Two Sides of One Whole Coexist, Not Collide
From Kuhon-ji in the city of Gose, walk south along the Katsuragi Old Road. The path traces the foot of Mount Katsuragi, and below to the east the Nara Basin opens out. Now, in the week of the autumn equinox, the ears of rice are beginning to turn gold, and along the ridges between the fields the red spider lilies stand in long red lines. To Hitokotonushi Shrine it is about a kilometer and a half, an easy stretch to cover on foot.
Kuhon-ji is said to have been founded by Gyoki, a monk of the Nara period. In one corner of its grounds, small stone Buddhas known as the Thousand Stone Buddhas stand shoulder to shoulder. The story goes that in the age of the Northern and Southern Courts, when the Narahara clan of this land set off to fight for Kusunoki Masashige on the side of the Southern Court, they carved these figures to stand in their place and offered them to this temple, their family temple.
The stem of a red spider lily bears not a single leaf. In the season of autumn rain, the bare stem alone rises straight out of the ground, growing nearly ten centimeters in a day, and at last opens a red flower. The flower fades within about a week, and only then do thin green leaves grow from the same bulb. The leaves stay through the winter, taking in the sunlight until spring and storing nourishment in the bulb. Then in early summer they wither, and nothing remains above the ground. The flower never sees the leaves, and the leaves never see the flower. For this reason the plant has long been called 'leaves unseen, flowers unseen' in Japan.
In this world, all things are 'two sides of one whole.'
However single-mindedly you pursue something, you can never pursue it to its very end.
To pursue something, you must come to know what stands at its opposite pole, that is, what forms its other side.
For example: 'If you want to know the other person, know yourself deeply.' 'If you wish to make the most of your life, face death.' 'To examine one opinion, hear the opposing one.' And so on.
In doing so, you come to know more deeply the very thing you first set out to pursue.
If you take your stand on one side and point your finger at the other, you will never escape the axis of opposition, and so true 'understanding' and the 'pursuit' of truth will remain beyond your reach.
There is yang because there is yin. Without yin, yang could not exist as yang.
And the reverse is equally true.
The 'two sides of one whole' in this world do not collide; they coexist.
Turn around partway along the road, and beyond the red lines on the ridges the basin spreads out under the autumn sun. Before long these flowers will droop, their stems will fall, and from the same places thin green leaves will begin to grow. Through the winter, while the grasses all around them wither, those leaves alone will stay green along the ridges. When the red lines come back to these ridges next autumn, it will be because, through a winter no one stops to notice, those leaves kept taking in the light of the sun.