early-blossoming trees, as the first buds appear on the plum-tree’s branches, how the morning is ever more bounteous, if they open their windows upon rising, with the humming of birds — in short, the Zengen-ji is replete with a sense of relief and happy excitement, and the children, the jishas, run around during the rare pauses more freely, although they feel in their souls, after the trials of the winter, a somewhat more serious hue, and the food in the jikadō tastes better, and the afternoon work in the monastery’s vegetable gardens is more appealing, and everything, but everything is filled with ever more hope that it shall be, it shall come, that spring is nearly here, when the abbot makes the announcement that word has come from Kyōto, the work has been completed, and hence they request the monastery to decide which day, before the beginning of the springtime ango, should be designated as the precise date of delivery, the beginning of March, they write back, there is not much time for reflection, a group of the most eminent monks immediately sit down together and even contest the authority of the abbot over what day would be the best, essentially everything has been prepared, everything has been studied and memorized, they know nearly every element — by heart, interjects the abbot, by heart! — of the great ceremony, the kaigen shiki, that awaits them, says the shikaryo; we’ll see about that, says the abbot, shaking his head; but later on, even he has to recognize that they have done all they could, the invitations to the two guest abbots and many other illustrious guests were sent off long ago, now only the specific date has to be announced to the citizens of Inazawa, from whence — with regard to the spectacular nature of the ceremony — a larger mass of visitors (and perhaps of donations as well!) can be expected; the determination of the exact conditions for delivery is child’s play, for it is exactly the same, the abbot notes, only in reverse order; it’s only that — for a moment he falls silent — it’s only that, he continues, shaking his freshly shaven pate again, there is a problem with preparing the kaigen shiki beforehand, in his view the monks are prepared only in their heads, that is to say as for the actual practice in how to proceed in this ceremony without error — well, he shakes his head again, they are doing pretty badly with the concluding section of the kaigen shiki, that is the ceremonial preparation for the return of the Buddha, because — the abbot rubs his bald head forward and backward — they don’t know the sequence of the kaigen shiki well enough when practicing it; it’s one thing to have something in your head and entirely another thing for it to work out in reality, he will have to see, because it’s difficult, he shakes his head, of course he knows full well this ceremony is difficult and complicated, indeed much, much more difficult than the Hakken Kuyo a year ago, difficult, he repeats, and that doesn’t mean that it can be treated in such an undisciplined manner, because in his view there is simply not enough rigor in the Zengen-ji, and that can be seen when, during their practice of the kaigen shiki, the monks all make mistakes , on every occasion they make mistakes , either they don’t know the sequence or one of the musicians comes in at the wrong place, not to speak of themselves, to begin with themselves first and foremost, since even they, yes, precisely they, the foremost monks of the monastery, with he himself the foremost of the foremost of the continually uncertain: either there is a problem with the memorization of the texts — used less and less or even not at all — of the sacred sūtras and dhāranīs, or accordingly, during this or that point in the ceremony, even knowing where their place is, and even more, grumbles the abbot, for everyone to know where they should stand and where they should go often causes problems, it can’t be like
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