“The Zen monk Ryokan has become one of the most popular
poets in Japanese history. Living in a small mountain hut rather
than a temple, and preferring to play with children toceremonies, he captured his warm humanity, gentle humor, anddeep spirit in his poetry. This fine new translation by Kazuaki
Tanahashi includes a generous serving of his poetry inJapanese and Chinese styles, as well as a biography, analysis
of his poetry, and charming anecdotes about his life. It is easy to
see why Ryokan has become so beloved, not only in Japan, but
in the rest of the world as well.”—Stephen Addiss, author of The Art of Zen and The Art of
Haiku“The ‘Great Fool’ Ryokan is one of the most revered figures inJapanese poetry, and in Kaz Tanahashi, he has found as perfectan advocate-translator as could be imagined. In this translation,
we find an insightful introduction and poem after poem revealing
Ryokan’s great good humor, his aloneness, his eccentricities,
his poverty in a small hut in the mountains, his Buddhist
insightfulness, his love of children and silk-thread balls, and,eventually, his love for a much younger woman. This is amarvelous achievement and a joy to read.”—Sam Hamill, author of Almost Paradise
ABOUT THE BOOK
Ryokan (1758–1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of
the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned
colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as ahermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or
temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir.
Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he
was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to
be experienced in just being around him. His poetry and art
were wildly popular even in his lifetime. He is now regarded asone of the greatest poets of the Edo Period, along with Basho,
Buson, and Issa. He was also a master artist-calligrapher with avery distinctive style, due mostly to his unique and irrepressible
spirit, but also because he was so poor he didn’t usually havematerials: his distinctive thin line was due to the fact that heoften used twigs rather than the brushes he couldn’t afford. He
was said to practice his brushwork with his fingers in the airwhen he didn’t have any paper. There are hilarious stories about
how people tried to trick him into doing art for them, and about
how he frustrated their attempts. As an old man, he fell in lovewith a young Zen nun who also became his student. His
affection for her colors the mature poems of his late period. This
collection contains more than 140 of Ryokan’s poems, withselections of his art, and of the very funny anecdotes about him.
KAZUAKI TANAHASHI, a Japanese-trained calligrapher, is thepioneer of the genre of "one stroke painting" as well as thecreator of multicolor enso (Zen circles). His brushwork has beenshown in solo exhibitions in galleries, museums, and universities
all over the world. Tanahashi has edited several books of
Dogen's writings and is also the author of Brush Mind.

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SKY ABOVE, GREAT WIND
The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan
KAZUAKI TANAHASHISHAMBHALA

Boston & London
2012

Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com© 2012 by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Cover art by Kazuaki Tanahashi
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from thepublisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Tanahashi, Kazuaki, 1933–
Sky above, great wind: the life and poetry of Zen Master Ryokan / Kazuaki
Tanahashi.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2816-2
ISBN 978-1-59030-982-7 (pbk.)
1. Ryokan, 1758–1831. 2. Poets, Japanese—Edo period, 1600–1868—Biography.
3. Zen priests—Japan—Biography.
I. Title.
PL797.6.Z5T3255 2012
895.6′134—dc23
2012005551

To Joan Halifax Roshi,
my luminous companion in dharma

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Notes to the Reader
Maps of Sites Related to Ryokan
Introduction
WANDERING PERIOD
MATURE PERIODLATER PERIODFINAL PERIOD
Anecdotes
Ryokan’s Poetic Forms
Notes
Bibliography
E-mail Sign-Up

Preface and Acknowledgments

Ryokan (1758–1831) was a pilgrim, a hermit, and a beggar. He wasone of the numberless spiritual practitioners who gave up secular life
to practice humility in search of the highest truth. He was free fromfamily, social obligations, possessions, good looks, status, and fame.
After completing rigorous training in a monastery for ten years, hedisassociated himself from religious institutions. Enduring harshweather, extreme poverty, sickness, and ridicule by others, Ryokan
sustained his solitary Zen Buddhist practice in good humor. He
composed poems that were lofty yet imaginative and fresh,
presented in gracefully dancing brushstrokes.
He was a rare dharma practitioner who could express many
shades of emotion simply and fully. The poetic exchange of love withthe young nun Teishin in his final years was of celestial poignancy.
His self-proclaimed laziness and stupidity disarmed many of his
contemporaries as well as those in later generations. People could
identify themselves with his unadorned humanity. Although heshunned the pursuit of name and profit, ironically Ryokan becamefamous in his locality as an eccentric Zen master. His behavior
spawned innumerable anecdotes, some of which are simply
hilarious. Today he is one of the most beloved monks in Japan.
I am delighted to present Ryokan in this volume with a newtranslation of selected poems and samples of his calligraphy. This
book follows my translation of texts by Dogen and Hakuin, including
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo
Genzo and Penetrating Laughter: Hakuin’s Zen and Art, on which I
collaborated with excellent colleagues. In my mind, Dogen, Hakuin,
and Ryokan are the three greatest figures in the history of Zen
Buddhism in Japan. It is not difficult to see commonalities among

