変わり死に変わりの「輪廻転生」として意識しながら生きて来ました。そんな中で先祖のご遺骨に対して、そこに魂が宿っていると意識するしないに関わらず、特別な感情を抱き続けてきました。
Many a Japanese of the past have, through such manifestations of nature, equipped themselves with the awareness of “Cycle of Life” where lives appear and perish like circulation. We have consciously or subconsciously become “aware” of the existence of Souls contained in the relics of the ancestors and harboured precious feeling towards them.
「散骨」や「樹木葬」などが近年少しずつ広がっているそうですが、私達の圧倒的多数はご遺骨をお墓に収め、先祖からの繋がりを実感する特別な場所として大切にしてきました。
六十八年前に終わった大東亜戦争（第二次世界大戦）ですが、ミャンマーでは未だ四万五千六百十柱のご遺骨のご帰国が果たされていません。
In recent times there is a nascent tendency of “sankotsu” (to scatter ashes in the wild) or “jumokuso” (leaving ashes besides trees). Even then, the majority of the people choose to place the ashes of the deceased in the grave yard of temples where people pay tribute to their ancestral lineage. The Great East Asia War (WWII) that supposedly ended 68 years ago still lingers on for many souls whose bodies perished on the Burmese land. There still remains 45,600 such souls waiting to be collected in Myanmar.
この機会にご先祖様のご遺骨を通じて、先人の方々のご労苦を、このご遺骨帰國運動を通じて実感して頂きたいものです。合 掌
Through the “Myanmar/Burma Repatriation of Ashes Movement”, I would like our readers to imagine the various sufferings endured by the deceased, including those of our own ancestors.
In solemn prayer, I remain.
大日新聞（月3回発行）を購読されたい方は、
右の「お申し込みはこちら」からお申し込みいただくか、
郵送料（年1,500円）を添えて下記宛お申し込みください。
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