Ponder the existence of yourself before your father and mother was born.

Later in the evening, I came to Hakata, the central city in my mother's native area of northern Kyushu.

Although I am a frequent visitor to the city, I feel as if I have never been able to have enough of it. I am always in search of something, unconsciously and consciously, and yet do not know what it is that I am actually searching for. It can be vaguely described as the scent of something distant, soft, warm, which embraces me gently, and takes me back to my infant days, or even before that.

The great writer Soseki Natsume once attended a Zen session at a temple. During his stay, he was presented with a Zen enigma: Ponder the existence of yourself before your father and mother was born. Soseki was very impressed by this enigma and writes about it in one of his novels.

Visiting Hakata, I might have always been in search of something akin to this famous Zen Enigma. Ponder the existence of yourself before your father and mother was born. Since the question is an intractable one, I am ever wandering, looking for the answer in vain.