Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

To a farmer, the land he cultivates and lives on carries a special meaning not only as the place of his livelihood but also as the source of his sense of belonging, connectedness, and continuity. With a few acres of his family farm to attend to, a farmer can indeed be a model of the happy man that appears in ‘Ode on Solitude’ by Alexander Pope (1688-1744):

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Developing, as he does, a strong sense of attachment to his native air and land, it is natural that a farmer, when forced to abandon the land of his wish and care and move to a new place, finds the experience quite devastating and traumatic.

Such is indeed the case with the farmers and their families of Okuma, a coastal town in Fukushima Prefecture, who were forced to abandon their lands in the wake of the massive earthquake that shook northern Japan on March 11, 2011. Unlike the residents of other coastal cities and towns, the people of Okuma were not forced to abandon their homes because of the tsunami’s destructive power. Their misfortune was that the town was the host to four of the six ill-fated nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

The evacuation of the people of Okuma, which started two days after the quake, is an ongoing saga that continues to this day. By now, most of about 11,000 people from Okuma have settled down in cities and towns that are a safe distance away from the nuclear power plants. However, “settle down” is clearly a misnomer to describe the situation in which the people from Okuma find themselves, for they are living with a whole array of hardships that all contribute to their stress.

Having to live in a new and unfamiliar environment is, in itself, a source of stress. In the case of the city of Aizu Wakamatsu, which is home to the largest settlement of the people from Okuma, the harsh natural environment—steamy hot summer and damp cold winter—of this inland city surrounded by mountains is a major source of their stress. Moreover, the temporary houses provided for the people from Okuma, although equipped with the basic necessities of life such as utilities and appliances, are too small and too crowded compared with the comfort and security of their homes in Okuma, which they are allowed to visit on designated days but are not allowed to go back to live in.

More than anything else, mental stress is taking the heaviest toll on the people from Okuma. While they all look for a day when they will be able to go back to their homes, that prospect looks very bleak, especially for the elderly, considering that their contaminated houses will not be fit for living for at least 30 years. “There are just two options left for us: go back alive to Okuma or go back dead to be buried,” goes one line in a song the people from Okuma composed out of dejection and self-pity.

The town government in exile does provide counseling services to those who are in need of them. However, the number of qualified counselors is too few relative to the need for their services. To make matters worse, the counselors themselves are refugees going through the stress of adjusting to living and working in a new environment. They are lucky to have their jobs, unlike the elderly farmers who have given up their hope of working and living on their own farms.

Even religion fails to provide a sense of comfort and security for the people from Okuma leading their daily lives under stress in a new and unfamiliar environment. In fact, what are intended to be kind and encouraging words to cheer up the people living in temporary houses can become a source of irritation—even anger—unless the words are delivered with due consideration and true understanding of the situation. Words such as “This is your new home now” and “You must find happiness, living here and now” fall on deaf ears as these people continue to dream of a day when they will return to their native air and land.

“Jigoku ichinyo” (“Hell is inevitable”), the words ascribed to Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the True Pure Land sect of Buddhism in Japan, may best capture the sentiment of the people from Okuma who are going through the agony and pain of having abandoned their native air and land out of no fault of their own. For the people from Okuma, the place they have left behind with idyllic farms cultivated by and inherited from their ancestors perhaps comes closest to their idea of the Pure Land in this world, the land they wish to go back one day to be reunited with their ancestors. That Pure Land, now contaminated with deadly radioactive particles, is lost forever as far as the people from Okuma are concerned.

 * An article originally published in Japan Today, September 4, 2012.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Eiheiji (Temple of Eternal Peace), nestled in a lush forest of majestic cedar trees in a mountainous region of Fukui Prefecture, is the head temple, along with Sojiji in Yokohama, of some 15,000 temples that belong to the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism in Japan. Founded by Dogen in 1244, the temple serves not only as the training center for monks, who carry on the tradition of rigorous training established by its founder, but also as a place of retreat for lay people, who seek Zen experience through its abbreviated program of regimented life with meditation.

Unlike most Japanese Buddhist sects that appear to be content with accepting their social role as the provider of funeral ceremonies, the Soto sect is known for its social activism, especially in the area of environmentalism. Since 1995, the sect has been promoting the Green Plan, a nationwide campaign for the environment under the slogan: “Peace, Human Rights, Environment”.

Considering its location as well as its history of social activism, it is not surprising that Eiheiji was involved in, albeit indirectly by endorsing, the naming of two nuclear reactors built in the coastal city of Tsuruga in Fukui Prefecture as Fugen (Samantabhadra) and Monju (Manjusri). Fugen, often symbolized by a figure riding on an elephant, is a bodhisattva of compassion, while Monju, symbolized by a figure riding on a lion, is a bodhisattva of wisdom. According to a statement issued by Japan Atomic Energy Agency that manage these reactors, the original belief behind the choice of these bodhisattva names was that the only way to tame the enormous potential of atomic energy, symbolized by a giant animal like an elephant or a lion, for the benefit of humankind is to appeal to bodhisattva-like compassion and wisdom that nuclear reactors embody.

Despite their bodhisattva names, the two nuclear reactors have failed to perform their expected function of taming atomic energy. As a matter of fact, Fugen, an advanced thermal reactor, was decommissioned in 2003 because the technology had become obsolete by then. Monju, a fast-breeder reactor, is destined to follow the same fate as it has been plagued with a series of accidents and forced shutdowns. Thus, the wisdom of giving bodhisattva names to potentially dangerous nuclear reactors had been in doubt long before the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the wake of the epic earthquake and tsunami that struck Northern Japan on March 11, 2011.

In view of the renewed concern and controversy over the safety of nuclear power plants triggered by the latest disaster at the Fukushima plant, it was natural that Eiheiji would confess to an error of judgment in aiding the promotion of atomic energy as a source of clean and safe energy by allowing the use of bodhisattva names for the nuclear reactors built in its own backyard, as it is well within the disaster zone in case of a serious meltdown. Thus, Communications Director of Eiheiji publicly admitted—as reported in the October 7 edition of Tokyo Shimbun, for example—that atomic energy is against the teachings of the Buddha as it can potentially destroy life. On November 2, Eiheiji organized a symposium titled “Cherishing Life—Exploring The Way Of Life Without Atomic Energy”, which was attended by over 300 participants from all over Japan. As far as Eiheiji was concerned, it    was time to make it public that, while Dogen is known to have taught that trees possess Buddha-nature, his lay disciple who proposed the adoption of bodhisattva names was not advocating that nuclear reactors, too, possess Buddha-nature.

* An article originally published in the Commentary section of Japan Today, November 15, 2011.