Who is Saiko? 

 What is Gyokurenji?

Photo: Autobiography by Shirakizawa Daien （published1999）

Misato Town of Northern Miyagi is about 40 minutes from Sendai down Tohoku Line, lost in the wastes of lush rice paddies irrigated by 2 rivers, the Naruse and the E'ai, which drain the Ōu Mountains.

It was 127 years ago, in Meiji 26（1893）, that a young man named Shirakizawa Daien first saw this locality, who was to become the first chief priest of Gyokurenji of Oyanagi. He was 28 years old.

Born at a temple in Yoshihama in what is now Ofunato City, as the second son to his parents, who had 11 children, he was sent away at age 12 to help another temple with Buddhist service. Later he was struggling his way to the goal of his ambition, when he was assigned to a sermon hall, which looked like a mere lonely shed. However, the reality he faced is said to have challenged him to prove his worth.

Thus the spring of the following year, Meiji 27（1894）saw Daien as the official chief priest of the Gyokurenji Temple. Back then it was forbidden to make the list of temples any longer. The received appellation was the name left on the list by a temple in Akita which had disappeared.

Daien's thought as an elementary schoolboy from his autobiography

What is life all about? Food and clothes? Do the temple folks do any good to their ancestors or the state, only repeating the cycle of fixed local events every year? Do they come into this world just to enjoy eating and drinking until turning into dust under the temple compound soil?

Photo: the first chief priest, Daien (from his autobiography)

Daien's life, from his late teens through his late twenties as lyrics for a possible rap song.

 I ran away on my father to study in Sendai

 Though angry, he ended up letting me enroll

 But cholera that year closed down the school

My study in Owari lasted only two years

 The conscription exam made me cry my way home

 I challenged my luck again in Tokyo

 Just to end up sick, crying on a train home

I planned to go preaching nationwide

 But I was talked out of it. I should have known better.

Instead they showed me a place nearer to home

Oyanagi sermon place, North of Sendai

Photo: the family of the first chief priest [Meiji 37, 38 ] (from his autobiography)

In Meiji 29 (1896), two years after he became the chief priest of Gyokurenji, Daien had a son who was to succeed him. Right after that event came a great tsunami, marking the year even more.

The quake made itself felt and then heard as far as Gyokurenji. The Great Sanriku Tsunami hit his home village particularly hard. His mother, who happened to be in Oyanagi, nursing his wife, hurried home with him. Their relatives in Toni Village were all missing. Not a body had been found washed up, he wrote.

The bottom of the year brought a great change in the way the temple was perceived. Parishioners of Gyokurenji began to voice the need of a main hall for their temple. Daien went home for timber collection. His home village was happy to give. They said, "Take your pick. It's all yours."

Timber cut out of the rugged mountains of Kesen was sent by horse cart to the shore of Ofunato, and then loaded onto tugboats going to Ishinomaki or Nobiru, where it was hoisted out for land transportation or began the last leg of its journey upstream the Naruse River to Oyanagi.

When a rare phenomenon happens as if to help you reach your goal, you might well consider it divine grace. Here are 3 such things that actually occurred.

A heavy rain made the Naruse River swell, making it easy to move building materials to the construction site. A huge tree was found floating near the coast of Daien's home village, putting an end to the desperate search for timber suitable for the rainbow beam quintessential to a main hall. A nearby rice paddy offered beautiful bogwood from underground, also suitable as other beams in a main hall.

The cornerstone-laying ceremony for the main hall was held in Meiji 32 (1899). The team of builders headed by a master from Kesen named Sato Sukegoro finished their job in Meiji 34 (1901).

Photo: the main hall in Showa 7,8, the second chief priest [bottom right](from his autobiography)

Photo: the second chief priest, Daisen (from his autobiography)

Let's move on to the later generations of the temple family as perceived by Tomoko, a granddaughter of the first chief priest Daien, whose cousin husband was the third chief priest Chien.

