Meeting Tamo-san

Beyond Enlightenment

When speaking of consciousness, of enlightened beings – of those who pass, and have passed, through this planet like comets of beauty, light and teaching – I cannot leave out a remarkable meeting I witnessed: Osho and Tamo-san.

I was in Pune, in the Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, within the ashram – the place where Osho would meet his disciples, deliver discourses, guide meditations, or simply sit in silence and share his presence. The silent gatherings were known as satsangs – a term that may be loosely translated as ‘meeting with truth’ or ‘experiencing truth’, as it is manifested by enlightened Masters.

It was the year 1989, to be precise, on 29 November.

I was attending the Evening Meeting when something unusual happened. At the beginning of the satsang a woman stood up, and Osho began to shower rose petals over her. She remained standing there, receiving the rain of roses, and was then given a book – The Zen Manifesto – with a handwritten dedication:

“Ryoju Tamo, I, Osho Rajneesh, as a buddha in my own right, recognise and rejoice in your enlightenment. I know, and you must be knowing, that there is one step further – going beyond enlightenment, and being nothing.”

Tamo-san – as the Reverend Ryoju Kikuchi was known, then aged 83 – had come to visit Osho. From what I heard, she explained that he was very important for the planet, and that she had come to support him. She is said to have remarked: “I have come to give my energy to him so that his strength may return. He can bring about a great change on this planet, and I want to be sure he stays healthy.”

Some time later, after Osho left his body on 19 January 1990, I received an invitation to go and live and work in Japan. At that time, many of Osho’s disciples would visit Tamo-san at her home in Kamakura, a town near Tokyo.

I visited her many times. Here is an account of my first visit, originally published in the Brazilian edition of Osho Times in May 1991.

The Land of the Rising Sun:
A Visit to Tamo-san

A Sunday afternoon – early afternoon, mid-autumn. The leaves are already falling from the trees. Many have red leaves before they fall. It is a spectacle of yellow, green and red.

We leave the train station of Enoshima. There is a map on a board outside the station. Our reference point is a temple, and we easily locate it on the map. We walk for about ten minutes until we reach what looks like a gateway arch at the entrance to a house. There is an inscription in Japanese.

“I think this is it – let me check the address,” says Chandree, the Japanese woman accompanying me.

It’s the right place. We enter the front courtyard of the house and walk a few metres. I look around and see a beautiful garden with large trees. We reach the entrance to the house, and Chandree calls out, “Gomen kudasai,” a traditional greeting, announcing one’s arrival. The visit had been arranged by telephone.

A woman appears at the door. The house is enormous. We are invited in. As in any Japanese home we leave our shoes at the entrance. I look at the position of the shoes – they are all neatly arranged, facing the same direction, in both corners of the entrance.

I say to myself: “Blimey, people really pay attention to how they place their shoes.” So, I tidy up the way I have left my comfortable ‘tai-chi’ shoes too.

We enter the house. A spacious hall. At the far end, a sort of temple altar, with various icons. To the left, I can see the entrance to a small room, where a few people are chatting.

I know, from the start, that this will not be an ordinary visit. I am visiting a Buddha, an enlightened being. A mixture of excitement, curiosity and joy takes hold of my emotions.

We are led to the back of the hall. At the altar we are shown how to light an incense stick, place it on top of a small box and strike the bell three times. We sit down, or rather, kneel. Chandree lights her incense, places it on the box and rings the bell – quickly.

I – clumsy as I am and not knowing where to put my coat – struggle to light the incense as all the matches keep going out. I place a stick of incense on the small box; the incense breaks. I now place both pieces on the box and ring the bell once. I remember Osho talking about the relationship between the sound of the bell and silence; I ring it, hear the bell, ring it again, softly, and then twice more…

We sit in silence. We wait a while, I close my eyes, open my eyes, close my eyes. We are called into a small room I had spotted when entering the house. There, seated on the floor at the end of a low table, is Tamo-san. I bow in the traditional Japanese way.

We are invited to sit down and are offered persimmons, cut into small pieces on a little plate. I look around; everything is so beautiful, so clean, so bright in that place. The room opens onto the garden, a lovely garden.

Tamo-san is sitting there. She is more beautiful than in the photo I have seen before. Eyes like Osho’s – that feeling of seeing everything at once, of seeing something that is not and yet is of this world. Her face is radiant, luminous, something I cannot quite put into words.

I look at the people around me. There are three others, besides Tamo-san, Chandree and me. There is a man dressed all in black – middle-aged, with a serious face – another with a friendlier face and a young woman of 25 or 30 – all Japanese.

Tamo-san is speaking, looking most of the time at the man in black… I don’t like him; he reminds me of a vulture. I try to put aside my judgements and look at him as a human being, as Tamo-san seems to do.

Tamo-san speaks mostly with her eyes closed, then starts reading from a piece of paper; it looks like a letter. Everyone watches her. She speaks in Japanese; I keep my eyes closed, listening to Tamo-san’s voice. The birds are singing in the garden. But it’s hard to keep my eyes closed; Tamo-san is a sight to behold.

Tamo-san finishes reading the letter and begins to sing. A friend – Abhivandan – had been here before and told me that she likes to sing. Sounds of nature.

She begins to sing. I close my eyes. The sound is unlike anything I have ever heard. It vaguely resembles Indian music. But any comparison falls short. She sings for a while, then stops and starts speaking again. There is a small box in front of her, full of slips of papers; she takes one out, speaks, reads, speaks.

Chandree, from time to time, translates for me. Tamo-san speaks of how everything is profoundly beautiful – how everything is complete – how we already have all that we need.

