SOURCE: LaFleur, William R. “Chōmei as Hermit: Vimalakirti in the Hōjō-ki.” In The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan, pp. 107-15. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

In the following essay, LaFleur explores the role of the Hōjōki in the development of Mahayana Buddhism.

Should storms, as may well happen,           Drive you to anchor a week In some old harbour-city           Of Ionia, then speak With her witty scholars, men Who have proved there cannot be           Such a place as Atlantis:           Learn their logic, but notice How its subtlety betrays           Their enormous simple grief; Thus they shall teach you the ways           To doubt that you may believe. 

—W. H. Auden, Atlantis

There is much more than meets the eye in the concluding section of the great classic the Hōjō-ki when its author, Kamo no Chōmei, says of...