¡°I was born in Showa 8 (1933), the same year as Emperor Akihito,¡± the head priest of Kairyuji temple tells me. ¡°I have two mothers. My birth mother died when I was 6 years old. My father, a Buddhist priest, remarried and they had three children: one boy and two girls. One girl died young. My younger brother became a banker and lived in London for a long time. He¡¯s now retired, living near Tokyo. My younger sister also lives in Tokyo. That left me to inherit the temple.¡±
We¡¯re sitting in an improbable English garden located at a Buddhist temple on Shiraishi, an island of 463 people in the Seto Inland Sea. It¡¯s a fine spring day, but when a mosquito buzzes past my face I am careful not to murder it in front of the Buddhist priest sitting across the table from me. His wife is off the island today at ikebana class and we¡¯re currently just passing the time in this little cove of serenity, fenced in from the Buddhist world outside.
In truth, we¡¯ve been friends for more than 20 years, so we are very comfortable talking to each other. Although most formalities between us were tossed out the window long ago, I still wouldn¡¯t go so far as to kill an insect in front of him.
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