Those Dear to Us Are Also Others
In the western part of the Nara Basin, in the Mitsuyoshi district of Koryo Town, stands a small shrine called Sanuki Shrine. It is thought to be an old shrine whose name appears in the Engishiki, a list of shrines compiled in the Heian period, and its grounds still hold stone lanterns offered by eight surrounding villages. In The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the old bamboo cutter is called Sanuki no Miyatsuko. This area is said to have once been called Sanuki, and for that reason, there is a theory that the tale took place here.
In the tale, the old man finds a tiny girl inside a shining stalk of bamboo, and he and his wife raise her with great care. In about three months, she grows into a young woman of radiant beauty. In time, the old man hopes that she will marry someone, as people in this world do. But Princess Kaguya will not agree. Of the five noble suitors who come to ask for her hand, she asks each for a treasure that is almost impossible to find in this world, and not one of them is able to bring it back.
Also in Mitsuyoshi is Taketori Park, where a bamboo grove grows. Straight stalks of bamboo stand side by side, reaching toward the sky. Each time a breeze passes through, the leaves rustle softly, and the sound drifts away into the depths of the grove.
It often happens that the people nearest to us act against our own wishes and intentions.
Even things that would not bother us at all if they came from others become a different matter when they come from those nearest to us.
Somehow we feel dissatisfied, and at times we even grow angry.
Hidden there, without our realizing it, are the dependence and attachment that come from their being so near to us, and the wish to control those nearest to us.
But let us think carefully.
Even parents, children, spouses and partners, however near to us they may be, are, in the sense that they are individuals apart from ourselves, so-called 'others.'
They are 'others,' each going through life with their own freedom, their own responsibility, and their own way of thinking.
If we understand that we cannot change others, let us take it deeply to heart that the same is true of those nearest to us.
All but ourselves are others.
At the end of the tale, on the night of the full moon of mid-autumn, Princess Kaguya returns to the capital of the moon. Standing in the bamboo grove and looking up, I see each stalk rising straight toward the sky. Bamboo, it is said, is joined beneath the soil by its underground stems. Even so, each stalk above the ground sways quietly at its own height, catching the breeze in its own way.