Seizing this moment, I’ve decided to start sharing my dream diary openly.
Before my father passed away, he recounted to me a story from the “Tale of the Heike.” Following the Heike’s fall in the capital, a nun of the second rank entered the waters with the young Emperor Antoku. The three sacred objects she carried with the infant sank to the depths, and only the replicas of the mirror and sword, excluding the magatama, were passed down to subsequent generations. These sacred objects were meant to remain unseen by the emperor, leaving him uncertain whether the ones still preserved are indeed the legendary items. My father would often remark, ‘It’s better not to talk about the imitations outside.’ For it is political to those of ignoble spirit. To renounce the beauty of illusion is an act more ignoble than witnessing the demise of myth itself. Yet, given the world’s perpetual ignobility, we alone are left to breathe life into these phantasms. My father’s manner of speaking, rich with the suggestion that such matters were best left unsaid beyond our walls, seemed to uniquely encapsulate his character. In its entirety, this became my own Tale of the Heike, a treasured story woven into the fabric of my existence.
This is what I dreamed:I found myself standing in a fine drizzle, feeling as if suspended between worlds. The sodden earth beneath my feet seemed to whisper of days upon days of unending rain. Sheltered under the conifers, uncertain if the rain would relent or intensify, I stumbled upon the imprint of a sheep’s hoof. Though I couldn’t fathom why I attributed it to sheep, there was a certainty within me that a verdant meadow lay just beyond, yet I felt unable to proceed further. The light of day was muted, never yielding to darkness.
“A psalm of David.”
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
“He makes me lie down in green pastures,”
“He leads me beside quiet waters,”
“He restores my soul. For His name’s sake, He guides me in paths of righteousness.”
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,”
Who recited that psalm? I was uncertain of the language in which it was spoken, yet it was evident to me that I was among the living, for I recognised it as the 23rd chapter of the Psalms. In the realm beyond, where life relinquishes its grasp, the ego and personality dissolve, and we transcend this passage as beings beyond imagination. Monks have said that in death, we become free of anger and sorrow. Yet, I felt not so privileged; I bore with me the full spectrum of emotions—joy, anger, sadness, and grief. Thus, it dawned upon me that this was all ensconced within a dream. The sound of my heart’s steady beat confirmed it; I was dreaming. I turned and posed a question that lingered in my mind: ‘I understood this psalm to be a trial for those who live, but does its reach extend to the departed as well?’
I asked this and then awoke.
Regarding this 23rd chapter, Augustine states that ‘the Church speaks to Christ.’ Who was it I intended to turn and question, who recited Psalm 23 to me? It was neither light nor shadow. The choice of interpretation seemed to rest solely with me. Boldly, I assert it was both. What lay within my grasp was both a void and a celestial realm, but I could never truly know it, for I couldn’t traverse it further.
This dream appeared to emanate from the mind. Impermanence, elusive to the senses, left me wondering whether the Holy Spirit had reached out and touched me beyond its speculation. The sacred, submerged in the depths of my mind, remains by my side as a discrepancy, a reproduction. Thus, it manifested as a ‘dream’.
The unsaid words and misplaced affections faded into eternity. For me, as a ‘phenomenologist’, the act of ‘bracketing’ (Epoché)these unidentifiable aspects and extracting only the experience from them was what I had been striving for all along.
Perhaps the fact that my father’s funeral adhered to the Jodo Shinshu tradition also played a role, yet I refrained from mentioning Christ altogether while delivering my eulogy before the coffin. I attuned myself to the atmosphere, contemplating what would be most appropriate for that particular moment. Neither did I delve into tales like the Tale of the Heike; rather, I spoke of more mundane matters. This approach brought a certain clarity, yet simultaneously compelled me to ponder my faith: ‘Could it be that the life devoted to emulating Christ is merely a “dream” during our mortal existence?’It might also signify an acceptance of having been defeated in thought. For me, such an entity had simply “vanished.” While dreams are chronicled in the Book of Daniel as a conduit to divinity, they can equally be construed within the human psyche. Innately, I could not assert Christ’s presence as “absolute” in the manner of a sovereign decree. And so, even if these were dreams of a fleeting existence, I found myself replacing a broken rosary.
‘Whose son are you?’
I wish to keep in mind that Jesus Christ, who drew nearest to the mystery of the ‘Father’, was executed. It is said in Revelation 2:17 that there exists a name known only to God and the one who receives it.My reflections often dwell not solely on his resurrection but also on his death. The question arises: what is truly sacred? Does Jesus reside within the rosary? The answer is no, and yet, why did I find myself compelled to repurchase it?
I have resolved to believe that these discrepancies between reality and mystery are what allow us to retain our humanity. More pressing, perhaps, is the question of what we would wish to do if we and our cherished existences were truly to dissolve into ‘nothingness’. Death is the ‘fruit’ that sinks to the ocean floor, prompting those who follow to strive to create substitutes for that which was lost. In the realm of the living, death assumes the guise of a dream, slightly misaligned with the otherworldly. Much like Jesus not residing in the rosary, yet the rosary remains an essential item. Hence, a certain misalignment must exist where this world intersects with the next. There are religious factions that oppose the three sacred artefacts, but the Christ shaped by skewed historical narratives and political ideology diverges from the true Christ. To skew mythologies within a favoured ideology betrays a lack of sincerity towards the sacred.
Some literary figures have remarked that literature often dwells more on death than on love. For me, a myth that stands in contrast to Jesus’ love and death is, for example, Orpheus. While Jesus bequeathed love to the world, Orpheus, overcome by love and awe, looked back despite his covenant with Hades. This fateful glance sent his wife Eurydice back to the realm of the dead, leaving only death in its wake. Even before his crucifixion, Jesus did not waver or look back when faced with betrayal by his disciples, rejection by the people, or the death of John the Baptist; he continued steadfast on his journey.
In narrative terms, both tales embody a form of love that brushes against the valley of the shadow of death, spinning a story that knows no end.Therefore, to accept only the impermanence of things or love alone was something I could never do.
Husserl’s phenomenology calls for fidelity not to the ‘things themselves’ but to phenomena as they manifest in consciousness, thereby implying that all that is seen, felt, or dreamt holds equivalent value to ‘reality’. My truth, as a phenomenon, possessed a surety. This dream may vary from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as interpreted by Daniel.
Yet within this, what do we decide to take from the scant items available before death claims us? Concerning this, I choose henceforth to employ the nebulous realm and vocabulary of dreams.
Within this domain, I seem to discover my core essence.
My conviction stands firm that my strength lies in accepting that absence, settled at the ocean’s depths.
As the first night draws to its close, were I to leave something unsaid,
Before the coffin, I longed to say: ‘You were, to me, like Joseph.’
La pesanteur et la grâce （Gravity and grace）Simon Weil
・Tous les mouvements naturels de l’âme sont régis par des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle. La grâce seule fait exception.
・Il faut toujours s’attendre à ce que les choses se passent conformément à la pesanteur, sauf intervention du surnaturel.
・Deux forces règnent sur l’univers : lumière et pesanteur.
Translation
・The natural movements of the soul follow laws similar to those of physical gravity, with the exception of grace.
・It is always to be expected that things will happen in accordance with gravity, unless supernatural forces intervene.
・The universe is governed by two forces: light and gravity.
note 1
So begins Gravity and Grace, a compilation of Simone Weil’s posthumous notebooks. She tries to explain human behaviour and interaction around the concepts of pesanteur (gravity) and grâce (grace).
She explains that the natural movements of our soul follow laws similar to the physical law of gravity. The only thing other than gravity is grace, and we should always expect things to proceed according to gravity, unless there is supernatural intervention.
“Tous les mouvements naturels de l’âme sont régis par des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle. La grâce seule fait exception.“
The grammatical features of this sentence are as follows
Subject: ‘Tous les mouvements naturels de l’âme’ (all the natural movements of the mind)
Predicate: ‘sont régis par des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle’ (governed by the same laws as physical gravity).
Auxiliary verb: ‘sont’ (to be).
Verb: ‘régis’ (to be governed).
Object: ‘des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle’ (laws similar to those of physical gravity).
Adverb: ‘seule’ (the only one).
La grâce seule fait exception. (But only grace is an exception).
＊It is as though the bestowal of grace rests solely in God, the epitome of singularity.
Le Roi Lear et la pesanteur.
・Pesanteur. – D’une manière générale, ce qu’on attend des autres est déterminé par les effets de la pesanteur en nous ; ce qu’on en reçoit est déterminé par les effets de la pesanteur en eux. Parfois cela coïncide (par hasard), souvent non.
・Pourquoi est-ce que dès qu’un être humain témoigne qu’il a peu ou beaucoup besoin d’un autre, celui-ci s’éloigne ? Pesanteur.
Lear, tragédie de la pesanteur. Tout ce qu’on nomme bassesse est un phénomène de pesanteur.
・D’ailleurs le terme de bassesse l’indique. L’objet d’une action et le niveau de l’énergie qui l’alimente, choses distinctes.・・・・・・
Translation
・Pesanteur. – Generally speaking, what we expect from others is determined by the effects of in us; what we receive from them is determined by the effects of gravity in them. Sometimes this coincides (by chance), but often it does not.
・Why is it that as soon as one person testifies that he needs another a little or a lot, the other person moves away? Pesanteur.
・Lear, tragedy of heavyiness. Everything that is called vileness is a phenomenon of gravity.
・Moreover, the term vileness indicates this. The object of an action and the level of energy that feeds it are different things. ・・・・・・
note2
Matthew 23:12 – says, ‘But whoever has exalted himself, shall be humbled. And whoever has humbled himself, shall be exalted.’, but here the scribes and Pharisees were sitting on Moses’ throne. They put heavy burdens on people’s shoulders, but they would not do anything themselves. Jesus told the crowd and his disciples that there was no ‘teacher’ or ‘master’ on earth, only Christ.
Simone Weil equated William Shakespeare’s King Lear with gravity. Lear asks his three sisters about the depth of their love for him. The two sisters were verbal, but the youngest, Cordelia, could not speak, but showed it from her heart. He could not forgive Cordelia, so he banished her and shared his territory with the other two who had shown him affection. Then his tragedy began. In making this superlative judgement of Lear, he was betrayed by two of his daughters and lost his soldiers through indecision.
What Lear shared with them was territory, a symbol of his wealth, but as if he had shared his organs, his fate was cast into exile. Having misjudged who to trust, Lear ends up losing Cordelia, who truly loved and saved him.
The Bible also says in Proverbs, “Whoever responds before he listens, demonstrates himself to be foolish and deserving of confusion.” (Proverbs 18:13), but also in verse 12, “The heart of a man is exalted before it is crushed and humbled before it is glorified.”, verse 15, “A prudent heart shall possess knowledge. And the ear of the wise seeks doctrine.”, not just superficial things, but a wise and enlightened mind.
The preoccupation with ”gift expaned” in Proverbs (Proverbs 18:16) is precisely what makes following Jesus a priority and warns against dependence between people: ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter above me is not worthy of me.’ (Matthew 10:37). “But it is not to be this way among you. Instead, whoever would become greater shall be your minister;and whoever will be first among you shall be the servant of all.” (Mark 10:43-44).
Coincidentally, Leah said these words when she lost her soldier. “O, reason not the need: our basest beggars “Lear here questions his own reason and his material needs. This line foreshadows the beginning of King Lear’s spiritual collapse and self-reflection, forcing him to reassess his own folly and values.
Again, it is interesting to note that reviewing one’s mistakes is also accompanied by spiritual collapse, falling into what psychologists call psychological defences or a collapse of self-esteem. Catholics (and Christians in general) regard the discovery of sin as the starting point for repentance and conversion. Indeed, recent trials involving Catholics have revealed a psychological defence mechanism to avoid a collapse of self-esteem in clergy who break church law, who protest their innocence, and in lay people who beat their victims. It is as if they cannot see themselves in the mirror (now they see dimly as in a mirror: 1 Corinthians 13:12), as if love is the key to perfect knowledge and understanding, and that perfection is realised in love, but they are unwilling to see even that love. So God’s love and human sin are opposites, but in the same reflection. The art of recognising this is shown in Psalm 51, where King David confesses his sins before God and asks for forgiveness with a repentant heart. I note that in this Psalm King David expresses that he “repents with a sincere heart, looks at his sins and is honest with God in the depth of his heart”.
Jesus Christ also speaks of His teaching in Matthew 18:21-22, which calls for forgiveness to be given to sinners “not seven times, but seventy times” (Matthew 18:21-22). This teaching points to a heart attitude of looking at the sins of others and offering forgiveness.
D’ailleurs le terme de bassesse l’indique. l’objet d’une action et le niveau de l’ The act of lowering is indeed King Lear’s misjudgement, but the ‘sustenance’ of the subsequent wavering of his spirit with the realisation of his folly towards himself is the equivalent of staring into a mirror. The ‘sustenance’ of King Lear’s subsequent wavering spirit with the realisation of his own folly is equivalent to his gazing into a mirror. He was able to recognise the love of his three wives because he had recognised their love for him. (Although Cordelia is killed.)
＊Est-ce que (What) Interrogative
Vulgarity and Grace.
・Le bas et le superficiel sont au même niveau. Il aime violemment mais bassement : phrase possible. Il aime profondément mais bassement : phrase impossible.
・ ––− une vertu basse est peut-être à certains égards mieux à l’épreuve des difficultés, des tentations et des malheurs qu’une vertu élevée.
・La grâce, c’est la loi du mouvement descendant.
Translation
・The base and the superficial are on the same level. He loves fiercely but basely: possible proposition. He loves deeply but basely: impossible sentence.
・A low virtue is perhaps in some respects a better proof against difficulties, temptations, and misfortunes than a high virtue.
・Grace is the law of downward motion.
note3
––une vertu basse est peut-être à certains égards mieux à l’épreuve des difficultés, des tentations et des malheurs qu’une vertu élevée ––According to Simone Weil, a lower virtue may, in certain respects, prove to be more resilient in the face of difficulties, temptations, and misfortunes than a higher virtue. She contends that actions and feelings rooted in lower-dimensional motives and emotions hold equal value. In other words, she does not diminish the significance of lower dimensions but instead embraces them as if they represent the truth.
According to Weil, the concept of ‘gravity’ (pesanteur) represents the notion of ‘lower’ behavior and emotions in humanity. She argues that these ‘lower’ aspects are a manifestation of gravity. Additionally, she asserts that both ‘low’ and ‘superficial’ are comparable in their level of significance. The pronoun ‘he’ she uses alludes to the fact that intense emotions can coexist with lowly behavior, as exemplified by characters like King Lear. Moreover, Weil contends that it is impossible to simultaneously love in both a lowly and deep manner. She does not shy away from acknowledging the impact of heaviness and vulgarity in human behavior and emotions. It is as if she is gazing into a philosophical reflection, rather than an ecclesiastical one tied to religious institutions. Weil believes that actions and feelings originating from ‘lower motives’ are of equal value to those rooted in higher dimensions.
While there are no direct stories in Christianity that parallel King Lear’s mistakes, there are teachings and warnings in Christianity regarding human judgment and deceit. One such example is the parable of the Pharisees.
In the course of Jesus’ numerous miracles, the Pharisees are portrayed as religious leaders who sought to emphasize their adherence to religious laws and principles. However, they were self-centered and proud, as their focus on external actions and beliefs lacked inner transformation and genuine love for others. Through this parable, Christianity cautions against superficial faith and self-righteous attitudes, asserting that true faith is rooted in inner transformation and compassionate love for others.
In the case of King Lear, his initial choice may have appeared to be the right one, but it ultimately proved to be a mistake. This story not only teaches us the importance of focusing on inner truth and love rather than superficial judgments and words, but it also speaks to the concept of grace, which is bestowed upon us even though we cannot defy gravity.
