Underground (48 page)

Before this, people said that sarin had been released inside the Kamikuishiki facilities and that we were under some kind of poison gas attack. Actually I thought it might be true, the reason being that a lot of people around me fell ill, including me. Blood came out of my lungs and mouth. I felt so bad there were times I was sick in bed. Later bloody phlegm came out, I had a headache, nausea, and I got tired easily. So I was convinced poison gas had been released. Otherwise so many people wouldn’t get sick at the same time. It had never happened before.

I was shocked when the police raided us. We hadn’t done anything wrong—it was too one-sided to label us as evil. They raided Satyam No. 6 as well. The places where we prepared the offerings were all searched, and they put a halt to our cooking, so we couldn’t distribute meals to the
samana
. Everyone was forced to fast for a while. The police were frightening. I saw people being beaten up. They were sent flying and got concussion.

MURAKAMI:
You were in Satyam No. 6 around the time of the incident. Didn’t you notice anything out of the ordinary going on?

No. I spent every waking moment preparing offerings. I didn’t see or hear anything unusual. Work kept us busy, and we didn’t get out much, so we didn’t know what was going on elsewhere. The friends I talked to most were the girls I worked with.

MURAKAMI:
Those who carried out the attack have been arrested and have begun to confess. It is obvious now that Aum was involved. What are your feelings about that?

I heard almost nothing about it. I was living in a remote mountain village. No TV or newspapers, so I had little idea what was going on.

If you wanted to hear the news that much you could get hold of it. I just wasn’t interested. I didn’t think Aum had anything to do with it.

The next year, though, I began to have doubts, when they started to talk about enforcing the Anti-Subversive Activities Law. If that law was enforced all my colleagues would be scattered, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my training, and it would mean the end of the sheltered environment I’d been living in. I’d have to go out and support myself. That frightened me.

MURAKAMI:
But a year and a half after the incident you still had no idea Aum had done it?

That’s right. I had no suspicions, and neither did anyone else I knew. Almost everybody in Satyam No. 6 was cut off from the outside world. There was no data coming in.

In the end the number of
samana
had declined greatly. One by one, people left. Even so, if you left all of a sudden and didn’t have some means of support, you couldn’t live. You have to have something—a part-time job, even—otherwise how can you pay your rent?
Samana
only receive a small amount of money they’re given each month. People left one after the other. I was just about the last one,
like a comb with some of the teeth missing. It got lonely. On November 1, 1996, we were ordered to vacate the Kamikuishiki facilities.

I moved to Saitama, where about ten Aum members were living. Our landlord was open-minded and said he didn’t mind renting to Aum people. Admittedly the place we rented—a kind of office building—was only half finished and no one else would rent it. Everyone worked at part-time jobs so we would have enough to live on and could support the children and old people.

I thought I’d put my experience preparing offerings at Satyam No. 6 to good use and open a bakery on the first floor of our building. My parents offered to put up the capital.

MURAKAMI:
Pretty understanding parents
.

Yes. They are understanding
[laughs]
. And that’s how I came to run a bakery. At first we gave it a cute name—“The Flying Bakers”—but the media found out about it. When we registered the business, newspaper and magazine reporters suddenly burst on the scene. The city hall must have leaked the information to the media. Anyway the name of our store came out and was shown on TV. Thanks to which our main customers refused to do business with us anymore. “It’s a store run by Aum followers,” they said.

Ordinary customers wouldn’t buy from us either. We tried to sell over the Internet, but since the name was already known the orders were all canceled. We tried doing business under a new name, but things didn’t go smoothly. Our business customers would transport our goods for us, only to be stopped by the police. “What are you doing there?” the police would ask them. “Don’t you realize that store’s run by Aum members?” We thought about trying to sell our goods elsewhere, but we knew the police would follow us and interfere, so there was no way we could make a living doing that.

Now we sell bread to
samana
and other followers. We bake it twice a week and deliver it ourselves. Somehow we’re able to make ends meet. We don’t sell to outsiders at all.

The police still hang around outside our store. If people are about to go in, they stop them and check their ID, then warn them that the shop is run by Aum. I suppose they have to make a show of actually doing something. Sometimes the police ask for bread and we give them some. When they ask for more we tell them to pay for it.

Sometimes we take cakes we’ve baked to people in the neighborhood and chat. They say things like, “We were afraid you people were up to no good, but it seems like you really are baking bread and cookies.” The media’s influence at work.

MURAKAMI:
After you left the satyam and started living in society what were your thoughts on the gas attack, the incident with the lawyer, Mr. Sakamoto, and so on? The majority of people are convinced Aum Shinrikyo was involved
.

Well, it’s pretty difficult for me to put my thoughts in order since there’s such a huge gap between the Aum I experienced and the picture of Aum outsiders have. I’ve begun to think that maybe what people are saying about these incidents is true, but the testimonies at the trials seem to change all the time. I’m still confused about what’s true and what isn’t.

