Indra's Net: The Spiritual Universe of Miyazawa Kenji 因陀羅の網

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 43 | Number 4 | Oct 25, 2010

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Indra’s Net: The Spiritual Universe of Miyazawa Kenji　　因陀羅の網

Roger Pulvers, Miyazawa Kenji, Jane Marie Law

Indra’s Net: The Spiritual Universeof Miyazawa Kenji

Miyazawa Kenji

Translated and introduced by RogerPulvers

Postscript by Jane Marie Law

The Phenomenon Called Miyazawa Kenji

Miyazawa Kenji must certainly be the world’sonly author who described himself as a singleillumination of light. The actual lines—the veryfirst in his “Preface to Spring and Ashura—gothis way.

The phenomenon called I

Is a single blue illumination

This ray of l ight comes from “karma’salternating current lamp”…

Flickering unceasingly, restlessly

Together with the sights of theland and all else

Or is Kenji describing all of us with this “I”?After all, the “blue” in this poem is the blue ofthe other world, the place where we are allheaded (albeit not necessarily in an upwarddirection). Blue is the most commonly used

color by Kenji in his works; and the sky appearsas a transit medium for all living creatures.

Among his poems, perhaps this “Preface” bestdescribes his take on life. This take is all-encompassing. He does not view human life—orany other form of life, for that matter—asseparate from the rocks, mountains, rivers, thelight, the wind…. This is what he means by“Together with the sights of the land and allelse.”

If “Preface” is his clearest pronouncement ofthis in verse, then “Indra’s Net,” which appearsin English here for the first time, is his mostinspired and direct shot at his universe inprose. Fiercely lyrical and unmistakablydevotional, it describes a vision of Paradise asseen at the Tsela Pass in northern India. At4215 meters above sea level, he may behalfway to Paradise already.

How did this man, born into a well-to-doentrepreneurial family in the provincial IwatePrefecture town of Hanamaki at the end of the19th century, come to envision himself in sucha remote spot, ecstatic at the floor of heaven?

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Osawa Onsen just outside Hanamaki. Kenjioften went to the rotenburo (outdoor bath)

there.

Though he never left Japan in his lifetime, thatdidn’t stop him from pursuing a gamut ofinterests that transported him to what we call“the outside world.” This is an apt phrase forKenji, whose outside world extended into thecosmos.

He studied German, English and Esperanto. Hewas obsessed with classical music, Beethovenin particular. (He owned the largest collectionof records in Iwate.) Many of his charactershave non-Japanese names; many of his storiestake place outside Japan.

Years ago I described Kenji as “a dilettantetypical of the Taisho Era,” and I would stillstick to this description. Millions of hiscompatriots at the time were into foreignlanguages, Western music and fantasies aboutforeign places they did not have theopportunity or means to get to. Kenji, in this,was no exception. The exception was hisfanaticism for these things, his obsessiveness.He was generally a highly obsessive individual;and today, psychiatrists would have ajustifiable field day with his symptomatichyperactive behavior.

But the focus of this hyperactivity in a myriadof spheres is, in his case, unique: faith. Kenjiwas a devout and dogmatic Buddhist. He wasalso a dedicated proselytizer. He wanted to seeall of us, someday, gathered around that bigbonfire in the sky, sending heat and light out tothis world, laughing together and singingsongs, preferably one of his own compositions,“Once Around the Stars.”

We often encounter in Kenji’s phenomenologyrivers and rocks in the sky. As an amateurgeologist—there is now a museum in Hanamakifeaturing a collection of the mineralsmentioned in his works—he knew his rockswell. His nickname at school was “Rocky” (石ころ賢). One of the themes in his poetry andprose is that reality cannot be portrayed merelyin the present and that a description that doesnot consider what the scene or object was likein the past and what it will be like in the futureis, at best, fragmentary and, at worst,inaccurate.

When you read the descriptions in “Indra’sNet” please bear this in mind. You are lookingnot at the surreal. There is no surrealism inKenji’s world. Everything that is is a part ofeverything that was or will be. The universemay be chaotic, but it makes perfect sense.

As the Buddha says to the two little brothers inhis exquisite story “Barefeet of Light” (「ひかりの素足」)…

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Miyazawa Kenji. Kenji had this photo takenwith him consciously imitating the pose

and clothing of Beethoven. CollagePhotograph by Oshima Hiroshi

“There’s nothing to be frightened of. Comparedto the great virtue that envelops the world,your sins are what a little drop of dew on thepoint of a thistle’s thorn is to the light of thesun.”

