Chaplain Kagao Shunin

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Returning to my room, I wrote New Year’s letters to the families in Japan of the war criminals. I apologized for being late in replying because of my illness, and I told them that, depending on what the families wrote in their letters to the prisoners, those letters could affect the prisoners’ state of mind and, in turn, harm their training; and I cautioned them, as the new spring began, to see that this did not happen. Gripping my pen, I wrote the following in essence.

“Through the cold and through the heat, never speak of the hardship; meeting illness, meeting hunger, never retreat from one’s karma” — I recall these words (from the Shoryoshu, the writings of Kobo Daishi), and with them I lash my own weak heart.

“Everyone, do not become faint of heart. Calm your wavering minds, believe as firmly as diamond that the gods and buddhas are present, and, through the unfailing teachings of the gods and buddhas, bravely pass through any hardship. It is not I, bearing a name that means ‘weak,’ who say this. In the name of the gods and buddhas, I tell you that this is true.”

“Shall we walk the path of repentance, self-reflection, effort, gratitude, hope and construction? Or shall we follow the path of self-opinion, arrogance, idleness, pessimism, despair and decadence? Let us set our plan for the year and take the first step.”

“I believe that before a fervent wish and a sincere heart that seeks salvation, a response is certain to come; yet we must never forget, on the other hand, always to keep a tranquil mind.”

When I finished writing this, I felt some calm return to my heart.

I have always known, only too well, that I am a weak human being. I worry, and I blunder. But I also know that once I act in the name of the Buddha, I burn with a spirit that would pierce even gold and iron. I wrote this New Year’s letter as a declaration of myself as a disciple of the Buddha, and I wrote it in prayer.

For I believed that even if, by some chance, an execution were to be carried out, that death would not be death, but merely a stage on the way to a more perfect life; that the man himself would go to his death as if returning home; and that, if the family too burned with true faith, the death of their beloved would become an occasion for them to commit themselves still more deeply to faith.