She speaks of the snake, the slug and the frog. She says that the slug crawls over the snake, leaving a trail. That the slug’s trail melts the snake’s skin, killing it. She speaks of the slug’s strength; she says that the snake eats the frog and the frog eats the slug. The circle closes; the balance of nature.

Tamo-san speaks of the immense beauty of nature. She speaks of a time when long ago she used to live on a mountain with her husband. She says the natural surroundings there were extremely beautiful. That she would wake up at sunrise and go to sleep at sunset – there was no electricity. That she fed on what nature had to offer them there.

She speaks almost the whole time with her eyes closed. Then she explains to the man in black, and to the others, how they should go about catching the return train, which line, and so on. The face of the man in black, which was stern at first, has softened. His face is now more relaxed, more at ease.

In the midst of the conversation and the music, Tamo-san looks at me and Chandree. One of those present asks if I speak Japanese. Tamo-san asks where I’m from, and they all smile when I reply, “Bradiru” (Brazil).

Tamo-san sings another song. It includes the word “utsukushi”, which in Japanese means “beautiful, lovely, pretty”. The second song has no words.

“Utsukushi”, “utsukushi” …with my eyes closed, I just listen to the melody, a different kind of song, full of magic. Nothing is missing at this moment.

Gradually, the others get up and leave; I remain, as does Chandree. Tamo-san accompanies the people to the door of the big house. I like the idea of staying on; Tamo-san might come back and stay with us.

She does come back, offers us more persimmons, some Japanese sweets and water. She says that water is the best drink to offer, that she only drinks water. That she doesn’t like heaters or air conditioning.

Again she says that nature is perfect. She speaks of the trees in her garden. She says that – while looking at the trees, especially a large tree out there – that she was thinking: “This tree keeps growing ever taller; it must have very deep roots; it must reach an underground water source.” This is how she had discovered and dug a well, which she uses for drinking and to offer to those who come to visit her.

Tamo-san asks how long I have been in Japan. They explain that I have been there for six months and am saving money to return to Pune in India. She then says I shouldn’t worry about money, that I should just look for a beautiful place, close to nature.

I feel like a child; every time I look at her, I feel like laughing with her. Tamo-san laughs a lot, talks, laughs, closes her eyes; she gives the impression of being very happy.

I say the word and sing the first line of the song “utsukushi” and Tamo-san starts singing “utsukushi” again. I close my eyes, Tamo-san and Chandree do too.

Three more young people arrive. One of them seems to know Tamo-san and is completely at ease. He comes with a couple; the other lad is quite shy, not knowing what to do with himself.

The shy lad has some questions, which are relayed by the other man. Tamo-san starts talking and the shy lad becomes more relaxed, more at ease.

I keep opening my eyes, closing my eyes, as if wanting to savour every second of this encounter of pure delight – such a rare gift.

Time is passing; we’ve been here for over two hours. We should be leaving, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else but stay here. But it has been so wonderful; it has been a marvellous afternoon, in the presence of a beautiful human being, simple and natural, like that of Tamo-san’s.

I discover: she is 83 years old…

We wait for her to finish speaking, then we mention that we are leaving. She tells Chandree to take some sweets from the plate. Chandree takes two. Tamo-san says, “No, take more, take more, take plenty.” I burst out laughing.

We make our way to the front door; Tamo-san escorts us.

Before leaving, I stand in front of Tamo-san, not quite sure what to do. Tamo-san takes the coat from my hands and lays it on the tatami floor. She asks me to give her both my hands and says, “Our hands will speak now.” We are holding hands. There are no thoughts. Tamo-san says that from now on I will be her son. She says, “Now I am inside you and you are inside me.” Then she gives me a tight hug.

Tamo-san says she is a lucky person – that only good people come to see her.

I look into her eyes; pure love. I am swamped by this love.

I put on my shoes and am about to leave when she calls me back – I’d dropped a newspaper from my coat pocket. We walk across the courtyard; I look back, and she is there, watching us. I wave frantically at her. She waves back enthusiastically.

I walk towards the gate, feeling completely fulfilled.

We walk all the way to the train station laughing, Chandree telling me more of what Tamo-san had said – about the beauty of the planet, of this world, of when she lived in the mountains, of when she once had trouble with the police because people came to her and left with peace in their hearts – Japan was then at war and ‘peace’ was a subversive word – so she was forced to leave the mountains. She said she owns a piece of land, also in the mountains, which would not be used by humans, that it was only for the animals, the birds, the plants. She spoke of man’s negative mind, which is destroying everything.

And so we took the train and returned home.

My heart was full. I wanted to express my gratitude to Tamo-san. But what could I say to her? What could I give her? She was already so full of happiness, so complete; she didn’t need anything.

I thought of writing to her, but words are so, so inadequate. My heart was overflowing; what could I do?

I looked at my guitar, picked it up, played an A minor chord – one of the few I know – and began to strum. These words came: “light, light, light, light…” The G chord came in with another word: “luminous”. Then the D chord came with another word: “nature”.

Light – Luminous – Nature

Two days have passed since that Sunday and, along with this account, which I’m going to send to a few people, I’m going to write a card to Tamo-san in which I will mention the song and ask her if she’d like to hear it…

I never received a reply. But this encounter – and the others that followed – I will never forget. One day, I will tell you about those as well.

Translated from Portuguese by Osho News

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• A Visit from the East – Veena remembers Tamo San’s visit to Pune and her own visit to her house in Japan
• The Waterfall – Punya and Madhuri share their memories of Tamo-san
• The Last Judgement and Turning Point – Tamo-san, a Buddhist priestess and seeress, visited Pune in 1989 and met with Osho in Buddha Hall. Osho showered rose petals on her (video)
• Bio PDF: www.iii.ne.jp