these monks in their search, practice, enlightenment, and teaching.
On the other hand, they seem to form a triangle of extreme
opposites in their expressions of enlightenment.
Dogen (1200–1253) was a profound thinker, an outstanding
elucidator of meditation, and one of the earliest leaders of JapaneseZen Buddhism. He established detailed guidelines for monastic life
centering on the practice of “just sitting” and is regarded as thefounder of the Soto Zen School, one of the two major schools of Zen
in Japan.
Hakuin (1685–1768) was an assertive and energetic popularizer of
Zen teaching. His expression was coarse, colloquial, and at times
funny. He systematized training based on the use of koans, orparadoxical questions utilized to induce students to break through torealization. He is regarded as the restorer of the Rinzai Zen School,
the other major school of Zen in Japan.
Unlike Dogen and Hakuin, Ryokan did not engage in the trainingof monks in monasteries. Instead, he practiced alone in extreme
austerity without producing any dharma heir. He dropped out ofsociety as well as the Zen community and therefore could be seen
as a failure as a Zen teacher. Having no possessions may not havebeen the most effective way to attain freedom. It was nevertheless
Ryokan’s way of life.
Creative thinking and mystical encounters often unfold in silent
solitude. The more intricately engaged in society we are, the more
we may need to be in retreat. Humility is the highest means toselflessness, clarity, and compassion. Through his utterly modest
and unaffected life, Ryokan unfolds a vast realm of serenity that caninspire us all.
It has been a three-year journey working on this book with Friederike
Boissevain. Together we studied Ryokan’s Japanese and Chinese
poems, while I developed my own English translation, notes, andcommentary on his life and work, which have become a basis for our
German version. I enjoyed every moment of our collaboration andam grateful for the generous support of her husband, Harald
Schöcklmann. The poems presented in this book have been
selected from Toshiro Tanikawa’s complete annotated collection ofRyokan’s poems in three volumes. I would like to express my deep
appreciation of his scholarship.
Editorial advice by Barbara Bonfigli, Marilynn Preston, Karuna
Tanahashi, Roberta Werdinger, and Susan O’Leary has enormously
benefited me. My deep appreciation goes to Peter Levitt, whose
outstanding poetic sensitivity and enthusiastic help have improved
the text a great deal. I thank Taigen Dan Leighton for the initialtranslation of the poem “On a somber spring evening . . .” presented
in my introduction. Tsuyoshi Mieda, Mahiru Watanabe, Asaki
Watanabe, and Cedarose Siemon helped me in production of theillustrations.
I would also like to thank the staff of the Ryokan Memorial
Museum, Ken’ichi Yasuda, and Taichi Iijima, for providing
photographs for this book.
It is always a great pleasure to work with the staff of Shambhala
Publications. I would like to thank in particular Dave O’Neal andHazel Bercholz. My deep appreciation goes to DeAnna Satre for her
fine copyediting.
KAZUAKI TANAHASHI

Illustrations

1. Self-portrait. Yasuda collection. Kanagawa Prefecture.
2. “Sky above . . .” Private collection. Photo by Taichi Iida.
3. “One, two, three.” Private collection. Photo by Taichi Iida.
4. Heart Sutra, portion. Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
5. “Today while begging . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
6. “To Nun Ikyo.” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata Prefecture.
7. “I came and found . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
8. “Playing with children . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
9. “Since residing in the Entsu Monastery . . .” Ryokan Memorial
Museum, Niigata Prefecture.
10. “Tell me the news . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
11. “My dear begging bowl . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.
12. “Broad-based Mount Kugami . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum,Niigata Prefecture.
13. “What is my fate . . .” Ryokan Memorial Museum, Niigata
Prefecture.