Gravity can be succinctly translated as the scientific term ‘Zwaartekracht’, referring to the weight of an object on Earth due to the gravitational pull exerted by the planet. It encompasses the combined force of the universal gravitational pull of Earth and its rotation. The nature of mass suggests that objects do not attract each other directly, but instead, they distort the space around them, resulting in mutual attraction. While gravity governs the entire universe, its force is inherently weak, allowing birds to soar and us to move about freely. It remains weak as long as it asserts its dominion.
Leah’s ability to feel and suffer from Cordelia’s presence was subject to the influence of this never-ending, but never overpowering, force of gravity. So, too, her love must have been intertwined with God’s love.
This profound realization from Simone Weil’s choice of ‘Gravity’ suggests that the presence of gravity is necessary for the emergence of its opposite, ‘grace’.
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主語：「Tous les mouvements naturels de l’âme」（心の自然な動きすべて）
述語：「sont régis par des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle.」（物理的な重力と同様の法則によって統制される。）
助動詞：「sont」（～である）
動詞：「régis」（支配される）
目的語：「des lois analogues à celles de la pesanteur matérielle」（物理的な重力と同様の法則）
副詞：「seule」（唯一・唯一の人）
「La grâce seule fait exception.」（ただし、恩寵のみは例外である）
＊まるで「恩寵」を与える存在が神という唯一性であるかのようだ。
リア王と重力
・Pesanteur. – D’une manière générale, ce qu’on attend des autres est déterminé par les effets de la pesanteur en nous ; ce qu’on en reçoit est déterminé par les effets de la pesanteur en eux. Parfois cela coïncide (par hasard), souvent non.
・Pourquoi est-ce que dès qu’un être humain témoigne qu’il a peu ou beaucoup besoin d’un autre, celui-ci s’éloigne ? Pesanteur.
Lear, tragédie de la pesanteur. Tout ce qu’on nomme bassesse est un phénomène de pesanteur.
・D’ailleurs le terme de bassesse l’indique. L’objet d’une action et le niveau de l’énergie qui l’alimente, choses distinctes.・・・・・・
D’ailleurs le terme de bassesse l’indique. L’objet d’une action et le niveau de l’énergie qui l’alimente, choses distinctes. 低めることへの行為とはリア王の誤った判断のことをさすが、その後のリア王の自分自身への愚かさへの気づきと共に精神が揺らいでいくことについてのは「糧」というのは、鏡を見つめたということに相当する。何故なら、彼は三女の愛に気づけたからだ。（但し、三女コーデリアは殺されるが）
・est-ce que （What) 疑問系
低めたものと「恩寵」
・Le bas et le superficiel sont au même niveau. Il aime violemment mais bassement : phrase possible. Il aime profondément mais bassement : phrase impossible.
・ ––− une vertu basse est peut-être à certains égards mieux à l’épreuve des difficultés, des tentations et des malheurs qu’une vertu élevée.
この引用は、シモーヌ・ヴェイユが低いものと浅いものについて考えていることを示している。ここでは引用が長くなってしまうので割愛させてもらったが、––une vertu basse est peut-être à certains égards mieux à l’épreuve des difficultés, des tentations et des malheurs qu’une vertu élevée.−−彼女は、低次元の動機や感情に基づく行動や感情は、高次元のものと同じように価値があると主張している。言い換えれば、彼女は低次元のものを軽視することなく、まるで真理がそこにあるかのように汲み取っています。
Simone Weil, ‘Illusions’ (Gravity and Grace).La pesanteur et la grâce
・On se porte vers une chose parce qu’on croit qu’elle est bonne, et on y reste enchaîné parce qu’elle est devenue nécessaire.
・Les choses sensibles sont réelles en tant que choses sensibles, mais irréelles en tant que biens.
・L’apparence a la plénitude de la réalité, mais en tant qu’apparence. En tant qu’autre chose qu’apparence, elle est erreur.
・L’illusion concernant les choses de ce monde ne concerne pas leur existence, mais leur valeur.
・L’image de la caverne se rapporte à la valeur. Nous ne possédons que des ombres d’imitations de biens. C’est aussi par rapport au bien que nous sommes captifs, enchaînés (attachement). Nous acceptons les fausses valeurs qui nous apparaissent, et quand nous croyons agir, nous sommes en réalité immobiles, car nous restons dans le même système de valeurs.
・ceux qui ont nourri et vêtu le Christ ne savaient pas que c’était le Christ.
English
・We are drawn to something because we believe it is good, and we remain attached to it because it has become necessary.
・Sensible things exist as sensible things, but are unreal as goods. Images possess the fullness of reality, but only as images.
・The illusion regarding the things of this world pertains not to their existence, but to their value.
・The illusion concerning the things of this world does not concern their existence, but their value. The image of the cave is related to value. We only possess shadowy imitations of goods. It is also in relation to goodness that we are captives, bound (through attachment). We accept false values that appear to us, and when we believe we are acting, we are actually immobile, as we remain within the same system of values.
・Those who fed and clothed Christ did not know that it was Christ.
１L’apparence
L’apparence means ‘appearance’ in French, but in legal philosophy and sometimes in psychology it is translated as ‘provisional image’. While a virtuality has the integrity of reality, it can also be misleading, not only with regard to the appearance of reality, but also with regard to other objects. This may be a feeling that is not common in Japanese concepts. Although Husserl distinguished between ‘imaginative action’ and ‘fantasy’, in phenomenology Husserl provided an approach to the idea of the provisional and value. The distinction between phenomena (physical sensation) and value (provisional representation) is also mentioned in Weil’s quotation.
・ceux qui ont nourri et vêtu le Christ ne savaient pas que c’était le Christ.
・Phonological beauty: in this sentence there is a balance between vowels and consonants and a sense of rhythm. For example, the phrase ‘nourri et vêtu’ feels beautiful because the sounds are delicate and echo each other.
２ ’provisional image’ versus ‘conjectural’.
Provisional image refers to an image in the mind of an object or event that has not been directly experienced in the real world, based on imagination or speculation. Assumption is an unquestioning perception distorted by subjectivity with concepts that are different from provisional images. In essence, provisional images are realistic and contain misperceptions, but they are also correctable. Assumptions, on the other hand, are often not correctable. For example, in advertising and marketing, provisional images are used to attract people and make them stick to a product or service. We need to make sure that we do not miss the real value and benefit behind individual products and services. In the area of self-development and relationships, it is also important to focus on one’s own true needs and wellbeing, rather than getting caught up in the provisional images and expectations of others.
３ ’Good’ and ‘justice’.
Weil’s declamations seem to have philosophy at their heart, even though they are poetic in nature. This quotation, for example, may be based on the ‘good’ and ‘justice’ of ‘Platonic’ philosophy. In Plato’s ‘Republic justice is attributed to the soul. I think that the image of a ‘cave’ here is undoubtedly an analogy for the cave in Plato’s ‘Republic’.
The parable describes a situation in which people are trapped in a cave and live by seeing shadows projected on the walls by a fire at the back of the cave. They believed the shadows to be real and never left the cave. However, when a person escapes from the cave and sees the outside world, he or she discovers true reality for the first time. There were concepts and things that were different from the shadows he saw in the cave, such as light, colour and shape. This person discovered new knowledge and truths and tried to communicate their existence to the others in the cave, but they were convinced of the shadow world and refused to accept the truths of the outside world. This parable represents Plato’s ideas about the acquisition of knowledge and truth. The cave symbolises the material world and sensory experience, while the shadow represents knowledge through perception. On the other hand, the world outside, as seen by the person leaving the cave, would refer to the world of ideas and metaphysical truths. Plato’s parable of the cave is a metaphor for the fact that we can only see things in their provisional image or shadow form, not in their real form. The people in the cave only see shadows projected on the walls and cannot know the true reality, so although there are ‘provisional images’ in the cave, they cannot be said to be the true existence or reality. It suggests that the world we perceive is part of reality and that there is a truth or essence beyond it. It emphasises that ‘provisional images’ exist in some sense, but that they are not a complete picture of truth or reality.
This is also an example of the fact that truth and knowledge must be obtained through reason, and that true understanding is impossible as long as we are trapped in the material world and sense experience.
In Plato’s Republic, the desire to know the truth about justice interacts with the idea of the good, which is also characteristic of the French word Nous ne possédons que des ombres d’imitations de biens. C’est aussi par rapportau bien que nous sommes captifs, enchaînés. In Bient in, it can mean ‘good’, but it can also mean ‘possession’.
For example, what does it mean when translated as ‘property’?
We are trapped in a cave whose walls reflect the shadows of our possessions. But these shadows are not real possessions, they are only imitations. Because we are trapped in these shadows, we cannot know true ownership and luxury. If we could come out of the cave, we would experience true possessions and true wealth.
Even as ‘property’ he points to our obsession with material possessions and our missing out on true happiness and abundance.
So what if we think in terms of the good, which is the correct translation?
Trapped in a cave, what we see is not the real world but shadows, which are imitations or representations of reality. Shadows reflect true reality, but are themselves incomplete, and we cannot know true reality accurately. Goodness’ becomes the knowledge and rational understanding of true reality. By going outside the cave and seeing true reality directly, we can understand and accept true goodness. However, trapped in the cave, we cannot have knowledge of the true good and remain trapped in the shadow of mere imitation.
This parable is consistent with Plato’s advocacy of an ideal state and his insistence that philosophers should play a role in pursuing the true good and communicating it to others. It also suggests that in order to gain knowledge of the true good, we need to go outside the cave and engage in self-knowledge and self-transcendence.
Continuing the section, Weil adds a passage from the biblical Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26, verse 37, where he gives him food and clothing without recognising him as Jesus. This shows the difficulty of understanding Christ’s presence and the need to open people’s spiritual eyes. By treating this account in a provisional image, Weil may have been trying to express the universal theme of people’s contact with Christ (or a divine being) but their inability to understand his presence and truth, as well as the difficulty of mystical experience.
The biblical position on ‘property’ (in money),
Matthew : 6 : 19 – 21
Do not choose to store up for yourselves treasures on earth: where rust and moth consume, and where thieves break in and steal. Instead, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also is your heart.
This is not just a denial of material possessions, but a question of where the heart is. Those who gave food and clothing without knowing Jesus may have earthly possessions, heavenly treasures and ‘heart’. This is also related to Platonic ‘goodness’ and ‘justice’. As Plato wrote in the Republic, biblical ‘goodness’ and ‘justice’ do not just enrich the inner life of an individual. He believed that an individual’s goodness and justice is made up of a collection of individual goodness and justice. He taught that through the pursuit and practice of goodness and justice by individual souls, the nation as a whole can also realise goodness and justice. Reality, however, exists alongside provisional images and is difficult to put into practice. Provisional images’ are questions for the philosopher.
・On se porte vers une chose parce qu’on croit qu’elle est bonne, et on y reste enchaîné parce qu’elle est devenue nécessaire.
・Les choses sensibles sont réelles en tant que choses sensibles, mais irréelles en tant que biens.
・L’apparence a la plénitude de la réalité, mais en tant qu’apparence. En tant qu’autre chose qu’apparence, elle est erreur.
・L’illusion concernant les choses de ce monde ne concerne pas leur existence, mais leur valeur.
・L’image de la caverne se rapporte à la valeur. Nous ne possédons que des ombres d’imitations de biens. C’est aussi par rapport au bien que nous sommes captifs, enchaînés (attachement). Nous acceptons les fausses valeurs qui nous apparaissent, et quand nous croyons agir, nous sommes en réalité immobiles, car nous restons dans le même système de valeurs.
・ceux qui ont nourri et vêtu le Christ ne savaient pas que c’était le Christ.
プラトンの「国家」では正義についての真実を知りたい欲求を、善のイデアを通じて対話しているが、フランス語の単語の特徴もあるが、Nous ne possédons que des ombres d’imitations de biens. C’est aussi par rapport au bien que nous sommes captifs, enchaînés (attachement).でBientとは「善」という意味でもあるが「財産」という意味もある。
Le faux Dieu change la souffrance en violence. Le vrai Dieu change la violence en souffrance.
“The false God turns suffering into violence. The true God turns violence into suffering”
Alors, où mettre le mal ?
“So, where does evil belong?”
Il faut le transférer de la partie impure dans la partie pure de soi-même, le transmuant ainsi en souffrance pure. Le crime qu’on a en soi, il faut l’infliger à soi.
“It has to be transferred from the impure part to the pure part of oneself, thus transforming it into pure suffering. We must inflict the crime within us upon ourselves”
Grammar
The use of the definite article, such as ‘Le faux Dieu’ or ‘Le vrai Dieu’, refers to a specific deity.
Verbs such as ‘change’, in the direct present tense, and ‘transférer’ refer to the transfer of a thing to another place.
Verbs such as ‘change’ in the direct present ‘transférer’ indicate that the thing in question is transferred to another place.
The expression ‘de soi-même’ is used to indicate the myself, the self.
The expression ‘qu’on a en soi’ indicates the self and refers to a sin related to the aforementioned part.
The expression ‘à soi’ indicates taking action against the self.
Note:
For some reason, ‘So where does evil belong’ was of interest to me. Weil seems to speak only to his own inner ‘mystery’ and ‘imperfection’. It seems like Nietzsche’s ‘self-transcendence’, which argued that the purpose of human life is self-realisation and transcending one’s own limitations and constraints.
However, the evil in the Catholic prayer ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’ means ‘Satan’, so Weil, although a philosopher, is influenced by Catholicism, so in this case evil includes Nietzschean evil, but is also close to the Satan positioned by Catholicism is also close to the Devil.
Here, briefly, about Satan. The etymology of the word exorcism does not mean exorcism, but is derived from the Greek word ‘to swear severely, to declare’.
It is a declaration of faith by a person possessed or seduced by an evil spirit, acknowledging the absolute rule of God in Jesus.
Just as in the film The Vatican Exorcist, ‘sin finds itself’, so in the Gospels Jesus speaks of taking up his cross.
Satan, I can’t say for sure at the moment because I have no experience of exorcism ceremonies regarding Satan myself, but I think the story wanted to say that the true God turns violence (satanic) into suffering (cross), and with a false God, when he claims to perform miracles of God, he makes them satanic.
Reference
Matthew : 16 : 24 – Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If anyone is willing to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Luke : 9 : 21 – But speaking sharply to them, he instructed them not to tell this to anyone,
Luke : 9 : 22 – saying, ‘For the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the leaders of the priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again.’
PATER noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
Le faux Dieu change la souffrance en violence. Le vrai Dieu change la violence en souffrance.
「偽物の神は、苦しみを暴力に変える。真の神は、暴力を苦しみに変える」
Alors, où mettre le mal ?
「それでは悪をどこへしまい込めばいいのか」
Il faut le transférer de la partie impure dans la partie pure de soi-même, le transmuant ainsi en souffrance pure. Le crime qu’on a en soi, il faut l’infliger à soi.
PATER noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
Der Gott Jesu Christi Betrachtungen über den Dreieinigen Gott.
Wieder kann man von hier versuchen, ahnend etwas über Gottes inneres Geheimnis zu sagen: Vater und Sohnsind die Bewegung reinen Schenkens, reiner Übergabe an- einander In dieser Bewegung sind sie fruchtbar, und ihre Fruchtbarkeit ist ihre Einheit, ihr völliges Einssein, ohne daß sie dabei selbst zurückgenommen und ineinander aufgelöst werden. Für uns Menschen heißt Schenken, Sichselbergeben, immer auch Kreuz.(Das trinitarische Ge- heimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheim- nis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist kommt.
English translation：Once again, we can attempt to glimpse something of God’s inner mystery from this point: the Father and the Son are the movement of pure giving, pure surrender to one another. In this movement, they are fruitful, and their fruitfulness is their unity, their complete oneness, without being absorbed or dissolved into each other.For us human beings, giving of the self always entails the cross. (The mystery of the Trinity is translated into the world as the mystery of the cross: It is from this fruitfulness that the Holy Spirit emerges.)
