鴨長明の方丈記をやさしい英語で再構成してみました。
原文の全情報を一語一句対応させた英訳ではなく、原文の内容・論理・思想を保ちながら、英語学習者向けに文を分割し、語彙と構文を制御した再構成作品です。
A Level 2 English adaptation of Kamo no Chomei’s Hojoki, based on the original Japanese text.
Created with the assistance of ChatGPT.
1. The River of Life
The river keeps flowing, but its water is never the same.
Bubbles float on the water. Some disappear. Others appear. None of them stay for long.
People and their homes are like these bubbles.
In the beautiful capital, houses stand side by side. Rich people live in large houses. Poor people live in small ones.
These houses seem to last for many years.
But when we look closely, we find that very few old houses remain. Some burned down and were rebuilt. Some large houses fell into ruin and became small houses.
The people who live in them also change.
A house may look the same, and many people may still live there. But among twenty or thirty people I once knew, I may now find only one or two.
Some people die in the morning.
Others are born in the evening.
Human life is like the bubbles on the water.
Where do we come from when we are born?
Where do we go when we die?
We do not know.
Our homes are also temporary.
We build them and try to make them beautiful. But for whom do we build them? Why do we work so hard on them?
People and their homes change together.
They are like flowers covered with morning dew.
Sometimes the dew falls first, while the flower remains. But the flower soon dies in the morning sun.
Sometimes the flower fades first, while the dew remains. But the dew does not last until evening.
Nothing stays the same.
Everything changes.
2. The Houses of the Capital
I have lived in the capital for many years.
I have seen people build beautiful houses there.
Some houses belong to powerful people. Others belong to ordinary people.
They stand close together.
Their roofs seem to compete with one another.
People spend a great deal of money on these houses.
They build large gates.
They make beautiful gardens.
They fill their homes with valuable things.
They think about what other people will say about their houses.
But the houses do not stay.
A house may burn down.
A strong wind may destroy it.
A flood may carry it away.
An earthquake may make it fall.
Even when a house survives, the people who live there will change.
One family leaves.
Another family moves in.
A rich family may become poor.
A poor family may become rich.
People are always coming and going.
I have seen the same thing happen again and again.
That is why I began to think about the world differently.
We think our homes belong to us.
We think our possessions will stay with us.
We think our lives will continue as they are.
But they do not.
The houses change.
The people change.
Our lives change.
And we cannot stop that change.
3. The Great Fire
I saw many strange things happen in the world.
One of the worst was a great fire in the capital.
It happened on April 28, 1177.
The fire began in the southeast part of the city, around the area of Higuchitomi-no-koji.
It was evening.
The wind was strong.
The fire quickly spread toward the northwest.
It moved from house to house.
The flames grew wider and wider, like a fan opening.
Before long, the fire reached important parts of the capital.
The Imperial Palace was burned.
So were many government buildings.
Houses of rich and poor people burned together.
The fire seemed to cover the whole city.
People far from the fire could hardly breathe because of the smoke.
Near the fire, the flames moved along the ground.
Ash filled the sky.
Pieces of burning wood flew through the air.
People ran away with only what they could carry.
Some could not escape.
Some fell down because they could not breathe.
Others were caught by the flames and died.
People who had spent many years collecting valuable things lost everything in one night.
Gold and other treasures were burned.
Fine houses became ashes.
Sixteen houses belonging to high-ranking officials were destroyed.
Many other houses were lost as well.
About one third of the capital was burned.
Many men and women died.
Horses and cattle also died.
The fire was terrible.
But what struck me most was this:
People had worked so hard to build their houses.
They had spent so much money.
They had filled them with beautiful things.
And in a few hours, everything was gone.
What is the use of spending so much effort on something that can disappear so quickly?
4. The Great Wind
A few years later, another disaster struck the capital.
A great wind rose in 1180.
It was so strong that it destroyed many houses.
Large houses and small houses alike were blown apart.
Some houses were completely destroyed.
In others, only the posts and beams were left.
Gates were torn away and carried far from their homes.
Walls were blown down.
Sometimes a wall disappeared, and the house next door suddenly seemed to become part of the same place.
Inside the houses, everything was thrown into the air.
Roof boards and pieces of wood flew around like leaves.
Dust rose like smoke.
People could not see clearly.
The noise was so loud that they could not hear one another.
The wind seemed to move across the city without stopping.
People who were repairing their houses were also hurt.
Some were badly injured.
The wind finally passed.
But many people were left with nothing.
We often think that wind is something ordinary.
But when I saw that terrible wind, I wondered if it was some kind of warning.
Human beings can build houses.