Notes to the Reader

TRANSLITERATION
Macrons for Japanese words are used only in the transliteration ofpoems in the chapter “Ryokan’s Poetic Forms.”
NAMES
Ryokan’s boyhood name is Eizo, but I sometimes use his monk
name, Ryokan, in describing his young days.
DATES
This book follows the lunar calendar, used traditionally in East Asia.
The first through third months correspond to spring, and the otherseasons follow in three-month periods. The fifteenth day of themonth is the day of the full moon. (An extra month was occasionallyadded to make up a year.)
AGE
This book follows the traditional East Asian way of counting ages,
where a person is one year old at birth and gains a year on New
Year’s Day.
NOTES
Note callouts are not used in this book. Poems with endnotes are.
marked withPUBLISHER’S NOTEThis book contains Japanese characters and diacritics. If you
encounter difficulty displaying these characters, please set your e-reader device to publisher defaults (if available) or to an alternate
font.

Maps of Sites Related to Ryokan

INTRODUCTION

Pristine Solitude
Monk Ryokan kept extreme austerity in his Zen meditation practice.
He lived alone, mostly in the rural area of the province of Echigo—
present-day Niigata Prefecture—close to the end of the feudal Edo
Period (1600–1867).
Ryokan wrote poems about hermitic life and the practice of
takuhatsu—begging food—in a way no one else could put intowords:
Only thing
the thief left behind—moon in my window.
His poems eloquently reflect his experience of the seasonal
manifestations of nature and the fragility of human life, as well as thejoy of seeing friends and playing with children. Some of his verses
are profoundly Buddhist. For example, one of his short poems reads:
Within this serene snowfall
one billion worlds
arise.
In each,flurries come floating down.
“One billion worlds” is a way of describing an entire universe in
Buddhist scriptures. Ryokan’s poetic imagery brought this vast
cosmological concept into the infinite boundlessness of falling snow.

The snow that covered his thatch-roofed one-room hut on a deepmountainside is a sublime reminder of emptiness.
The following haiku presents the Zen paradox that flourishing is nodifferent from withering:
Falling blossoms.
Blossoms in bloom are also
falling blossoms.
Ryokan was honest about his loneliness and yearning for humancontact. He wrote in a highly refined, classical style, often usingarchaic “pillow words” (formulaic modifying phrases to certain words;
for example, “grass-pillow” modifies “travel”) no longer popular in the
Edo Period. At the same time, his words express a sense of carefree
warmth and love that touches a great number of people. Although henever published collections of his own, his poems were collectedeven while he was alive as well as afterward. He is now regarded as
one of the greatest poets of the Edo Period, along with Basho,
Buson, and Issa.
A well-known self-portrait of Ryokan in his own verse (fig. 1)
describes his lifestyle:
It is not that
I avoid mixing
with the world;
but I do better
playing alone.

Figure 1. Self-portrait.

Yoshishige Kera, author of Anecdotes of Zen Master Ryokan(Ryokan Zenji Kiwa Shu), who knew Ryokan in his young days,
describes him thus: “The master was full of lofty spirit, which was
naturally expressed. He was tall and slender, like a Daoist sorcerer,
with a high nose and long eyes. He was gentle, stern, and notpresumptuous. . . . Ryokan did not show excitement or anger. I neverheard him speak fast. His way of eating and drinking was slow,
almost like a fool.”
Certainly, Ryokan was not well dressed. He wore the same
tattered, simple black robe all the time. According to Anecdotes:
Ryokan had uncombed hair and an unshaven face, walked
barefoot and wore a torn robe. He would go into people’s
kitchens and beg food. Once when he visited a house,something valuable was stolen. People in the house thought
Ryokan was the thief, escaped from the local prison. Theysummoned the villagers by blowing a conch shell and hitting awooden board. The villagers bound him with a rope and tried tobury him alive. But Ryokan did not say a word, letting them dowhat they wanted.

