THE GHOST BOAT

On Holding What Cannot Be Known

For thirty years, I have occasionally walked along a route that follows ancient stone steps down a cliff face, then follows the shoreline for a mile before climbing back to the temple grounds. It was an early November morning, when the Sea of Japan grows restless with the approach of winter.

On this particular morning, something disturbed the familiar landscape. In an inlet formed by two outcroppings of black rock, I noticed an object. At first, I thought driftwood had lodged itself between the stones which happens sometimes after storms. As I approached, I saw something unexpected. A small wooden boat, its splintered hull wedged among the rocks.

The boat was six meters long with an open deck and small cabin structure. There was extensive damage from impact on the rocks. Faded Korean characters were visible along the bow.

I realized that I was facing what we had heard about in conversations with people from nearby villages. This was a North Korean ghost boat. For years, these craft had appeared along the coast. Although many were empty, some contained the remains of fishermen who had been unable to navigate home.

As I moved closer, I could see the outline of a human form inside the small cabin. The remains must have been in the boat for many months. There were bones partially covered by the remnants of clothing.

I bowed my head briefly in silent acknowledgment. Then I turned and made my way back to the temple.

The abbot was in the main hall. After I shared what I had found, the temple moved with simple purpose. The administrative monk placed a call to the local police. Two younger monks were assigned to lead the police to the site once they arrived. The abbot called a meeting of the senior monks.

“We have all heard of these boats,” the abbot began. “Now one has found its way to our shore. While the authorities will handle the formal requirements, we must consider our own responsibilities.”

Ishida, a senior monk spoke of how the person on this vessel had completed a difficult journey. Whether he sought to leave his homeland or was lost at sea, he had arrived where we might offer some measure of peace.

Watanabe, the administrative monk, always aware of our relationship with the local community, raised practical concerns. We must be careful not to overstep. This was a matter that involved international relations. The remains would need to be examined by officials; perhaps diplomatic channels would be involved. Our role must be appropriate.

A former maritime scholar who had joined our temple in middle age countered that we could not treat this as an administrative matter. He had spent years studying the currents of this sea. For this boat to arrive here -- the odds were remarkable. The person aboard had completed a final journey to a place of Buddhist practice. This seemed worthy of acknowledgment.

The discovery of the small wooden Buddha changed everything. When the police removed the remains, they had also catalogued the contents of a canvas bag found in the cabin: a spare shirt, some fishing line, and wrapped carefully within the shirt, a smaller pouch containing the carved figure.

“This cannot be coincidence,” said Ishida, holding the police report. “A Buddhist fisherman, carried by currents across the sea, arriving at our shore.”

Watanabe set down his tea cup with deliberate precision. “You are reading meaning into random events. Ocean currents are dictated by physical laws.”

I felt the familiar tension building in the room. “May I suggest something simple,” I said. “We can have a Sōgi, a brief funeral ritual. We will chant the Heart Sutra, offer incense, and prepare a kaimyō, a Dharma name, to recognize the fisherman’s joining the Buddha’s lineage. Even if we do not know his name, we can still welcome him into stillness and light. What matters is that someone acknowledges he lived, and that he is now received. Does this trouble you?” I asked.

“What troubles me,” Watanabe replied, his voice measured but firm, “is that you are proposing to conduct funeral rites for a foreign national whose death involves international complications. This is not our responsibility.”

“He did carry a Buddha statue with him,” I said gently.

“It tells us that he owned a small carved figure,” Watanabe spoke rapidly. “Perhaps it was a gift. Perhaps it was stolen. Perhaps it meant nothing to him at all. We cannot know.”

Ishida leaned forward. “The currents that brought him here flow from the northeast, directly from the coast where these boats originate. For him to arrive precisely at our shore…”

“Is mathematically improbable but not impossible,” Watanabe interrupted. “Ocean currents are complex. Ships arrive where they arrive.”

I studied Watanabe's face. Behind his practical concerns, I sensed something deeper. “You seem particularly opposed to any form of memorial.”

“I am opposed to unnecessary complications,” he said. “We have relationships with local authorities, with the prefecture government. One misstep regarding North Korean matters and we become a news story. Our practice becomes secondary to politics.”

“So your concern is practical,” I said.

“My concern is for the temple's wellbeing. And for avoiding actions that serve our emotional needs rather than genuine wisdom.”

The words hung in the air. I felt their sting, but also their partial truth.

“You believe my desire for funeral rites serves my emotions rather than dharma?”

Watanabe's expression warmed slightly. “I believe you saw this man's remains and feel moved to honor his suffering. That impulse is compassionate. But compassion without wisdom can create harm.”

“What harm do you see in lighting incense for the dead?”

“The harm of assumption. We assume he was Buddhist because he carried a Buddha image. We assume his arrival here has significance. We assume we have the right to perform rites for someone whose beliefs and wishes we cannot know.”

“These are fair concerns,” I replied. “Yet he arrived at the rocks below our shore. The sea brought him to our coast. We happened to find him.”