The life of one of the brothers in “Barefeet ofLight” is saved by the Buddha, thanks to hisspirit of self-sacrifice. Kenji’s kaleidoscopicvisions of the real world were grounded in hissharpened sense of moral justice. In that way,his faith was as down-to-earth as it wasvisionary.

Indra’s Net

It seemed then that I had collapsed, out of utterexhaustion, on a bed of green grass and wind.

In that faint autumn wind I exchanged bows,courteous to a fault, with my tin-coloredshadow.

Then, I stepped alone onto a dark cowberrycarpet and traveled about the Tsela Plateau.

Tsela pass

The cowberry boasted red fruit.

The white sky blanketed the entire plateau. Itwas a cold white, whiter than kaolin china.

The rarefied air sang in a high-pitched whirr,no doubt due to the sun making its lonely waybeyond the white porcelain clouds. The sun hadalready sunk below the black barbed ridges inthe west, creaking in the dim light of a lateafternoon.

I looked around, gasping like a fish.

Wherever I looked, there wasn’t even a shadowof a bird, nor was there so much as a trace ofany gentle beast.

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“What on earth am I visiting here in the upperreaches of the atmosphere, moving around inthis air that cuts through me?”

I asked this of myself.

The cowberry was, before I knew it, gone, andthe ground was covered in a sheet of dry ash-colored moss. Red moss f lowers wereblossoming here and there. But all this did wasto intensify the cold grief of the plateau.

Before long, the late afternoon was in twilight,the moss flowers appeared reddish black, andthe color of the sky above the ridges turned afaint and somber yellow.

It was then that I caught sight of an all-whitelake far in the distance.

“That’s not water! It’s natrium salt orsomething that’s crystallized,” I said to myself.“I mustn’t lose heart by getting all happy andtaken in.”

Even so, I hurried over there.

The lake came closer, glittering. Before I knewit I was gazing at pure-white quartz sand and,beyond that, a place brimming darkly with realwater.

The sand squeaked. I picked up a pinch of itand examined it in the dim light of the sky. Itwas made up of dihexagonal pyramid grains.

“This has come from dacite or rhyolite.”

That’s what I figured, whispering to myself,standing on the water’s edge.

“Hey, this is supercooled water!” I whisperedin my mind. “This is the granddaddy of water inboth a liquid and a solid state!”

My pa lm abso lu te l y gave o f f a pa lephosphorescence in the water.

Suddenly there was a high-pitch ring all

around.

“It’s the wind. It’s the green grasses. There wasa rumble and a roar.” These were the wordsringing in my head. It was pitch dark, pitchdark with a faint red tinge.

I opened my eyes wider.

Night had fallen and the sky was as transparentas it could be. The water of the galaxy flowedsilently over the sky’s plain, which was madeup of beautifully fired, polished steel. Littlecorundum pebbles shined, and every grain ofsand on the banks could be counted.

The cold dark-violet plate of the sky wasstudded with the cleavage planes of diamondsand pointy grains of sapphire, and fragments ofsilicon the size of smoke tree seeds had beenpicked up in exquisite tweezers and inlaid intoit, and all of this separately and on its ownbreathed in and out, trembling and quaking.

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When I took another look at where my feetwere, small yellow and blue flames wereflickering and twinkling in the grains of sand inthe sky. I suppose that supercooled lake in theTsela Plateau was a part of the galaxy itself.

Yet, dawn seemed to come quickly on theplateau.

It was very clear that something like glassmolecules you could see right through werefloating up into the air and, above all, whatlooked like a fountain in the sky surrounded bynine small blue stars in the east was quicklytransformed in the terribly dim light of the skyfrom steel to amazonite.

I saw an angel fly through space that had adark-violet, subtle sheen.

“At last it’s slipped in,” I thought, my heartjumping with delight. “It has suddenly made itsway from the Tsela Plateau of the realm ofhumans to that of the heavens.”

The angel soared straight ahead.

“It’s covering 10 kilometers in the blink of aneye!” I whispered to myself. “But look! It isn’teven budging. It’s soaring ahead so far withoutmoving, without changing place, withoutchanging form.”

The angel’s robe was as thin as smoke, and itsholy necklace absorbed whispers of light fromthe dimly-lit plate of the sky.