Characteristics of the text
The text mentions ‘God’s inner mystery’, the distinctive parts of which contain mainly religious-philosophical elements.
・ 「Vater und Sohn sind die Bewegung reinen Schenkens, reiner Übergabe aneinander.」：it contains philosophical discussions and analyses of individual words and concepts. The images of parent-child relationships and mutual gifts presented here represent ideas about the existence and nature of God.
・ 「In dieser Bewegung sind sie fruchtbar, und ihre Fruchtbarkeit ist ihre Einheit, ihr völliges Einssein, ohne daß sie dabei selbst zurückgenommen und ineinander aufgelöst werden.」：this statement illustrates the argument about the triune nature of God. It says that God’s existence is expressed as fullness and that this fullness is related to the unity of the Trinity.
・「Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt).」：In the interpretation of the Trinity of God in human experience and faith, the image of the cross and the concept of the Holy Spirit are themes often discussed in religious philosophy and theology and are also illustrated here.
As is characteristic of Benedict XVI’s writings, his texts are highly philosophical and show deep thought. He deals with religious themes and expresses mystical concepts. His writing is concise but dense, and each sentence is full of meaning. His style is rigorous and is used to convey certain concepts clearly. Benedict XVI sometimes uses a dialogical style, explaining his ideas in a supposed dialogue with his readers. This dialogue format may represent the one-dimensional personality of the one and only distant ‘Pope’. His writings show a fusion of rational argument and philosophy of faith. In particular, he uses ethical arguments to show that ‘faith’ and ‘reason’ are compatible. He seems to focus on communicating complex theological concepts in a way that is accessible to the general reader.
Summary
An attempt is made by Benedict XVI to understand the ‘secret of the Trinity’ together with the reader. The Father and the Son are described as engaged in a pure act of giving, in a work of ‘total devotion’ to each other. This work results in their fruitfulness, which is described as their perfect unity and oneness. However, it is also clarified that this process does not lead to their annihilation or merging into each other. It is further asserted that for human beings, giving and self-giving are always associated with the Cross. The secret of the Trinity is seen as manifesting in the world as the secret of the Cross. The explanation offered is that through the Holy Spirit, the Cross holds within it the potential for fruitfulness and abundance.
The difference between philosophical writing and everyday writing.
A philosophical text can be described as a multifaceted yet concise exploration of topics related to deep thinking and philosophical concepts. The term philosophia, coined by Socrates, encompasses the love of knowledge, also known as philosophy. These writings often employ logical reasoning. Both the current Pope, Pope Francis, and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, can be seen as having philosophical elements in their teachings. They delve into concepts such as reflections on existence and religion, including faith, eternal life, the Last Judgement, the law of love, and the relationship with God. However, it is also necessary to provide more specific and succinct explanations using everyday language. For example, ‘Hingabe’ and ‘Selbsthingabe’ are German words meaning ‘devotion’ or ‘devotion to self’. To better comprehend their meanings, specific examples or situations can be used to explain them.
「Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt).」If the original text of the following were to be shown in more everyday terms,
「In unserem menschlichen Verständnis bedeutet Hingabe immer auch Opfer (Das Geheimnis der Dreifaltigkeit offenbart sich in der Welt als das Geheimnis des Kreuzes: Hier liegt die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist entspringt)」In our human understanding, devotion always implies sacrifice as well. (The mystery of the Trinity is meant to be unveiled to the world as the mystery of the Cross.)
「In unserem menschlichen Verständnis bedeutet Hingabe immer auch Opfer」The translation is more of an everyday expression than a philosophical reflection on ‘what it means to give of oneself’, in line with the idea that true human commitment always needs to involve some sacrifice (e.g. time, comfort).
Finally, to return to the original again.
Für uns Menschen heißt Schenken, Sichselbergeben, immer auch Kreuz.(Das trinitarische Ge- heimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheim- nis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist kommt.
“The reason why there are two instances of ‘der der’ is that the first one, ‘aus der’, translates directly as ‘from’, indicating that something is coming out of ‘der Fruchtbarkeit’ (abundance). In this context, it signifies the coming out of ‘der Heilige Geist’ (the Holy Spirit) from abundance. The second ‘der Heilige Geist kommt’ consists of the definite article ‘der’ and the noun ‘Heilige Geist’, signifying the arrival of the Holy Spirit. These elements represent the mysteries of the Trinity, which are of different natures yet closely intertwined.
If we were to write this without ‘der der’, for example,…”
Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt.(* Changing ‘Schenken’ and ‘Sichselbergeben’ to ‘Hingabe’ and ‘Selbsthingabe’ maintains consistency in context.)
“This is a trial translation and we would be grateful for any comments.
Following on from the previous edition, we have decided to include a memo-like section called “Cahier.”
Der Gott Jesu Christi Betrachtungen über den Dreieinigen Gott.
Wieder kann man von hier versuchen, ahnend etwas über Gottes inneres Geheimnis zu sagen: Vater und Sohnsind die Bewegung reinen Schenkens, reiner Übergabe an- einander In dieser Bewegung sind sie fruchtbar, und ihre Fruchtbarkeit ist ihre Einheit, ihr völliges Einssein, ohne daß sie dabei selbst zurückgenommen und ineinander aufgelöst werden. Für uns Menschen heißt Schenken, Sichselbergeben, immer auch Kreuz.(Das trinitarische Ge- heimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheim- nis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist kommt.
・ 「Vater und Sohn sind die Bewegung reinen Schenkens, reiner Übergabe aneinander.」：個別の言葉や概念についての哲学的な議論や分析を含んでいます。ここで示されている親子関係と相互の贈り物のイメージは、神の存在や本性についての考え方を表しています。
・ 「In dieser Bewegung sind sie fruchtbar, und ihre Fruchtbarkeit ist ihre Einheit, ihr völliges Einssein, ohne daß sie dabei selbst zurückgenommen und ineinander aufgelöst werden.」：この文は、神の三位一体の性質に関する議論を示しています。神の存在が豊かさとして表され、そしてその豊かさが三位一体の一体性と関連していることが述べられています。
・「Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt).」：神の三位一体を人間の経験や信仰の中で解釈する際に、十字架のイメージや聖霊の概念は、宗教哲学や神学で頻繁に論じられる主題でありますが、ここでもそれが示されています。
哲学的な文章とは何か、一面的でありながらも簡潔に述べると、ソクラテスがフィロソフィア（知を愛する＝哲学）という言葉を定着させたことは有名ですが、一般的に思考や哲学的な概念に関連するテーマを探求し、深い洞察を提供することなどがあげられます。これらの文章には論理的な推論が含まれていたりします。現教皇である、フランシスコ教皇や前任のベネディクト16世も、哲学的な要素を含んでいると言えます。彼らが掘り下げる概念は、信仰、永遠のいのち、最後の審判、愛のおきて、神との関係など、存在と宗教に関する考察を含んでいます。一方、日常的な言葉の説明を行う場合は、より具体的で簡潔な説明が必要となるでしょう。例えば、「Hingabe」や「Selbsthingabe」はドイツ語で「献身」や「自己への献身」を意味する言葉ですが、これらの言葉の意味を説明する際には、具体的な例や状況を用いてより理解しやすい説明が求められることがあります。例えば、「Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt).」の原文を、より日常用語として示すとしたら、
「In unserem menschlichen Verständnis bedeutet Hingabe immer auch Opfer (Das Geheimnis der Dreifaltigkeit offenbart sich in der Welt als das Geheimnis des Kreuzes: Hier liegt die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist entspringt)」私たち人間の理解では、献身は常に犠牲も意味します。（三位一体の神秘は、十字架の神秘としてこの世に啓示されることになる）
「In unserem menschlichen Verständnis bedeutet Hingabe immer auch Opfer」というのは、人間が真の献身を示す際には、常に何らかの犠牲を伴う（例えば、時間や快適さ）必要があるという考えに即した翻訳で、「自己を捧げると言うこと」ということについて哲学的考察というより、日常寄りの表し方にしています。
最後に、再度、原文に戻ると
原文：Für uns Menschen heißt Schenken, Sichselbergeben, immer auch Kreuz.(Das trinitarische Ge- heimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheim- nis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus der der Heilige Geist kommt.
Für uns Menschen bedeutet Hingabe, Selbsthingabe, immer auch Kreuz (Das trinitarische Geheimnis übersetzt sich in der Welt in ein Kreuzesgeheimnis: Dort ist die Fruchtbarkeit, aus dem der Heilige Geist kommt.（＊「Schenken」と「Sichselbergeben」を「Hingabe」と「Selbsthingabe」に変えることで文脈に一貫性を保っている）
Starting this month, I will post “just a short analysis” of a text I like. The title will be Cahier (date).
I will also continue to update my previous critiques.
La pesanteur et la grâce 1
Today it is Simone Weil.
Ce n’est pas la faute qui constitue le péché mortel, mais le degré de lumière qui est dans l’âme quand la faute, quelle qu’elle soit, est accomplie. La pureté est le pouvoir de contempler la souillure.L’extrême pureté peut contempler et le pur et l’impur ; l’impureté ne peut ni l’un ni l’autre : le premier lui fait peur, le second l’absorbe. Il lui faut un mélange. —L’attention et la volonté
In terms of gravity and grace (La pesanteur et la grâce), this is what is described in “L’attention et la volonté” (Attention and will).
Simone Weil was a 20th century philosopher, so the French language itself is not ancient. Simone Weil’s original text (in French).
The characteristic feature is a literary melody, and this quotation does not rhyme, but some words and ideas are repeated, so there is a sense of rhythm,The choice of words and phrases are thought-provoking and complex in a short text.
Translation: It is not the fault that constitutes mortal sin, but the level of enlightenment present in the soul at the time of the transgression, regardless of its nature. Purity is the ability to contemplate impurity. Extreme purity can contemplate both the pure and the impure; impurity can do neither: the former frightens it, the latter engulfs it. It requires a mixture.
・The term “mortal sin” or “sin unto death”, although not a direct reference, is found in the New Translation of the Bible, 1 Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. ”, etc., may also derive from Christian doctrine. Le péché mortel (‘the sin that leads to death’)
is translated as ‘mortal sin’.
Contempler (plural: contemple)’ is used, usually in the context of ‘to look at, introspection’, which is deeper than observation（look). The usual meaning is ‘regarder la souillure’, which means ‘to look at the dirt’.
Summary: This text is a short summary of the exploration of sin and purity. It states that sinning is not in itself a fatal sin, but the degree of light in the soul is what matters.
It states. It is because we are very pure beings that we have the power to see what is pure and what is impure. An impure thing is something that has been mixed with the impure thing.
So in terms of mixing, it is necessary to look not only at the pure but also at the impure.
Ce n’est pas la faute qui constitue le péché mortel, mais le degré de lumière qui est dans l’âme quand la faute, quelle qu’elle soit, est accomplie. La pureté est le pouvoir de contempler la souillure.L’extrême pureté peut contempler et le pur et l’impur ; l’impureté ne peut ni l’un ni l’autre : le premier lui fait peur, le second l’absorbe. Il lui faut un mélange. −L’attention et la volonté
重力と恩寵（La pesanteur et la grâce）でいえば「L’attention et la volonté」（注意と意志）に記載されているものです。
The goldfish expands, motionless, beneath the azure sky.
A serene silence within the bowl no longer defies.
A dove's silhouette gracefully dances upon the glass,
Arriving, a petal amidst white clouds, a scene so vast.
Chuyo Sakurama 1911-07-06 ~1934-04-18
“The Analysis of Poetry”
Beneath the azure sky, the goldfish expands, motionless.’ This sentence alone drew me in. The euphoria that followed still lingers. The Japanese translation is ‘Under the azure sky, the goldfish ate the azure sky and became motionless in its bowl’. Did it fill its stomach with the sky, or was it suffocated by the vastness of the world? Is ‘stuck in a bowl’ death or just ‘expression’?
The author of this poem is probably not well known in Japan. I myself have only recently become aware of him. There is almost no information about him in Japan, except that he was a writer who died prematurely while still a student at Waseda University. (At the moment) There are expressions that are unique to the Japanese language, so I was not sure whether to translate them into English, but I will leave them here as a trial translation.
Beneath the azure sky, the goldfish expands, motionless.
A serene silence within the bowl no longer defies.
A dove’s silhouette, a gentle presence, bathed in light,
Gracefully dancing upon the glass, casting shadows so slight.
Arriving, a petal amidst white clouds, a scene so vast.
I was torn between translating “The goldfish expands, motionless, beneath the azure sky” and “The goldfish expands, motionless, beneath the azure sky”, but I chose the contradiction and contrast in terms of rhythm and poetic expression. I did not choose “blue sky” because, firstly, “goldfish” is a summer term in Japan, so the summer sky is “azure”. Secondly, the author “Chuyo Sakurama” died on 18 April 1934 while a student at Waseda University. The name “Azure Sky” was chosen because of the song “Azure Sky”. I hope this will lead to the memory of the deceased.
By the way, did this goldfish really die? I leave that interpretation to the reader, but I think it is dead. However, the poem is close to ‘impermanence’ in Buddhist terms, but the fact that I did not dare to call it death, and the contrast between the fluttering of the dove’s wings and the thin shadows and sparkles of existence, sometimes made it seem like Deleuze’s（Deleuze and Guattari） ‘generative change’（devenir） of transformation, rather than limiting it to death. Of course, in the verbal state of the poem, the stationary goldfish and the scene do not continue in continuity, not affecting each other as separate entities.
But what if we look at it from a ‘metaphorical’ point of view? Where has the goldfish gone? The goldfish is transformed in the poem, flapping its wings, as an entity that does not depend on anything else. In the case of Buddhist ‘impermanence’, individual beings coexist and coexist with other beings, but this poem goes beyond that and contains ‘diversity’ through poetry. I found myself in my mind,There was an emotion that I could not capture myself. In the English translation, the dove is the most vital, so light and shadow.
I rhymed it with shadows so light, because the dove is the most vital. I gave priority to the English rhythm and made it dance.
This means perseverance in the poetic feeling.
The typical disease that causes goldfish to swell and die is ‘ascites’but in the early stages life can be prolonged by lowering the water temperature, but in the later stages it cannot be saved. We suppose that such a situation could not be dealt with in the Japanese summers of the Showa period. The idea of the poem is whether it is the owner’s guilt for letting the goldfish die, whether it is all a fantasy, or whether this death, especially for a creature like a ‘goldfish’, is immediately buried in the earth. Most people would not make much of a grave. But anyone who has seen the weakness of a dead goldfish knows how fragile it is. This poem, with its physically weightless ascent, seemed to ‘love’ something, as if it were ecstatically in love with the world itself, even with the passing of the day. Not sad, this silence is not sad because it survives differently. Enclosed in the glass of a goldfish bowl as the light of the world shines through. What protects life, is it that life lasts, or is it that it is as fragile as glass, or that it continues to swim?
It is not sad because of the overlap.
however, as there is ‘realm of shadows’ or ‘king of heaven’.
＊＊＊
translation into German（attempted translation）
Der Goldfisch dehnt sich aus, regungslos, unter dem azurblauen Himmel.
Eine stille Ruhe in der Schale widersteht nicht länger.
Die Silhouette einer Taube tanzt anmutig auf dem Glas,
Wie ein Blütenblatt inmitten weißer Wolken, eine solch weite Szene.
Includes internal rhyme. But I would like to be taught.
＊＊＊
I also think the goldfish seems to have fallen in love and become still. In truth it would have described death,
The ‘word’ is brought back to life by the human voice.
I earnestly hope that we can follow the words with our eyes, speak them aloud and continue to see the “world” from what we can see to what we cannot.
The departed never return, their presence forever gone, But many times we wish.
The English translation, however, was an attempt at prose, just as the Old Testament Book of Job was a ‘prose’ version of Job’s Lament,
I rhymed it because it seemed to me that there was not only unhappiness but also happiness through poetic feeling.
