Mujo

Close to 1,000 houses collapsed in the earthquake which occurred last month, and about 50,000 people are still living in refuges. The sad news has also arrived that several sheltering people dead from fatigue. I shuddered when I imagined that it happened in the center of Tokyo or other crowded cities.

Though it is said that the Japanese buildings are proof against earthquake, the old traditional houses are not necessarily so. The walls of houses had not been thought important for the traditional architectures. In this moist country, to enhance ventilation, the walls were made by lime mixed with grass, and stone was rarely used. The windows were only covered with SHOJI, the framed thin paper, until glass was introduced. That is, the wall did not work to reinforce the structure of a house.

On the other hand, the roofs of those houses were closely covered with the ceramic tiles. The tiles not only prevented rain, but worked as a weight which protected the roof from being blown away by the strong wind. They were very helpful because we have been hit with many typhoons every year. But, since only several wooden pillars supported this heavy roof, the whole house was easy to be crushed under the roof if a heavy earthquake occurred.

The damages from several typhoons and earthquakes in this year made me remember "Hojoki (the Ten Foot Square Hut)". Hojoki was written by Kamo-no-Chomei, the Buddhist in the 12th century, as his reminiscences. Those days, Kyoto was already a big city as a capital of Japan. The crowded town of Kyoto was repeatedly hit by disastrous fires, and suffered serious damage also from earthquakes and typhoons. Chomei looked at people who repeated building and losing of their houses, and realized "Mujo". Mujo means "there is no eternal thing". He gave up having his own house and spent his retirement days in a tiny mountain hut.
And until modernization, other Japanese people who lived in their breakable houses also thought that the place they lived in were always temporary. This mental state of "abandonment" had influenced strongly the Japanese mentality. They were not adhere to things, but liked the simple life.

Today, Japanese people have became greedy, and began to build the concrete houses which cannot be broken easily. But, they will not be able to conquer the natural disasters perfectly. I am amazed that the words of Chomei in 800 years ago are still warning us.

Although the things humans do are all foolish, it is most foolish of all to spend their money and effort in order to build their houses in such a dangerous city area like this.

An English translation of Hojoki can be purchased at Amazon.