Great Construction

Life Before Faith 1

     Sometime previously I wrote about how for the first half of my life I was a completely ordinary type of guy, but I did not go into details, and afterwards, I felt there were many points not addressed, so I would like to describe some of the more interesting aspects to this period of my life.
     To begin, I mention my present wife. She is my second wife. I married for the first time when I was twenty-five years old; she was nineteen. About a year after we married, she came down with tuberculosis. I took her to the doctor right away, and what he said was that since there was no medicine for the disease, the first thing to do was move to an area of good air and that there was nothing other than to plan on a long convalescence. Luckily, my wife’s family lived in Kanazawa in Kanagawa Prefecture on the beach, so it was just right. My mother, older brother, and relatives, however, all said that as it was a dangerously infectious disease, that even if we had children, they would inherit the disease (the prevalent theory at the time), and strongly urged me to send her back to her father’s household. For a while I was disposed to do that. But the more I thought about it, there was something in my mind that just did not add up. That is, is it not the way of human beings for the man to lovingly care for the woman to whom he has pledged his life and that to return her to her home would be a utilitarian act, something too cold hearted for me to do.
     I firmly resolved in my heart that it was the path of husband and wife to share joy and sorrow throughout our lifetimes. Fortunately, I had cured myself of tuberculosis and it was my conviction that she could be cured. I thought that since that was the way human beings should live, the certainty welled up within that there was no way infection could spread. I could not help feeling it peculiar that such a feeling should arise within me who was an atheist at the time. The doctor and my relatives who heard my explanation gave up in despair, thinking me eccentric. That the seeds of faith had already been planted in the bottom of my heart was something I realized later when I became involved in religion. In that way, based on my experience of relying on a vegetarian diet and not undergoing medical treatment, she recovered in three to four months.
     Another episode is the following. There was a girl from a rural area who I hired through a broker as a maid. She became sick and I sent her back to her home in Awa Province, but after a while she unexpectedly came to visit. She looked very pale, and when I asked about it, she said that her condition had gradually worsened and because she had been diagnosed by a doctor to be in an advanced state of tuberculosis, those around her began to shun her. Her family lived in extreme poverty, so she was treated as a nuisance and told to go find work. Crying, she told me her story and I sympathized. I told her, “It is absurd to expect you to work in that condition. Go home right away. While you are alive I will send your living and medical expenses,” and she joyfully returned to her home. I remember that I sent her fifteen yen every month which at the time was sufficient.
     If this were just a tender-hearted story, it would not be that unusual, but I have included it here because there is a point about it that I wish to make. At the time, my relatives and friends adamantly advised me that if the girl’s tuberculosis had had any chance of being cured, what I was doing would be acceptable, but that she was going to die. “Isn’t it pointless to help someone who is going to die? If she could be cured, return to work, and pay you back, that would be one thing, but that is not going to happen, so it is just a trivial matter that you’re wasting money on. The sooner you stop the better.” To this I replied: “I do not have any intention of making her incur a debt so that I can be repaid. Helping people to get something in return is one kind of business transaction. It’s like selling favors so it is not compassion or charity. It’s a form of business under the guise of pretending to be virtuous. I just thought she was pitiable and wanted to do something for her. It is just a natural reaction. As long as I am happy, isn’t that enough? Mind your own business. You guys might think I’m crazy, but that’s ok.” They were all shocked and shut up.
     At that time I did not have any faith at all. I was a hard-boiled materialist, but my way of thinking was much like that of a person of faith. Even without faith on the outside, deep inside I was already a person of faith.

An Account of Myself, 1952, unpublished
translated by cynndd

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“Mushinkō Jidai 1” was written as a chapter in a volume to be titled Watakushi Monogatari (An Account of Myself) that is now dated 1952. Meishu-sama never finished a complete manuscript for this volume and none of the contents were ever published while Meishu-sama was alive. Another chapter in manuscript that remains in which Meishu-sama details his preparations to establish a movie theater when he was a businessman is also titled “Mushinkō Jidai.”  Whether Meishu-sama intended both to be titled such and distinguished them by “1” and “2,” or whether these numbers were added later by anthology editors to distinguish manuscripts of the same name in progress (more probably) is unknown. Out of the six chapters that Meishu-sama actually wrote, “Mushinkō Jidai 1” was included with a slight change of title and one slight internal revision of the text in a collection of reminiscences about Meishu-sama that was published in 1970.