The Misfortune Teller ("Computer-Assisted Sutra Recitation Practice")

At the invitation of Jim Hodgkin, a colleague at the Hughes Aircraft Comapny in Fullerton, California, I joined the Risshō Kōsei Kai Lay Buddhist Association in 1992 because I wanted to use some of the Japanese language that I had studied years before in college. As well, it occured to me that learning to recite excerpts from the Lotus Sutra in Japanese would help me understand and appreciate something important about the culture and religion of Japan. At first, I began reciting selected extracts from the Sutra using a "romanized" version of the Japanese prayer-book, or Kyōden (経典), which contained an accompanying English translation. After about a year of concentrated practice, I had memorized the sounds of the Kyōden's Japanese pronunciation. Thereafter, I switched to reading the Japanese version of the Kyōden which indicated Japanese pronunciation through the use of small "furigana" (ふりがな) symbols placed alonside the vertically written Japanese characters. I knew these symbols from my previous study of Japanese so they caused me no difficulty. After another two years, I found that I could actually read most of the Japanese text for meaning as well as sound.
Then I learned that the Japanese-speaking members of Risshō Kōsei Kai read the entire sutra over the course of a month's time, covering a certain number of pages each day during their morning and evening recitations at home. Determined to expand my own reading ability, I obtained a copy of the Japanese version of the Sutra, but found the size of the printed Japanese characters and furigana pronunciation symbols too small for me to read comfortably. So I set out to see if I could find a copy of the Sutra on computer diskette: one that I could read into my own computer and print out using a larger type-size.

As things turned out, I visited the Tōkyō headquarters of Risshō Kōsei Kai in 1995 and asked the staff if they had the Sutra on computer diskette. They said that they did and helpfully provided me with a diskette copy extracted from a word-processing machine (ワプロ) labeled as follows:　

訓読法華三部経(平楽寺版)
Kundoku Threefold Lotus Sutra
(Heiraku-ji ban)
Windows, csv

The staff also gave me a copy of a “Romanized” pronunciation text of the Threefold Lotus Sutra entitled:

Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, Narabi Ni Kai-Ketsu
Edited by Risshō Kōsei Kai
Tōkyō: Hinode Printing Company (1970)

When I read the diskette into my computer, however, I discovered that the word-processing machine had used the simplified post-war Japanese characters called "Tōyō Kanji" (当用漢字) and not the more complex pre-war Chinese characters called "Kyū Kanji" (旧漢字) used in writing the Risshō Kōsei Kai version of the Sutra. Furthermore, the diskette contained none of the Japanese furigana pronunciation symbols, either. It soon became clear to me that I had an significantly incomplete version of the Japanese text: one with a great many of the traditional Chinese characters either missing entirely or with simplified post-war characters substituted for them. All this missing or incorrect information I would have to supply or correct myself. The prospect seemed daunting, to say the least. Nonetheless, the staff of Risshō Kōsei Kai headquarters had done their best to help me, and I felt too embarrassed to go back and ask for further assistance. So I made up my mind to produce a pronunciation guide to the Japanese version of the Lotus Sutra, using the materials that I had in hand or could acquire in time. What I eventually did in order to meet this challenge would make a long and technical story, but suffice it to say that seventeen years later, here in the summer of 2012, I at last have something reasonably presentable to show for my efforts.

...

Six more years have passed since I first felt fairly satisfied with my efforts to "computerize" the Japanese version of The Threefold Lotus Sutra. I had further plans to obtain an audio recording of a complete recitation which I would then link to each of the written chapters, so that anyone who wished might listen as well as read along with native Japanese speakers as I had done so many times over so many years in so many Japanese branch-churches in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and the USA. I wanted to present my completed project to Jim Hodgkin as a testament to the great respect and affection I felt for this gifted, generous man who had so inspired me with his personal example. But I retired to live in southern Taiwan (my wife Carol's home country) and developed an interest in poetry and sculpture, since the local Rissho Kosei Kai churches in Tainan and Taipei recite the sutra in Taiwanese and I feel too old to learn yet another language. At any rate, Time and Age have taken Jim Hodgkin from us, here in July of 2018, and he will never know now everything that this project might have achieved had I only worked harder at it for just a few more years. I hope and trust that his Bodhisattva spirit will forgive me my inadequacies in the realization that he gave me much of value to think about and do over these past twenty-six years since first we met "by chance" at a co-worker's retirement party in southern California in 1992. He has earned his eternal rest in Peace, along with his beloved wife, Chako, and I will cherish his memory every day that remains of my own little life here on Earth.