“Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet flare to Judgement Day –”’
He broke off. ‘That’s those Christian bigots who destroy childhood with their threats of Hell fire. I’ll give you a story of mine about that to read some day.’ He went on:
‘“Be gentle when the heathen pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!
To him the Way, the Law, Apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart
Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat
The Buddha of Kamakura.”
You see, a quite different tradition: closer to the mother, to that human love.’
Carrie laid her cheek against his. Her husband went on:
‘“For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura;”
The blind arrogance. Worship for any but their own god a sin, imagine! And they’d be amazed an
