I'm currently away from Tokyo, where many things have been going awry. Still, meeting with some budding Buddhologists here in Kyoto has been somewhat calming. I've been reminded that the cosmos is far greater than any of my individual problems. And far more morbid it seems. Today while the rest of Japan was visiting Kyoto for its autumn colors, I took the train into Shiga Prefecture to gaze at the crumbling remains of Oda Nobunaga's erstwhile fortress-capital Azuchi Castle. Nothing remains save several orderly foundation stones. But the real story is elsewhere. While biking through dry-cut rice paddies a farmer stopped me, and asked if I could make out a figure in a red jacket standing over a train tunnel. Through my viewfinder, I couldn't make out the figure too clearly, but there was in fact someone standing above the train tracks. "I wonder if he's going to jump" he said in a thick guttural Kansai accent.
A train passed, Kyoto-bound. Another passed traveling the opposite direction toward Maibara. I doubled back on my bicycle to check on the figure in red and khaki. He or she was gone, but both trains seemed to have passed without incident.
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