They can make strong walls.
But they cannot stop the wind.
5. The Move to a New Capital
In the same year, another great change came.
In the summer of 1180, the capital was suddenly moved.
It was a great surprise.
The capital had been there for more than four hundred years, since the time of Emperor Saga.
There was no clear reason why it should be moved.
So people were deeply troubled.
But there was nothing they could do.
The emperor moved.
The great officials moved.
The nobles moved.
Almost everyone who served the government followed them.
People who depended on their position, their rank, or their lord hurried to the new capital.
They wanted to move as soon as possible.
But people who had lost their place in the world had no reason to go.
They stayed behind sadly.
The old capital began to change.
Some houses were taken down.
Their wooden parts were carried away by boat.
Land that had once been covered with houses became fields.
People’s lives changed too.
The things they valued changed.
People who had once cared about carriages began to care more about horses.
They began to look toward different kinds of land and different ways of making a living.
The new capital was not an easy place to live.
It was surrounded by mountains and the sea.
The land was narrow.
The sea wind was strong.
The old capital became quiet and empty.
The new capital did not become the beautiful city people had expected.
People had suffered, but the change had brought little good.
When I thought about this, I remembered old stories about wise rulers.
When the people were poor, those rulers tried to reduce their burden.
They even looked at the smoke rising from people’s homes.
If there was little smoke, they understood that the people had little food to cook.
Such rulers cared about the lives of ordinary people.
The world I saw was very different.
6. Hunger and Death
Then came a terrible famine.
It lasted for about two years.
The weather was bad.
There was not enough rain when the crops needed it.
Then strong winds came.
Floods came too.
The crops failed.
People could not grow enough food.
The fields became empty.
People left their homes.
Some went into the mountains.
Others came to the capital looking for food.
But the capital depended on food from the countryside.
Now very little food came in.
People began to suffer from hunger.
They sold their possessions.
First they sold things they could live without.
Then they sold things they needed.
But there were few buyers.
People had no money.
Even valuable things could not be sold for a fair price.
Rice became extremely expensive.
The roads filled with hungry people.
The sound of crying could be heard everywhere.
People prayed.
Religious ceremonies were held.
People hoped that the disaster would end.
But it did not.
Then disease spread.
People became weaker and weaker.
Many could no longer walk.
Some fell down in the street and died.
Dead bodies lay along the roads.
There were so many that people did not have the strength to bury them.
The smell became terrible.
The city was full of suffering.
Even people who had once been healthy could not escape.
Husbands and wives often died one after another.
The person who loved the other more deeply sometimes died first.
Such people gave their small amount of food to the person they loved.
Parents also died before their children.
Sometimes a mother died while her small child did not understand what had happened.
The child still tried to drink milk from her.
I saw these things myself.
A Buddhist priest named Ryugyo also saw many dead people.
He was deeply saddened.
Whenever he saw the head of a dead person, he wrote the letter A on the forehead.
He hoped that this would help the dead find a connection with the Buddha.
Later, he counted the dead people found along the streets of the capital.
There were more than forty-two thousand.
And this was only in the part of the city that he counted.
The true number must have been much higher.
There had been another great famine many years before.
I had heard about it.
But I had never seen such suffering with my own eyes.
One thing was especially terrible.
People had become so desperate that they began to break up things in temples for firewood.
Some even broke wooden Buddhist statues.
They used them to make fires.
When I saw such things, I felt that I had been born into a very troubled world.
7. The Great Earthquake
Not long after this, another disaster came.
A huge earthquake struck.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
Mountains collapsed.
Rivers were blocked.
The ground split open.
Water came out of the earth.
Large rocks broke apart and rolled into valleys.
The sea rose and struck the shore.
Boats were thrown about.
Horses on the roads could not stand.
Almost no temple or tower in the capital escaped damage.
Some buildings collapsed.
Others fell over.
Dust filled the air like smoke.
The sound of the earth moving and houses breaking was like thunder.
If you were inside a house, you thought it would fall on you.
If you ran outside, the ground shook beneath your feet.
There was nowhere to hide.
If you were a dragon, perhaps you could fly into the clouds.
But human beings cannot do that.
All we can do is fear the earth.
The strongest shaking stopped after a short time.
But the smaller earthquakes continued.
For many days, there were twenty or thirty in one day.
Later, there were four or five.
Then two or three.
Sometimes there was only one every few days.
The shaking continued for about three months.
People often fear fire, wind, and water.
But the earth itself usually seems quiet.
This earthquake showed us that even the ground beneath our feet cannot always be trusted.
Long ago, there had also been a great earthquake.
At that time, part of the Great Buddha at Todai-ji was damaged.