“Got it,” I thought. “The air here is rarifiedalmost to the point of becoming a vacuum.That’s why there’s no wind to disturb the foldsin that delicate robe.”

The angel opened its dark blue eyes wide butdidn’t blink them once. It soared absolutelystraight ahead with the faintest smile on itslips. Yet, it was neither moving, nor changingplace or form.

“This is the place where all hopes are purified.

The number of wishes is alleviated. Gravity isneutralized within itself, and a cold scent ofquince floats through the air. And so, the cordon the angel’s robe neither ripples, nor does ithang straight down.”

But then the amazonite in the sky wastransformed into a weird plate of purple agate,and I could no longer see the figure of thesoaring angel.

“This is the Tsela Plateau after all,” I said,explaining it to myself. “You can’t count on justone single episode.”

But what was strange was that the cold quince-like scent was still permeating the sky. Andonce again I sensed that this mysterious worldin the sky was like a dream.

“There’s something really funny here!” Ithought to myself, standing there. “Thiscelestial space seems to be right beside mysensations. As I walk on the path here andfragments of mica gradually appear in greatnumber, it seems to me that I am getting closerand closer to granite. It may be just a fluke, butthe more often it appears this way, the moretrue it gets. I’m sure I’ll be able to sense thiscelestial world on this plateau again.”

I turned my eyes from the sky to the plateau.The sand was now as pure white as can be. Theblue of the lake, now more ancient-looking thanverdigris, gave my heart a chill.

Suddenly I saw three heavenly children beforeme. They wore the thinnest robes, woven, itseemed, from frost, and transparent shoes,standing on the water’s edge, peering intentlyinto the eastern sky, as if waiting for the sun torise. The eastern sky was already alight withwhiteness. From the folds in their robes I couldtell they were from Gandhara. I recognizedthem as being from a fresco that I hadexcavated at the ruins of the great KhotanTemple. I approached them quietly and greetedthem in a very low voice, so as not to frighten

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them.

Buddha subdues the serpent and convertsonlookers. Gandhara 2nd-3rd century

“Good morning, children of the fresco at thegreat Khotan Temple.”

The three of them turned toward me. Theradiance of their holy necklaces and theirimposing and magnificent black eyes….

I spoke again, continuing to approach them.

“Good morning, children of the fresco at thegreat Khotan Temple.”

“And who may you be?” asked the child on theright, looking straight at me without blinking.

“I am Aoki Akira, who excavated the greatKhotan Temple from the sands.”

“And what are you doing here?” said the samechild, looking sternly at me straight in the eye.

“I want to worship the sun together with you.”

“The sun? It won’t be long.”

The three of them turned away from me. Theirnecklaces briefly shined like yellow and bitter-

orange and green needles, and their robesfluttered in the colors of the rainbow.

In the fiery platinum sky, from the edge of theolive green field beyond the lake, somethingthat looked like it was melted, somethingseductive, as old as gold, crimson like that seenin a kiln, a single ray of light appeared.

The heavenly children stood perfectly erect andbrought their hands together, looking towardit.

It was the sun. It was the sun of this heavenlyrealm, solemnly rocking its strangely roundbody that was like a thing melted down, in aninstant climbing properly up in the sky. Its lightnow flowed in needles and bundles, andeverywhere you looked you could hear aclicking and clacking.

The heavenly children jumped up and down inrapture, running over the silica sand of thepure-blue lake of True Enlightenment. Thensuddenly one of the children bumped into me,and jumping back, screamed out while pointingup to the sky.

“Look, look, look at Indra’s net!”

I looked up at the sky. The zenith was nowazure blue, and from it to the four corners ofthe pale edges of the sky, Indra’s spectral netvibrated radiantly as if burning, its fibers morefine than a spider’s web, its construction moreelaborate than that of hypha, all blendingtogether transparently, purely, in a billionintermingled parts.

“Look, heavens, it’s the drums of the wind!”said another child, bumping into me andrunning off in a flurry.

What can only be seen as the sun’s minuscounterparts, shining indigo dark and gold andgreen and ashen, drums seemed to fall from thesky, and, impervious to human striking,pounded out a sound with all their might; and

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while those countless heavenly drums calledout, they seemed to be making no sound at thesame time. I watched it all for so long that myeyes clouded over and all I could do wasstagger about.

“Look, look at the blue peacock!” quietly saidthe same child who was on the right as hewalked by me. Sure enough, beyond Indra’s netin the sky, on the far edge of those countlessresounding heavenly drums, an enormous andstrange blue peacock, fanning out its jeweledtail feathers, sang out in an ethereal voice.

