“Kah(Mom), help me.” written by Seijun Nagamatsu

―Religious discourse by SEIJUN NAGAMATSU, Head Priest of Myoshinji Temple, HBS (Honmon Butsuryu Shu）―translated by Yuki Maekawa
　
　This is a voice that I can’t forget. The case of murder and abandonment of a dead body had been occurred in Yamagata Prefecture. A five-years-old boy whose name is Sho Kato had been killed by his mother. His dying words were“*Kah (Mom), help me.”
　In Japan, two cinemas became great hits in past years(2004);Shouting Love at the Heart of the World and Winter Sonata which were what we call “the pure romance story”.. However, in contrast to the hits, ‘domestic problems’have increased and family relationship, which is basics in human life, has been becoming worse. Where does such a paradox come from? Many parents can’t love their own children and don’t know the way to communicate with them. There is no communication between the married couple, between parents and their children. Recently, the bad condition has been growing more and more all over the world. The most terrible child abuse I won’t forget following sentences.
The boy, Sho, lived with his mother in Akita Prefecture, northern part of Japan where it becomes very cold and snowy in winter. She was a single mother, they had lived in harmony; she had taken him to and from kindergarten. However, one day, she had acquainted with a man through encounter site. The mother was a young lady, so she might felt cut off and lonely, she had gotten intimated with him. Then, they had decided on living together. The man also had a child, so they made afresh start with four in a new family, May 2003.
Sho always wet his pants because he had a congenial kidney disease. Naoki Itagaki, his father-in-low, hated the boy’s act, so he had scolded him very hard. At first, his mother who had had maternal love after a manner pitied him. However, the man got angry;“Why aren’t you scolding?”When she scolded her child hard, he praised her. Therefore, her motherhood had gone out day by day, and she had lost normal sense as mother. She had gradually regarded her child as nothing with common. First stage, she hit her child. Second, she gave him only a meal a day, and then only water instead of a meal. She hit him on his head hard again and again. Third, she made him stand alone at the balcony for few hours, next for a day, at last for three days. Then Sho was hit by them with pipe chair, his chin was broken. She and her partner brought him into the bathroom, they poured boiling water on the boy, who was only skin and bones. Cut his skin by scissors, he was collapsed. He was killed by them.
At his last breath, Sho said “Kah (Mom), help me.”I couldn’t help dropping tears when I heard it. On his death, the boy said the words to his mother who treated him badly: with no meal, with boiling water, at last with cutting his skin.
You know what to say? I couldn’t stop crying when I thought about his mind.
After then, the mother went to a place where the man directed her to bury the body.
After that, she spent her life remitting the man, working at a sex-related business from shop to shop. It was not until when she met with her son’s body dug out on TV that she came to herself. (And then, she was arrested.) In jail, she told her defense that Sho had said “I want to marry with Kah (Mom)”“Kah(Mom), I love you.”when she and her son lived in Akita Prefecture.
On June 7, 2004, she received a sentence of an eleven-year prison. She scarcely heard this judge before she collapse into tears,“Please give me death penalty.”
We should feel as if it were our own affair. This madness story is not in fantasy. We all have awful and horrible mind in our heart of hearts. Maybe they appear with some triggers; sexual desire, a hunger for fame, money, jealousy, grudge, rage. We are liable to dismiss whether our minds are sane or insane. We can justify our foolish action, so human being is serious being. Without a mirror which is ore mind itself, many people would live. With having too much confidence in oneself and blaming other person, you are as like as monkey. Even if you can be in romance, monkey is better.
In Chiba, an analogous incident was occurred. As suspects of Baby-battering and killing, one mother and all grandparents and great-grandfather were arrested. A three –years-old boy killed by them was Sho.
Whenever I hear such cruel cases, I fully realize that we, living in wealthy country, need consider about what ourselves and our family should be like. And we need seek out “answer”for meaning of a human's existence which hardly function in a normal manner.
Many people will ask nothing of Buddhism. They think that there should be concrete and realistic solution. Our community doesn’t want to get the core of problem, for example, like a murder case with knife by victim’s classmate. As long as being too absorbed in object and trying to keep decency with neglect of our heart, we can’t find out how to make our household happy.
Love, which form the basis for family, have varied style; “love included in great mercy”,“love given by social graces”,“love twisted by selfish minds”,“love with desire and fixation”. And they are changing all the time. It is necessary for us to effort to nurture love sanely. Not having effort, we couldn’t outgrow the pain.
Parents would be the last man to waver without mentioning their mind, and to live without facing each other. So, they can’t communicate with their own children even if they live together. This is a greedy and plastic unit named “family” as if any contracts.
People who can’t find relation between their life and Buddhism will be lost in the social trend and have family trouble. We need notice this strain. It is necessary for us to approach *Gohozen and pray, swear by Budda, practice this faith.
Pity parents bring their children up pity. What is pity? It is that parents chasing lose sight of what to do and where to go with their family. Though all in family go to amusement park, they don’t have where to go praying for Budda and hearing precious wisdom by Budda. Without *Chanting the Odaimoku, they would lose the way to make their home happy, because there is no *Bosastu in family.
We must treat this word as our own problem; “Kah, help me.”
Notes
*Kah Kah comes from “Okasan” in Japanese, it means one’s mother. Kah is to Okasan what Mom is to mother in English.
*Odaimoku = Nammyohorengekyo. Chanting Odaimoku is fundamental practice for followers of HBS.
*Bosastu A person who think other people’s happiness are one’s own happiness. A parson who can pray(chant Odaimoku) for other people.