But even that earthquake was not as terrible as this one.
For a short time after the disaster, people began to talk about how uncertain the world was.
They seemed to understand how little they could trust their lives and possessions.
Their hearts seemed a little less troubled by worldly things.
But people soon forgot.
Months passed.
Then years passed.
In the end, almost no one talked about the earthquake anymore.
Even after seeing a great disaster, people return to their old lives.
This too is part of human nature.
8. A Difficult World
All these disasters made me think about human life.
The world is difficult to live in.
Our bodies are uncertain.
Our homes are uncertain.
And depending on where we live and what kind of life we have, there are countless things that can trouble us.
Suppose you are poor and live next to a powerful family.
You cannot live freely.
When you are sad, you may not even feel free to cry.
You are always careful not to upset your neighbors.
You are like a small bird living near a hawk’s nest.
Now suppose you are poor and live next to a rich family.
Every day, you may feel ashamed of your simple clothes.
You see their beautiful homes.
You see their fine clothes.
You see their servants.
You hear their voices.
You may feel unhappy about your own life.
If you live in a crowded part of the city, you are in danger from fire.
If you live far away, traveling becomes difficult.
You may also have to worry about thieves.
If you are powerful, you may become proud.
If you are alone, people may look down on you.
If you have money, you may worry about losing it.
If you are poor, you may worry about not having enough.
If you depend on other people, your life is no longer completely your own.
If you care deeply for other people, your heart becomes tied to them.
If you follow the ways of the world, you have to live by its rules.
But if you refuse to follow them, people may think you are strange.
So where can a person live?
What kind of life can bring peace?
Is there any place where we can stay for even a short time without worrying?
I began to think that perhaps there was no such place in the world.
9. Leaving the World Behind
I had once lived in my father’s family home.
Later, I lost the home and had to live in other places.
When I was about thirty, I built a very small temporary home.
It was much smaller than my former house.
It was only a place where I could live for a short time.
I did not build a proper gate.
I did not build a large wall.
I made only what I needed.
The house was not safe from wind or floods.
But I did not care much.
I had begun to understand that a large house could not give me a secure life.
For more than thirty years, I lived through many changes.
I saw people come and go.
I saw homes appear and disappear.
I saw the world change around me.
When I was fifty, I left ordinary life behind.
I became a Buddhist monk.
I had no wife or children.
I had no official position.
I had no large family depending on me.
There were few things tying me to the world.
For about five years, I lived in the mountains of Ohara.
Then I moved again.
When I was sixty, I built another small hut in the mountains of Hino.
It was like building a temporary shelter for one night.
It was like the tiny home of a silkworm.
Compared with my former house, it was only about one hundredth the size.
As I grew older, my home became smaller.
10. My Small Hut
My hut is very small.
It is only about three meters wide.
It is less than two meters high.
I did not choose the place carefully because I knew that I might move again.
The hut can be taken apart.
The walls can be taken down.
The whole thing can be moved.
It costs very little to build again.
Now I live deep in the mountains of Hino.
The hut has a small roof on the east side.
That is where I keep firewood.
On the south side, there is a small bamboo floor.
I sit there during the day.
On the north side, behind a screen, I keep an image of Amida Buddha.
Beside it is an image of Fugen.
In front of them is a copy of the Lotus Sutra.
On the east side, I spread dried grass on the floor.
That is where I sleep.
In the southwest corner, I have a small shelf.
I keep some books there.
Some are about poetry.
Some are about music.
I also have a few Buddhist books.
Beside them are my musical instruments.
I have a koto and a biwa.
They are simple instruments.
There is a water pipe outside.
I have made a small place to hold the water.
Trees grow nearby, so I can gather firewood easily.
The mountain is covered with plants and trees.
The western side is more open, so I can see the sky.
The hut is small.
But I have what I need.
11. Life in the Mountains
I have lived in this hut for several years.
At first, I thought I would stay here only for a short time.
But the years have passed.
The roof has become covered with leaves.
Moss has grown around the hut.
I sometimes hear news from the capital.
Many people I once knew have died.
Many houses have burned down.
The city continues to change.
But my little hut remains quiet.
There are many things to enjoy here.
In spring, I watch the flowers of the wisteria.
They look like purple clouds.
In summer, I listen to the cuckoo.
Its voice reminds me of the road to the world after death.
In autumn, I hear the cicadas.
Their voices remind me how short human life is.
In winter, I watch the snow fall.
It comes down, covers the ground, and then disappears.
Sometimes I pray.
Sometimes I read Buddhist writings.
Sometimes I do not feel like doing either.
