On November 9, 2021, Japanese novelist and "living Buddha" Setouchi died of illness, ending her 99-year legendary life, but her story is enjoyable.
Setouchi is a different nun who spent the first half of her life in the pursuit of love and physical freedom, and in the second half of her life, she still did not forget to eat meat and drink wine in Buddhism, and even if she no longer loved men, she would still stir up small fresh meat in public. Some people questioned her for undermining the tranquility of Buddhism, but she did not care: "To be a nun is to pursue the dual freedom of spirit and body, so why do we have to abstain from alcohol and meat?" What is the story of such a freedom-seeking nun?
(1) Harumi, the "slut" who pursues freedom
Setouchi, whose real name is Harumi, was born in 1922 in Tokushima, Japan. Her father runs a Buddhist altar shop to support the family, and her mother is a traditional Japanese housewife who teaches her husband and children at home. Harumi, who grew up in a warm family, has been practicing well since she was a child, and her biggest hobby is reading, especially likes books such as humanities, history, and popular science, and good reading habits have also laid the foundation for her later literary creation.
In 1941, Harumi was 19 years old and studied at the University of Tokyo. This year she met her own love, Jun Sano, a teacher who teaches the history of ancient Chinese music. Female students and university teachers, one full of sunshine and vitality, one gentle and elegant and full of bookish vitality, their love came vigorously, and soon entered the palace of marriage.
In 1943, Sano was sent to peking university and Beijing Normal University, and the two newly married Yan'er left Japan and came to China together. After arriving in China, Qingmei was the only child of her life. The following year, their daughter Rishiko was born.
Harumi thought she and her husband could live in China all the time, but things often didn't go well. Japan was defeated in 1945 and withdrew from China, and of course Harumi and Jun Sano were leaving China to return to Japan. But Sano Jun was studying the rise of ancient Chinese music at the time, and he did not want to leave China, and he especially hoped that he could live in China all the time and be buried in China after his death.
So, the family of three quietly moved and settled in a secluded alley. In order not to be discovered, they also cut off contact with relatives and friends in Japan. Harumi thought that the neighbors would be unfriendly to them because they were Japanese, but what she did not expect was that the neighbors were very friendly to them, and even went out to buy vegetables and greeted them, which made her have a good impression of China, and even when she returned to China in her old age, she always remembered this happy life.
But they lived in the small hutongs for only half a year before they were discovered by the Kuomintang and did not give them any chance to be directly expelled from China. Although there are regrets, they also have to accept reality. After returning to Japan, Sano jun went to Tokyo to teach, while Harumi and her children stayed in Tokushima.
Like her mother, Harumi is at home taking care of her children and her life is very uneventful. Separated from her husband, Harumi misses her husband very much. So she took her children to Tokyo to meet her husband, and it was this trip to Tokyo that met her fate and changed her fate.
Jun Sano had a student who often came to his residence to ask for advice, named Kinoshita Othiko, who was 4 years younger than Harumi and was only 20 years old at the time. Kinoshita Oginoko is not only handsome, but also often has a bright smile on his face.
After seeing this young man with a bright smile, Harumi could never forget it, often thinking about his smile in her heart, and even dreaming of being entangled with him at night. However, when she woke up from her sleep, she found that it was her husband lying next to her, and she was very disgusted to look at her husband who did not have kinoshita's young face.
Remembering that she also loved her husband a few years ago, but under the grind of a peaceful life, love has been exhausted, and now, Harumi knows that she is in love with this young man who is 4 years younger than herself. She did not quietly hide this love that could not happen like other women, but generously pursued this unrequited love behind her husband's back.
Kinoshita Oginohiko was originally a mercurial person, and when he saw Harumi's show of love, he agreed without any hesitation. The two of them secretly got together behind their husbands and teachers, and even had a very happy life. But the paper could not contain the fire after all, and Sano soon learned the truth and waved his fist at Harumi.
With her husband's fist on one side and her lover's gentle restraint on the other, Harumi chose the latter without hesitation. With her own scars, she left her husband and young daughter behind and eloped with Kinoshita to Kyoto. And this year, Harumi was 27 years old.
(2) Love is not all sweet
The imaginary good life did not, kinoshita Othiko had a good look, but did not have the ability to make a living. So the job of supporting the family fell to Harumi, who got a job at a newspaper.
Although it was harder than before, Qingmei was as sweet as ever. However, her beloved lover took her money and spent it outside, and soon hooked up with a bar lady. The story of Harumi repeats itself again, and the lady of the sprinkler leaves her husband and elopes with Kinoshita.
Harumi, who has endured the blow, has cried and repented in the strange Kyoto, but there is no way back, and she can only try her best to make a living. In addition to working in a newspaper, she began to submit articles to the magazine "The Literary One", and lived by earning fees.