Before they threw him into a hole, someone who knew
Ryokan noticed them and said, “What are you doing? This is thefamous Zen master Ryokan. Untie the rope right away andapologize to him.” Astonished, the villagers did so.
The person who rescued him said, “Why didn’t you say that it
was a false accusation?”
Ryokan said, “All the villagers suspected me. Even if I had
explained, that wouldn’t have removed their suspicion. There isnothing better than saying nothing.”
Ryokan sometimes accepted invitations from his supporters tostay for meals or overnight. Kera reflects:
Ryokan stayed with us for a couple of days. A peacefulatmosphere filled our house, and everyone became
harmonious. This atmosphere remained for some days evenafter he left. As soon as I started talking with him, I realized thatmy heart had become pure. He did not explain Zen or other
Buddhist scriptures, nor did he encourage wholesome actions.
He would burn firewood in the kitchen or sit in meditation in our
living room. He did not talk about literature or ethics. He wasindescribably relaxed. He taught others only by his presence.
There is no doubt that Ryokan’s sparse use or absence of words
came from his lifelong practice of contemplation. An episoderecorded by the same author beautifully illustrates Ryokan’s
thoughtful way of guiding a young person:
The household of Ryokan’s family, Yamamoto of the Tachibanaya [village headman’s office name], was managed by his
younger brother Yushi after Ryokan had left home and becomea monk. Yushi’s eldest son, Umanosuke, was squandering thefamily money for his own personal pleasures. Asked by
Umanosuke’s mother to give him advice, Ryokan went to theTachibana-ya. He stayed there for three days but said nothing.
On his departure for his hermitage, Ryokan stood at the porch,called for Umanosuke, and asked him to tie the strings of his
straw sandals. Umanosuke’s mother, who stood behind thescreen, was hoping that Ryokan would give him some strong
advice.
Umanosuke didn’t understand why Ryokan had asked him to
do such an unusual thing but followed his request. As he bent to
the task, he felt something wet on his neck. He was surprised
and looked up. He saw Ryokan’s eyes full of tears. At thatmoment, he felt repentance for his wrongdoings. Ryokan stoodup and left without a word.

Art beyond Art
Ryokan stands out from his era—not only as a poet but also as acalligrapher. Bosai Kameda, a renowned Confucian scholar,
calligrapher, and friend of Ryokan’s, once commented: “Hiscalligraphy has divine spirit.”
Ryokan created his calligraphy without making any revisions,using only small brushes. As a result, all the lines he drew are thin.
At times he had an ink stick to grind with water on an inkstone. Other
times, he did not even have a brush. A short poem of his says:
No brush—
how pathetic I am!
This morning again,
I walk with a caneand knock on the temple door.
Unless some sheets had been donated, he usually had no paper.
Ryokan admired Huaisu, an eighth-century Tang dynasty Chinesemonk renowned for his wild cursive script, and Tofu Ono, a ninth-totenth-century Japanese court poet and calligrapher versed in kana(phonetic writing). Ryokan borrowed books of stone rubbings fromclassical calligraphic masterpieces, studying them assiduously.
Legend has it that he practiced his brushwork in the air.
Even in his own time, people forged Ryokan’s calligraphy and soldthe pieces to others. Many of his acquaintances wanted hiscalligraphy, but he was not always willing to give it. Kera’s Anecdotes
says:
When someone asked Ryokan to do calligraphy, he would not
do it right away, saying, “I will write for you after I practice andget better.” But when inspired, he would paint many pieces all at
once, paying no mind to brush quality, inkstones, paper, or ink.
As he would write from memory, some of his poems had missed
characters. He wrote many different versions of the same poem.
...
The head of a big trading enterprise in Teradomari Town had
unsuccessfully tried to get hold of Ryokan’s calligraphy. When
Ryokan stopped to beg at his house, he pulled Ryokan inside.
Then he asked him to do some writing on the golden screen hehad prepared, saying, “I will not let you go until you finish.”
Left with no choice, Ryokan held the brush and wrote: “I don’t
want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.”On the other hand, Ryokan was happy to do calligraphy forchildren. It is said in Anecdotes:
When Ryokan was begging in the highway station town
Tsubame, a child with a sheet of paper came to him and said,“Rev. Ryokan, please write something on this paper.” Ryokan
asked, “What are you going to use it for?” “I am going to make akite and fly it. So, please write some words to call the wind.”
Right away, Ryokan wrote four big characters, “Sky above,
great wind,” and gave the calligraphy to the child.
He may have given similar pieces to other children. At least one
piece has remained, becoming one of his most popular works (fig.
2). These four ideographs are written in Chinese-origin script
commonly used in East Asia, known as kanji in Japanese. They areusually read from the right column, top down, to the center column,
tian shan da feng in Chinese, which reads ten jo dai fu in Japanese.
The left column says, “Ryokan sho” (Written by Ryokan). Thiscalligraphy was done in a formal style.

