Solitary Thoughts: A Translation of Tadano Makuzu’s Hitori Kangae (Part 1)Tadano Makuzu
Translated by Janet R. Goodwin, Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Elizabeth A. Leicester, Yuki Terazawa and Anne Walthall
MN 56:1 (2001) pp. 21–38
I have written this entire text without any sense of modesty or concern about being unduly outspoken. Let me explain why. People customarily humble themselves and seek to avoid appearing overly assertive, but when I came to this place, I resigned myself to my life being over at the age of thirty-five and resolved to regard the move here as the road of death, the journey to hell. Since the world no longer exists for me, it is as though I am no longer the same person who lived through the past. However much people may censure and condemn me, it hurts me not at all. Besides, the sort of person who would censure and condemn this book is not worth fearing. With compassion filling my heart and tears of grief soaking my sleeves, I have written it lamenting the crazed behavior I see all around. Each person in our country strives to enrich him or herself alone without thinking of the foreign threat or begrudging the cost to the country. Mired in strife, people throw goods away and fight over money that comes and goes. With this in mind, I feel neither pain nor irritation at being criticized by others. Please read this with that understanding.
Twelfth month, Bunsei 文政1 [1818]. Makuzu in the far north
