Mirage of Blaze as a Shingon Text (An Initial Swing)

In the past six months or so, I have become a tiny, baby practitioner of Shingon, the school of Buddhism practiced by the Yashashuu in Mirage, and this context has really transformed by understanding of the story, though it is still a tiny, baby understanding. With huge dual disclaimers that I am an extreme layperson and have only read the summaries of later Mirage, I want to try to write down some thoughts. (It looks like I did take a preliminary swing at this quite a while ago, when first reading some Kuukai, so apologies for any repetition.)

Observations in no particular order:

Bodhisattvas, Compassion, and Service:

Shingon is notable for its emphasis on the importance of service in the world. It focuses a lot on the Bodhisattva path and the vow to become almost enlightened but with just enough attachment left to remain accessible through compassion for others, to be drawn, as it were, to alleviating others' suffering. Service to others is a huge theme of Mirage: it is the function of the Yashashuu, and it is also the only dimension of their lives in which they (most of them) actually seem capable of quite spiritually advanced practice. They can marshal the powers to fight onryou, but with the possible of exception of Irobe, not one of them is any good at overcoming ego and attachment in their own life—at least till very late in the story. In any case, I can see that call to service as one of the Shingon precepts they practice, including Tachibana Naoe in his own work as a monk.

A corollary to this is that Shingon has a generous place for venturing out into the world in all its messiness, in contrast to some other schools that put more emphasis on retreat and removing oneself from negative inputs. (Kuukai is actually quite hard on people who put too much single-minded emphasis on retreat; I might say he has it in for them a little like Jesus has it in for hypocrites.) This value of being out in the dirt of life seems front and center in Kenshin's call to the Yashashuu. He's asks them to spend centuries embroiling themselves in ugly situations in order to help others. It hurts them a lot, but they also clearly see it as part of their duty. While the aim of Shingon is certainly not to get psychologically hurt, I see that call to help others in their commitments.

The Shingon emphasis on the Bodhisattva path also makes me rather less critical of the writing of Minako. Minako is not, I am credibly informed, supposed to be a Bodhisattva (though the boys sometimes call her one) but is further down the path than most characters we meet. It's a little problematic to give this role to the principal female character (who didn't used to be a man) because it naturally tends to blur "Bodhisattva path" with "God bless her for the sweet compassion," in the Dickensian sense that just expects all "good" girls to naturally be like this. But I do feel more amenable to the characterization of Minako from the perspective of Shingon values, because she does exemplify a lot of them: compassion, little ego investment, foregrounding care for others, non-judgment in the sense of focusing on how help others out of their ignorance. (The boys liken her to the Kannon when they're not likening her to the Virgin Mary, the Kannon being one of the principal Bodhisattvas revered in Shingon.)

The Importance of Practice and Study

One thing that defines Shingon as an esoteric school of Buddhism is its emphasis on the importance of practice as well as study, that is, meditation, chanting, etc. as well as reading and studying sacred texts and philosophical commentaries. The Yashshuu do both practice and study—but (perhaps with some exception for Irobe) they have them misaligned; the two don't inform each other.

Our sensei was lecturing on this the other day (not on Mirage. Alas). He noted that practice without study, at its worst, could result in power without an informed understanding of what the power is for. In real life, an example would be a meditative practice that channels breathing, etc. for a lot of focus without a sense of how to use that focus for a good purpose. In Mirage, this makes me think of the Ikkou sect with their big spiritual powers mostly devoted to vengeance.

But we see this with the Yashshuu too. They know how to chant mantras and form mudras to channel a lot of energy and basically perform spells, and they've certainly read their sutras and such, but again (with the possible exception of Irobe), they rarely connect the teachings to the spiritual powers they use. Naoe is the grandest exemplar of this. He's very learned and spiritually powerful, but I doubt he could sit for ten seconds of focused attention without ego awareness (unless he were casting a spell for his work). In fact, he generally actively resists any movement toward non-attachment. The result is that the Yashshuu suffer a lot.

