Goto’s Buddhist-student status

Tadamasa Goto’s Buddhist-student status is defined by a striking uncertainty: on April 8, 2009, he took Buddhist vows at a temple in Kanagawa and began studying to become a priest, but the narrator cannot tell whether the commitment reflects faith, strategy, fear, or remorse. The act arrives after Goto has lost power and while he still faces legal jeopardy. Rather than resolving the question of whether he has changed, the vows expose the difficulty of separating genuine repentance from self-preservation—and leave the narrator measuring Goto’s possible transformation against his own ideas of responsibility.

The Vows and Their Circumstances

The account gives the act a precise date and setting. At a temple in Kanagawa on April 8, 2009, Goto took Buddhist vows and began studying toward priesthood. The distinction matters: he had started a course of study, not completed it or become a priest. The narrative records a change in direction without claiming that the change had reached its intended destination.

Nor does the narrator present the vows as a clean break with Goto’s previous life. Goto was still facing another trial, and the narrator suggests that the prospect of appearing before a judge could make religious practice useful to him. He also reports a rumor that senior figures in the Yamaguchi-gumi had placed a contract on Goto because he knew too much and had a history of dealing with police. These pressures make the timing consequential: the vows take place amid legal exposure and a reported threat to Goto’s life, not outside them.

The narrator imagines more than one possible calculation. Goto might hope that becoming a Buddhist priest would make an attack on him look bad; he might also hope religious practice could protect him as effectively as a bulletproof vest. These are expressly presented as possibilities, not established motives. The passage also leaves room for a less calculating explanation: now that Goto has been stripped of power and lives in fear of death, he may regret the way he has lived. The account offers no decisive evidence that settles the matter.

Suspicion, Offense, and Conditional Goodwill

The narrator’s first response is not uncomplicated approval. Goto’s move into religious study irritates him and seems blasphemous, particularly against the scale of the misery the narrator says Goto has caused. But his judgment does not harden into a claim that repentance is impossible. If Goto truly feels guilt and is sincerely trying to repent, the narrator says he wishes him well. That conditional goodwill preserves the uncertainty at the center of the episode: the possibility of change is acknowledged, but it is not confused with proof that change has occurred.

The narrator’s treatment of the reported danger is similarly unresolved. The rumored contract could help explain why religious status might appear useful, while Goto’s fear and loss of power could also make his turn toward Buddhism more than a public-relations calculation. Neither explanation cancels the other. The narrative supplies a set of pressures and competing interpretations rather than a revealed inner motive, so the vows remain an action whose meaning must be judged against what Goto does afterward—a future the account does not establish.

The Narrator’s Own Measure of Atonement

Goto’s vows prompt the narrator to compare their religious paths. He had once considered becoming a Buddhist priest and, while living in a temple, tried to avoid smoking and drinking and to follow the Noble Path. He says he was not very good at it. This recollection prevents him from treating religious aspiration as something that belongs only to Goto: both men had approached Buddhism as amateurs, though the narrator remains uncertain about the sincerity and purpose behind Goto’s choice.

The narrator reads Buddhist sutras without converting and does not believe in karma or reincarnation. He would like to believe that evil is punished, goodness rewarded, love defeats hatred, truth defeats lies, and people receive what they deserve; his view of the world, however, does not confirm that moral order. This skepticism sharpens rather than dissolves the question raised by Goto’s vows. Religious language cannot guarantee that justice has been done, and a new identity cannot by itself establish that past conduct has been repaired.

For the narrator, atonement requires action. He reflects that saying sorry is not enough and that doing wrong must be answered by doing right; there is no simple exemption from consequences. That standard helps explain why Goto’s study toward priesthood moves him without persuading him. The vows may signal a wish to change, but, on the narrator’s terms, the decisive test lies in what follows the declaration.

Scripture and the Unsettled Ending

The narrator finds some comfort in sacred texts even without accepting their supernatural claims. He especially values the Hokukyo, a collection of Buddhist sayings, and imagines Goto encountering it if he seriously continues studying the Noble Path. The narrator identifies passages he would want to draw to Goto’s attention: “All beings quiver before violence” and “All beings fear death.” The sayings connect the immediate rumor of danger around Goto to a more general recognition of vulnerability; they do not resolve whether his vows are sincere or whether Buddhism will change his conduct.

The episode therefore ends not with Goto’s repentance confirmed, but with a measured openness. The narrator is irritated by what may be an expedient use of religion, yet unwilling to deny the possibility of a guilty conscience. His own history of trying, and failing, to follow a religious path makes that uncertainty more than an accusation directed outward. Goto’s Buddhist study remains unfinished in both senses: he has only begun the path toward priesthood, and the account leaves the moral meaning of that beginning unsettled.