The second chief priest, Daisen, my uncle, whose son I was to marry, was at Otani University in Kyoto when the relocation of the temple was about to start. It was part of the improvement project of the Naruse River. It was admirable of him to give up his job to come home in order to spare his father the hassle of the relocation. He was a strong man, a wonderful person. He was a veteran with a history of serving in Manchuria.

The three generations of priests discussed Buddhism over sake at evening meal. They never did small talk. All they talk about was prayer to Amita. Each held their own. Each asserted themselves. They all talked very loud.

The third generation, Chien, my husband, had lost his mother at age 3, but he heard about it for the first time when he advanced to junior high school. He became a school teacher. I hear he was different as a teacher, often having outdoor class with the kids left to themselves in what he called freedom education. He once broke school window glass high on drinks at night. The kids found out about it. He was none the less popular among them. Even those he hadn't actually taught talked about him until much later as if he had directly cared for them.

In his time some poor kids went hungry without lunch at noon. He would share his lunch with them or feed them bread from the nearby Naganuma Groceries. Sometimes most of his monthly pay was spent this way.

A kid of his charge was being bullied by others for being from a poor family. He was getting callous, disappointed in himself. My husband praised him in front of the class, making a hero out of him. Now he is really a confident person commanding respect. 

Photo: the third chief priest, Chien (from his autobiography)

Photo: the fourth chief priest, Kensei (from his autobiography)

The fourth generation, Kensei, my son, was truly the sincere person he appeared to be. He needed no distractions. He was nice and kind. He practiced judo in high school. He was so thoughtful that he refrained from winning to spare the feelings of the loser's parents. A couple of years before he died, I heard him talking to a pine tree in front of the main hall, which appeared to be dying. "We feel the same about what is to come." He waved to the sparrows around the main hall. He turned away the kids who came to hunt cicadas. How sweet of him!

The fifth generation, Shin'ichi, talked about himself.

I was born and bred in Kyoto. I married into the temple.

I studied at Otani University, but I didn't know it was a university founded by a sect of Buddhism.

I entered a securities company after college. It was the year when Lehman collapsed. Then I became a policeman. It involved facing many dead people. It seemed to be teaching me the truths about life.

In 2015, I got married to the heir daughter of Gyokurenji to work at the temple. We had met on the campus. Being a priest at a temple is a difficult job. You are expected to understand people who are all different.

My predecessors have all been very popular. That's why our parishioners support us.

We often have people over. We had more occasions before the corona pandemic, though. Normally we meet twice a month for a study session. Ladies gather on the 28th for the anniversary of the saint's demise. We meet on the 29th for a Buddhist service and a tea meeting. Children's session is also held every month.

Annually, we have a crowd of people over from Tome for Ayumi No Kai of Gyokuenji. They are 2nd and 3rd generations of the immigrant settlers from Toyama Prefecture. We also receive people from all over Japan for a 3- day camp for prayer sessions.

That's how often we have people over.

One of the two daughters of the third generation, Chien, is Saiko's mother. Born at Gyokurenji, she majored in western history. Her graduation thesis was about Pascal and Christianity.

As a child, however, she was always drawing something on a blank piece of paper. She wished to go to an art college if she could. Later she was able to devote herself to painting. She produced a number of works. (Click here for some of them.)  

Much like her mother, Saiko has always been drawing. (Click) About two years ago images of temple and other Buddhism-related things began to pop up in her works. The repetition of the motifs got the people at Art Inclusion wondering what was behind it. Behind it was her mother, who comes from a temple. That explained everything.

Saiko's exhibit had been scheduled for March 2020 at Ai GALLERY in Ichibancho. But the Corona pandemic postponed it to October, forcing it out of Ai GALLERY into online.

To perceive Saiko's background, we visited Gyokurenji, where we collected material for a song. Later we asked the young chief priest, Shin'ichi, how he liked the demo tune. He had this to say. "It sounds like a supporters' song, special to me."