The Monk Who Burned Beauty
In the pre-dawn hours of July 2, 1950, a troubled young monk named Hayashi Yoken committed an unthinkable act: he set fire to Japan's beloved Golden Pavilion. This story recounts the events of that fateful night, delving into Hayashi's obsessive mind, his complex relationship with the temple's perfect beauty, and the internal struggles that culminated in a blaze that shocked a nation. Follow the path of a man who believed that to truly possess beauty, he had to destroy it.
The Last Watch
The air of Kyoto was thick that night, a damp summer blanket that promised rain but gave none. Inside the grounds of Rokuon-ji temple, the darkness was ancient and absolute, broken only by the faint luminescence of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji, as it shimmered beside its pond. The world knew it as a symbol of perfect, unassailable beauty. For Hayashi Yoken, the 22-year-old acolyte who walked its grounds, it had become a personal hell. He was a slight figure, a stutterer from a poor provincial temple, sent to this pinnacle of Zen culture. Here, he was lost. His grades at Otani University were the worst in his class. He skipped lectures for games of Go, cheated on exams, and felt the silent judgment of the head priest. The beauty of the temple did not soothe him. It mocked him. It was a flawless object in a flawed world, a world that had made him flawed, too. The gold leaf, meant to purify all negative thoughts, only amplified his own. Every gleam, every perfect reflection in the water, was a testament to a harmony he could never attain. In the pre-dawn blackness of July 2, 1950, Hayashi moved with a purpose he had not felt in years. The temple's new fire alarm was away for repairs. He carried with him a small bundle of kindling, paper, and mosquito netting. He went to the first floor of the pavilion, to the wooden statue of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the man who had dreamed this impossible structure into being five centuries before. There, at the feet of the founder, he struck a match.