Note 58 — A LETTER FROM JAPAN
Reading edition
Footnote 58:
(return)
The puns are too much for me.... Ayashii means "suspicious," "marvelous," "supernatural," "weird," "doubtful."—In the first two lines there is a reference to the Buddhist proverb: Funa-ita ichi-mai shita wa Jigoku ("under the thickness of a single ship's-plank is Hell"). (See my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, p. 206, for another reference to this saying.)