Japan: The Right Eye of Daruma

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When a Japanese prepares to make a wish, he is apt to buy a one-eyed doll modeled after the famed Buddhist monk Daruma, who founded the Zen sect 1,500 years ago. Then, if his wish is fulfilled, he completes the Daruma's missing eye as a symbol of gratitude for otherworldly intervention. Last week, in the Tokyo headquarters of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Premier Eisaku Sato dipped a sumi brush into an inkstone and with swift strokes daubed in the dark right eye of his Daruma. "The eyes," he remarked when...

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