Shingon's strong emphasis on compassion casts the Yashshuu's whole project in a weird light. On one level, it is compassionate. It's designed to protect innocent people, and initially the integrity of their clan, and to "help" onryou move on to the next life. And yet, exorcism is brutal; it's clear it's nearly always constructed as a physical battle.

(Spoilers for the late plot trajectory in several of the following paragraphs)

And Kagetora's eventual rejection of Kenshin's mission comes out of an awareness that exorcism is a violence. Spirits should not be forced to reincarnate but rather invited to make their own choice about what they still need to do in the world in that incarnation. This realization is, of course, informed by his own experience as essentially an onryou himself who needed 400 years to get his act together and feels the benefit of having had that time. And this touches on something our sensei recently said too: that the Buddhas are beings who have experienced it all: at some point in their trajectory they have known all human suffering, and, thus, they experientially know exactly how to respond to help us in our suffering. Kagetora is not ever a Buddha, but he is on the path, and his compassion is very much informed by his own suffering.

Suffering Informs Compassion

This is, I think, one of the major themes of Mirage and also a major theme in Shingon. The value of going through all our BS is that it allows us to have compassion for others' suffering. On a narrative level, I think this may be why Kuwabara-sensei tortures Naoe and Kagetora so much. I've written elsewhere about how she makes Kagetora face every one of his worst fears, and Naoe has to face to his worst fear too: existence without Kagetora. Why do this to the poor guys—and us readers—if not sheer sadism? It's partly good angst and catharsis, of course, but I think it also ultimately situates Naoe and Kagetora, in particular, as figures of compassion. We see this in Kagetora as he becomes (rather grandiosely?) "Present Kuukai." And I think we might project it for Naoe as his progression on a very long journey (see Naoe's vision of himself in the distant future in one of the late volumes). I think he is on the Bodhisattva path; he's just on it very, very slowly, like he might arrive around the time the Maitreya (Miroku) arrives to enlighten the world. (This is precept in Shingon too: that everyone's true nature is fundamentally enlightened; everyone is, to some extent, on the path. The difference is the degree of ignorance we have to uncover to see our true nature.)

Enlightenment and Timescales

Speaking of timescales, according to Shingon, the Maitreya Buddha will appear to enlighten the world in 5.6 billion years. If this sounds like a long time, it's about on the (improbable) scale of Naoe's vision of his future self. The exact number doesn't matter, I think. It's a long honkin' time. And yet, Shingon is also the school definitively known for Kuukai's contention that enlightenment can be achieved in this very existence (without thousands of reincarnations), a radical thought in his time. Mirage speculates brilliantly about these timescales. 

On the one hand, we have the Yashshuu, who have been around for about 400 years and have, indeed, spiritually developed in that time but honestly not a whole lot. They're pretty stuck in their "one existence." But then, we have Kagetora, who after 400 years of spiritual futzing about, experiences a massive acceleration down the Bodhisattva path in just about his last two years of life. Now, I don't think he reaches the end stage—but he travels damn fast. Consider just before he joins the Red Whales, in volume 22, he is completely mired in the physical, going through this sort of addictive sex withdrawal in Naoe's absence and hating himself with a fury. [1] Several volumes and just a year or two later, he has become a figure guided by immense compassion, generating the Shadow Shikoku and, while still having his own pain, melancholy, and attachments, nigh infinitely more confident and serene. As soon as he gets his core problem (his self-contempt) figured out, his wounds close very fast and his ego-centered self-flagellation, and Naoe-flagellation, just fall away.

On the other hand… Naoe. Naoe also makes a lot of progress over the course of the series. He learns to be a much more selfless, giving person. But the story ends on his conviction that he will go on being Naoe Nobutsuna as the eons pass so that he can keep the memory of Kagetora alive. He's still very, very attached. He's still making a virtue out of being attached. And yet future Naoe, a billion-whatever years on, is a different person. He does act like someone much closer to being a Bodhisattva: he's immediately kind and compassionate without much sense of holding back or pain in himself. He is getting there. I wonder if Naoe, in some sense, represents humanity awaiting the Maitreya (Miroku): a person forgetting (resisting) the teaching but then slowly awakening to it again. (Just a thought.)