Figure 2.“Sky above . . .”There is no lack of technical imperfection in this piece. Ryokan
started the first three characters with too much ink, causing them tobleed excessively on the rice paper at the beginning of the strokes.
On the other hand, he was losing ink and strength of lines at thebottom of the two downward-sweeping strokes of the first character,sky (heaven). His hand wiggled on the vertical stroke of the second
character, above, as well as on the top-to-right-hand stroke of thelast character, wind. Sky is too large, and above is too small. Wind isplaced overly to the left, which forced him to squeeze his signature.
In general, technically perfect and elegantly rendered pieces ofcalligraphy are appreciated. Most calligraphers strive to meet suchstandards, and in many cases their desire for excellence is exposed
through the brush lines. However, calligraphers and art lovers,
including me, look at this piece in awe. We immediately notice thatthe artist was radically unpretentious and unassuming, showing nodesire whatsoever to make the brushwork “look good.” As you will
see in other samples, Ryokan was a skilled calligrapher. In thispiece, on the other hand, he went far beyond skills, revealing himself
completely off guard. We see vast freedom in his childlikebrushstrokes, which demonstrate that Ryokan was a child when hewas with children.

A peasant farmer once said to Ryokan, “Your writings are difficult toread. Can you write something even I can read?” Ryokan wrote“One, two, three,” and said, “I hope you can read this” (fig. 3).
Generally, one is represented by a single horizontal line, while twoand three are depicted with two and three horizontal lines. Indeed,
there are no easier symbols than these in East Asian ideography.
The villager who was given this calligraphy might have thought thiswas Ryokan’s nonsense or joke. But in the Zen tradition, numbers
sometimes indicate reality itself: words beyond words. For example,
when the thirteenth-century Japanese monk Dogen was studying in
China, an old cook from a Zen monastery said, “To study words you
must know the origin of words. To endeavor in practice you must
know the origin of practice.” Dogen asked, “What are words?” Thecook said, “One, two, three, four, five.” Dogen asked further, “What ispractice?” The cook said, “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.”
As a dharma descendant of Zen master Dogen, Ryokan might havelearned about this dialogue.

Figure 3. “One, two, three.”

When the ideographic writing system was created in China aboutfour thousand years ago, these numbers were drawn on soil orcarved on wood or animal bones with straight geometric lines. Afterthe brush was invented about two thousand years later, calligraphersdeveloped the aesthetics of asymmetry within each stroke andamong elements of each ideograph. This piece by Ryokan, written ina semicursive script, follows this tradition.
The first horizontal line goes up, which is common in Chinese-stylecalligraphy, but with atypical steepness. Following the initial press
down, the brush was gradually pulled up, making its trace finer. It
arched gracefully, then slightly pushed down to create a consistentwidth on its latter half. At the end of the line, the brush was lightly
pressed down and swept off toward the next symbol.

In two, the line above is typically shorter than the line below. But inthis case, the line above is excessively short—almost a dot—subtly
curving up and sweeping off again. The second stroke starts pointed,
forming a circular line followed by a most subtle curving-down line.
The first two strokes of three are two diagonal lines of different
angles connected with a ligature. Preceded by an invisible ligature,
the last line of this character is straight. On the final column hewrote: “Shaku Ryokan sho” (Written by monk Ryokan).
There is ample space between lines and characters. Ryokan
created a style of calligraphy where even extra thin lines with few
strokes can hold a large amount of space.
Next is an example of Ryokan’s reproduction of the Heart Sutra(fig. 4). This is a fragment—the last part of the sutra, a version
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Xuanzang of the seventh
century. The Heart Sutra is one of the shortest but most widely
chanted scriptures in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

Figure 4. Heart Sutra, portion.