That peacock was most certainly present in thesky. Yet, it was not to be seen at all. It wascertainly crying out. Yet its cries were not to beheard at all.

After that, there was no way that I could seethe three heavenly children.

Far from it, I vaguely recalled my own figurecollapsed deep into the green grass and thewind.

Roger Pulvers is an American-born Australianauthor, playwright, theatre director andtranslator living in Japan. He has published 40books in Japanese and English and, in 2008,was the recipient of the Miyazawa Kenji Prize.In 2009 he was awarded Best Script Prize atthe Teheran International Film Festival for“Ashita e no Yuigon.” He is the translator ofKenji Miyazawa, Strong in the Rain: SelectedP o e m s(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1852247819/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20). He translated this story forThe Asia-Pacific Journal.

Wisdom, Beauty and Compassion in MiyazawaKenji’s “Indra’s Net”

Jane Marie Law

Miyazawa Kenji’s story “Indra’s Net,” in titleand content, calls forth one of the mostappealing visual references in Buddhism. Indra,sitting in his palace atop Mt. Meru (Sumeru inBuddhism, a mythical abode of deities, buddhasand bodhisattvas), unfurls a net above himselfin the endless, empty, radiant sky. In the eye ofeach connection of the net hangs a jewel, andeach jewel has countless facets. A brilliant sunilluminates the net, and each facet of eachjewel reflects in it all the other jewels and alltheir facets. The image is one of radiance, ofend less reproduct ion o f rea l i t y , o finterpenetration, of visual and imaginativeemergence. It is also grandiose and clearlychallenges our usual intellect and imaginationas we try to grasp each facet containing theentirety of the rest of the field of refractionswithin it. Everything is as real as light.

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Mount Sumeru and other mountainsilluminated by Amidha’s light

Why did the early composers of Mahayanaliterature use such images, designed, almostperfectly, to blow our minds? What is at stake,beyond incomprehensibility, in an image suchas Indra’s net?

A powerful meditative tool, this visual deviceactually depends on a number of importantphilosophical ideas that coalesced in MahayanaBuddhism around the turn of the Common Era,as Buddhism became a pan-Asian phenomenonand absorbed ideas centered on a cosmic scale.All of these ideas, which continued to beexpanded upon by religious thinkers over thenext several centuries, challenge us with a

simple Mahayana claim, in which EVERYTHINGis at stake: To penetrate the true nature ofreality is to activate the ground of compassion.Conversely, to be truly compassionate, onemust penetrate the true nature of reality.Wisdom, the ability to penetrate the truenature of reality and compassion, the ultimategoal in Buddhism, are like two wings of onebird. One cannot fly without both wings. Whattext presented us with Indra’s net and what aresome of the core Mahayana ideas thatundergird this reflexive claim?

The Avatamsaka Sutra

The image of Indra’s Net appears in a textcalled the Avatamsaka Sutra (a shortening ofthe Sanskrit title Buddhâvatamsaka-nâmamahâvaipulya sûtra, Huayan-jing in Chineseand Kegon-kyô in Japanese) a composite text,sections of which circulated and continue tocirculate independently.

Avatamska Sutra painting, Korea, c. 1350

Because this brief discussion concerns aJapanese writer, translations of Buddhist termsfrom here on will be limited to the Japanese.The components of the text were composed,most likely in Khotan (or a wider range ofCentral Asia), over a long period of time,probably around the third or fourth century CE.They were collected and redacted into a singletext and appeared as a Chinese collectioncompleted by Buddhabhadra in about 420.

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Subsequent versions appeared over the nextseveral hundred years, bringing the text to itscurrent form of forty chapters. The HuayanSchool of Buddhism in China, which centers onthis text, had wide influence on other schools ofChinese Buddhism and influenced theemergence of Chan (Zen) as well. The Kegonschool of Buddhism, based on this scripture,was one of the six schools of Buddhism in NaraJapan (710-794), and although Kegon nevergained widespread popular worship in Japanafter this period comparable to Tendai, Shingonor Zen, the school continues to exist in Japantoday. This sutra is considered to be one of themost influential sutras in East Asian Buddhism.As a whole, it follows a two-part strategy: visualimagination followed by doctrinal exposition.The themes are the interdependent andinterpenetrating nature of all reality and thestages of the cultivation of the bodhisattvapath. The common English name for this sutrais The Flower Garland Sutra.