＊＊＊＊＊
Differences between Buddhist ‘impermanence’ and generative change (simplified)
Similarities include the denial of permanence and fixity in entities and existence, and the emphasis on change and fluidity, with all phenomena and events being constantly changing and temporary. They share the ‘view’ that the existence of individuals and objects is influenced and changed by surrounding circumstances and causal relationships.
The difference is that in impermanence, all beings inevitably change, whereas in generative change, generation and change constantly create new things and bring diversity. The Buddhist teaching of impermanence aims at liberation by eliminating the causes of suffering, attachment and desire,
Generation and change’ is about individuals accepting change and fluidity, constantly engaging both banks,
Generative change’ implies a process of distortion in which the individual is pulled away from its ‘natural’ form. It is in this ‘in-between’ that something happens in generative change. This includes the emergence of diversity and inwardness. While Buddhist ‘impermanence’ emphasises the temporary nature of the process of individuals and events, Deleuze’s ‘generative change’ emphasises the continuous fluidity and capacity for change of individuals and events.
Tokiko’s husband, ‘Lieutenant Sunaga’, was hailed as the pride of the army and regarded as a military god; however, he lost all four limbs in the war. His face was covered with scars, he had lost his hearing and vocal cords and could not speak well, yet his internal organs continued to function, albeit slowly, and he remained capable of living as a man. His appearance could be described as a ‘caterpillar’; however, as the term refers to the larval stage, it is almost impossible to determine his sex. The wife’s mind towards her husband, who could not speak and lacked any semblance of masculinity, transformed into neither husband nor man, but solely her own source of pleasure and despair, a repulsive existence. Even the wife of Edogawa Rampo, who authored this work, criticized it as ‘disgusting’, and it was once banned in 1939 under wartime censorship.
This story flows with the fluidity of a pen stroke and bears no sense of forethought or calculation. It is a strange tale; however, in modern times, such a situation could be interpreted as an example of reduced quality of life. The wife stabs her husband in the eye with an edged tool in an act of lust; however, this seemingly cruel act may today be interpreted as a manifestation of caregiver fatigue, shifting the emphasis towards caregiving from the wife’s perspective. Literature and medical ethics are often said to go hand in hand. The ‘distance’ provided by fiction lends objectivity, and cruelty—while seemingly chaotic at first glance—takes on the form of a kind of law when arranged as a novel. Therefore, a ‘cruel’ story can ultimately challenge and provoke the reader.
This story could indeed be perceived as discriminatory towards people with limbless conditions; however, the third-person perspective preserves ambivalence by focusing on the wife’s introspection, presenting it as a problem arising in the mind of one without physical impairments.
At the beginning of the story, Tokiko’s greatest aversion is to ‘grilled eggplant’, a vegetarian dish that, according to one theory, was invented by monks prohibited from eating meat in order to imitate its texture and taste. Tokiko’s limp bite of aubergine at the outset symbolically foreshadows her desires. When one eats something detested, disgust spreads from the tongue throughout the body. Perhaps only Rampo could be fascinated by the pleasures derived from sensation and touch.
The third-person perspective focuses mainly on the wife’s introspection, yet also highlights the couple’s prolonged frustration, their ensuing conflicts, the transformation of attachment into aggression, and the ambivalence underlying it all. The wife’s actions unfold like passages in a modern psychology textbook, and their home resembles the observation room of a psychologist.
Ⅰ Case1 ：Devotion and sadism
The husband, who had lost all four limbs, was forced to crawl or bang his head against the floor in order to express his will. He conveyed his frustration by repeatedly striking himself, and each time his wife responded with polite attentiveness.
“I’m coming now. You must be hungry.” “I’ve kept you waiting a long time, haven’t I? Be patient for just a moment.”
The wife would hand her husband a piece of paper and a pencil, upon which he would inscribe his frustration in distorted letters.
“Tired of me?”
Her husband, searching for her until his head struck the floor, wrote words as contorted as his body. The wife, however, answered with a faintly teasing calm: “You’re jealous again, aren’t you?” One of her own kisses relieved her anxieties, while her husband’s every movement became another source of excitement and lust for her. To the woman, this “organism” was not merely a spouse, but a perverse and thrilling toy.
“You’re jealous again, aren’t you?”
Tokiko embodied two faces.
“As for you, however, your continued faithfulness has deprived you of all your former pleasures and desires. For three long years you have sacrificed everything for that poor crippled man, without emitting the faintest breath of complaint. You always contend that this is but the natural duty of a soldier’s wife, and so it is. However, I sometimes cannot help feeling that it is a cruel fate for a woman to endure—especially for one so very attractive and charming as you, and so young as well. I am deeply struck with admiration. I honestly believe it to be one of the most stirring human-interest stories of the day. The question which still remains is: how long will it last? Remember, you still have quite a long future ahead of you. For your husband’s sake, I pray that you will never change.”
The world perceived this woman as devoted to her husband, imagining that she had renounced her desires and elevated their union into an ideal of conjugal fidelity. In such a view, the renunciation of ‘greed’ symbolized chastity: the wife caring for her husband with unwavering devotion. However, reality was more ambiguous. The husband remained capable of functioning as a man, and the wife regarded him as a bloated yellow caterpillar, a grotesque lump of flesh through which her sadism was revealed.
Outwardly, Tokiko conformed to the expectations of society, embodying the image of a chaste wife. The world surrounding her was familiar, and this familiarity endured as long as she remained within it. People already possessed a preconceived image of her, and there was no need for Tokiko to disturb that illusion.
One cannot easily destroy the impression of such a familiar world. Desire does not endure eternally; therefore, when one steps outside, it naturally adapts to external norms. In that outside world, Tokiko remained ‘honest’. She would smile, euphemistically embodying chastity as soon as she stepped beyond her front door. There was no falsehood in this performance. However, once she returned home, she was consumed with disgust at her husband’s ugliness, and at her own lust for that ugliness. The recognition that her heart was not governed by pure love, but rather by disordered and unreasonable passions, filled her with fear as much as with pleasure.
Her husband demanded that Tokiko bring him newspaper articles and medals from his military service. At first, he was content to look upon them; however, he soon grew weary of these relics. The only act left to the couple was intercourse, which left them both with an animal-like emptiness, as though imprisoned in a cage. In such circumstances, would his wife realize that beneath the virtues of chastity she was, in truth, a horrible woman hiding behind a mask of devotion? She lived under the weight of condemnation by the world she knew. Moreover, her husband no longer bore the dignity he once possessed; he was now at her mercy. Despite this, he remained immobile, calling out to her whenever she was absent for even a short while, thereby further constraining her. The crescendo of Tokiko’s swelling emotions and introspection halted only when she straddled her husband.
Her control over him, fragile as it was, became uncontrollable. At last, Tokiko placed her hand over his eyes and crushed them with a deadly weapon as he stared at her.
She wrote “Yurushite” (Forgive me) several times across her husband’s chest; however, he offered no response. Unable to bear either the pity of his condition or the burden of her own guilt, she involuntarily abandoned him. Upon her return, she discovered him gone. On the bedpost lay a nearly illegible note, resembling the playful scribbles of a child. She discerned that it read “Yurus” (I forgive you). Yet, her husband had crawled away, bent his neck like a sickle, and cast himself into the well to his death.
The act of bending one’s neck like a sickle is an old Japanese figurative expression, likening the raised head of a snake in fighting stance to the curve of a sickle. Whether his end constituted a soldier’s death or an assertion of will remains unresolved. However, Tokiko imagined the phantom of her husband’s face, interwoven with the certainty that he had forgiven her.
Ⅱ Case2 ：The Form and the Life
If Part I may be regarded as a psychological study centered on Tokiko, Part II provides a broader overview. A work of art is never confined to a single interpretation. Rather, incompatible interpretations coexist, representing the complexity of a civilization. When a work of art becomes a form rather than a sound, it becomes deeply tied to the visual. Consider, for example, the motif of ‘hands’: Albrecht Dürer’s Praying Hands conveyed expression through gesture; Caravaggio’s St. Matthew revealed angelic fingers embodying scholastic philosophy; Rembrandt’s St. Matthew, by contrast, depicted hands resembling those of laborers, emphasizing the sheer force of divine dictation. Life is form, and form is life.
The armless Venus de Milo attains this significance by chance. Even without arms, her presence has captivated countless viewers. The absence of arms has rendered the emotions of “hands” more evocative and imaginative. Novels, however, exist in a world without form. They also lack sound. They are left to the construction of a third world in the mind of the reader, a world even the author cannot fully comprehend. Language, too, represents the human psyche, processed in the depths of consciousness as both the world of imagination and the language of God. If language, like vegetation, possesses an ecosystem, then perhaps nothing disrupts that ecosystem more than language itself. Language attempts, sometimes actively and sometimes passively, to become the form of an invisible entity which, from the perspective of vision, ought to remain in the lower strata. Edogawa Rampo’s The Caterpillar may be described precisely as such a work.
It is not difficult to imagine a darkened room, oppressively devoid of light, in which a limbless husband lies at Tokiko’s feet. In the English translation, certain words such as 肉毒楽 are omitted; these terms—“thing,” “flesh,” “lump of flesh”—all referred to the husband. However, it must be remembered that he is not merely “flesh” animated, but rather life in its universal essence, embodied in a particular form. The human spirit is highly susceptible to the shaping power of circumstances and environment. The husband has lost his hands, the organs of expression, and he has no feet, the symbols of independence.
The reader can easily look into the eyes of the woman, Tokiko. We enter the couple’s bedroom, a place concealed from the outside world. In the darkness, the Caterpillar waits for his wife to illuminate him, and she becomes that light. As we enter this space, the reader is gradually manipulated by the couple. Eventually, we become entangled in the psychological portrayal of Tokiko herself. A number of metaphors emerge concerning the gaze directed at the husband’s form: first Tokiko’s gaze, then that of the neighbors, then society, then past glories, and finally the husband himself. Above all, the husband’s gaze constituted the sole human expression of emotion.
A house is not merely to be looked at; it must be lived in and fashioned. (Francis Bacon, Essays.) This is why the husband grew weary of the past glories represented by his military order. One cannot live each day simply to look upon them. Nocturnal activities are not only biological, but also become habitual. Just as Louis XIV required a finely crafted chair, so too does a man require customs that constitute his role. As husband and wife, they were expected to enact movements that become cultural and customary. However, for the husband who had lost all four limbs, this role as husband was replaced by that of a “caterpillar.”
If her husband’s body were a sculpture, Tokiko might even have found it beautiful to behold. However, like a sculpture, the lifeless had not acquired life; rather, the living had been reduced to lifelessness. Their function as husband and wife, which should have extended into the living space they shared, had dissolved into illusion. It did not even leave room for the “fantasy” of imagining what their household might have been had he retained his limbs. Instead, the narrative draws us ever deeper into the inner life of the husband whose eyes were crushed.
It was not only the wife’s virtue that was tested. The husband’s virtue, too, was placed on trial. This is where the endgame unfolds. Could he maintain his dignity as a husband with a wife who had once been devoted and supportive? He no longer expressed his will by furiously banging his head against the wall—that was his only means of protest. The muffled sound of water ultimately signaled the death of the man who had no limbs and could not swim. There seemed to be nothing left but the presence of a living soul within a fragile form.
Yet the husband acted as if he were still a man with arms, even though he could only write by holding a pen in his mouth. Not merely as a body with limbs, but as a person endowed with a heart,
he inscribed the word 「ユルス」—I forgive you—to his wife.
Ⅲ Case3 : The Eye of the World Egg
The invisible gaze constructs the illusion and the very space of a “heroic story.” It is not altogether clear to what extent “love” in Japan at that time shared features with what we recognize today. However, why do these two individuals seem to embody a sense of love not so different from our present experience? Perhaps it is because modern “free love” does not guarantee universal happiness or the capacity to cultivate character. Love can be a blessing; however, it can also descend into sin, powerful enough to drive another person to death. At its foundation, love requires, in Erich Fromm’s words, “discipline.” Nevertheless, we cannot deny that love is fleeting, particularly when we turn to classical Japanese literature. For it is also libido, the raw energy of life.
There was never any doubt in my mind that Tokiko had a loving husband. Yet when love and sexual desire coexisted, she assumed the initiative and became violent. Crucially, she was not unconscious of her actions but remained acutely self-aware. Her guilt restrained her from altering her course, and she trembled before the invisible censure of the world. After she blinded her husband, she repeatedly traced the word 「ユルシテ」 (forgive me) across his chest with her finger. Rampo’s narrative traverses darkness, pleasure, fear, and sudden acceleration through his wife’s introspection; however, from the moment she pleads for forgiveness, she appears strangely calm, without surrendering to despair. To some readers, her repeated ユルシテ may appear as genuine reform; to others, it is merely a self-centered cry for absolution.
At the same time, Tokiko began to weep, longing to see the ordinary faces of the outside world, leaving her disfigured husband behind. Unable to endure solitude, she fled. Many people tend to distinguish between husband-and-wife and love itself; however, I do not. For love, hate, and all negative emotions are inescapably entangled in human intimacy. The woman did indeed love her husband; however, she was devoured by her own greed. Yet the absence of virtue does not negate the existence of “love.” The fact that only memories shine, while the present yields no shadows, does not mean that the bond has been severed.
What criteria determine the end of a relationship? Married couples may divorce; even Catholic marriages can be annulled. However, where does the past itself reside while its memories continue to live on?
This is equally true of our relationship with the dead. The crucial difference is that memories with the dead halt at a fixed point, and the dead themselves cease to change beyond that point. Therefore, the living can continue to love a “record” that no longer evolves. Memories shift their perspective under different lights, becoming imaginatively fluid, yielding new interpretations, and thereby allowing affection for the dead to remain alive. In contrast, when both parties remain alive, “change” is often far more difficult. Alienation can emerge, particularly when one can no longer utter words of love. For the unmarried, separation usually follows; however, in marriage the situation is profoundly different. Divorce may exist in law; however, it remains exceedingly difficult to speak of the bond between two people who have reached such an impasse. Even when two individuals have resolved never to meet again, a residue of love persists somewhere within the hidden corners of the heart. Returning to the couple in The Caterpillar, I felt the strength of their bond when the wife continued to inscribe 「ユルシテ」 across her husband’s back.
In childhood, many Japanese may have played the game of tracing letters with a finger on another’s palm or back, challenging the recipient to guess the words. Yet unless the letters are simple hiragana or katakana, recognition becomes difficult. One wonders whether the husband truly understood his wife’s words, especially in his weakened state. Reading also requires confidence. Perhaps the sensation of his skin was dulled by the trauma of his eye injury. Whether his body truly received those words in full remains uncertain. Nevertheless, the husband left behind a final note: 「ユルス」.
It may be that her words were never understood.
It is precisely because of this uncertainty that I cannot help but feel the profound weight of his soul in that final 「ユルス」. The weight of the soul cannot be measured by superficial love.
Indeed, perhaps he did not understand at all. And yet, paradoxically, this seems the truest answer.
Dialogue is not always possible, even under ordinary circumstances. One may, in fact, receive another’s words only in the manner one wishes to hear them. To be told simply “forgive” may itself be a word the victim does not desire to receive, given what has transpired.
Stimulation between man and woman does not always follow order. It is not simple to discern how much derives from affection and how much from sheer stimulation. Between men and women there are times when we may conclude deductively that it is love, and times when we can only infer inductively that it must be so, by virtue of their being man and woman. Every individual is destined to embody both.
The severing of their relationship in “this world” culminated in the husband’s suicide. The impulse that compelled him remains difficult to explain.
Schopenhauer, in his reflections “On Suicide” (The World as Will and Representation), referred to the Latin punctum saliens (the “salient point”) as “the egg of the world.” The phrase is difficult to translate, signifying a minute source or spring, yet Schopenhauer employed it to designate the very focal point of existence. In contrast to phenomena such as human desire and human love, he identified the act of reproduction as the highest expression of will. Whatever the historical context, reproduction stood in stark contrast to the unfolding of phenomena surrounding something as sacred as the Lord God, as a “tiny spring-like source” of human functioning, untouched by fluctuations of love, will, or passion. That much remains undeniable.