This part of the text can be translated as follows:[Buddhas in the past, present, and future, who] realize [wisdom
beyond wisdom], manifest unsurpassable and thoroughawakening. Know that realizing wisdom beyond wisdom is noother than this wondrous mantra—luminous, unequalled, andsupreme. It relieves all suffering. It is genuine and not illusory.
So set forth this mantra of realizing wisdom beyond wisdom.
Set forth this mantra that says: Gaté, gaté, paragaté,parasamgaté, bodhi! Svaha!
RYOKAN
Here again, Ryokan’s brush lines in the formal script are extremely
thin, delicate, and sensitive. The calligraphic composition of eachcharacter is rather traditional, yet it reveals his unique, slightly offcentered style. Columns sway naturally. One missed character on
the third column is added. He signed his name “Ryokan” on the lastcolumn.
Now, in figure 5 is a sample of his Chinese-style poem.
This is a four-column poem consisting of seven ideographs percolumn. But Ryokan wrote it in five columns, consisting of five, six,
six, five, and six ideographs. It can be translated as follows:
Today while begging, I got caught in a shower.
For some time I found shelter in an old shrine.
Laugh if you like at the one jar and one bowl I own!
Humble and cleansed—my life a broken house.
WRITTEN BY RYOKANThis piece was dynamically rendered in cursive script. The brushstarted out wet and gradually became dry, leaving highlysophisticated and captivating marks. The columns spontaneously tilt,
creating vivid space between the lines and on each side of the page.
The characters vary radically in size. The calligraphy’s lack of fixed
posture mirrors the message of the poem, which speaks of no
possessions.

Figure 5.“Today while begging . . .”Just as he was careful about his use of words in daily life, his
poems and letters were all written artistically, whether it was a thankyou letter or a letter to his donors asking for pickled plums or a scoopof soybean paste. One poem of his says:
Brush lines
in a letter to a dear friend
turn out beautifully.
A moment ofjoy.

Figure 6.“To Nun Ikyo.”Now, in figure 6 is a sample of one of his notes.

TO NUN IKYO, EDO

RYOKANYou are trying to acquire the great canon
far away from home.
Ah, what can I say?
The sky is cold.
Take care.
The twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month
RYOKAN
This note is strikingly short for a long-distance correspondence.
Perhaps a messenger came to his hut and asked him to write a noteto the nun, as someone was going to Edo to see her and themessenger did not want to wait. Ryokan had been encouraging Ikyo,a niece of his friend Saichi, to endeavor in the practice of dharma. In
1818 her teacher Kohan of the Tokusho Monastery in Yoita wanted
to purchase an entire 9,056-volume Chinese-language Buddhist
canon but was short of money. So Ikyo went to Edo by herself toraise funds by way of takuhatsu. Ryokan wrote this note in Chinese.
It was rather unusual for him, but for educated Buddhists of thattime, reading and writing Chinese were not difficult.
The vertical fold on the right side shows that the paper was
accordion folded, with the right column functioning as a cover. This is
why Ryokan’s name appears twice on this sheet of paper. The cover
was written in semicursive script and the inside in cursive script.
Allowing plenty of space at the beginning and between letters, eachcharacter is rendered leisurely and elegantly.
Besides creating Chinese-style calligraphy, Ryokan did somebrushwork in kana (phonetic script). Here in figure 7 is a sample of atanka, a traditional Japanese short poem.
I came and foundmy home village
desolate.
Only fallen leaves
over the garden fence.
RYOKANThese phonetic letters are called man’yo gana, which was
originally used in the Ten Thousand Leaves Anthology (Man’yo Shu),compiled in the mid-eighth century, when ideographs were used asphonetic symbols. These phonetic letters were thus an archaic wayof using ideographs. They look similar to those in Chinese-style
poems, except here some characters are extremely simplified andstylized. (I will discuss details of the scripts Ryokan used in thechapter “Ryokan’s Poetic Forms.”)

Figure 7.“I came and found . . .”Ryokan wrote this thirty-one-syllable poem in columns of five, six,
six, eight, and six characters and ended with his own signature. A
frequent use of ligatures fills this piece with cascading brush lines.
The darkness of ink recedes and returns rhythmically.
Here in figure 8 is another example of a tanka with fluid but settled
brush movements in man’yo gana, rendered on a fan-shaped pieceof paper.
Playing with children
undera shrine forest.
Let this spring day
not turn to dusk!
WRITTEN BY RYOKAN