Unique status of the text in MahayanaBuddhism

According to Mahayana Buddhist tradition, thetext as a visual and doctrinal reality occupies aunique status. When the historical Buddhaachieved enlightenment under the bodhi tree,the teaching he expounded was THIS one: theAvatamsaka Sutra. He entered into a statewhere the realm of enlightened beingssurrounded him, and he not only described itsfantastic, radiant beauty, but also preached thedoctrines of emptiness and interpenetration,namely that all phenomena participate in andcontain all other phenomena. Soon, however,he realized that what he was preaching was notaccessible to the sentient beings in our buddhafield. The very idea of interpenetration is toosublime, on too cosmic a scale for ordinaryconsciousness to understand. He then modifiedhis pedagogical method, and preached thesermon we know today as “The First Turning ofthe Wheel of Dharma,” which contains thedoctrine of the Four Noble Truths, the Middle

Way, the Three-fold Nature of Existence, whatis regarded in later Mahayana Buddhism as the“provisional doctrine.” Provisional to what? Towhat he first expounded as he entered his stateof enlightened mind: the Avatamsaka Sutra.Part of the task of all Mahayana literature is todemonstrate that the new formulation ofBuddhism, while emerging from earlyBuddhism, regards this very early Buddhism asan impartial and incomplete teaching, to befully unfolded (even revealed) in the teachingsof Mahayana. And to sell that idea, this textresorts to a visual and aesthetic appeal on acosmic scale.

The core idea of the Avatamsaka Sutra is thatall things, all phenomena, all dharmas containin them all other things, all other phenomena,all other dharmas. The rich visual imagery ofthe Avatamsaka Sutra, of which the imagery ofIndra’s net is but one celebrated example,make it clear that this interpenetration is bothbeyond our ability to grasp with our usualintellects and is also extraordinarily beautiful.Far from being nihilistic, interpenetration andthis radical interdependence of all things issomething we should aspire to know. We WANTto know it: it is so sublime and expansive. It isan awareness the realization of which has thepower to transform one entirely. And it is thefoundation of the bodhisattva path: thecultivation of enlightened mind and compassionfor the benefit of all sentient beings. This idea,as expounded in the Avatamsaka Sutra, isdependent on (and assumes) a number ofMahayana developments.

The cosmic Buddha and the historicalBuddha

According to Mahayana Buddhism, the buddhafrom our realm, Shakyamuni Buddha is thehistorical manifestation for our buddha field ofthe cosmic principle of the universe: theDharmakaya (Dainichi in Japanese). OurBuddha achieved enlightenment, and far fromjust “snuffing out” of the cycle of birth and

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death, he exists in the great space of mind, andis in the presence of other enlightened beingsfrom other buddha fields, which are as endlessas the number of grains of sand in the riverGanges ( to use a common Mahayanaexpression). This idea not only situates ourBuddha in a much wider cosmic context, it alsomeans that a l l o f these buddhas andbodhisattvas from other buddha fields areinterpenetrating one another in all of theirsublime forms. The possibility for the completeMahayana doctrine in this formulation isguaranteed: Beings in our buddha field canreceive the teachings from other buddhas andbodhisattvas, and even resonate with thecosmic resonance of the cosmic Buddha itself(an idea developed through esoteric ritual,most directly through Shingon and alsoTendai).

Far from being unique, our Buddha is one ofbillions and billions of enlightened beings in theuniverse. This idea provides MahayanaBuddhism with legitimacy, and also holds out tous that enlightenment is possible.

The Dharmakaya, this cosmic principle inMahayana Buddhism, in Japanese is referred toas “The Great Sun Buddha” (Dainichi Nyorai).When we experience the nature of reality in allits entirety, it is as blinding and all illuminatingas the Sun.

The great the bodhisattva ideal and thebodhisattva path

Mahayana Buddhism also shifted the very goalof Buddhist practice, from a quest for personalliberation out of the cycle of birth and deathand the ocean of suffering, to the goal of greatcompassion embodied in the bodhisattva ideal.One should enter the path of Buddhist salvationfor the sole purpose of achieving enlightenmentso that one can alleviate the suffering of othersentient beings. One vows, upon entering thepath (as a monk originally and later withprovisions for lay people) to continue to chooserebirth after enlightenment, until ALL sentient

beings are saved from the ocean of suffering. Ifone sentient being is left behind, one’s ownenlightenment was for selfish ends.

