Japanese Literature

About the Topic

Have you ever had a moment like this—

on a quiet evening, suddenly considering questions with no answer?

Why do we live?

What counts as true happiness?

Night on the Galactic Railroad occupies a distinctive place in Japanese literature.

Rather than pursue answers through conventional narrative, it quietly places questions of life and death before the reader.

On first reading, I was drawn to its images: stars, a train, a faint loneliness. On returning to it, I began to see its reserve and unspoken spaces as part of a wider Japanese literary sensibility.

While studying in Japan, I researched Kenji Miyazawa. I was surprised by the intertwining of Buddhist and Christian thought in his work.

It seems less a search for one final answer than a continuing question—

how can we live if there is no answer?

Especially when it comes to sacrificing oneself for others.

Japanese literature often portrays this quietly and resolutely, yet in life it becomes much less clear.

I have always been quick to please others. I once thought that giving to them was a way to make myself valuable.

Gradually, I began to wonder—

this giving of oneself,

is it kindness,

or another form of dependence and constraint?

In an age that increasingly emphasizes loving oneself,

the question feels more pointed.

I do not intend to offer answers in this session.

I would like to use a work of Japanese literature

to consider its particular ways of expression,

and the questions it leaves unfinished.

Perhaps we will still have no answer,

but we may better understand

the small measure of happiness we have now,

and what it means.