Another thinker, Simone Weil, also meditated on the punctum saliens. In her chapter on “de-creation” in La Pesanteur et la grâce, she wrote: “That a fictitious divinity has been given to man.” She further remarked that “there are only two moments in life when we are completely naked and pure: the time of birth and the time of death,” seeking thereby to remove the self through uncompromising inner exploration.
If we strip Schopenhauer’s and Weil’s notions to their common ground, we discover a dark gaze surrounding phenomena that may appear disturbing, loving, or disappointing. In human presence and in human absence alike, we become anonymous observers. Rampo himself confessed: “My character as a dreamer does not feel an itch, no matter how I am treated by the real world” (in reference to political meaning). Indeed, it is true that this story possesses a distinctly subjective perspective, a fantasma of shifting phenomena. In contrast to mere fantasy, a fantasma parallels the relationship between perception and sensation. Is The Caterpillar not perhaps an attempt to define conjugal love beyond the values of its age, rather than a story of simple fantasy? Yet it remains fantasy nonetheless, for Tokiko continued to behold visions of the Caterpillar even after her husband’s death.
The couple’s task was the source of both life and death—the primal force creeping between all phenomena, the “original sin” of humanity. No matter how a relationship ends, no matter how life and death divide, no matter how memories fade or are embellished,
the eye, the egg of the world, remains at the very center of human life.
Ⅳ Case4：Illusions, dialogue and heroic story
Concerning the difference in dialogue between man and woman, one recalls the story from chapter 5 of the Song of Solomon. The bride’s affection for the groom had cooled, and she refused to open the door when he called. While the groom eagerly devoted himself to her from behind the door, the bride eventually changed her mind and opened it—yet he was already gone. “His words made me faint. I sought him, but he did not answer me” (Song of Solomon 5:6).
Just as the “bridegroom” is replaced by the Lord in biblical teaching, so too do relationships bound by love seek a Lord-like fidelity, intersecting and yet betraying one another. Tokiko and her husband might well be understood through this lens of crossed dialogue. Although the meaning of “love” in modern Japan differs from that of the past, the connection between beautiful stories, the sacred, and the Lord remains relevant. Love is the one reality to which human beings will swear allegiance, the one force that gives coherence to existence. It is loyalty. Even when not religious, even when conceived as a familial contract, eternal bonds and fidelity are demanded. We help one another and live together under the expectation that we are always recognized, even when unseen. Understanding and respecting differences, while cultivating inclusion, becomes indispensable. The pursuit of happiness requires that love precede comprehension, that goodness act before it can be named as love. However, despite its deceits and betrayals, reason persists as the part of the soul that still longs for fidelity.
In The Caterpillar, her husband inscribed 「ユルス」 in katakana, holding the writing pad with his mouth in his limbless state. It was only possible because of the concise form of Japanese katakana. By contrast, the English phrase “I forgive you” would have been exceedingly difficult to form in such conditions. What if he did not truly know what his wife had written, but instead grasped it inwardly? What if, as in the Song of Solomon, despite the crossing of words and gestures, a dialogue nevertheless occurred? If so, then her husband’s act embodies the ideal of dialogue in love. Dialogue does not always reside in words, and yet, ultimately, words are needed to express both will and heart. He understood this with profound clarity.
What remained for Tokiko was the redemption of her husband’s phantom, the recurring “caterpillar” that visited her each spring. Human beings and their emotions are frail, even hopeless; however, there exist treasures that can only be uncovered through contact with this very frailty.
Rampo himself plunges the reader into illusion. He repeatedly unsettles us with the question of where his tale finds its resting place. The uncanny story of the Caterpillar—his wife’s plea, her husband’s forgiveness, his death as a god of war—remains, in my view, the most haunting of Rampo’s works. Each time Tokiko saw a caterpillar, she was reminded of him. Though her personality was once distorted, her form altered, she continued to see only her husband, and he lived on for her. The story may even be perceived as an expression of single-minded devotion.
Earnest? No—mysterious. It is, in truth, a strange and wondrous story.
Dependent Origination
Do you think this story is cruel? To me, it appears as love. To protect and to love that which is fragile is, in truth, profoundly complex. And through doing so, I myself become fragile. I accept the balance of both the sacred and the profane. It is precisely because of human weakness that the sacred can be discerned. This is, I believe, a worldly tale—yet one that is also a metaphor, even a parable.
Notice on Historical Expressions
This work contains expressions that reflect the social and cultural context of its time. These terms may be perceived as discriminatory or outdated today, but they have been preserved in this translation to remain faithful to the original text. Readers are encouraged to approach them as part of the historical and literary background of the work.
Ⅰが妻に寄り添った心理的考察だとするのなら、Ⅱはもっと俯瞰したものになる。芸術作品というものは、一つの解釈に捉われない。相容れない解釈がひしめき合っていて、一つの文明を表している。芸術作品は音ではなく「形」となった時、視覚との縁が深くなる。例えば、「手」それはアルブレヒト・デューラーの「祈りの手」であり、絵画では表情を伝えるものとして重要なモチーフだった。カラヴァッジョの聖マタイにスコラ哲学を伝える天使の指、そしてレンブラントの聖マタイの手は、天使の口述の凄まじさを表しているかのように手が労働者のような手をしている。命とは「形」であり、「形」とは命である。腕が無い「ミロのヴィーナス」はそれを偶然にも成功させている。腕が無くても彼女の存在は多くの人達を魅了してきた。それこそ色んな解釈と一緒に―――腕が無いからこその、「手」が魅せる感情を想像のものとした。それに対して、小説は、「形」のない世界である。ついでに「音」もない。それらは、著者でも把握しきれない読者の第三の世界の構築に委ねられている。言葉とは、人間の精神をも表し、想像の世界や、神の言葉として人の内奥で処理される。言語に植物のように生態系があるとするのなら、言語ほどその生態系が乱れるものはないのかもしれない。それは時には積極的に、そして消極的に、視界中心でいえば低層部であるはずの見えない存在が、「形」になろうとする。江戸川乱歩の「芋虫」はそのような作品の一つと言える。灯りをつけなければ不便なほどの暗い部屋、時子の足元に、四肢の無い「夫」が転がっていることが想像しやすい。英訳版では「肉独楽」という言葉の翻訳が無く、Thing，flesh，lump of fleshとこれらは夫のことを意味している。しかし忘れてはならないのは、夫は「肉」が生命を持ったのではなく、生命の形（普遍）が、特殊な形になってしまったのだ。そして、人間の精神というものは、状況や環境という形にとても影響されやすい。感情を表す手を失い、自立するためにある「足」も無い。
ショーペンハウワーは、「自殺について」という書籍でラテン語のpunctum saliens (Engl. the salient point) について「世界の卵という眼」とした。punctum saliensとは訳が難しいが、直訳すれば小さな穴のような源泉という意味である。使われ方としては、「彼」の場合はこうだった。人間的な欲望や、人間愛などの現象の展開と対照的に、人間の生殖行為がある。それを彼の哲学では、最高度の焦点として意志の核心としている。どのような時代背景があろうとも、愛や意志などの変化に微動だにしないのは、神のような「神聖」なものを巡って、繰り広げられる現象に人間としての機能である「小さな穴のような源泉」として、生殖行為は対照としてある。これは否定できない事実だろう。
“Sooner or later, you will die.” When the shadow uttered these words, the scholar must have taken them as a reference to some distant point in time, unaware that death was, in fact, looming near.
During his travels to the sweltering countries, the people he encountered acquired a complexion like mahogany. Mahogany, perhaps not the easiest colour to picture, is a rich, deep reddish-brown, often seen in finely crafted furniture.
The scholars dedicated their studies to the pursuit of ‘truth, goodness, and beauty.’ Those scholars, along with their shadows, found it impossible to endure the oppressive heat of the day and would wait for the relief of nightfall to stretch out and rest. One evening, the scholar fell hopelessly in love with a woman on a nearby balcony, where beautiful flowers bloomed, and music seemed to take root in the air.
As his shadow stretched over to the edge of the woman’s balcony, he playfully instructed it, “Go on, slip into her room and keep her company.” Bowing slightly, the scholar directed the shadow toward the woman’s chamber, adding with a sly smile, “Even you, shadow, should make yourself useful now and then.” To his surprise, the shadow obeyed—and vanished altogether.
The scholar grew restless in the absence of his shadow, but he continued his work on his manuscript. Strangely, it seemed there were precedents in this fictional world where shadows disappeared, with similar tales existing even in colder climates.
Then, one day, a knock came at his door. Standing before him was a well-dressed gentleman. The scholar stared, utterly puzzled, unable to place the man’s face.
The man smiled and spoke: “I am the one who used to be your shadow.”
Ⅰ Personality and personas
Andersen’s era preceded the development of Jungian and Freudian psychology, yet the concept of persona bears similarities to those later theories. While the word ‘persona’ is sometimes associated with divine aspects—such as roles within the Christian Trinity—it also refers to the human self, which is unified as one.
The term persona originates from the Latin word meaning ‘mask,’ which itself derives from a Greek word for ‘face.’ In its earliest usage, it referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. Over time, however, it came to denote not the physical mask but the role the actor played. In this way, it is easy to see parallels between the idea of the Christian Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as three distinct roles that ultimately unite as one.
For Jung, the shadow represents repressed aspects of the psyche and takes an Aristotelian form. By contrast, Plato projected the concept outward, focusing on the ideal form of truth. Jung’s framework, in which the unconscious represents unachieved aspects of the self, offers an interesting lens through which to view Andersen’s tale. As a work of art, the story endows the scholar with an externalised, autonomous shadow, representing not merely an unconscious element but a fully embodied being.
In Andersen’s time, scholars were enraptured by the pursuit of the good, the beautiful, and the true. Yet the shadow in this story is not an unconscious reflection of the scholar’s mind—it is a conscious, embodied presence. To better understand this, one might consider Andersen’s own youthful ambition to become an opera singer. He longed to remain on the stage, if only his voice would transform to meet the demands of the role. This raises a curious question: is a role merely another facet of the self?
A persona typically returns to unity as a single identity when not performing. However, a role demands more—it requires the actor to use their entire body and presence to become someone entirely different. On stage, identities shift with names, yet the performer remains inseparably linked to their true self. Even if one plays the role of a ‘scholar,’ that character is inherently fused with the actor’s underlying personality.
In The Shadow, one figure must always play the subject, while the other takes on the role of the shadow. As a ‘thinking entity’ that extends the human psyche, the shadow assumes multiple meanings. However, the shadow-actor in this story achieves happiness in a way the original form—the scholar—cannot. This suggests that the shadow’s identity transcends individual judgement, belonging more to the collective consciousness.
Indeed, the shadow belongs to society far more than the scholar does. It is the shadow that finds fulfilment by engaging with the group, suggesting that individuality must, at times, give way to collective identity.
Ⅱ Plato and the ‘shadow’.
What exactly was the shadow to the scholar? The way in which the shadow detached itself and operated independently recalls Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In this allegory, prisoners are confined within a cave, unable to see the fire burning behind them. All they perceive are the shadows of puppets, projected by the fire onto the walls before them. However, one prisoner manages to escape the cave and discovers that the world outside—illuminated by the sun—is the true reality. Upon returning to the cave to share his discovery, the other prisoners refuse to believe him, mistaking the shadows for the only truth they know.
Similarly, in Andersen’s tale, the scholar’s shadow takes on a life of its own, leaving the scholar’s side and venturing into the world. The departure of the shadow raises questions: was it truly a distinct being, or merely an alter ego of the scholar? Andersen deliberately obscures the connection between the two, leaving room for ambiguity. Upon the scholar’s return to the cold lands of his homeland, he discovers that a new shadow has emerged to replace the old one. Meanwhile, the original shadow, now freed from its former master, has pursued ‘outer truth’ and transformed into something magnificent.
In this altered state, the shadow presents itself to the scholar, appearing in splendid attire. Despite the transformation, the scholar warmly welcomes the shadow as though it were an entirely new personality. The reader may initially assume that the scholar and the shadow share a dual identity, but Andersen offers no such resolution. Instead, it becomes clear that the shadow has evolved into a completely independent entity, no longer tethered to the scholar.
“The most beautiful thing in the world is poetry,” the shadow declares, speaking of the woman the scholar had fallen in love with during his travels in the hot country. Through his connection with the woman, the shadow’s own sense of self is awakened. He begins to desire material comforts—shoes, clothes, and the kindness of others—and people take pity on him, offering him aid. Having enjoyed these indulgences, the shadow resumes its journey, continuing to explore the world on its own terms.
Plato’s philosophy, particularly in his dialogue Philebus, equates the concept of the Good with that of the One. He states: “It would do more harm than good if, having all other knowledge, one lacked knowledge of the highest Good.” The scholar represents an individual in pursuit of such ideals—truth, goodness, and beauty. However, in Andersen’s narrative, the shadow evolves into a separate existence entirely. It becomes a being that embodies these ideals not through intellectual pursuit, but through experience and interaction with the world.
Ⅲ ’Uniqueness’ and monads.
The shadow eventually returned to the scholar, who continued to write stories about ‘truth, goodness, and beauty.’ However, despite his efforts, the scholar made little progress in his career. At this stage, the shadow remained amicable and even suggested that they travel together. Yet, there was one condition: “You will be my shadow.” The scholar, unwilling to submit to such terms, flatly refused, saying, “I don’t want to do that.” He declined, even though the shadow offered to cover the travel expenses.
The ideals the scholar pursued—truth, goodness, and beauty—were, to most people, as meaningless as giving a rose to a cow. This sense of futility weighed heavily on the scholar, and he soon fell ill. When the shadow repeated his offer, proposing again that the scholar travel with him and become his shadow, the scholar—now weakened—reluctantly agreed.
At first, they got along well. However, their relationship shifted when the shadow raised the question of how they should address one another. The shadow insisted on addressing the scholar informally as ‘you’. This provoked the scholar, who retorted, “This is absurd.” His irritation grew: “It’s ridiculous that I must say ‘buggerlugs’ while he calls me ‘old bean’.”
This linguistic tension is particularly challenging to translate. In Danish, it is expressed as: “Det er dog vel galt,” tænkte han, “at jeg må sige De og han sige du, men nu måtte han holde ud.”
In this sentence, ‘De’ is a formal, respectful pronoun, while ‘du’ is a more familiar, personal one. The protagonist resents being addressed with the informal du—not merely because it implies familiarity, but because it reflects a shift in authority. The once-masterful scholar feels humiliated, now reduced to a subordinate role. This wordplay recalls the whimsical language of Lewis Carroll, but here it underscores the scholar’s existential crisis: the loss of his autonomy.
For someone devoted to the ideals of the Platonic school—where eidos (form) must remain within one’s grasp—the notion that a shadow could surpass him in influence is intolerable. In philosophy, where perception and understanding are traditionally the purview of the self, it is the self that ventures outside Plato’s cave to gain knowledge. Yet in Andersen’s tale, the scholar, despite his intellectual pursuits, is eclipsed by his shadow, who succeeds while he struggles even to complete his writing.
What, then, has the shadow taken from the scholar? Or perhaps the scholar, without realising it, has relinquished something vital to the shadow—an exchange that Andersen deliberately leaves unresolved.
At a resort, they encounter a beautiful princess afflicted with an unusual condition: she “sees things too clearly.” Intrigued by the shadow’s charm, she falls in love with him as they dance together. The shadow introduces the scholar as “the shadow who knows everything.” When the princess is told, “When you ask him questions, treat him like a human being,” she complies and poses many questions to the scholar. Impressed by the depth of the shadow, the princess decides to marry him, admiring the extraordinary qualities his ‘shadow’ (the scholar) possesses.
