"Ajari[1]
Koen, the abbot of the Kudokuin Temple, and one of Honen’s teachers hailing
from the province of Higo, was a noted scholar who was learned in the doctrines
of both the esoteric and exoteric sects, and himself a disciple of Hokkyo
Kokaku of Sugyu on Mount Hiei. One day as he was reflecting seriously upon
life, and considering the limitations of his own powers, he thought that it
would be no easy thing for him to get free from the fated round of life and
death, and that every time he would change his state of existence, he would, as
the doctrine goes, forget what had happened to him in the one before, and so,
he thought, he would probably in the next life forget what he had now learned
about the Teaching of the Buddhas. ‘I have’, he said, ‘indeed been born a man,
but I am so unfortunate as to have come into the world in the period between
the appearance of the two Buddhas, and so I see nothing for it but that I must
go through transmigration after transmigration. But in order to be able to meet
the Merciful One (Maitreya) when He finally appears in the world, I should like
to have my body changed into that of some being that has long life. So there is
nothing better for me than to be born a serpent. I therefore vow that I shall
be born a great serpent (naga). Only there is one thing I am afraid of, and
that is the mighty gold-winged bird (Garuda)[2]
that lives on the serpents dwelling in the great sea. My wish therefore is to
live in a pond.’ So he made a bargain for a pond called Sakura-ga-ike[3]
in the village of Kasawara in the province of Totomi, receiving the deed of it
from its owner. When he came to die, he asked for some water which he put in
the palm of his hand and then passed away.