In any case, he and Kagetora clearly form a dyad here, Kagetora accelerating toward enlightenment at lightning speed, Naoe taking till the end of the world(ish). What that means I'm not quite sure. But it must be noted that while Kagetora leaves the world (of necessity; his soul expires, except person for some bits left in Naoe), Naoe remains and choose to remain bound to his suffering for the long haul so that he can keep the memory of Kagetora alive, which his to keep alive the teaching of "the one who changed the world," the "Present Kuukai," which is a pretty darn Bodhisattva thing to do—and pretty darn Shingon.

Impermanence

This is not especially Shingon but Buddhist in general: the idea of impermanence and the unreality of the ego, the idea that everything we cling to is not the real thing. This is the gut punch of the Naoe/Kagetora ship. They are the most epic lovers I have ever read, but their love is not the real thing. It is always impermanent, always incomplete. It is never fully happy (outside of isolated moments of forgetfulness) because it is an attachment, and attachment always faces loss. Some instances…

* For 400 years, they love each other, obsess over each other, etc. but can't come to terms with each other. Their own fears, flaws, egos separate them.

* Naoe (and eventually Kagetora too) tie a lot of this separation to sex. "If only you'd let me take you like a woman," Naoe goes on his Naoe way, "I would have some relief." And relatively speaking this is true, yet one of the fantastic truths of volume 20 is that sex is not the real thing. Almost as soon as they start having sex, Naoe, in particular, is keenly aware of their separation. It is not enough. It is not the union.

* So eventually Kagetora breathes what is left of his soul into Naoe. Union! Except not. Kagetora is still mostly dead. Naoe is still mostly alone. I need to reread this part, but my initial impression was mainly how little this seemed to matter, at least after a short while. Death is still separation. The two cannot be two if they are one and cannot be united as two.

There is no perfect consummation. Because it's an attachment and attachment is not the real thing. It hurts. It passes. It's impermanent. And when future Naoe says he's still not at the end of his journey, I think that's fundamentally what he means. He's still attached to Kagetora—in part—but he is, in fact, letting go of that attachment. Future Naoe's startlement at the reminder of present Naoe's frenzy shows that, for future Naoe, Kagetora has become a memory, a past thing, passing.

Note:

[1] Many have commented on the porniness of the masturbation in scene in vol. 22; it is a raunchy scene. It is also a fascinating scene from a Shingon perspective. There's an odd tension in Kagetora's going through this helpless, self-hating, insatiable physical need… in Shikoku, which is the holy land, under the full moon, which is one of the central focal points for meditation in Shingon. In terms of Kuukai's ten stages of enlightenment, Kagetora is between stages and 1 and 2 in this scene, stage 1 being lost in physical appetite and stage 2 coming into some awareness of the value of moderation. The self-loathing in this scene speak to some awareness of the value of moderation, but largely the scene is all about appetite. If it is not the nadir of Kagetora's entire journey (which may be chapter 3-ish of vol. 20), it is certainly a nadir, his post-volume 20 lowest point, a steep decline from his usual ability to at least superficially present decent, self-controlled behavior. And yet, as his positioning under the moon in the holy land may symbolically offer, he is on the cusp of his acceleration onto a high plane of being. His agony is in motion, and it is moving him rapidly now to a different place. This is also famously the scene where Kagetora conceives of Naoe as a giant penis. This conception, among other things, denies Naoe his personhood; it reduces him to nothing but a symbol of Kagetora's need. It is the antithesis of compassion, of seeing another person for who they are and what they need, unaffected by one's own ego. Kagetora hates that he does this, but he does do it. And it is a symbolic turning point in their relationship, after which Kagetora's engagement with Naoe (despite some hiccups) will only become more compassionate.