Despite this arrangement, the shadow turns to the scholar and says, “From now on, you will be my shadow.” Once more, the scholar refuses. However, on the day of the wedding, the scholar meets his tragic end, killed without fanfare or resistance.
Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason asserts that every event must have a reason for occurring. The idea also implies that the existence of something—ratio in Latin—relies on clear cause and effect. Leibniz’s concept of the monad, representing unity, hinges on the presence of self-consciousness. To possess uniqueness, an individual must first be aware of themselves as a distinct entity. Perhaps Leibniz’s obsession with uniqueness stemmed from his scientific mind—after all, the observer and the object observed must both be understood with certainty. Where duality arises, certainty vanishes. Only by existing as both the observer and the observed can one claim true singularity.
This tension plays out in Andersen’s story: why could the scholar and the shadow not live as separate beings? Modern psychology might interpret the shadow as a manifestation of repressed aspects of the self. However, Andersen obscures the connection between the two characters, suggesting that the shadow transcends the scholar’s consciousness. Over time, the shadow integrates with the surrounding world—melding with the scholar’s cognition, soul, and persona. Notably, this transformation culminates in the marriage to the princess, a union symbolising monogamy, as prescribed by Christian tradition.
A similar theme appears in Andersen’s “The Goloshes of Fortune” (Lykkens Kalosker). In this tale, the story moves between cold and hot countries, explicitly named as Switzerland and Italy. The characters include a young servant called ‘Happiness’ and an old fairy named ‘Sorrow.’ Happiness, a servant to the goddess, carries joy wherever she goes. Sorrow, by contrast, works alone. On her birthday, Happiness receives a pair of magical boots, which grant any wish to their wearer. However, Sorrow warns that these boots may bring misfortune instead of joy.
The boots pass through several hands—a legal adviser, a night watchman, and a scribe—bringing each of them unexpected tragedy despite granting their wishes. Finally, the boots fall into the possession of a seminarian, who wishes to travel from the cold climate of Switzerland to the warmth of Italy. However, after some time, he tires of travel and blames his physical body for his fatigue. In a desperate wish, he asks to be freed from his body—and dies.
Two figures appear in the room where the seminarian lies. The Fairy of Sorrow turns to the Servant of Happiness and asks, “What happiness have you given him?” Happiness responds, “I believe I granted him eternal happiness, for he now sleeps peacefully.” Sorrow, however, disagrees: “He died by his own will, so he was not summoned.”
Sorrow then offers the seminarian grace. She removes the boots, and the young man is revived. At the same moment, the Fairy of Sorrow disappears, taking the boots with her. In the end, the boots—intended to bring happiness—belong to Sorrow.
The scholar’s death in The Shadow parallels the seminarian’s near-fatal journey. Both characters fail to recognise their true gifts—those destined for them by fate. Andersen’s story is ultimately about missed opportunities and the consequences of not understanding oneself. However, unlike The Goloshes of Fortune, The Shadow refrains from explicitly addressing human experiences such as sorrow or happiness. Instead, the shadow’s meaning remains ambiguous, open to multiple interpretations.
Leibniz argued that not everything possible is realised—possibilities remain unrealised, existing merely as potential. Reality emerges from countless unrealised possibilities. Drawing on Leibniz’s ideas of reason and chance, the scholar’s death in The Shadow might be seen as a tragic accident born of ignorance. This echoes the Greek concept of tyche (luck)—a force beyond human control.
While Leibniz and Plato shared an interest in the nature of ideas, Leibniz’s philosophy diverged from Descartes’ by asserting that ideas are not merely subjective but inherently representational. The scholar’s pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty reflects his belief in these ideals. Yet, like Leibniz, the scholar fails to reach the ultimate realisation of these truths in his lifetime. His failure lies not in his intellectual pursuits but in neglecting to recognise the shadow as part of himself—a unique, indivisible being.
Andersen’s story leaves us with a tantalising question: Was the shadow truly the ‘opposite of good,’ or something more nuanced? This ambiguity draws us closer to later psychological interpretations of shadows and personas, leaving us to ponder the elusive nature of selfhood.
Last Lazarus of Bethany
The shadow, like a prisoner released from Plato’s cave, ventured into the world and uncovered many truths. It must have been a journey towards becoming whole, to achieve oneness without being recognised. In this tale, the shadow represents yet another persona—an extension of the author’s reflections on themes such as marriage, a recurring motif in Andersen’s fairy tales. Here, the coexistence of two beings—scholar and shadow—becomes impossible, as they cannot remain united within a singular form, an Eidos. The shadow believed this was his moment of triumph, but the scholars could not bring themselves to accept it.
Andersen’s personal longing for the stage runs through this story. Yet, from an actor’s perspective, we might wonder: was there ever truly a ‘shadow’? Could it be that the scholar played every role, not through a split personality but simply as a man in search of meaning, travelling endlessly to understand the world? This would explain his failure to complete the manuscript on truth, goodness, and beauty. He was too preoccupied with his journey to attend to his work. The room remained empty, the manuscript neglected. Perhaps, like an empty tomb, there was no princess, no wedding—only absence.
And yet, in Andersen’s world, death cannot be a void. Death must be present, for the actor must bow at the end of the play and return to unity—the One. After enduring life’s cruelty, which version of the self takes the final bow before the curtain falls?
In The Goloshes of Fortune, the seminarian, guided by the Fairy of Sorrow (Sorgen), is given a second chance at life. The scholar, however, has no such guide. Why did the scholar lack a companion like Sorrow? What meaning lies within this omission? Could it reflect Andersen’s own fear—not just of death, but of a life without mourning, without sorrow to give meaning to loss? Perhaps the one who did not mourn the scholar’s death was, unmistakably, the scholar himself.
Andersen’s stories frequently contemplate the deaths of the poor. His sensitivity to death was deeply personal, permeating his narratives. The seminarians in The Goloshes of Fortune reflect both Andersen’s hopes and his fears—hence, their resurrection. In contrast, the death of the scholar in The Shadow seems to signal acceptance, as though Andersen were embracing death’s inevitability.
What makes The Shadow a profoundly melancholic tale is that it offers no miracles, no divine intervention. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, but here, there are no such tears—no prayers to resurrect the fallen. Yet, those who read Andersen’s fairy tales may recognise his hidden persona: a voice suggesting that happiness can only be found in death. Perhaps the scholar’s tragedy lies in the many things he neglected while still alive. And in the end, faced with life’s cruelties, Andersen might have hoped that his readers, like Jesus, would feel righteous indignation, that they too would mourn such losses with tears.
It is here, in this sorrow, that we find the thread of sanctity running through Andersen’s work—the sense that life, even in its frailty, holds profound meaning. I cannot help but imagine that this is how the author himself appears when he has fulfilled his role: a persona complete in its purpose.
Remember, Jesus always mourns your death. Whenever you feel your worth slipping away, whenever you believe your death would make no difference, know that there is someone who loves you enough to grieve your loss.
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” – John 11:4
When my persona can no longer return to unity,
I pray that, as the curtain falls, I may return to this heart.
＊The English translations of the quotations are original.
学者にとって「影」とは何だったのだろうか。影が自立して出ていくことは、プラトンの 洞窟（Allegory of the cav）を思い出させた。プラトンの洞窟は、洞窟の中で囚人が暮らしているが、縛られているので背後に火が照らされていることも知らない。洞窟で囚人たちは火に照らされた人形の影を見て生きているが、一人だけ洞窟から出ることが出来た。その囚人はあの洞窟は「影」だったと知り、太陽が照らす外の世界を知った。けれどもそのことを残っている囚人に伝えると、彼等は信じなかった。 学者から離れた影は、もはや学者の分身的存在かどうか定かではなかった。アンデルセンは寧ろ、二人の共通項を伏せてしまっている。それだけでなく学者は故郷の寒い国に帰るまでに新しい影が伸びていた。以前の影は、主体である存在から解放されて、この影は外の真理を旅したのである。そしてその影は立派な姿になって、寒い国へと学者の元へ訪れたのである。学者は気前良く、別人格となった影を受け容れた。読者の先入観として、二重人格のような何か学者の繋がりを考えてしまうが、そうではない。これは全くの別人になってしまったと思ってよいのかもしれない。 暑い国で、学者が一目ぼれをした女性について影は「世界一美しいのは詩です」と答えた。 その女性と関わることで、影は自我が目覚めてしまった。靴や服が欲しくなり、人々に同情され身なりを整えた。そう楽しく会話すると、影はまた旅に出ていってしまった。
二人は仲良くしていたが、二人の呼び名に関して影が意見を唱えてから、二人の関係が変わっていく。影は、学者に「君」と言いたいと言い出した。それに対して、学者は、 「ばかげた話だ。あいつに『君』って言われるのに、こっちは『あなた』って言わなくちゃいけないなんて」と苛立ちがおさえられなかった。 日本語だけだと、これだと分からない。デンマーク語では、”Det er dog vel galt,” tænkte han, ”at jeg må sige De og han sige du,” men nu måtte han holde ud.となっている。
何故、自分というものは一人しかいないのかというのは理由律（Principle of sufficient reaso）が生きようとする、理由律とは（ratio：羅）にもみられるように根拠という意味もある。ライプニッツが「唯一性」についてモナドでこう答えている。「自己意識、自覚的表象の有無である」。自分の「唯一性」はまず、自己意識を持つことである。何故、ライプニッツが「唯一性」にこだわったのかは分からないが、 ライプニッツが科学者だったからこそなのかもしれない。観察者１人、対象物が一つであることが確実でなければならない。検証と立証する人が、一人ではなく、二人かもしれない、そんな存在の観測は信用が出来ない。唯一の存在、唯一の対象物であるということによって、「前提」に立てるのである。
Joseph Ratzinger, who served as Pope Benedict XVI, passed away on December 31, 2022. Before his death, he published “Jesus of Nazareth,” another significant work. One of the three volumes was released during his papacy, and his commentary will be used to explore the meanings of prayers and how they relate to Leibniz’s concepts of harmonies and monads.
Common denominator.
Leibniz sought harmony amid the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism.
Benedict XVI aimed to achieve harmony amidst the ongoing conflicts of religion and the ever-evolving nature of society.
Monadology: by Leibniz.
The Monadology, written by Leibniz, consists of 90 chapters but is considered a fragment. The term “monad” is derived from the Greek word “monas” meaning single or one. Living in a time of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, Leibniz sought to find ultimate harmony in the concept of the unique and singular “One.” A mathematical-geometric point is distinct in its own right, representing an abstract conceptual position rather than an existential one. However, an existential position must encompass the ‘many’ within the ‘one.’ Just like a flock of sheep, individual monads are central to the whole. The center of a circle may be a singular point, yet it contains an infinite number of diameters. The spirit itself exists as a singular entity, yet it embodies an infinity of past, present, and future manifestations. While the spirit may not existentially manifest, it serves to represent and express the multiplicity of existence. The key concepts in Leibniz’s Monadology are “representation” and “expression.”
If the Lord’s Prayer, which I recite daily, allows for both Obedience and Desire, when will my words become sacred? No one can decide that. Prayer has the skyline of the human heart. That is the analogue of human beings, and that is why Descartes’ cogito ergosum is not enough, and there is always me who is not aware of it. The words I chant are more complete than my awareness. That is the language of prayer. The unaware I, the ” small I”, is Leibnizian in its monadic nature. A typical Catholic language of prayer is described as.
Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Prayer is not only directed to God, but also questions the depths of the self. Naturally, we find ourselves constantly questioning who it is that we are praying to, the ‘I’. Many commentaries on prayer say, “Do not pray so that you can be seen in public” (Matthew 6), but for the Japanese, who have a strong sense of syncretism, it is more important to look at the self. Even though there are many desires and selfishness, it is difficult to look at one’s own identity. What the prayer confirms is ‘we’, the community. The Japanese are awakening to what they are as part of that, and to the fact that I, as part of the community, am the only one in the world.
Prayer that is merely sympathetic to a poorly thought-out community is more common today. Leibniz’s famous ‘Monad’ was difficult to serve as an example because it was less familiar than Descartes and modern philosophy. Nevertheless, I decided to write a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, which he wrote before Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) returned from serious illness, because it was moving and reminded me of the Monad. Leibniz lived at a time when Catholics and Protestants were in conflict, but Leibniz was a man who thought of a philosophy that would bring harmony, as if preserving an unsolvable mystery.
For a person of belief, God is absolute, and self-consciousness is easily a Cartesian starting point for self-consciousness, whereas for a non-believer, it begins with convictions. Faith is spiritual and does not require a basis. However, it does not mean living a meaningless life. Beliefs and the faith of others do not have a window and do not intersect. But it is flexible, like the soul.
Leibniz discovered microorganisms under the microscope that were invisible to the naked eye, revealing the presence of life in animals and plants, as well as a universe yet unknown. Descartes emphasized the significance of ‘thinking’ as a fundamental aspect of consciousness, whereas in Leibniz’s philosophy, ‘expression’ and ‘representation’ are considered essential actions. Catholic prayer, by nature, focuses on conscious, human-centered prayer. However, the concept that phenomena are not merely ‘appearances’ (Schein) and that the action of the spirit is not an entity, but rather a ‘subject’, serves as a foundational principle in German idealism. Prayer’s essence lies not in mere appearance but in expression, encapsulating a singular point representing the infinity of myriad dimensions that lead back to God at the center. (This perspective contrasts with the conventional image of God and man as perpendicular to heaven and earth; rather, it is likened to a circle with God at the core.)
ⅠOur Father,who art in heaven
――This discretion, which is of the very essence of prayer, does not exclude prayer in common. The Our Father is itself a prayer uttered in the first person plural, and it is only by becoming part of the “we” of God’s children that we can reach up to him beyond the limits of this world in the first place. And yet this “we” awakens the inmost core of the person; in the act of prayer the totally personal and the communal must always pervade each other, as we will see more closely in our exposition of the Our Father. Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.129). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.――
How strongly can we be aware of the word Father, we cannot basically see him with the naked eye. In theology, the Lord Father is the root of all good things and the measure of a righteous (perfect) man. ‘But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ” (Matthew 5.44 and following)
This love that loves “to the extreme” (John 13) is fulfilled in the Lord’s prayer for his enemies on the cross, and shows the essence of the Father. The Father is this love. Jesus fulfilled this love, making him fully ‘the Son’. The original of this prayer is part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. (Luke: 6)
It is a comprehensive statement of the right human way of being. Nevertheless, John Paul II wrote something interesting on this question of why God is not manifested before us.
From one point of view it is right to say that God revealed too much of Himself to man, too much of that which is most divine, that which is His intimate life; He revealed Himself in His Mystery. He was not mindful of the fact that such an unveiling would in a certain way obscure Him in the eyes of man, because man is not capable of withstanding an excess of the Mystery. Paul II, Pope John. Crossing the Threshold of Hope (p.37). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
‟Reasons certainly do exist to believe in Him; but—as many have maintained and still maintain—there are also reasons to doubt, or even deny, His existence” So, John Paul II is also quoted here in Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I am’.‟ It states that this sprouted from the philosophy of rationalism on a different soil from Thomas Aquinas and St Thomas.” No different from St Thomas who said “for whom it is not thought which determines existence, but existence, “esse” which determines thought”.Jesus was executed because he publicly declared that he was the Son of God. That was fair in terms of the legislation at the time. John Paul II did not hide the fact that getting too close to the mystery brings tragedy to human beings, one aspect of which he did not hide.
There is deduction and induction, but Leibniz tried to develop from simple truths by deduction. In principle, ‘Our Father’ is absolute, so there is no hypothesis. Therefore, the basis of theology is deduction. Leibniz’s rationalism developed by deduction was opposed, among other things, to empiricism. If it were derived from experience, religious rituals would not proceed, since it is a philosophy about God, from which it was not removed. He took the further position that certain perceptions were innate and derived from evidential principles.
