The “right to choose” can be taken to the extreme of selection of the fittest or the preferred sex or race and disposal of all those currently unwanted or potentially of a type currently undesired—the extreme of the Holocaust. Both of these points of view, right to life and right to choose, have merit, and both are needed to balance each other and prevent deterioration into the harmful extreme on either end. Both have the potential to degrade the human condition and move further from enlightenment or heaven on earth—the right-to-life movement through anger, self-righteousness, and justification of killing, the right to choose through hubris, greed, self-righteousness, and justification of killing.
The Enduring Value of the Mizuko Ceremony
As in America, in Japan there are people who approve of and perform abortions and people who do not. But Japanese people do not go to battle or kill each other over this difference of opinion. It may be that the mizuko ceremony has helped to maintain a balance by embracing the universal human sorrow over abortion and early death in a sacramental and ceremonial way. The religious aspects of the mizuko ceremony speak to the heart of all religion, the pain of being a human and (apparently) separate from the One and therefore the pain of always acting with imperfect wisdom and partial compassion.
Abortion is a fact. It occurs thousands of times a day throughout the world. It can cause physical pain to the mother and fetus, and emotional suffering to many. This includes those who believe abortion to be an appropriate action in some circumstances and those who perform abortions. For these, the mizuko ceremony offers consolation and witnessing, a place to say good-bye, a touching in sadness and in the human confusion of love.
The sadness we all share about abortion arises from the fact that this is not a world where all children have a place that fits their individual needs, supports them in developing their talents, and brings them happiness and fulfillment. No one wants a world where babies are killed. No one wants to condemn unwanted children to a life of abuse and contagious misery that spreads relentlessly through society generation after generation.
Jizo Bodhisattva provides consolation for those who have lost an infant or young child. No matter how the infant or child died, through miscarriage, abortion, sudden infant death, accident, or illness, no matter how old the child was, there are those who grieve. Their grief is honored and gently held in the ceremony of Mizuko Jizo. In America we have expanded the ceremony to include children lost in other ways, such as children have been abducted or are alienated through a painful divorce or separation and also children given up for adoption.
The term water baby recognizes the essential purity of the infant mind as it emerges into this world of sound and light from the great unborn. This is the mind of the unborn we all once lived within. When we grieve for a lost child, we grieve also for our own lost innocence, the pure mind and heart we once had before conditioning and circumstances of the environment closed in with the walls of reactivity. Fortunately there is a path to recover what we have lost. It is the path of practice.
Footnote
* The Japanese tolerate an unusual degree of ambiguity in religious beliefs. The Buddha originally taught that there is no permanent and unchanging thing like a soul that continues after death. All forms of energy-physical, emotional and mental-“unbind” at death. However, the Buddha refused to say that nothing continued after death. He said that the craving for existence will ignite another flame of life. As Buddhism entered China, it picked up Taoist beliefs in the individual’s existence after death and the possibility of good and bad subsequent destinations. As Buddhism entered Japan, it further incorporated folk beliefs in spirits that could be helpful or cause mischief and also Shinto beliefs in the essential purity of all existence into what one author calls a “bricolage” of spiritual beliefs. Hence the use of the terms “soul” and “spirit” above.
chapter four
Jizo Bodhisattva
Protector of Children
First days of spring—blue sky, bright sun.
Everything is gradually becoming fresh and green.
Carrying my bowl, I walk slowly to the village.
The children, surprised to see me,
Joyfully crowd about, bringing
My begging trip to an end at the temple gate.
I place my bowl on top of a white rock and
Hang my sack from the branch of a tree.
Here we play with the wild grasses and throw a ball.
For a time, I play catch while the children sing;
Then it is my turn.
Playing like this, here and there, I have forgotten the time.
Passers-by point and laugh at me, asking,
What is the reason for such foolishness?”
No answer I give, only a deep bow;
Even if I replied, they would not understand.
Look around! There is nothing but this.
Ryōkan
History of Jizo as Special
Guardian of Children
Jizo Bodhisattva became the special protector of children during medieval times in Japan. He never assumed that role in China, Korea, or Tibet. The Japanese aristocracy was the first to take on worship of Jizo. They favored an artistic style that depicted Jizo with a handsome, youthful face. As Jizo became associated with children he was depicted with an even more childlike face and body. He was shown as a monk carrying a child or later, in a combination of these aspects, as a child monk. In modern Japan this trend has continued and Jizo is sometimes portrayed as a kawai (cute) baby monk, almost a cartoon figure.
How did Jizo become associated with children? One possible origin lies in the Earth Store Bodhisattva Sutra that was written in China in the seventh century and later introduced into Japan. In this sutra there are a few short passages related to children, specifically at the time of their birth. In one section the Lord of Longevity speaks to the Buddha about childbirth. The Lord of Longevity, who will become a Buddha in the future, is in charge of the life span of each human, determining the time of their birth and death. He advises:
When a birth is expected or has just occurred, people should practice good deeds. Then the local spirits will not only protect the mother and the newborn child, but will bestow peace and happiness upon the entire family. After the birth, all killing or injuring for the purpose of offering fresh foods to the mother should be avoided carefully, as should assembling and entertaining the family with wine, meat, music, and singing. This is because at the difficult time of birth there are uncountable evil ghosts who wish to drink blood. The local earth spirits should be honored instead and they will protect the mother and child.
