When people ask me what inspired my Buddhist practice I always answer Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) and my friend Jack. Jack bought me Murakami’s novel Sputnik Sweetheart for Christmas back in 2003, a bold move in those days when I refused to read living novelists, and particularly ones I had never heard of before. But despite my misgivings I read the book, a story with a central character who disappears, Murakami stubbornly refuses to explain why. From that first novel I proceeded to read everything Murakami had published, which even then, eleven years ago, was a sizeable enough collection.
As much as I love Murakami’s stories it’s his nonfiction which has had the most profound effect on me and led me to practice Buddhism. The book that reeled me in was Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, an account of the Buddhist cult Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Murakami interviewed the victims and families of the attack, and published a year later in Japan under the title, The Place that was Promise, interviews with members of the cult. It was in the cult members descriptions of Buddhism, of what had drawn them to practice, that I found something which resonated in me. Perhaps I was as alienated and out of step with society myself (I was), but the feeling in me turned inwards, not back out at the world as Aum so fatally projected. It took Murakami nearly twenty years to explore in fiction the dark world of cults and their leaders, fatally unquestioned, in IQ84.
As much as I love Murakami’s stories it’s his nonfiction which has had the most profound effect on me and led me to practice Buddhism. The book that reeled me in was Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, an account of the Buddhist cult Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Murakami interviewed the victims and families of the attack, and published a year later in Japan under the title, The Place that was Promise, interviews with members of the cult. It was in the cult members descriptions of Buddhism, of what had drawn them to practice, that I found something which resonated in me. Perhaps I was as alienated and out of step with society myself (I was), but the feeling in me turned inwards, not back out at the world as Aum so fatally projected. It took Murakami nearly twenty years to explore in fiction the dark world of cults and their leaders, fatally unquestioned, in IQ84.
After reading Underground I began browsing the religious section in my local bookstore and picked up Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor, a book which made Buddhism accessible to western sceptics, and, even better was a short and snappy read. I was so enamoured with this book I bought it for many of my friends and my own copy is now long gone having lent it out so many times. Batchelor’s book confirmed what I’d already picked up in Murakami’s interviews in Underground, that Buddhism was a simple and practical way to approach life’s problems – by training your mind.
We are a long way from the 1960’s hippy import of Buddhism to the West, large corporations now take Buddhist concepts like mindfulness and meditation, and package them up in seminars to create a new breed of enlightened employee. As worthy as this may be, it detaches itself from a fundamental Buddhist tenant which ultimately seeks liberation from samsara (suffering) for the benefit of all living beings – rather than just for yourself, or for your business.
Nearly eleven years after reading my first Murakami novel I recently embarked on an intensive Buddhist study programme. I still struggle with the concepts and my commitment to lead a life dedicated to Buddhist practice. It feels like, and it is, a long path from here to enlightenment. As for Murakami, his latest book has just been published, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage and I'm still deciding whether to use the stickers which came with the first edition to customise this treasured book.