“You are determined to create a meaning that may not exist,” Watanabe’s voice gained an edge. “This is not a parable. It is not a teaching story. Why must we make it about us?”

The question stopped me. I felt its force, its uncomfortable accuracy.

“Perhaps,” I said slowly, “because witness requires response. Because presence does not mean passivity.”

“True,” Watanabe agreed. “But response does not mean ceremony. We have responded with respect, with proper procedures.”

“And if acknowledgment is not enough? If the Buddha figure suggests he would have wanted rites performed?”

“Why should we imagine the desires of the dead based on a small statue discovered in a foreign boat?” Watanabe asked. “That is not wisdom. That is projection.”

The room had grown quiet under the force of his words.

“You raise meaningful questions,” I said finally. “About assumption, about authority, about our motivations.”

A middle-aged monk named Sato, who rarely spoke at meetings, cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should ask what the person himself would have wanted. We now know that he practiced  Buddhism. Was he fleeing oppression or caught in a storm? We know nothing.”

“Exactly,” said Ishida. “We know nothing. But he is here. In this place. That must mean something.”

“It means the current brought him here,” Watanabe said flatly. “Nothing more.”

The voices began to overlap. Tanaka argued for Buddhist funeral rites. Watanabe believed that non-involvement was the only appropriate response. Ishida spoke of spiritual importance.

I felt the familiar tightening that comes when good people hold incompatible truths. Each monk was right within his own understanding. Each was also incomplete.

The abbot finally raised his hand. The room quieted.

“What do you think?” he asked, looking at me.

I had been the one to find the boat. But I had no more answers than anyone else. Only questions and the reality of having seen those remains.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that we are arguing about what to do because we have not yet sat with what has already happened.”

Several monks frowned.

“A person died,” I continued. “Not in theory. Not as a political issue. A human being experienced fear, maybe hope, certainly suffering. He drifted alone on the sea until he died. Then he drifted longer until he reached our shore.”

I paused, feeling the attention in the room.

“We want to respond correctly. But perhaps we need to first receive what has arrived.”

Tanaka looked confused. “What do you mean, receive?”

“I mean to sit with the reality of what happened without immediately deciding what it means or what we should do about it.”

Watanabe shifted in his seat. “That sounds like avoiding responsibility.”

“Does it?” I asked. “Or does it sound like not rushing past the actual experience toward a solution?”

The abbot nodded slightly. “Continue.”

“Each of you sees something true,” I said. “Tanaka sees our duty to honor the dead. Watanabe sees our responsibility to act wisely within our circumstances. Ishida sees the mystery of what brought this person to us. Sato sees our ignorance about who this person was.”

I looked around the room. “Perhaps  all of these things are true at once.”

“Then what do we do?” asked Tanaka, his urgency undiminished.

“We hold them all,” I said. “We don't choose between compassion and wisdom, between meaning and mystery. We find a way that honors what each of you sees.”

The room was silent for a heartbeat.

“That sounds like compromise,” Watanabe said, but his voice had not lost its edge.

“Perhaps,” I replied. “Or perhaps it sounds like completeness.”

The abbot spoke for the first time since the discussion began. “What would that look like?”

I had no prepared answer. But as I sat with the question, something emerged.

“The authorities will handle what is theirs to handle,” I said. “That fulfills Watanabe's concern for appropriate action.”

Watanabe listened without expression.

“And we acknowledge that a human being completed his final journey to a place of Buddhist practice. We offer recognition through funeral rites. That honors Tanaka’s call for compassion.”

Tanaka was listening intently.

“We accept that we will never know why this happened or what it means beyond the fact that it occurred. That satisfies both Ishida's sense of significance and Sato's recognition of our ignorance.”

The room was still. I could hear the wind outside, the same wind that had carried the boat to our shore.

 “Incense burned,” I continued. “A chant of the Heart Sutra. An acknowledgment that someone who suffered has returned to emptiness. Nothing complicated. Just our presence.”

The meeting room had fallen into a heavy stillness. Watanabe’s jaw tightened as if to hold back a deeper current of thought. He looked toward the window, the early winter light pale against the dark wood of the hall.

“I still say no rites should be performed,” Watanabe said at last, his voice low but cutting. “We do not know what this man believed. We have no authority to decide.”

The words hung in the air like smoke. I waited, watching him.

I said gently, “Sometimes we do not need authority to see what is before us. A man has died. He carried a Buddha with him.”

“That means nothing.” Watanabe’s voice was tight. “Perhaps he stole it. Perhaps it was smuggled or planted.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And yet, it was there.”

Watanabe’s hand closed into a fist against the table, then opened. His gaze remained fixed on a point far beyond the room.

“It’s easy for you to speak of compassion,” he said, his voice lowering almost imperceptibly. “You didn’t lose anyone.”

I tilted my head slightly, waiting. His words carried a gravity he had not yet named.