When that happens, I simply rest.
No one tells me what I must do.
No one is there to argue with me.
I can speak little.
I can remain silent.
Sometimes I walk down into the valley.
I watch boats on the river.
I think about people who lived quietly beside rivers long ago.
Sometimes I listen to the wind in the pine trees.
I play my koto or biwa.
I play simply for myself.
I do not need other people to listen.
I sing for myself.
I play for myself.
There is also a small hut near the foot of the mountain.
A young boy lives there.
Sometimes he comes to visit me.
He is about ten years old.
I am sixty.
Our ages are very different.
But we enjoy many of the same things.
Sometimes we pick young plants.
Sometimes we gather wild fruit.
Sometimes we collect wild vegetables.
Sometimes we go into the fields and gather rice left after the harvest.
When the weather is good, we climb the mountain.
From the top, we can see the old capital and the mountains around it.
No one owns these views.
So we can enjoy them freely.
Sometimes we walk farther.
We visit old temples.
We cross the mountains.
In spring, we gather flowers.
In autumn, we collect colored leaves.
We also pick wild plants and fruit.
Sometimes we offer them to the Buddha.
Sometimes we bring them home.
At night, I look at the moon through the window.
I remember people who lived long ago.
Sometimes I hear a monkey calling far away.
The sound makes me feel lonely.
Fireflies shine in the grass.
The rain before dawn sounds like wind in the leaves.
A mountain bird calls in the distance.
Sometimes I wonder if it is calling for its parents.
A deer comes near without fear.
When I see it, I feel how far I have moved away from the world of people.
The mountains change with the seasons.
Their beauty never ends.
12. The Beauty of a Simple Life
The more I live here, the more I see how little I need.
A small hut is enough for one person.
A crab lives in a small shell.
A bird can be happy in the forest.
I too have learned to live with little.
I do not need many possessions.
I do not need servants.
I do not need a large house.
Most people build houses for someone.
They build them for their wives and children.
They build them for relatives and friends.
They build them for their masters and teachers.
Some build them for their possessions, horses, and other things.
But I built this hut for myself.
There is no one else who needs to live here.
If I built a large house, who would I put in it?
Who would I give a room to?
I have no servants.
I do not need them.
It is easier to make myself my own servant.
When something needs to be done, I do it myself.
Sometimes it is tiring.
But it is easier than managing other people.
When I need to go somewhere, I walk.
My feet are enough.
When I need to carry something, I carry it myself.
My hands are enough.
My hands are my servants.
My feet are my carriage.
They do what I need.
When my body is tired, I let it rest.
When it is strong, I use it.
I do not need to work too much.
I do not need to rest too much.
Walking and working are enough for my body.
My clothes are simple.
My food is simple.
I eat wild plants and fruit from the mountains.
They are enough to keep me alive.
I do not need fine clothes.
I do not need expensive food.
I do not need to please other people.
When I compare my life now with my life in the past, I feel that this life suits me.
But I do not say that everyone should live this way.
Each person has a different life.
I only know what I have learned from my own life.
There is also something deeper.
The Buddha teaches that the three worlds depend on the mind.
If the mind is troubled, nothing can make us truly happy.
If the mind is at peace, even a small place can be enough.
A rich man may have a beautiful house and many possessions.
But if his mind is troubled, they cannot give him peace.
A poor man may have almost nothing.
But if his mind is at peace, he may still be happy.
This is why I value this small hut.
It is not the hut itself that gives me peace.
It is the way I live here.
Still, I must be careful.
The Buddha teaches us not to become attached to anything.
Yet I love this hut.
I enjoy this quiet life.
Perhaps I am attached to it.
So I asked myself a question.
I left the world.
I came to the mountains.
I wanted to control my mind and follow the Buddhist way.
But am I really free from worldly desires?
My body looks like that of a man who has left the world.
But perhaps my heart is still attached to it.
I live in a tiny hut.
But am I really living like the holy men of the past?
My practice may not even be as good as that of the simplest monks.
Why am I living this way?
Is it because I truly understand the Buddhist way?
Or am I simply living here because I have become poor and have nowhere else to go?
I could not answer myself.
I had nothing more to say.
So I quietly said the name of Amida Buddha two or three times.
Then I stopped.
My life is already coming to an end.
The light of my life is like the setting moon.
Soon I will enter the darkness after death.
So what is there for me to complain about?
I left the world because I wanted peace.
But perhaps even this peaceful life has become something I am attached to.
That is the last question I leave with myself.
In the second year of the Kenryaku era, near the end of the third month, I wrote these words in my small hut in the mountains.
My name was Ren’in.
This is Hojoki.