How do you start your day? What I do, for example, is pour myself a cup of coffee and take 10 minutes or so to go over my "to-do" list for the day. It helps me to not waste time and to avoid forgetting what I have to do. Anyway, as I had to arrive at my office an hour earlier than usual today, I went out before daylight.
As I had enough time on the way, I dropped in at a monument for the crew members of a submarine in the period of the Great East Asian War. It stands in a graveyard to which a narrow path leads. There are some people walking on the path in the daytime and you can't reach the graveyard by car, but there was no one in this time slot. When a submarine is attacked and sunk, its time and place seems to be unknown and no one can survive. When they can't keep in touch with the submarine for a long time, they will think that the submarine would be sunk somewhere and sometime. I prayed with my hands together in front of the monument.
The prayer at the start of the day was both my late grandfathers' daily work. They prayed for the happiness of the families to the ancestors. I found that starting a day with a prayer was really refreshing.
一日の始まりを皆さんはどう迎えますか。例えば、僕の場合は、自分でコーヒーを一杯入れてから１０分ほど掛けて、その日の『やること』リストをじっくり点検する。これにより時間の浪費や忘れ物を防止できる。今朝は訳あってまだ暗いうちに出勤となった。
通勤途中、少し時間があったので大東亜戦争時代の潜水艦乗組員の忠魂碑に立ち寄った。狭い道の先にあるので、人通りのある日中は車で近づくことが出来ないがこの時刻だとさすがに歩行者はいなかった。潜水艦が沈没するとき、その場所も時刻も不明となる。生存者は一人もいない。潜水艦としばらく連絡が取れないからどこかで撃沈されたのだろうと考えるのだそうだ。出勤前のひととき、静かに手を合わせた。
一日の始めに神仏に手を合わせるという行為、亡くなった両祖父がやっていた。ご先祖に一日の安泰を祈っていた。祈りから一日を始めるのは実に清々しいものだと気がついた。
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