We Are Not Wounded So Deeply When

Glory, As Anyone Knows, Is Bitter Stuff.

Was I Ignorant, Then, When I Was Seventeen? I Think Not. I Knew Everything. A Quarter-century's Experience Of Life Since Then Has Added Nothing To What I Knew. The One Difference Is That At Seventeen I Had No 'realism'.

He Was In A Room Of The Gesshuuji, Which He Had Thought It Would Be Impossible To Visit. The Approach Of Death Had Made The Visit Easy, Had Unloosed The Weight That Held Him In The Depths Of Being. It Was Even A Comfort To Think, From The Light Repose The Struggle Up The Hill Had Brought Him, That Kiyoaki, Struggling Against Illness Up That Same Road, Had Been Given Wings To Soar With By The Denial That Awaited Him.

The Special Quality Of Hell Is To See Everything Clearly Down To The Last Detail.

Pain, I Came To Feel, Might Well Prove To Be The Sole Proof Of The Persistence Of Consciousness Within The Flesh, The Sole Physical Expression Of Consciousness. As My Body Acquired Muscle, And In Turn Strength, There Was Gradually Born Within Me A Tendency Towards The Positive Acceptance Of Pain, And My Interest In Physical Suffering Deepened.