The novel Sophie’s World tells an interesting story. A non-religious astronaut bragged that he had seen space many times but there was no God. A Christian doctor said. I have had many brain operations but no ‘thoughts’. Sophie replies. ‘But the soul cannot even be divided into two.
Thoughts are quite different from things that can be chopped up into smaller pieces, and delusions cannot be surgically removed. Leibniz said that the difference between what is made of matter and everything that emanates from the spirit is that material things can be divided into smaller parts to any extent. The soul, however, cannot be cut into there are two sides of God’s Fatherhood. The Gospels confirm that God being Father has two aspects. God is our Creator and our Father. Since he created us, we belong to God. As existence itself, it is the essence of the biblical picture of man that God created each and every human being. But what does it mean to accept this? If we try to convince ourselves of this only through ontology and empiricism, we can only create a polarisation of believing and not believing. Naturally, many people today will not believe.
＞Thinking as a monad.
Humans are made up of a heart and a brain, but simply piecing them together does not create an ‘I’. So too is God, and God is not made by combining only the languages described by the various Bibles. It is fair to say that this is where the difficulty of proselytising lies. It is that causality alone is difficult for them to understand and even to exist. The empiricist Hume did not believe in the existence of angels, so he told them to burn their theology books. Leibniz was adamant about that one point, ‘God’, which cannot be spoken of by experience alone.
Monads always exist separately, independently and without windows. No matter how often a prayer is explained, there is no fixed point where the goal is. This is because it inevitably requires experience. Explanations are merely to help with feelings, but the language of prayer always exists apart from experience. Its culmination is ‘Our Father’.
While it is possible to consider prayer only in its literal meaning, some people try to understand the details of the word by tracing it back to its etymology. They assume that all the time spent praying is worthwhile, even though their understanding is incomplete. The language of prayer emphasises what kind of people we should be and that we should be irreverent with ‘us’ rather than a heightened ‘ego’.
There is a part of us that is me. The I is inherent in us.
（I do not subscribe to any teaching that causes the loss of the ‘I’. I dislike and strongly reject such religious people）
Monadology is predicate-dominant, with the subject containing the predicate. It is the predicate that is important to God, for example, ‘God is love’. God is not prominently illuminated only by being God. We should not follow for that reason alone. We must focus on the predicate of what God is. The words of the prayer do not relegate God the Father to a star somewhere far away, but that He comes from the One Father, who is the measure and source of the Father. That God is the Father has a greater reality than all earthly fathers have.
we are testifying to the fact that, while we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father,……
God’s fatherhood is more real than human fatherhood, because he is the ultimate source of our being; because he has thought and willed us from all eternity; because he gives us our true paternal home, which is eternal. And if earthly fatherhood divides, heavenly fatherhood unites. Heaven, then, means that other divine summit from which we all come and to which we are all meant to return.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (pp.141-142). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
-In order to distinguish between the action of God and the action of the creature, it is necessary to clarify what the concept of an individual entity (1) is (Metaphysical Narrative, 8) Description of predicate superiority
The changeable state which grasps and represents a multiplicity in one or the other is nothing other than what is called sensation or perception, which is to be distinguished from apperception or consciousness, as will be seen in what follows.(Monadologie v14)
And the action or activity of the inner principle that causes the change or progress from one perception to another can be called desire.(Monadologie v15)
And one creature is more perfect than another / in so far as one perceives in it / something from which one can deduce a priori the reason for what occurs in another thing; and by this one says / that it grows into another creature.（Monadologie v51）
Ⅱ hallowed be thy name
God named his existence in Exodus 3:14, “I am the one who says, ‘I am'”. There were many gods in the time of Moses in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not defile the name of God”. Therefore, Moses asked God for his name in order to demonstrate God’s special authority over those gods. In the world’s view of ‘polytheism’, God has a name. God must answer as long as he is asked. The god who spoke to Moses also had to have a name.
God could not enter the world of the gods with a name as one of them. God’s answer, “I am the one who says, ‘I am’,” expresses both agreement and rejection of Moses’ question. It is therefore correct that the name of God as presented in JHWH should not be pronounced in Israel. God’s name must not be downgraded to polytheism. That leaves the question of what God’s judgement is the Name. Names enable us to call out, but do not indicate our true nature. Adam in Genesis gave the animals names in order to call them. God also made it possible for humans to be called, and then accepted to be hurt. This makes it clear what is meant by the words of the prayer, “HALLOWED BE THY NAME”
We can cling to God in our daily lives some days and forget others. Including such lowered routines, we pray that God will be raised up with ‘HALLOWED BE THY NAME’. God’s answer to the name deserves, in monadology, to be ‘revealed’. The hidden presence of God has been revealed. It must not be a temporary representation. The name of God is not decomposed, (Monadology, v. 4) and the one who prays is doomed to neither generation nor end by God, but to perish by extinction. (ibid., v. 6) The praying side exists with a nature. Each nature must be different. (Ibid., v. 6) Each nature must be different from the other, for what happens in the composite always comes from a single element. But the praying side cannot distinguish between souls. In the single ‘God’. (ibid., v. 8) the principle of sufficient reason, why A is A and not other than A, is sufficiently fulfilled. It also follows that no proposition is just. (ibid., v. 32) While it is done only by the principle of memory, it is the same as the beast (ibid., v. 28) Today, even if it is a day of unenlightenment, experiencing and remembering are not the only means. When we pray on this day, we are praying to “God”, “the Father, the Lord”, whose presence demands the elevation of human holiness.
his plea, of course, is always an occasion for us to examine our consciences seriously. How do I treat God’s holy name?……Do I stand in reverence before the mystery of the burning bush, before his incomprehensible closeness, even to the point of his presence in the Eucharist, where he truly gives himself entirely into our hands? Do I take care that God’s holy companionship with us will draw us up into his purity and sanctity, instead of dragging him down into the filth? Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (pp.144-145). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅲ Thy kingdom come
This passage is often misunderstood even by clergy, but even Benedict XVI did not say here that wishing for God’s kingdom will promise a paradise. If anyone, even believers, speaks of religion making them happy, they are not studying hard enough. The life of faith is not a simple matter of abandoning something and automatically moving up in status. The Kingdom of God is the rule of God, which means that God’s will is the standard for everything.
This divine will makes justice, and divine justice should be the measure of human justice. ‘But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) These words give order of priority to all human conduct, to our behaviour in everyday life. Then everything else will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33) These words give order of priority to all human conduct, to our behaviour in everyday life. In the Old Testament, there is this story. The Lord appeared to the young king in a dream and told him to wish for whatever he liked, because he would listen to any wish. Solomon told the people to be able to judge between good and evil. God commended Solomon because he did not choose ego, but asked for what was essential. ‘May the kingdom come’ is ruled by the Lord, but to have a listening and discerning heart, that is the essential desire. He prays for the dispersed and separated humanity to judge good and evil, so that in time it will become one.
The soul is given the function by memory to seek connections between memories. This function is similar to, but distinct from, reason. It can be compared to an animal: a dog that has been hit with a stick will run away the next time (Monadology, xxvi), but humans contain contradictions and do not choose solely on the basis of causality. Humans take even God’s treatment as a trial. Like Job and Jeremiah. Even if the scene in front of them is peaceful, there is war and misery in the land of the invisible. Or perhaps he is unhappy himself. It is important to be fulfilled like the kingdom of heaven and to vow to pass justice for it. Do not pray while you sleep that when you wake up the world will have been a heavenly kingdom. To choose righteousness every day. That is what we chant. This conformity with the only one, the hope for conformity because it cannot be fulfilled, the impulse behind the rational language, the power to seek the mystery is contained in its contradiction, but I think it is pure (cf. Ibid., pp. 49-62).
The encounter with Christ makes this petition even deeper and more concrete……
By the same token, the request for a listening heart becomes a request for communion with Jesus Christ, the petition that we increasingly become “one” with him (Gal 3:28). What is requested in this petition is the true following of Christ, which becomes communion with him and makes us one body with him.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (pp.146-147). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅵ The will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
Two things are immediately clear from the words of this petition: God has a will with and for us and it must become the measure of our willing and being; and the essence of “heaven” is that it is where God’s will is unswervingly done.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.147). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Numerous holy books assume that man knows the will of God in his heart, that the knowledge of God, called conscience, is deeply rooted in the heart. In Matthew 26:36-46, Jesus came to Gethsemane with his disciples and said, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray’. He was accompanied by Peter’s and the two sons of Zebedee, who were sorrowful at that time. Jesus prayed thus, saying. ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But not according to my wish, but according to your will” In this case, the cup is the cross, and Jesus was grieved that he would be killed by this wrong judgement. Therefore, he asked God’s will, not my wish. But God did not answer as Solomon did. This ‘not according to my wish but according to His will’ is taken up by Thomas Aquinas. Jesus then turns to a story about a traitor trying to kill him, and that is how we learn the will of God with Jesus. And it is hoped that this means that even our self-love is defeated.
Aristotle held that the perfect reality is entelecheia. Leibniz states that entelecheia always has an order. (Monadology, v. 63) In simple terms, it is a plant. The plant repeats itself according to the same laws and with the same number of petals. Leibniz’s monadology deals mainly with God’s creation in verses 62 to 66. And with regard to the subsequent verses 67 to 80, it refers to what cannot be explained by order as preestablished harmony. Although this is objectionable, a preestablished harmony is a law that can’t be unravelled. No matter how abstractly and infinitely one speaks of philosophy and theology, even if prime factors are given and finer numbers are given, as in prime factorisation, they do not exceed the original natural number. For example, if we do a prime factorisation of the natural number 60, we get 2 x 2 x 3 x 5 = 60. (Only 13 is a prime factor, so the prime factorisation is 13.) However, God can be likened to the prime number ‘1’ and the natural numbers that are bracketed as prime factors are us, but as long as God is the solution, it is a mystery until we experience the solution. Prime factors are only one expression. And even if the vague view is a scheduled harmony, it is not causal or easy to understand. What God has prepared will never exceed the size of creation, no matter how much it is dismantled and divided by man. Yet the magnitude is unimaginable. To live in this world is The only clues to the mystery left by Jesus were ‘love’ and ‘justice’. It must bring the wounded closer to the ability to notice them, to reach out to them and to help them. Otherwise the kingdom of God will not come.
The gravitational pull of our own will constantly draws us away from God’s will and turns us into mere “earth.” But he accepts us, he draws us up to himself, into himself, and in communion with him we too learn God’s will.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.150). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅴ Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us
This passage is the most ‘human’ petition in the Lord’s Prayer. To the disciples, the Lord says, “Before I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Matt. 6:25), and the mission of the people is to food The mission of the people was to pray about their worries about food. Bread is the bounty of the earth, the fruit of labour. This is opposed to the arrogance of the people, who say that they realise the fertility by their own strength alone. Give us daily bread”, the Greek word for ‘daily’ is EPIOUSIOS, which can be translated in two ways. One is ‘the bread we barely need to live’ and the other is ‘the bread of the future’.
It also signifies the bread of the eschatological end. Bread is purely edible. It is difficult to realise for rice staples, but the staple food is necessary for the survival of life, and it is important in daily life that this is available. That bread, that thing, is to be the Logos. From there it becomes religious.
‘Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4) The bread increased by miracles reminds us of the miracle and shows that the original food of man is the Logos, the eternal Word of God. The eternal Logos becomes the bread of reality for man. It corresponds to the food presented to the Israelites by Moses as a gift of God. What would happen if we were to speak of it as a philosophy? The bread that the poor wish for is a mystery that wishes for the necessities of the day, so resolution is not require.
If we dare to speak of the lack of the rule of reason, bearing in mind that this is the first condition, we begin with an account of ‘Buridan’s donkey’ (Buridan’s ass). Buridan the donkey has found a bundle of straw, his favourite food. However, Buridan also noticed another bundle of straw that he could see looking back. The donkey was clever enough to wonder which one he was going to eat. So Buridan couldn’t decide and starved to death. This is similar to the foolish consequence of starving to death because one is wise and rational, and to the fact that one should not look for a philosophical basis, doxa, in the bread of communion. This Buridan is said to be a French philosopher, but the actual source is unknown. Leibniz, however, gives it in a parable in his theodicy.
The donkey that starved to death is foolish, but because of its foolishness, a principle emerges. When food and sacredness coincide, it means that everything loses its meaning if it is not simply accepted as daily sustenance.
Every time we pray daily, “GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD”, both the “I” who understands the meaning and the “I” who does not try to understand are uniqueness, but the relationship with God to the spirit is not simply that of inventor and machine, but like that of father and son. (Monadology, v. 84) Communion is contradicted as superstition for those without faith and absoluteness for those with faith. Tabula rasa (blank slate) exists in contradiction to eternal truth. However, feeding the poor would be in agreement with both. It is important to pray that the sustenance for the poor and our own sustenance will continue into the future, to our children and to the poor, so that holiness and life will not cease without separation.
He says: We who are privileged to receive the Eucharist as our bread must nevertheless always pray that none of us be permanently cut off and severed from the body of Christ.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (pp.156-157). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅵ our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
Leibniz’s ‘theodicy’ addressed the differences between Protestants and Catholics. For example, he wrote not only about the conflict between Protestants and Catholics, but also about the conflict between Protestants with regard to the above-mentioned ‘bread’. In Japan, Luther is the most famous Protestant, but Friedrich Zwingli (Zwingli), who also opposed Luther, did not accept sacramentalism. He regarded the participation of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper as a mere figurative expression, and in doing so made use of the philosophical principle that the body can only exist in one place at all times. Luther, on the other hand, is more faithful to the literal sense of the Bible, making it real, including supernatural mysteries. In their opinion, they rejected the doctrine of Transsubstantiation (Total Transubstantiation – the transformation of the bread and wine of the sacrament (Seisan) into the flesh and blood of Christ) rather than that arising from the biblical expression and rejected Konsubstantiatio ( consubstantiatio – Christ coexists with the bread and wine) dogma and the bread, and held these things ignorant.
Although it did not require a union of the two, they were not merely logical, but also important in fulfilling Christ’s final wish. Through faith justification, they chose to maintain the everlasting presence of the Messiah’s body. In modern times, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants goes without saying, but even in Catholicism, the desire to hear the Lord’s petition remains the same. The fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer presupposes a world of indebtedness, i.e. sin. The theme of forgiveness runs through all the Gospels, with the story of the ‘retainer who would not forgive his fellow man’ in Matthew 18. The man, a high-ranking deputy, had begged the king to forgive him a high debt, but shortly afterwards he blackmailed his fellow strangers into forgiving him a small differential debt. His swearing came to the ears of the king, who forgave him from other retainers, and he had his remission revoked. The king is a parable of the divine father, but the story does not end there.
――In chapter 23 of Luke’s Gospel, two other sinners were to be executed besides Jesus at his crucifixion.
One of the sinners cursed Jesus right up to his death, saying, “If you are the Messiah, prove it by saving yourself”. The other sinner, on the other hand, defended Jesus. Despite being in the same situation, he humbly said to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Jesus said to such a sinner. ‘“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise’.
The sinner was loved by Jesus just before his execution. Regarding Leibniz’s principle of indistinguishable = identical, Jesus and the sinner are separate entities, even though they are at the same place of execution. Separate and uncrossing clocks of destiny exist for each, but they are bonded by ‘forgiveness’. Christians say that Jesus came down to earth, the cross, whereas crucifixion is raised high for the sinner to be exposed. We know that two people with different vectors can be bonded ‘on the spot’. Unlike the cursed sinner, it is through ‘forgiveness’ that the bond is achieved. ‘Forgiveness’ is, I believe, the beautiful point of contact between Leibnizian philosophy and Catholic theology. The sinner’s turn towards good is an invisible generative change. The prayer, ‘Forgiving Evil’, is the constant wish for a change to goodness over today’s evil intentions. It contains the ‘we’, the I.
