Ryōkan’s Moon

Last updated on: June 20, 2016 at 7:29 pm by Tom Swiss

Ryōkan’s Moon 2016-06-20T19:29:18-04:00 Tom Swiss

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This is a story that I like to tell at the Fire Circle on fullish-moon nights when there is a break in the drumming. I told it Friday at the Free Spirit Gathering, and it seems appropriate to post it today on this Solstice Full Moon. It’s one of those more-or-less true stories that have passed into legend, but may have grown in the telling, so I feel free to tell it my own way rather than quoting a scholarly source:

Ryōkan was a hermit-monk who lived in Japan about two centuries ago.

Hiroshige, "8 Views of Omi - #3. Autumn Moon At Ishiyama Temple". Image via Wikimedia Commmons. (Public domain.)

Hiroshige, “8 Views of Omi – #3. Autumn Moon At Ishiyama Temple”. Image via Wikimedia Commmons. (Public domain.)

He lived a simple life in a small hut up on the side of a mountain, but was known for his kind and generous nature and would often visit the nearby village to play with the children, and maybe even sneak a little sake.

One night he stayed well into the evening, trusting the light of the moon to show him the way home. But when he got back to his hut, he found a burglar there.

Now, friends, if I came home to find a burglar in my house, I’d be pretty mad about it. I suspect you would be too. But Ryōkan, he was a Buddhist wise man. He know that if this man had come to rob him — a hermit monk with hardly a possession in the world! — then this burglar must be in desperate shape indeed.

“I’m sorry that you’ve come all this way to see me, and I have nothing to give you,” he told the burglar. “Here. Take this.” And Ryōkan gave the burglar his robe, the very clothes off his back.

And as the burglar — a very confused burglar — walked back down the mountain, Ryōkan stood there naked in the night, looked up at the sky, and said, “Poor fellow. I wish I could have given him this moon.”

Maybe I’ll get to tell that story at the Starwood Festival next month. Still time to join us!

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