修行会

132「三千世界一度に開く梅の花二度の岩戸は開かれにけり。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

三千世界
一度に開く
梅の花
二度の岩戸は
開かれにけり

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“Across the three thousand worlds at once open the plum blossoms; the rock‑door, a second time, has indeed been opened.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

Three thousand worlds now,
together at once open,
the plum’s own blossoms—

now twice over, that rock door,
has opened—realized—indeed!

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）

三千世界（さんぜんせかい）
一度に開く（いちどにひらく）

梅の花（うめのはな）
二度の岩戸は（にどのいわとは）
開かれにけり（ひらかれにけり）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

sanzen sekai
ichido ni hiraku
ume no hana
nido no iwato wa
hirakare ni keri

Ueshiba Morihei

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–132: The rock-door again opened (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/g1xl

世（se）— generation, many spanning generations, era, period, time, epoch, dynasty, regime, year, age, world, earth, people (atemporal) (three leaves on a branch).

三千世界（さんぜんせかい; sanzen sekai）— “the whole cosmos”. In Buddhist cosmology, sanzen daisen sekai (“three‑thousand great‑thousand worlds”) names the totality of worlds—hence I translate the opening as cosmic in scope (“in three thousand worlds”). The phrase also echoes Tendai thought (“three thousand worlds in a single thought,” ichinen sanzen), a pairing often evoked in modern Japanese religious literature (Nichiren Library, n.d.; Tedai UK, 2016). 

一度に（いちどに; ichido ni）— “all at once, simultaneously”.

開く（ひらく; hiraku）— “to open”; here it describes the way the blossoms open—but because 開く is later reused on the 岩戸 (rock door), this verb is doing double duty as a semantic pivot (i.e., kakekotoba).

梅の花（うめのはな; ume no hana）— plum blossoms as first light of spring. Ueshiba’s image draws on a long classical literary‑religious association / symbol of the plum with earliest / first of spring, [spiritual] renewal, and spiritual awakening; Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō “Baika” (“plum blossoms”) chapter famously glosses the moment of awakening as “when a blossom opens, the world arises” (花開世界起; Tairyu, 2018), reinforcing the idea that a single flower’s opening is co-extensive with world arising—a resonance behind the tanka’s “flower forth / plum blossoms unfold”.

二度（にど; nido）— “a second time; twofold”.

岩戸（いわと; iwato）— literally “rock door,” pointing to the Ama‑no‑Iwato myth in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, where Amaterasu hides in a rock cave and the gods lure her out, reopening light for the world.

二度の岩戸（にどのいわと; nido no iwato）— the ‘second’ opening of the Heavenly Rock‑Cave.
Iwato points to the myth of Ama‑no‑Iwato, where Amaterasu’s emergence from the rock cave restores light to the world. Ueshiba’s “second” opening is a poetic-theological trope of renewed illumination—anew for this age.

開かれ（ひらかれ; hikare）— classical passive / intransitive perfective stem of 開く; here effectively “has come to be opened”.

に（ni）— adverbial / perfective marker before auxiliaries like けり (“〜にけり” is standard periphrastic perfect in bungo).

けり（keri）— classical auxiliary expressing realisational perfective plus an exclamatory nuance—“I now see that it has (indeed) opened!” (Vovin, 2003; Frellesvig, 2010).

開かれにけり（hirakare ni keri）— render the classical perfective ‑にけり as “opened indeed / again” to keep that sense of realized, celebratory completion; in waka, …にけり often works like a kireji‑style closure, giving a sense of completed, celebrated action plus emotional realisation, much as けり does on its own in classical poetry handbooks.

Kakekotoba. The key pivot is 開く / 開かれ across lines 2–3 and 5: (a) blossoms 開く (open), and (b) The rock‑door 開かれ (is opened). Same verb, two semantic fields: gentle flowering and cosmic rock‑door bursting open. That shared verb acts like a modern kakekotoba spanning kami‑no‑ku and shimo‑no‑ku, binding spring awakening with mythic eschatology.

Kireji. There is no overt particle like や / かな, but 終止 on にけり functions as the poem’s final cut: the emotional and semantic slam at the end, comparable in effect to classical kireji (Brower & Miner, 1961; Shirane handouts). 

Background. Ōmoto background to Ueshiba’s diction. The formula 「三千世界一度に開く梅の花」—“in all the three thousand worlds, the plum blossoms open at once”—is programmatic in Ōmoto scripture (Ōmoto Shin’yū), which also speaks of the “opening of the Ama‑no‑Iwato of the world.” Ueshiba, deeply influenced by Ōmoto, frequently voiced this very line; the poem’s lower phrase then reads as an Ōmoto‑colored re‑illumination (“the rock‑door opens a second time”).

Compression. The tanka compresses: (a) Buddhist cosmology (三千世界, ichinen sanzen), (b) [jhana / zen] plum‑blossom awakening, (c) Shintō myth (Ama‑no‑Iwato), and (d) Ōmoto millenarianism into a single, classically‑framed waka—with ki‑based budō as its lived expression.

Kami-no-ku and shimo-no-ku. English can’t mirror Japanese mora counts exactly, but the translation keeps the kami‑no‑ku’s cosmic‑blossoming imagery and the shimo‑no‑ku’s decisive, mythic “second opening,” which is the conceptual hinge of Ueshiba’s verse.

Meteral license. The 7‑7‑5‑7‑7 scansion constitutes a mild overrun (ji‑amari) —widely attested in waka/tanka and discussed in prosodic research. Retaining the poet’s wording while accepting ji‑amari is truer to bungo practice than forcing anachronistic compression.

Yoin. Sound: repeated /hira/ (ひらく / ひらかれ) and the 7‑mora closure give a slow, lingering cadence. Semantically: the idea that the second opening has already “indeed” occurred leaves an eschatological aftertaste—history is already in its new phase, a favourite theme in Ōmoto and related new religions (Stalker, 2008; Ōmoto teaching summaries).

Shugyokai note. Apply previous principles—all at once—across the great ocean plain, sky to ocean floor. Beyond center—all at once—realized; continuous simultaneous bloom.