Self-awareness does not come from collectivity. The collective enjoyed executions in a state of spectatorship. Community is not a dysfunctional situation where love and justice are in sync. The ‘justice’ awakened by the sinner just before death is love for Jesus. I hope for a world in which it is pervasive, and I use it as a prayer to inspire me.
If we want to understand the petition fully and make it our own, we must go one step further and ask: What is forgiveness, really? What happens when forgiveness takes place? Guilt is a reality,……For this reason, forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring, of merely trying to forget. Guilt must be worked through, healed, and thus overcome. Forgiveness exacts a price—first of all from the person who forgives. Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.158). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅶ and lead us not into temptation
If we are to use the language of Leibniz’s ‘theodicy’, philosophy has ensured that the meaning of words needs to be developed so that mysteries do not become empty words. Throughout the long history of the world, as long as there are words, they are disproved by inference. Once we are tempted by the theory of probability to pray correctly and find that phenomena are connected to each other, we are driven by the assumption that they are always connected. ‘Temptation’ is a stumbling block for people, including human immorality, but who is the one who tempts and leads? Temptation is certainly the devil, but there is also an interesting passage in Jeremiah 20:7.
Jeremiah20：７ Du hast mich verführt, Herr, und ich habe mich verführen lassen; du hast mich gepackt und mir Gewalt angetan. Nun spotten sie immerzu über mich, alle lachen mich aus. Denn sooft ich in deinem Auftrag rede, muss ich Unrecht anprangern. »Verbrechen!«, muss ich rufen, »Unterdrückung!« Und das bringt mir nichts als Spott und Hohn ein, Tag für Tag.
‘Lord, you have enticed me’, which was repeatedly called out in the film Die grosse Stille (The Great Silence), giving rise to questions. In Japanese it is translated in different words, but in the German version of the country of production it is verführt （enticed） The young Jeremiah was made a prophet by the Lord. But because he was righteous, he was estranged from the people. This is more evident in the German version, Tag für Tag and it is repeated ‘day in and day out’, but the constant cries of injustice, ridicule and scorn disgusted him.
It is easier to live when you do what the masses tell you to do. That is why he lamented what God gave him as ‘temptation’. Benedict XVI used the analogy with Job, but this time I have brought out Jeremiah. It is Christian to say that temptation is the devil, but in reality the devil is more incomprehensible than God.
There is scripture in the deeds of God. Even from a philosophical perspective, despite the contradiction between eternal truth and the psychology of chance, God has a fixed point, but existence with regard to Satan does not exist as eternal truth, only as chance. Simone Weil’s ‘Creation. Good is shattered and scattered to evil” would be exactly that. It means that God’s deeds had an original form and were shattered, but the Satan’s are not. The Bible reading allows people to recognise God as common, but as for Satan, it is a coincidence of each. Light does not solve everything. Because, as in John 1, darkness avoids light without understanding it. Jeremiah was chosen by God, but he shouted because he could no longer bear the malice of the people.
In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians chapter 10 says that God doesn’t give us trials we can’t endure. This is a well-known passage even in the non-religious world, but there is a continuation to this, but we are rarely told the rest of the story. Therefore, it is misunderstood as a ‘never-give-up spirit’.
It is a continuation of this: ‘It provides a way out in times of temptation and enables us to withstand temptation’.
Regarding this item, although Benedict XVI was an excellent commentary on the story of Benedict XVI, I judge that it does not extend to practice if I am honest, including the Catholic clergy issue. Therefore, I will end by adding Simone Weil, which I have adopted in my own way. ‘To love the truth means to hold on to the vacuum and consequently to accept death. It is not difficult to imagine such idealism, although it is unclear whether there is such a thing as immunity to temptation. How can we avoid being misguided by collectivity, like a school of fish, including the mistakes of one individual?
Temptation – from what do we protect ourselves, this is a ‘mystery’ but not a ‘mystery’ to leave behind. Loving the truth, by which the soul is likely to turn to good, but still one sins. Truth is not to be kept alive simply by explaining it. If the path leading to truth is cut off, it is tantamount to death. Philosophical rationality that does not leave mysteries unexplained, that looks to mysteries that cannot be solved, this section is not particularly altruistic, rather it is self-reliant. It is an exhortation to the mind of the self, not to the outside world. ‘Awareness’ is a prayer that must not be turned away from, as in the Leibnizian philosophy, which has made it a ‘reflection’ on oneself.
we pray, “And lead us not into temptation,” we are expressing our awareness “that the enemy can do nothing against us unless God has allowed it beforehand, so that our fear, our devotion and our worship may be directed to God—（ｐ163）
When we pray the sixth petition of the Our Father, we must therefore, on one hand, be ready to take upon ourselves the burden of trials that is meted out to us. On the other hand, the object of the petition is to ask God not to mete out more than we can bear, not to let us slip from his hands. We make this prayer in the trustful certainty that Saint Paul has articulated for us: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.163.164). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Ⅷ but deliver us from evil.
The last petition of the Our Father takes up the previous one again and gives it a positive twist.
Benedict XVI, Pope . Jesus of Nazareth (p.164). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle 版.
Many people may not even understand Leibniz’s monadology in terms of the soul having no windows. The explanation of monadology itself is straightforward but difficult to understand. It is much like the language of prayer. If you read theodicy, you will be exposed to Leibniz’s view of religion and the meaning of the monad will be more profound, but the monadology is disconnected. ‘theodicy’ and other books are only what he calls experience, accidental truths, but he wanted monadology to be an adjunct to eternal truths. I think it was to adapt it to any age, as it applies to today.
The words of the Lord’s Prayer are simple and can be taken verbatim. It contains the basis of modern morality. As for theology, it seems to be decided what evil is meant here. It seems to mean political evil, scepticism and save us from the evil that ensnares Christians. However, it makes sense to me that the words of the prayer itself do not specify the ‘forces of evil’ or the ‘evil one’. In Greek philosophy, faith was equated with doxa (speculation), which was lower than knowledge. Ancient Greek sexual life was unique, and love between men was considered to be the real thing. Women were only child bearers, and even if a woman had both knowledge and beauty, her status was not superior to that of a man. My writing in this way was, in ancient times, ‘evil’. Evil is subject to current trends.
In reality evil is not always as symbolic as the dragon of the Apocalypse. It is important to rationalise for once that Jesus Christ was not falsely executed. That was the law back then, not false accusations. Plants are determined to repeat themselves with regularity in the number of petals and leaves, but no two flowers are the same. The law also has existed since ancient times that one must not commit murder, but it is not exactly the same as it was in ancient times. The words of the prayer also return to the third time with these words: ‘THY KINGDOM COME’. But this is not a simple repetition. We cannot know the words in the Bible or the truths we have learned, even if we scrape them together. But as we learn more and more, we come to know Jeremiah and many other sufferings and absurdities. We must pray that our desire is not more superficial.
Last: Division does not keep simple love alive.
This time, during Benedict XVI’s critical condition, he bought the remaining copy of a three-volume book called Jesus of Nazareth, which contained a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer. While I was reading it, he died on 31 December 2022. My only impression was this. ‘The Bible says that God calls each of us by a name that no one else knows’ (Revelation 2:17), he was quoted as saying, and just as I was reading that passage I came across the news of his death. I started out only wanting to write down my one word impression, “Did God call him a name that a man as wise as he was did not know? :This is the monad that is impossible to know by memory. I only knew him in books, but I liked books. Maybe that is only part of what makes him up, but I am grateful that he left us books. I loved his books. He wrote seven petitions from the Gospel of Matthew. Three are prayers that call out to ‘you’, four are wishes for ‘us’ and the remaining four are wishes about hope, desire and need.
Having used monadology for simple romance was a consideration due to the unresolved Catholic scandals. Therefore, I could not write the mystery as simply wonderful. There is no fear of criticism from those around me now. Indeed, holiness is truth. However, experience inhibits words of truth when they are ‘hypocritical’. Words distorted by it stink. Just as Benedict XVI himself built a new theology for the harmony of the world’s divisions, so did Leibniz, who saw the corruption and strife in the clergy. What he should have simply looked at God alone, he tried to look at man. What to do with ugly human beings, what to do with precious human beings, what to do with the enigmatic ‘monad’ that neither enhances nor diminishes their value. That act and my current state of mind overlap.
Love simply cannot live in a divided world. It is as easy as possible to say that even injustice is love. Love must live in contradiction with justice. Contradictions, when tamed, are a cradle of stability. Don’t be the kind of person who can sleep peacefully, turning away from those who are suffering in front of you, Leibniz said. ‘We are left with micronised considerations, all the way down to ‘desires’ that we are not even consciously conscious about. ‘Deliver us from evil, that we may always be aware, and that someone in need may be saved.’ Rest to those who are suffering, and may the day when we are released from our burdens, the day when we are called by a name that only God knows, not be a day of sorrow. On that day, may we keep awake to the fact that it is a joyous day.
Amen.
Reference
G.W Leibniz
Monadologie Racle, -German.
Discours de métaphysique.
Versuche in der Theodicée über die Güte Gottes, die Freiheit des Menschen und den Ursprung des Übels: Philosophische Werke Band 4 (Philosophische Bibliothek 499) (German Edition)
Was das Begreifen anlangt, so pflichte ich ihm hierin bei, habe aber schon gezeigt, daß die Mysterien eine Entwicklung des Wortsinnes erheischen, um nicht sine mente soni, leere Worte zu sein: und ich habe auch gezeigt, wie notwendig es ist, auf Einwürfe antworten zu können, da andernfalls die These verworfen werden müßte. Er zitiert theologische
. Er zitiert theologische Autoritäten, welche die Unauflöslichkeit der gegen die Mysterien gerichteten Einwände anzuerkennen scheinen. Einer der ersten ist Luther. Ich habe schon im S 12
sowenig wie die Träume. Wir täuschen uns selbst durch den Gebrauch, den wir davon machen, d. h. durch unsere Folgerungen. Wir lassen uns eben durch Wahrscheinlichkeitsargumente verführen und dadurch werden wir zu der Annahme getrieben, so wie wir die Phänomene oft miteinander verbunden gefunden haben, so müßten sie immer verbunden sein. Da nun alles, was keine Ecken zu haben scheint, für gewöhnlich auch wirklich keine hat, glauben wir leicht, es müßte sich immer so verhalten. Ein solcher Irrtum ist verzeihlich und zuweilen unvermeidlich, wenn wir rasch handeln und das Wahrscheinlichste wählen müssen; haben wir aber Muße und Zeit zur Sammlung, so begehen wir einen Fehler, wenn wir das als sicher hinstellen, was dies gar nicht ist. Die sinnliche Erscheinung befindet sich also oft mit der Wahrheit im Widerspruch, aber unser Urteilsvermögen niemals, wenn es genau den Denkgesetzen gemäß gebraucht wird. Versteht man unter Vernunft ganz allgemein die Fähigkeit, schlecht und recht zu räsonieren, dann gebe ich zu, sie vermag uns zu täuschen und täuscht uns auch wirklich, und zwar sind die Erscheinungen unseres Verstandes ebenso oft täuschend wie die der Sinne: aber es handelt sich hier um die Verkettung der Wahrheiten und um Einwürfe in schulgerechter Form, und in diesem Sinne kann uns die Vernunft unmöglich täuschen.
Dort spendet Gott Gnade und Erbarmen den Unwürdigen; hier spendet er Zorn und Strenge denen, die sie nicht verdient haben; an beiden Stellen zu heftig und unbillig mit Bezug auf die Menschen, aber gerecht und wahrhaft mit Bezug auf sich selbst.
Denn wie das gerecht sein soll, daß er Unwürdige krönt, ist jetzt zwar unbegreiflich, aber wir werden es erkennen, wenn wir dorthin kommen, wo man nicht mehr glauben, sondern das Offenbarte mit eignen Augen schauen wird. Wie es daher gerecht sein soll, daß er die verdammt, welche es nicht verdienen, muß solange geglaubt werden, bis es der Menschensohn uns offenbaren wird.
エレミヤ書20：７（ドイツ語）Du hast mich verführt, Herr, und ich habe mich verführen lassen; du hast mich gepackt und mir Gewalt angetan. Nun spotten sie immerzu über mich, alle lachen mich aus. Denn sooft ich in deinem Auftrag rede, muss ich Unrecht anprangern. »Verbrechen!«, muss ich rufen, »Unterdrückung!« Und das bringt mir nichts als Spott und Hohn ein, Tag für Tag.
「主よ、あなたが私を誘惑した」というところだが、これは映画「大いなる沈黙」（Die grosse Stille）で何度も連呼され疑問を招いた箇所である。日本語では別の言葉で翻訳されているが、制作国のドイツ語版ではverführtと誘惑となっている。若きエレミアは主から預言者とされた。しかし、彼は正しいがゆえに人々から疎まれた。ドイツ語版ではそれがより顕著に表れている。Tag für Tagと、それは「毎日毎日」と繰り返しているが、不正と叫び続け嘲笑と軽蔑され続け、彼はうんざりした。
Versuche in der Theodicée über die Güte Gottes, die Freiheit des Menschen und den Ursprung des Übels: Philosophische Werke Band 4 (Philosophische Bibliothek 499) (German Edition)
Was das Begreifen anlangt, so pflichte ich ihm hierin bei, habe aber schon gezeigt, daß die Mysterien eine Entwicklung des Wortsinnes erheischen, um nicht sine mente soni, leere Worte zu sein: und ich habe auch gezeigt, wie notwendig es ist, auf Einwürfe antworten zu können, da andernfalls die These verworfen werden müßte. Er zitiert theologische
. Er zitiert theologische Autoritäten, welche die Unauflöslichkeit der gegen die Mysterien gerichteten Einwände anzuerkennen scheinen. Einer der ersten ist Luther. Ich habe schon im S 12
sowenig wie die Träume. Wir täuschen uns selbst durch den Gebrauch, den wir davon machen, d. h. durch unsere Folgerungen. Wir lassen uns eben durch Wahrscheinlichkeitsargumente verführen und dadurch werden wir zu der Annahme getrieben, so wie wir die Phänomene oft miteinander verbunden gefunden haben, so müßten sie immer verbunden sein. Da nun alles, was keine Ecken zu haben scheint, für gewöhnlich auch wirklich keine hat, glauben wir leicht, es müßte sich immer so verhalten. Ein solcher Irrtum ist verzeihlich und zuweilen unvermeidlich, wenn wir rasch handeln und das Wahrscheinlichste wählen müssen; haben wir aber Muße und Zeit zur Sammlung, so begehen wir einen Fehler, wenn wir das als sicher hinstellen, was dies gar nicht ist. Die sinnliche Erscheinung befindet sich also oft mit der Wahrheit im Widerspruch, aber unser Urteilsvermögen niemals, wenn es genau den Denkgesetzen gemäß gebraucht wird. Versteht man unter Vernunft ganz allgemein die Fähigkeit, schlecht und recht zu räsonieren, dann gebe ich zu, sie vermag uns zu täuschen und täuscht uns auch wirklich, und zwar sind die Erscheinungen unseres Verstandes ebenso oft täuschend wie die der Sinne: aber es handelt sich hier um die Verkettung der Wahrheiten und um Einwürfe in schulgerechter Form, und in diesem Sinne kann uns die Vernunft unmöglich täuschen.
Dort spendet Gott Gnade und Erbarmen den Unwürdigen; hier spendet er Zorn und Strenge denen, die sie nicht verdient haben; an beiden Stellen zu heftig und unbillig mit Bezug auf die Menschen, aber gerecht und wahrhaft mit Bezug auf sich selbst.
Denn wie das gerecht sein soll, daß er Unwürdige krönt, ist jetzt zwar unbegreiflich, aber wir werden es erkennen, wenn wir dorthin kommen, wo man nicht mehr glauben, sondern das Offenbarte mit eignen Augen schauen wird. Wie es daher gerecht sein soll, daß er die verdammt, welche es nicht verdienen, muß solange geglaubt werden, bis es der Menschensohn uns offenbaren wird.
Chris Kyogetu 