What if a hermit falls in love with a human?
I’m a Japanese artist and I collaborate with talented artists from overseas. I am making stories for songs, so I would like to introduce the concept and story of the song I made with them. This “Transformation album” is based on the theme of “traditional Japanese ways of thinking”. The keywords are “Waka”, “Impermanence”, and “Kunoichi”. Exploring these themes, I searched for the connection between old and modern Japan and expressed my feelings about these worlds. The title of this song is “Transformation” and the keyword is “Impermanence”.
I’m making two stories about this song” Transformation” because I was interested in the difference between Chinese and Japanese ways of conceptualising”hermits.” I hope you enjoy each of the common and different parts of the two stories. This time, the story is based on Japanese Buddhism.
<Concept>
A hermit is a general term for the original Chinese gods and people who became close to the gods after training. A hermit is a term that refers to a person who had become immortal by mastering a mysterious technique.
This concept was introduced to Japan from China, but there are differences in the image of hermits in China and Japan. It is thought that these views are also due to the different religious influences, such as Chinese Taoism Japanese Buddhism.
While the Chinese hermit image is of an immortal and is a human ideal, the Japanese hermit image is not immortal and feels more familiar.
There is a story based on the Chinese paradigm called” Why are humans imperfect, unlike hermits?”. If you follow Japanese anime, it would be easier to understand Japanese hermits if you imagine Dragon Ball’s “Master Roshi”.
This time, I will introduce the story of “Japanese hermit image” that I made based on the story of Japanese legendary hermit “Kume hermit”. In the legendary story, the main character is a hermit, but my story focuses on the woman he fell in love with. It may sometimes be interesting to see the same event from different angles.
＜Story＞
A hermit had a special ability to fly in the sky and was flying on a cloud. During flight, the hermit saw the beautiful legs of a woman washing clothes in the river, and his heart was disturbed so he could not fly and fell to the ground. The cloud carrying the hermit angrily dispelled the hermit over failings by being distracted and, in a huff, withdrew into the sky.
For most people, hermits are a longed-for state of existence. Many people laughed at the failure of the longed for the washer woman, but the woman loved the hermit’s “weakness” and the two were united.
For both the hermit and the woman who was doing the laundry, this event was a turning point in their lives.
The opposing elements of yin and yang*1 work together to create a world. Every human being is destined to die after being born. However, we can find value in old age and imperfections, which are considered to be the negative parts of human beings (Sabi*2).
In a constantly changing world (of impermanence), there is time for people to interact and share their lives. Such a ruthless world is ephemeral and beautiful.
<Lyrics>
A hermit fell from the sky. The reason why he lost his power
Because he saw her beautiful calf. ‥
The abusive cloud is gone, and his “weakness” becomes attractive, and she burns herself to the hermit
The turning point of life
yin and yang
“Sabi” which does not stop moving in the interval
Fate going to die
People are connected to change momentarily
It’s an insubstantial beauty
<Note>
Yin and Yang*1: Originating in China, it is an idea that all sorts of things in the universe, and all sorts of things in the universe, are classified into two categories of yin and yang from various viewpoints. Yin and Yang are two spirits with mutually opposing attributes, and the change called the production and annihilation of everything is said to be caused by this diligence
Sabi*2: The original meaning is that “internal essence” oozes out. The contradictory elements of old & withered and rich & splendid attract and interact with each other in one world and are activated in that world. The beauty of the dual structure, resulting from the work of the mind, which is so activated and dying. It expresses the consciousness of finding value in lonely and imperfect things and finding beauty in an old-fashioned.
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