お水取り（修二会）Omizutori ceremony

2017.03.03

ニュースが東大寺のお水取りの始まりを写していた。丁度白髪先生の比叡山修行のところを読み返していたのでかビビッときてすぐさま行った。大門を潜っても二月堂への路は遠い。まるで一歩一歩と古代の時間に入っていくようだ。見上げれば松陰の間に三日月が空を切る。それは古径の線のように靭く。

灯が消され、二月堂は漆黒に包まれる。漆黒は人々の騒めきも飲み込んでしまう。やがて階段から小さな松明が密やかに、松明は次第に大きくなっていく、大きな松明がまるデーモンのように荒らしく駆け登っていく。次から次えと息をする間もなく。童子は回廊の大柱では高々と松明を振り回す、炎は風と戦うように勢いを増し火花を猛烈にドロッピングする。そして、炎のマッスは欄干を猛スピードで奔る。大柱で止められた炎は高々と持ち上げられ容赦なく人々の上に火花を撒き散らす。私は火の粉を被りながら、白髪先生のロープで製作している姿を呼び覚まされたのでした。

Just after I re-read Shiraga’s description of his training at the temple on Mount Hiei, I saw a newscast about the Omizutori (Shuni-e) ceremony beginning at Todaiji temple in Nara. Something clicked, so I rushed off to catch the ceremony. Arriving at Todaiji and entering the main gate, there was still a long way to walk. Each step I took seemed like a step back in time. Looking up, the crescent moon cut across the sky between the darkened pine trees, as supple as a line painted by Kokei Kobayashi.

With all the lights out, Nigatsu-do and its surroundings were pitch black, smothering the commotion of the people below. Then, the flames of small torches appeared quietly on the stairs. The torches grew larger, and a big torch rushed up the stairs as if it were a demon. One thing happened after another, without the chance to catch a breath. When the doji holding the torches arrive at the deck at the front of the hall, they lift their torches up high by the corner-post and wave them around, fanning the flames. The torches flare up vigorously, flames pitted against the rush of air, dropping a frenzy of sparks. Then the mass of flames rushes furiously along the balustrade until blocked by the post at the end, where the torch is lifted up again, remorselessly scattering sparks on the people below. Bathed in the shower of sparks, I recalled the figure of Shiraga painting, holding onto his rope.

“asobi”＜あそび＞って一体なんでしょうか？

古来日本文化には～遊びをせんとや生れけむ、戯れせんとや生れけん、遊ぶ子供の声きけば、我が身さえこそ動がるれ～梁塵秘抄（りょうじんひしょう）や禅語「遊心」が風流＝芸術の根底にあります。
西洋ではホイジンガの「ホモ・ルーデンス」という遊戯が人間活動の本質であり、文化を生み出す根源だと思想があります。
私には三人の赤ん坊を育てた臨床体験が鮮明に脳裏に刻みこまれています。乳に満ち足り、寝足りた赤ん坊の行為ですがそれはそれは好奇心に溢れています。手足で遊んだり、触れるものは何でも口に持っていったり、触覚、視覚、聴覚をフル回転して一時の休みもなく遊んでいます。ハイハイができるようになるとその好奇心は一段と高まり、その好奇心により運動能力が発達していく様に見えます。
この好奇心こそ人間の本質であり asobiではないでしょうか？

さて前書きが長くなりましたが、その狙いは私の密やかな asobiを正当化するための方便でもあるのです。
寛仁大度な作家さま方が私の“asobi”に目くじらたてられないことを願っての、

ところで、今私が目にしている作品はかってはあなたの胎内から産み出されたものですね。安産であったか、七転八倒の難産であったかはわかりませんが産み出された作品はもう一つの独立した人格？というか画格を持った生命体として存在しているのです。
そして見る者の心に生命の輝きを点火させ、時空を超えて生命のエネルギーを放出し続けるのです。
もうそれは産みの親である作家さんの圏外の事象なのです。
感動された時、もうその人のPersonal possessionになるのですから。
感動するとは一体どういうことでしょうか？
それは見者の内にある感性が呼び覚まされる、そして共鳴することではないでしょうか。見者の未窟の鉱脈を探り当てる歓喜と奏でる協奏曲こそ至宝の asobi ではないでしょうか？

Asobi

References to play abound in Japanese culture passed down over the centuries. Good examples include one of the Ryojin-hisho* songs, “We are all born to play, born to have fun. When I hear the voices of children playing, my old body still responds, wanting to join in,” and the Zen word, Yushin/Asobi-gokoro (A playful mind/Playfulness). Such references indicate that play (asobi) is one of the foundations of art and the popular arts. Similar ideas can be seen in the West, such as Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (or Playing Man), which discussed the importance of play as an essential element in human activity and the origin of culture.

The experience of nursing and rearing my three children is vividly imprinted on my mind. Babies who had plenty of breast milk and sufficient sleep were absolutely brimming with curiosity. They played constantly, with their senses of touch, sight, and hearing in high gear, playing with their hands and feet, and putting anything they touched in their mouths. Once they started crawling, their curiosity went up another gear, seeming to drive the development of their physical abilities and motor skills. This curiosity is surely the essence of humanity, the manifestation of Asobi-gokoro or playful mind.

Please forgive the lengthy introduction, which largely serves to justify my own furtive play. I hope my playing will not overtax the artists’ generosity and compassion. You know, the artwork that I am now looking at has come forth from your womb. I don’t know if it was an easy delivery or an excruciatingly painful, difficult delivery, but now that it is done, the work that you gave birth to exists as a separate entity with its own independent character and its own life.

That entity sparks the fire of life in the hearts of viewers, triggering the ongoing emission of life energy that will transcend time and space. What happens is already outside the control of the artist who gave birth to it. When your art moves someone emotionally, that experience becomes his or her personal possession.

What does it mean to move someone? Surely it means stirring the viewer’s emotions and resonating inside him or her.Performing a ‘concerto’ that resounds with the joy of discovering an untouched vein of something precious inside the viewer is surely the most treasured form of play.

*Ryojin-hisho (Songs to Make the Dust Dance on the Beams): a folk song collection compiled by Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa in the end of Heian period. (12th century)