Heike Monogatari (The Tale of the Heike) opens: Gion shōja no kane no koe, shogyō mujō no hibiki ari. “The sound of the bell of Gion Shōja echoes the impermanence of all things.” The opening ends: hitoe ni kaze no mae no chiri ni onaji, “they are just like dust before the wind.”
In Tokushima Prefecture, for example, pupils read the opening aloud in the fifth grade and study the tale again in the first year of junior high school.