MURAKAMI:
Details in testimonies—like who said what to whom and when—have changed, but the fact remains that those five Aum leaders released sarin on the subway in order to indiscriminately kill commuters. What I’m after is your opinion about the attack itself. I’m not criticizing you as an individual, I merely want to know what you think
.

Well—I just can’t believe it, or comprehend it. When I was living as a renunciate I never once killed anything—not a single cockroach or mosquito. I’ve practiced that always, and so has everyone else I know. So it’s hard for me to believe this could happen.

I learned about Vajrayana Tantra in sermons, but I never thought it had anything to do with reality. I didn’t base my actions on it or anything.

For me my guru was someone who would help me when I had problems during my training. That’s how I understood it—and in that sense a guru was an important person for me.

MURAKAMI:
Was he an absolute presence for you, someone you were absolutely devoted to?

Absolute? … Hmm … Of course the Founder has asked me at times, “Are you able to do this?” but in those cases I used my own judgment and sometimes replied that it would be a little difficult for me to do. I didn’t just say “Yes” to everything, and the same holds true of others I knew. So my impression isn’t that of some absolute presence. Though that’s the image the media has latched on to.

Everyone’s different. I’m sure there were yes-men who did everything they were told, but there were lots of people who had their own ideas and acted accordingly.

MURAKAMI:
What if you were in that situation—you saw the Master as an absolute guru, believed he was the only one capable of leading you, and he told you: “Do it”?

Even the people who carried out the gas attack—and I’ve seen this with my own eyes—are people with a strong sense of Self. They are people who have their own opinions and are not slow to speak up in front of others. So I have trouble with your assumptions here. When I think about the way those people were when I knew them, I just can’t imagine them doing it. If I actually saw them carrying out the attack, then maybe I’d believe it, but since I’ve seen and heard so much that contradicts what people say, I can’t shake the doubts I have that they really carried out these attacks.

When I watch the Founder’s trial, there are too many gray areas as far as I’m concerned, so I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude. At this stage I feel I can’t judge anything until the Founder clarifies things. As his lawyer has put it, it’s still not been proved that he actually ordered this to be done.

MURAKAMI:
So you’ll reserve judgment until it’s all over?

I’m not saying there’s no way he did it, but at this stage it’s too early to decide. I won’t be convinced until all the facts are on the table.

MURAKAMI:
You said your parents put up the money for your bakery. Do you still get along with them?

Once I attained liberation I visited my home, and I would call a few times. There was never any talk of disowning me or anything. They told me to come back whenever I could. It’s impossible for me to return to the secular world. If there was something wonderful there, something uplifting, things might change, but right now there isn’t. I could only find that in Aum Shinrikyo.

My mind did waver at times during the seven or eight years I lived in Aum. When I underwent training, it was like the impurities inside me were welling up to the surface. As you train, you go deeper inside yourself and come face-to-face with your sins, your passions, as they rise up. In ordinary society most people keep these in check by drinking or having a good time, but that’s impossible for those of
us in training. We have to confront these things and prevail. It’s very trying. Your heart does waver at times, but as the hesitation subsides you reach a point where you can reaffirm that, “Hey, I
can
continue my training.” Not once did I seriously consider going back to the secular world.

The junior high friend of mine who entered at the same time is still in Aum and continuing her training. My eldest brother, who also became a renunciate, went back home just before the gas attack. He decided to start training at home again. Hmm—maybe he lost the battle to the impurities that come out, as I said, when you’re training. If you don’t triumph over these, you’ll never reach liberation.

I didn’t like elementary school. The reason was my older brother was handicapped—autistic—and he attended a special school; kids at my elementary school teased me about this and I had a lot of bad experiences.

Since I can remember, my mother spent all her time taking care of my brother and hardly paid any attention to me, so I played alone
most of the time. I have a vivid memory of the age when I wanted attention and wasn’t able to get any. “Think of your poor brother,” is all I was told. This may have led me to hate my brother.

I was a pretty gloomy child, I suppose. What really decided this, I think, was when my brother died of hepatitis B. It was a huge shock to me. I was 14. Deep inside I’d always hoped that one day he’d be happy, that in the end he’d be saved. It was a kind of religious image. But reality wasn’t at all like I’d imagined—that the weak would someday be saved.

Around this time the book
The Nostradamus Prophecies
was popular. You know—the idea that the human race would vanish in the year 1999. This was happy news to me because I hated the world. It was unfair, and the weak would never be saved. When I thought about the limits of society, the limits of people, it made me even more depressed.

I wanted to talk to somebody about my feelings, but everyone was too busy studying, or else all they wanted to talk about was cars or baseball. I became a big fan of Katsuhiro Otomo’s
[manga]
comics, when he still wasn’t that well known. They were so real, so alive to me; the stories themselves were dark, but made me think, “You know, these kinds of things might really come true.” I often copied his work—
Sayonara Nippon, Short Peace, Boogie Woogie Waltz
, and others.