We have, over several article, observed the movements of a system that stirred into life in 794, the year the capital shifted to Heian-kyo—the site of modern-day Kyoto. The Heian period can be characterized as an era where the establishment of a governance system by the nobility began to eclipse the authority of the Imperial family, sparking a centuries-long struggle for actual power. In the birth and formation of any new system, there is always a convergence of diverse motives vying for new vested interests. The inexhaustible problem of human desire flows beneath all of history, but when examining the Heian period, one must pay particular attention to the existence of a massive power apparatus that used Buddhism—the dominant hegemony of the time—as its veil.
The initial design of Heian-kyo was, in fact, calculated with extreme precision. While we shall limit our scope for now, consider first the northeast—the direction known in ancient China as the Kimon (the Demon Gate), through which calamities and malevolent spirits were said to enter. To guard this point, the temple of Enryakuji on Mount Hiei, the seat of the Tendai sect, was established as the absolute protector of the Imperial and noble classes.
Thus, Mount Hiei—possessing the latest esoteric teachings of the Tendai sect among the various Buddhist schools already spreading in Japan—assumed the vital role of the capital’s ultimate safeguard. Simultaneously, the design of the city at the foot of the mountain was protected not by Buddhism, but by a specialized guild of Onmyodo (the Way of Yin and Yang) practitioners. Roots in Taoism, they wove a tapestry of the invisible world, casting spiritual barriers across the four directions. The urban planning of Heian-kyo was, so to speak, a multilayered structure: Mount Hiei served as the absolute esoteric authority to the northeast, while the city itself was secured in all directions by the arts of Onmyodo. Shinto, too, played its part, though we shall set that aside for this discussion.
In other words, the Heian-kyo system—the system that flows at the source of Kyoto and continues to be inherited today—functions even now, maintaining a potent sense of confrontation with the invisible world. Indeed, the greatest allure of Kyoto lies in the exploration of this very system, hidden from the naked eye. However, when a system that has defined an age begins to suffer from exhaustion after several centuries, a profound social upheaval inevitably occurs. At such a moment, the people living within the tiny enclave of Heian-kyo—which was, for them, the entirety of Japan and the world itself—reach a transformative era where they must awaken from a colossal fiction. When the day comes that one must suddenly wake from such a fiction, those who have failed to face their own inner selves and have instead succumbed to self-domestication within the system will surely fall into confusion. I see the same phenomenon occurring today on a global scale.
Even now, we are all, to varying degrees, self-domesticated within a gargantuan system whose entirety is impossible to grasp. Movements to escape this system entirely and seek a life outside gained momentum around the late 20th century. However, considering our current state—one of exhaustion and retreat after failing to achieve anything—we can see that the very idea of stepping outside a system that has become this bloated was the original source of our error. Personally, I feel strongly that the notion of exiting the system is inherently flawed. We must first recognize that such an exit is impossible, and instead, embrace the perspective that there is no inside or outside to the system at all.
This is because history teaches us that even systems that seem to possess an absolute intensity—systems we experience day and night—have collapsed time and again. No system is permanent. Democracy is a classic example; just because a system has functioned reasonably well for a few centuries does not mean it should be regarded as a universal truth. However, the larger a system becomes, the more the speed of its collapse is delayed. This is because, as a system expands, its vested interests become complex and wide-ranging, and the time required to sweep away the parasitic old guard becomes exceedingly long.
In the century we inhabit, a global system is being established while, simultaneously, countless other systems—national systems or even more granular ones—coexist in parallel. This creates a state of the real in which there is no escape in any direction. From the perspective of a biological entity required to be always on, we are all living through an extraordinarily harsh era. In the last decade or so, much has been exposed regarding the reality of how these interests have become globally intertwined, yet this has not resulted in the complete collapse of the system.
Nevertheless, even these seemingly absolute systems are certainly undergoing institutional exhaustion and are currently in a state of decay. While we cannot know how long this collapse will last, we must surely sense that we will face a great transformation within this century. Such movements manifest in multifaceted ways—as minor daily shifts or the actions of specific nations—but history has proven time and again that when the interests of the old guard are swept away and new rulers of a new system emerge, great chaos ensues.
Such nodal points of time are numerous in Japanese history, but those representing truly seismic shifts are quite limited. Discerning the nature of those historical movements is a vital lesson for us. However, movement here does not refer to the signified recorded in history books, but rather the technology of the heart—the ability to grasp the movements of the human spirit as it was lived.
To be blunt, historical inquiry is almost meaningless—a mere act of reference—if it cannot reach this depth. Therefore, when looking at history, while we must assume the organized signified of the era as a framework, we must never look at it directly. Instead, we must grasp the chain of the signifier, through which meaning is endlessly generated. What is effective here is to fix one’s focus thoroughly on an ambitious individual who lived through that era, and to intuit the movements of their heart within the context of their time. This is because such individuals always undergo a transformation of the heart at the junction between the old and the new. In short, whether or not one can transform their heart at the threshold of an era becomes the invisible boundary that determines who can move forward. Furthermore, this transformation of the heart is a crucial movement that leads to the creation of culture. It seems effective to view the accumulation and omnidirectional nature of these movements as history itself.
If we adopt this perspective, the true significance of a single individual’s appearance will emerge—an individual who triggered the sudden collapse of the massive power system of Mount Hiei, the shadow capital or the shadow Heian-kyo. History tells us that even Mount Hiei, the hegemon of several centuries, crumbled easily before the arrival of one man who carried the new era. That man, reigning at the pinnacle of the new age, was Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181), who descended from the preeminent warrior house of Taira.