The implication is that evil spirits could be attracted by killing, by offerings of meat, and by the immoral behavior of celebrants who are drunk. These spirits might harm the infant and its mother. In another passage Shakyamuni Buddha speaks to a bodhisattva called Universally Expansive of the benefits to an infant if the parents honor Kshitigarbha.
The parents of new born children should chant the name of Kshitigarbha and this sutra ten thousand times within the seven days before the birth. Then, if the new born child was to have had a disastrous life, he will be liberated from this fate and be peaceful, happy, easily raised, and long-lived. If he was to have received a life of blessings, his life will be even longer and happier.
The implication is that our life span is not fixed, and that good deeds can both prolong it and make us happier, while bad deeds will make our life brief and more miserable.
These short passages in the Earth Store Bodhisattva Sutra did not seem to result in any strong association of Kshitigarbha / Ti-tsang with children in China. Ti-tsang did have some connection with women’s concerns in China but did not assume a clear role as guardian of women until after Buddhism entered Japan in the sixth and seventh centuries. Women of the Japanese nobility soon took up the worship of Jizo, some honoring him as their tutelary deity. By the eleventh to twelfth centuries, devotion to Jizo had arisen among the common people
accompanied by a rich folklore from which many of the legends in this book are taken. Associations of people devoted to Jizo, called Jizo-ko, arose, usually attended by more women than men. At the monthly meetings of these ‘Jizo clubs,” older women prayed for deliverance after death and younger women for easy deliveries and healthy children.
Jizo may have become the guardian deity of children precisely because many of his devotees were women petitioning for help with their particular anxieties. These worries often centered around their children. They included successful conception, easy childbirth, conditions like diseases of the nipple that might interfere with nursing, and the many contagions that imperiled young lives and made passage through childhood quite uncertain. There are Jizo images in the Kyoto and Nara area that have reputations for curing typhoid, smallpox, and even measles. Why measles? Although it is an illness we regard now as relatively trivial, in years past it killed many children or left them blind, deaf, and retarded.
There are other theories to explain how Jizo became associated with children after Buddhism entered Japan. One is that infants who died before birth and children who died before their life span was complete would need divine help because they would find it difficult to settle down and adjust to life in the next realm of existence. Another theory postulates that parents grieving for the many children who died in the epidemics that swept frequently through Japan found natural solace in the figure of Jizo Bodhisattva who, with his hairless head, smooth round smiling face, bare toes and simple garments, reminded them of their lost children. In support of this idea, there are modern Jizo figures fashioned like a cherubic toddler, with a robe dragging around its feet like a nightgown that is too big.
The Legend of the Riverbank of Sai
According to Japanese Buddhist beliefs, young children are innocent souls who are unable to understand the teachings of the Buddha or to separate right from wrong. This also means that through no fault of their own, they cannot become enlightened and pass on to the realm of the Buddhas after death. They are stuck in a kind of limbo. Mythology locates this intermediate world on the banks of a river that must be crossed after death.
Jizo Bodhisattva protecting newly deceased children by confronting a demon on the banks of the River Sai. From a religious comic book, O Jizo Sama.
An old Japanese legend tells of the fate of children who die young. They gather on the banks of a river called Sai, where they pile up beach pebbles to make small stupas in remembrance of their parents and siblings. They say, “This one is for my mother who protected me, this is for my father who held my hand, this is for my sister. . . .” In sunnier versions of this legend, the children are playing and Jizo helps them. The children make these stone cairns in order to build enough merit to cross to the other shore of the river where they will be able to be judged and to pass on to the next rebirth.
There is a more distressing version of the Sai no Kawara (river-bank of Sai) legend, which is described in one religious picture book for children as “so frightening that if you heard it in summer you would start to shiver and wouldn’t be able to stop.” The beach is lonely and desolate and the children are grieving for the families they have left behind. An ugly hag with burning eyes called Datsuba (or Shozuka no baba) strips the children naked and hangs their clothing on a tree. Because they have died young, the children cannot fulfill their filial duty to care for their parents in old age. To make up for this they must spend each day building stone stupas. Every day at dusk the wicked oni, fierce demons with horns and fangs, emerge from the gathering gloom and descend upon the children, yelling insults. “You weren’t even around long enough to learn how to pray! You miserable brats who died before your parents!” With their iron staffs they demolish the piles of stone the children have labored to build.
Then Jizo Bodhisattva appears and the frightened children run to him, taking sanctuary under his flowing monk’s robes. The littlest among them cling to his staff or are taken up in his arms. He soothes them, saying, “There’s nothing to be frightened of. From now on I will be your mother and your father.” The wicked oni demand that Jizo return the children, but he stands firm, radiating brilliant light, and the demons retreat. This is the suffering even innocent children undergo in the netherworld. Only Jizo can rescue these little ones.
