someone else’s experience, they unfortunately can never help the toryō, only his own experiences can be of help to him, he must always try everything out for himself, of course, before he actually becomes a toryō, because then he cannot try anything out any more, just think about it, a toryō cannot make a mistake, if a drawing is not executed correctly on the tree trunk there will be huge problems, because then you might as well just toss out the entire tree, but you can’t just throw out a hinoki like that, they had seen already, at the Misoma-Hajime-sai, what a tree goes through by the time it gets here, you can’t be tossing them out just like that, every single hinoki is a soul, and this soul must be dealt with very carefully, firmly, very carefully, and because of that a toryō cannot make a mistake, more precisely he may never make a mistake, he gazed again into their eyes, then after a brief pause spoke about how in the first place everything has to be there in his head and in his heart, then he has to measure very precisely, look at the drawing plans continuously, and only after that carry out his sumi-zuke, that is the drawing on the tree trunk; ink, every toryō uses a special ink, of course he did as well, and still even with all that, it is not certain that all will be well, because it can happen that the daiku may not cut according to the drawing, meaning that, he explained, he may not cut with hairsbreadth accuracy along the line, then the problem is just as huge, and this can happen in principle, but in reality it never happens, because a daiku never makes mistakes, everyone here, every one of his colleagues had been through the most outstanding training, all of them, nearly all of them could be a toryō, at the very least all of the older ones could, unconditionally, everyone here understood every single phase of work to that degree, but there is no stampede, he laughed, lest they might think that in front of the door, where the selection of the toryō is taking place, there would be some kind of major fisticuffs, to be a toryō is a great, a very great responsibility, one is not only a toryō by day, but by night as well, when he is asleep, even then, he has no family, no amusements, no rest, no illnesses, no holidays, entirely up until the point that the Shikinen Sengū is fully completed, he said; then again he returned to the explanation of the drawing, so that they would understand his words without fail, accordingly the drawing, I look at the drawing, I look at it continuously, and I only draw on the basis of that, but I don’t draw without a drawing plan right away, because then I can make a mistake, and if I make a mistake, it will not be possible to fix, to look at the drawing plan, measure accurately, and to draw accurately, it is only possible like that, and that was exactly what he did, and what he had not mentioned as of yet, he raised his index finger again, was the eye, because the eye has a huge role to play when using a tool, to see if everything is going well, and if the result is good, this must be examined with the eye, it wasn’t like in Europe where some kind of tool was used for that; but the eye, and then — he lent forward above the table toward the guests — the tools, the toryō always makes his own tools, for example, he inspects the tree and he makes the tools for that tree, yes, he makes his own tools as well, every single one by himself, even if he is working on something at home, he still always does this, then for the Shikinen Sengū it will be particularly so, because it is only worthwhile working with such tools that are really meant for the given raw wood, it is clear when the raw wood is there, you just have to look, and a person sees what kind of tree it is, and then how he can make the tools for it, but machine tools are used as well, he says, because they don’t look at whether the tool is new or old, but instead which is the most perfect to work with, he will show them later — he gestured to somewhere behind his back — how it all works; of course, mechanical tools, these are only used in the arabori phase, that is with the raw wood, not for the fine work; then it is time for the hand tools, and well there are no changes, no changes whatsoever, they do everything exactly the same as they did for the 70th Shikinen Sengū, and that was just like the 69th, say the older toryōs and so forth, going back to the very old times, and as to whether the new shrine is similar to the old one or is the same? he repeated the question, well, this seems like a difficult question, but it isn’t difficult, because the answer is simple, that is, the new building is the same as the old one, and as to why this is so, it is because the deity who resides there, Amaterasu Ōmikami, is the same, it is as simple as that, and that is how you must think of it, because even though the whole thing is rebuilt again, and the Three Treasures re-created for every Shikinen Sengū, nothing ever changes, everything remains the same, you know — the toryō leaned again toward them above the table, with a gay expression — if I go over to one shrine or another to pray, already I can sense from the scent of the hinoki that everything is the same, and it is that way with me in life as well, the toryō nodded, his audience nodding in agreement, I think about it, and I feel that everything is the same, well that is what it is like, that is how I think, and that is how my master also thought, and the toryō before him as well, but now, the Western friend interrupted him, let’s talk about the last day, what happens then; well, that too is very simple, the toryō spread his hands apart, because it goes like this, when all the materials are ready and beautiful, and the drying of the wood is as it should be, then the entire shrine is built, everything, but everything is built, assembled together, to see if it fits, if it is accurate, if it is correct, but all of this of course takes place within the workshop, and continuously, in the workshop, yes, because only human work can take place there; outside at the kodenchi, on the great day of the Shikinen Sengū, when they assemble the whole thing, there the work of the deities takes place, after that everything stands empty for one month, then it is tidied up for the last time and decorated, this however is the work of the priests, as is the final ceremony as well, before the sengyo, when they bring the deity from the old shrine, and then the people come, countless people come from all over Japan, and everyone prays, well it’s like that, but if you’d like, said the toryō, I can enumerate again the whole thing from the beginning, that it all starts outside in the sacred forest of the Jingū Shicho, but you saw that in Akasawa: there we select the trees, that is the seizai, then comes the first drawing, the rough sketch, that is the sumi-kaki, this is followed by the drying process, which is followed by the kannabai, that is the mechanical planing, then there is another sumi-kaki, then they take, he explained patiently, the entire thing, all of the trees into the workshop, that is the individual tree trunks are divided up among the various storerooms — there are eight such storerooms here on the grounds of the workshop, four of them for Naikū, four of them for Gekū — so, there in the individual storerooms the toryō, that is to say myself, he pointed to himself, draws the sumi-zuke on the tree trunk, so I could say, he says, that I sumi-zukize them, then there is the drying, and then the daikus try to put together the individual shrines in the workshop, and they keep them all there, built, then comes the next, and they build that one, they keep that one, and then comes the next one, and so on, but then the Jingū Shicho issues a deadline, so they take them all apart, and they take them out to the grounds of Naikū and Gekū, and there they are constructed for the last time, things proceed in such a beautiful orderly manner during the Shikinen Sengū, the toryō lowered his voice, then he looked up at the wall clock, exactly one hour had gone by, and he said, one cannot work without a good heart, it was godly work that he was doing, therefore the chief mandate for him was that he must not be preoccupied with anything else, only with work, must not think of anything else, only work, he accordingly had to think correctly, he had to work correctly, when the guests yet asked him if the toryō’s knowledge was concealed within his soul, he reflected a little upon this last question, then — like one who had forgotten what he had been asked — he said,