Why I’m Here (Blog)

Photo by krungchingpixs

Jakucho Setouchi, a woman who loved writing throughout her life, closed her 99-year-long book on November 9^th. She was merely one of the celebrities that I would occasionally glance at on the media until she was brought up in a conversation with a friend last year when I mentioned my passion for writing. “I loved, I wrote, and I prayed,” is the phrase that Jakucho chose for her gravestone, which describes how she lived in brevity.

A well-liked, well-known, and well-achieved Buddhist nun who dedicated her life to healing others – this is how I would have portrayed Jakucho without knowing her earlier life. She was born in 1922. The prewar, patriarchal era when the authoritative power was dominant. Women, or even men, continued to bear different forms of violence for survival. Choices were limited. More often than not, women in Japan would marry to be supported by a husband before reaching twenty. Jakucho was fortunate enough to go to college and studied Japanese Literature. At age twenty, she married a 29-year-old man through a traditional arranged marriage. Five years later, she eloped with a man four years younger than herself, leaving her young child behind.

The love she chose over the marriage did not last long. Out of financial need, she started writing for a living. In 1957, her book called “Kashin” (“A Flower Aflame”) won an award but invited controversial critiques due to sensual themes that Jakucho openly depicted. The book is now considered as one of her masterpieces and made into a movie in 2016. It took almost 60 years for the “scandalous” book to be widely introduced to the mass audience within and outside of the country.

Jakucho kept writing and writing. She was successful with it but not so much with love. After going through other extramarital relationships, she became a Buddhist nun to dedicate the rest of her life to religious service. Jakucho was fifty one years old. In 1974, she built a secluded temple called “Jakuan” in Sagano, Kyoto, where countless people paid a visit seeking for her wisdom, compassion, and enlightenment. It was ironic for me to learn, almost half a century later, that I once lived five miles away from her sanctuary.

Because of her free-spirited, passionate, and going-my-way attitude, conservative people denounced her. Others, however, respected how she led her life despite the criticism. I am one of them. It must have taken immeasurable courage to choose her own path going against the established ethical norms. She must have suffered tremendously to decide to leave her child to pursue her passion, her calling. It must have been torturous at times, abandoning the life she had, to tackle, cope with, and accept the life of one she truly was. Without these experiences, the nun “Jakucho” was never to be born. Without such sufferings, her spiritual teachings would not have resonated with hundreds of thousands of help-seekers as they did. Without her unparalleled passion for writing to reach out to other souls, millions of people would have been left still in the dark.

While researching Jakucho’s life, I found an intriguing remark of hers: “I’d like to die as a ‘writer’ rather than a Buddhist nun who achieved religious recognition because writing is my passion. I was born to write.” No one would argue that writing, or healing others through writing, was Jakucho’s calling, life mission, or Light – the reason why she was here.

As a woman, and a writer, I deeply admire her life driven by passion, love, and commitment to be her true self. How many people can follow their heart as honestly as she did? Jakucho’s life indeed reminded me of one of Buddha’s thought-provoking quotes:

“In the end, only three things matter:
  How much you loved,
  How gently you lived, and
  How gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”

I’ve found another lighthouse to look for in a stormy night, from the ship that I navigate, called “Mission”.