Datsuba, the old woman who strips people of their clothing on the banks of the River Sai.
The origin of the legend Sai no Kawara is not known. It may come from the Sutra of the Ten Kings, which was written in China in the eighth century and includes a detailed and vivid description of the journey that each person must undertake after death. In the second week the spirit must cross the River Sai. A medieval Japanese version of the sutra adds Datsuba (Old Woman Who Pulls Off Clothes) and Ken-eo (Old Man Who Hangs Up Clothing). This couple strips sinners naked and hangs their clothing on a tree whose branches tilt, acting as a scale that weighs their sins. There are three ways to traverse the River Sai. Virtuous people are able to cross easily by means of a bridge. People with less merit can cross at a shallow ford. People whose sins weigh heavily must struggle across where the water is deep and swift and many drown. All who cross the river then pass before ten kings who interrogate and sentence them. In the last court, outside the iron gates of the city of hell, stands the shining figure of Jizo Bodhisattva, who argues for leniency. The kings are subordinate to Jizo. He can release those imprisoned in wooden neck shackles, give the thirsty broth to drink, and successfully argue for leniency if he can find even one deed of kindness in each soul.
Japanese belief in the River Sai also may have originated in medieval times with a desolate stony area outside Kyoto called Saiin no Kawahara. This field, bounded by a stream, was used as a potter’s field where the bodies of unwanted children, suicides, and the homeless were discarded or buried. It is said that the tenth-century priest Kuya performed funeral and burial services there for these discarded souls. Additionally there also are records from the tenth century of a village and nearby river, both called Sai. Peasants were buried in Nether or Upper Sai and funeral processions stopped before crossing the bridge over the River Sai. Thus the Jizo images that were placed in those graveyards may have been called “Jizo of the beach of Sai.”
There are a number of places in Japan designated as Sai no Kawara. Often the name is applied to a deserted and rocky stretch of beach by a river or the sea. One such is Sai no Kawara of Numa no Uchi, used since the Edo period as a Jizo shrine. There grieving parents pile stones in memory of their dead children before Jizos in a cave. Hundreds of small Jizo images and toys line the rocks and fill a sea cave at another Sai no Kawara on the northernmost tip of Sado island. Yet another Sai no Kawara is the mountain Osorezan. In the thirteenth century Abbot Ennin of the Tendai sect collected hundreds of human remains there, built a temple, and performed proper funerals for these forgotten spirits. Over the centuries Jizo statues have accumulated on many riverbanks and stretches of rocky beach, places where families still go to make stone stupas and pray for their dead children. These piles grow as pebbles are added by kind believers who are moved to help the souls of unknown children travel on to an earlier and more fortunate rebirth. This practice may derive from an ancient Japanese custom of placing simple stone phallic images at entrances to villages and at crossroads. Travelers petitioning for protection placed small pebbles in a pile before these pillars. As Jizo worship grew and spread, these stones began to be called Jizos.
There is a children’s game in Japan called kotoro-kotoro (taking a child) based upon the legend of Sai no Kawara. One child who is “it” represents the demon and tries to catch the other children. Another child, who represents Jizo, tries to prevent their capture or rescue them. In talking of this game, Morinaga Roshi pointed out that the demons of Sai no Kawara are partners of Jizo Bodhisattva and “contribute their half to Jizo’s virtuous action.” Jizo does not do the work for the children, nor banish the demons. This is because children cannot develop courage and grow into their full pote
ntial without facing hardship and exerting themselves fully. Jizo simply shelters the children under his robe when they are afraid and encourages them to continue their efforts. This, Morinaga Roshi says, is “the essence of religion.”
Jizo as Protector of Children in Japanese Legend
Jizo Bodhisattva’s role both as a special guardian of children and as a bodhisattva who could appear as a child was developed through the many miracle tales that arose during the Heian period. This was a time when the misery of war, social upheaval, and coincident natural disasters caused large numbers of suffering people to believe that a degenerate age had arrived and that people could be saved only by divine intervention. Here are a few Jizo tales from that time:
During the reign of Emperor Go-lchido there was an epidemic of smallpox. No one, noble or commoner, escaped, and the sound of pitiful human lamentation filled every household. Priest Ninko was deeply moved by people’s suffering and prayed to Jizo Bodhisattva for help. That night Ninko had a dream of a handsome boy who said, “You are observing the impermanence of life.” Ninko said, “Those I meet and talk to in the morning are dead by nightfall. Even if we have happiness today later sorrow will come. Nothing is permanent.”
The boy smiled, saying, “Do not lament over life’s sufferings. Was there ever a time without sorrow? If a person wishes to be free from sufferings he should listen to the teachings of Jizo. Then he and others will be delivered into the peace of the serene light of the Buddha.”
Jizo Bodhisattva Page 9