Watanabe’s voice grew thinner, almost as if he spoke to himself. “My older brother was abducted by North Koreans on a beach near Niigata in 1982. My mother lit incense for him every morning, but it never brought him back.”

“I did not know,” I said gently.

I let the silence settle. The air felt heavier, the distant sound of the sea a faint murmur beneath it all.

After a breath, I spoke. “Perhaps this man, too, had someone waiting for him. Someone who will never know where he went or how he died.”

Watanabe flinched, a small motion that barely broke the stillness.

I added, “To offer a simple recognition may keep us from hardening into what we fear.”

There was a long pause. Watanabe inhaled slowly, then released the breath as if it carried something with it.

“I’m not saying I agree,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I’m saying I understand.”

The conversation that followed settled in tone. Tanaka spoke of compassion. Ishida of the sea’s strange currents.

The discussions continued for another hour, but the heat had gone out of them. Details were worked out. Concerns were addressed. Agreement emerged not through victory of one view over others, but through a recognition that the fullness of the situation required all perspectives.

The authorities documented the scene with cameras and notepads, two officers carefully examining the boat while another made phone calls from the pathway above. There was no dramatic police activity, just the efficient work of rural officers following protocol for what had become, unfortunately, a familiar procedure in some coastal regions.

They removed the remains, making the difficult ascent up the cliff stairs. They asked questions, recorded answers, and created an official account of what had happened before placing a simple notice on the boat indicating it was under investigation.

No public announcement was made, no local residents were involved. The complex history between Japan and North Korea made this a matter we approached with care.

In the weeks that followed, we learned fragments about the vessel and its occupant through conversations with the local police. The boat matched the design of those used by North Korea's state-controlled fishing fleets, vessels sent increasingly far from shore as government quotas increased despite depleted coastal stocks. The remains were those of a man, though little else could be determined with certainty given their condition after months at sea.

No identification was found. The cause of death was officially listed as unknown, although exposure and dehydration were the likely factors. After examination, the remains would be cremated and stored according to Japanese legal procedures for unidentified persons.

A few weeks after my discovery, when the authorities had concluded their investigation and had not yet dismantled the vessel, I walked again along that same rocky shore. The boat was still there, though now weathered further by winter storms. I thought about the fisherman. No family would claim him. No country would want him.

The wind tugged at my robe. I felt the cold on my skin.

I thought about the conversation in the meeting hall. How quickly we had moved to positions, to arguments about what should be done. How the reality of the person's death had almost been lost in our need to respond.

But something had shifted when we stopped trying to solve the problem and started receiving what had actually happened. The tension in the room had changed. Not because anyone had won or lost an argument, but because the fullness of the situation had been allowed to breathe.

We are all shaped by the cultures into which we are born. The language we speak, the rituals we follow, the stories we inherit shape our days, our hopes, and our sense of who we are. They tell us what is proper, what is shameful, what is worth living for.

I was born into such a story. A small fishing village in Shakotan on the west coast of Hokkaido. A family that fished, that ate simple food, that spoke in quiet voices. Later, the monastery, an unbroken lineage stretching back more than a thousand years. The robes I wear, the chants I know, the rhythm of days shaped by meditation, bells, and sutras are all part of that culture.

The man in the boat had his own story. A different language, a different land, different perceptions. When he left his country, he stepped outside that story. All that he believed, all he had been taught, could not hold him anymore.

The sea does not know flags. The wind does not ask for names. The fisherman had drifted into the open sky of not-belonging. And although I bow as I was taught and chant sutras handed down to me, I, like the fisherman, have stepped outside.

Zen teaches us to let go of every story. To see through the illusion of self and other, temple and village, monk and fisherman. To release even the teachings themselves.

The robe, the sutra, the lineage, these too are stories. The man in the boat left his story. I have left mine. Are we so different? To leave a story is to step into emptiness.

That afternoon in the meeting hall, I saw something else. Presence does not belong to any position or viewpoint. It is what allows all positions to be held without conflict. It is what remains when the need to be right falls away.

The monks in that room were not wrong to hold their different views strongly. The conflict was not a problem to be solved but a fullness to be received. When we stopped trying to choose between truth and truth, space opened for something larger to emerge.

Presence does not repair what is broken. It does not explain what is inexplicable. It does not belong to any tradition. It is what remains when the path disappears. It is the quiet that holds what cannot be held.

In conflict, we often believe that someone must be wrong for us to be right. That clarity requires choosing sides. But sometimes the deepest wisdom lies in holding paradox without collapse, in allowing incompatible truths to coexist until a larger truth emerges.

The boat remains in my memory, as does the silence that followed our simple memorial. Both remind me that presence is not a practice reserved for formal meditation. It is what becomes possible whenever we stop rushing past what is actually happening toward what we think should happen next.

The ghost boat had brought us not just the remains of a fisherman, but an invitation to discover what lies beyond the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we must do. That was the most meaningful memorial of all.

The wind moved across the rocks. The water touched my shoes. The boat shifted slightly with the tide. The wood creaked.