Such a lofty and altruistic idea could soundnaïve if that was all there was to it. InMahayana Buddhist doctrine, a significantdiscourse developed which grappled with thevery difficulty of that process. Beyond theeightfold path of “provisional” Buddhism aspreached in the “First Turning of the Wheel ofDharma,” the bodhisattva path explores thenature of the human psyche and the cultivationof moral, devotional and meditative prowess,and also the cultivation, after enlightenment, ofsupernatural abilities, designed to make theassistance of sentient beings possible. In otherwords, to put it bluntly, if you are an ordinary,unenlightened person and you try and savesentient beings, chances are you will simplycontr ibute to the problem. But as anenlightened being, your powers will be muchgreater. And along your path towardenlightenment, you are in training to be anenlightened being.

These multitudes who surround the Buddha ashe expounds the Avatamsaka Sutra are theseenlightened beings and the world he perceivesis how they experience reality all the time.Buddhas and bodhisattvas do not get theirminds blown by cosmic ideas like Indra’s Net;formulations such as these are the normalorder of reality, the True Dharma. Our ownexperience of reality, by comparison, is limitedand drab and clouds the brilliant and beautifulnature of a reality fully perceived.

The doctrine of emptiness

The doctrine of emptiness lies at the heart ofMahayana Buddhism. Emerging from the coreidea of the interdependent and co-dependentorigin and nature of all things, the doctrinestates that all things (ideas, physical objects,realities) are empty of inherent existence. Theyexist because they are dependent on otherthings: they “co-emerge” and “inter-are.”

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But far from being a doctrine of nihilism,Mahayana Buddhism wants to advance the ideathat this idea is sublime. While things may beempty of inherent existence, they are simplyFULL of other, more profound things. In short,all things are connected to all other things.Absolutely nothing exists inherently by itselfwithout being connected in a great NET ofinterpenetration.

Herein lies the beauty of the image of Indra’snet: all things exist as reflected realities of allother things. And they are brilliant in the sun(the rising of which is awaited in Miyazawa’sstory).

How does an idea like this activate the mind ofcompassion? To know the true nature of reality,this interdependent and interpenetratinguniverse, is to remove the “I”, and realize agreater “We.” We are all connected. We are allmade of the very light that is the endlesslyrefracted light of Indra’s net.

The “I” in Miyazawa’s story falls (through sleepor dream or reverie) in a grassy field, into atemporary state when he is able to be there onthe Tsela Plateau, able to penetrate theradiance of the true nature of reality, able tosee the angels that he only saw in stone reliefin one dimension as an archaeologist of theKhotan Temple before. But now he is there withthem awaiting the rising of the sun: theappearance of Dainichi Nyorai. We can onlyimagine, if like “I” in Miyazawa’s story, we areable to shake loose our habitual mind (throughmeditation, through dream, through aestheticreverie) and see the universe in this way, how itmight transform our way of being in the world.

Perhaps this was the question Miyazawa was

asking: What happens to “I” after this vision inthe grassy field?

Jane Marie Law is Associate Professor ofJapanese Religions and Ritual Studies atCornell University. She is the author of Puppetsof Nostalgia: The Life, Death and Rebirth of theAwaji Ningyō Jōruri Tradition (PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997) and most recently, co-editor with Vanessa Sasson of Imagining theFetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion andC u l t u r e(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195380045/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (Oxford University Press,2008). Her current research focuses on culturalmemory of atrocity and the possibilities ofreconciliation. She lives with her family andhorses in the sublime corner of Indra’s Netknown as Ithaca, New York.

Suggested further reading:

Thomas Clearly, trans. The Flower OrnamentScripture: A translation of the AvatamsakaSutra (Boston and London: Shambala Press,1993).

Related articles

Roger Pulvers, Homage to the Life and Poetryo f M i y a z a w a K e n j i(http://japanfocus.org/-Roger-Pulvers/2907)

( h t t p : / / j a p a n f o c u s . o r g / - R o g e r -Pulvers/2907)Hiroaki Sato, Miyazawa Kenji:T h e P o e t a s A s u r a ?(http://japanfocus.org/-Hiroaki-SATO/2526)

Recommended citation: Miyazawa Kenji, RogerPulvers and Jane Marie Law, "Indra’s Net," TheAsia-Pacific Journal, 43-4-10, October 25, 2010.

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