In the process of trying to make a living, Harumi met Nijiro Koshiki, a mature and stable writer who was 11 years older than her. Two people with common hobbies attract each other, not only talking about literature and life, but also talking about love between the beds. But Xiao Yi was a husband with a wife, and they were together regardless of the world, and this underground affair lasted for eight years.
Eight years later, she was inspired by Harumi's creation, and her first debut novel, Qu Ailing, a female college student, was published, and although the sales were not good, it won Harumi the New Wave Fan magazine award.
Probably affected by the poor sales of the first novel, Harumi decided to write a bold and explicit love scene into the novel, and this operation quickly attracted the interest of readers, and Harumi became a popular writer while receiving a big hit on the novel. But her work has been criticized by many people, especially some moralists, in that decent era, Harumi was undoubtedly an outlier, and she was banned for 5 years.
Harumi, who had just been happy about the sale of her novel, was hit by such a blow again, and she ran to the bar to borrow a drink to dispel her sorrows. It was at this time that Otomi Kinoshita, who had been separated for 14 years, reappeared. The two rekindle their old love again, and Harumi begins to walk between the two men, living a tasteful life, but the balance in her heart is more inclined to Kinoshita, so she decisively proposes to break up with Xiaoyi.
In 1963, Harumi's novel "The End of Summer", which was created based on her own experience, became popular and won many literary awards in Japan, such as the Nüliu Literature Award and the Izumi Kyoka Literature Award, and Harumi also became a "spokesperson for Japanese women's literature" and became famous for a time.
Harumi and Kinoshita share their joy and, of course, share money with him. Kinoshita offered to take the money to start a company, and Harumi felt that for their future, they really should open a company to make life better.
However, contrary to his wishes, Kinoshita took the money of the eye beauty, the company was opened, but began to raise beauty. Friends all persuade Harumi to break up with Kinoshita, but Harumi is lost in Kinoshita's rhetoric and believes wholeheartedly in the man he has abandoned for him twice, and as a result, Kinoshita abandons her with her money.
Harumi, who has suffered a blow again, has reached middle age, but this time she did not cry, did not regret it, was abandoned, she also abandoned others, for her, love is nothing more than that.
(3) The result of renunciation and playing enough
Harumi, who has already gained fame and benefit, has made a bold decision - to become a monk!
She first went to the Catholic Church in the hope of becoming a nun, but was rejected by the priest because the Catholic Church would not accept a woman like her as a nun.
Undeterred, Harumi went to visit the masters of the Shingon Sect and Zen Buddhism, but in the end she still got rejection. Harumi had no choice but to smile helplessly and leave, thinking that there was no hope for her renunciation, but after visiting the Imatomitsu monk of the Tendai Sect, she rekindled the hope of renunciation.
The monk Imatomitsu is also a writer, and he and Harumi are old acquaintances, and he tells Harumi that the monks of the Tendai Sect of Japanese Buddhism can marry and have children, and of course, they also eat meat and drink wine. The monk Imatomitsu did not personally shave for Mei due to cancer, but gave her the Dharma name "Silence". Since then, Setouchi Shunting has replaced Harumi Inouchi.
In November 1973, He became a monk of the Tendai Sect of Buddhism at Nakazun-ji Temple in Hirazumi, Iwate Prefecture. After renunciation, he did not put down his pen and continued to create. It also took nearly a decade to translate the ancient version of The Tale of Genji into modern languages, for which Emperor Akihito personally awarded her the Cultural Medal.
When she was studying Buddhism, she did not give up eating meat and drinking wine, and she felt that the secret of her longevity was to eat meat and drink wine. In the beginning, if she wanted to drink wine and eat meat, she would take off her robe, which would make her feel that it was not an insult to the Buddha. But then she would forget about it, and often ate meat and drank wine in her robes.
Although she no longer touches the male color after renunciation, she will still talk about love, not only does she object to monogamy, "it will be tired to keep a person for a lifetime", but also laughs that "the most wonderful place of love lies in stealing love", and she will also directly provoke young men in public to host. At that time, the male host asked her: "Do you eat meat when your teeth are gone?" Silent Listening smiled at the male host and replied, "This meat is as tender as you!" ”
She is known as the "Living Buddha" in Japanese Buddhist circles, and many people, especially women, regard her as an idol. One of her lay disciples, Yoko Kobayashi, once wanted to commit suicide because she was saddled with a debt of 100 million yuan, and it was silence that gave her the courage to face life again. At that time, Silent Hearing said to her: "To live is to try to expand your possibilities without giving up before death comes." Yoko Kobayashi not only paid off her debts, but also became a best-selling novelist.
Setouchi spent her whole life pursuing physical and mental freedom, and although there was a lot of controversy, she lived the way she wanted.