Figure 8.“Playing with children . . .”Classically masterful and uninhibitedly playful, with exquisite useof negative space, Ryokan’s brushstrokes are slender yet highly
spirited and amazingly powerful.
He left a great many pieces of calligraphy. In addition, according to
the records, he produced some monochromatic paintings. I am not,however, aware of any extant paintings that can be identified as his
work, other than his self-portrait (fig. 1). (Some Ryokan books areillustrated with paintings, but they are not Ryokan’s own works.)
Because the vulnerability and spiritual depth of the artist are
revealed directly through the drawn lines, calligraphy is regarded as
the highest art form in all of East Asia. That is why the scroll of a Zen
master is hung in the main alcove of a tearoom: to remind the hostand guests of the presence of an awakened person, ancient orcontemporary.
Let us compare the calligraphic works of the three outstanding
Japanese Zen masters mentioned in the preface as a triangle ofextreme contrasts. The brushwork of Dogen, the Soto School monk,
Ryokan’s dharma ancestor, is straight-forward, precise, and highly
consistent. The calligraphy of Hakuin—a master of the Rinzai School
who lived several decades before Ryokan—is bold, coarse, andcompelling. Ryokan’s brushstrokes are spontaneous, irregular, andfluid. He never stamped a seal on his brush-drawn pieces,disregarding the widely accepted East Asian convention.
With no desire to seek recognition or status, Ryokan disassociatedhimself from institutional Zen and art circles. In fact, he opposed
established artists whose styles were highly intellectual andtechnical. Anecdotes includes a story, perhaps somewhat

dramatized, that captures the spirit of Ryokan’s unconventional andinformal art:
Renowned calligrapher Ryoko Maki of Niigata came back from
Edo and was working here and there in Echigo Province. He
was commissioned by a wealthy man to do calligraphy on a pairof screens. After finishing the first screen, he took a rest inanother room. An old monk slipped into the empty room, boldly
snatched the brush, added calligraphy on the second scroll, andvanished. Someone noticed it and informed the man of thehouse. Distressed, the man went to the room with thecalligrapher, who immediately realized it was an extraordinary
piece with vivid and powerful brush strokes. He said to the manof the house, “Send for the old monk. Quick.”
Seeing someone chasing after him, Ryokan fell to the groundand begged: “Please spare my life.”
The messenger said, “I am not here to harm you.” Heexplained what he had been told and took him back to thehouse. The man of the house treated Ryokan graciously and,
together with the calligrapher, thanked him for completing the
precious jewels on the screens.
Ryokan’s most frequently quoted saying on art is, “I hatecalligraphers’ calligraphy and poets’ poems.” He detested themed
poetic competitions. He seems to have believed that artificiality andprofessionalism got in the way of genuinely heartfelt expression. Oneof his Chinese-style poems shows his critique of an emerging poet:
What a pity, dear youth,
who lives quietly writing poetry.
You follow the forms of the Han and Tang dynasties
and copy contemporary styles.
Carefully you craft lines
sprinkled with novelty.
But what good are your efforts
if you don’t express what is deep in your heart?
In another poem he writes:

Who calls my poems poems?
My poems are not poems.
Only when you know my poems are not poems
can we together speak about poems.
Ryokan read literature extensively in his youth. It seems that he
was already an accomplished calligrapher in his Wandering Period
soon after his Zen training. After secluding himself in a mountain hut
with limited or almost nonexistent resources, he studied classicalmasters’ works with vigor.
Ryokan penetrated the artistry of poetry and calligraphy bystraightforwardly expressing what is most essential in life. He was
humble about his own art, and yet his brushwork surpassed the
traditional standard of calligraphy. And his words “my poems are notpoems” demonstrate that his poems went beyond the bounds ofpoetry.

In Search of Genuine Freedom
Ryokan was born in the twelfth month of 1758, the first son of
Jirozaemon and Hideko Yamamoto, in a port village called Izumosaki
in Echigo Province. His boyhood name was Eizo. Izumosaki, locatedon a narrow strip of land between hills and the sea, was a key stationon the Hokkoku (Northern Country) Highway, which ran along the
Sea of Japan in the central part of the main island, Honshu. It had adistant view of Sado Island, where prisoners were forced to labor inJapan’s largest gold mine.
The Yamamoto family’s official name was Tachibana-ya. They held
this prestigious title because the master of this household functioned
as a hereditary village headman under the Shogun government’s
ruling system. He also served as a Shinto priest who conductedceremonies in the local shrine. Jirozaemon was a locally known
haiku poet whose literary name was Inan. Eizo had three brothers
and three sisters.
Japan had been ruled by the Shogun government of the Tokugawa
family for more than 150 years. Except for trade with the Dutch andChinese through the tiny island port of Nagasaki, it was isolated fromforeign countries, thus enjoying a period of no war. People weredivided into four classes: samurai, farmer, artisan, and trader.
Samurai were destined to serve their lord samurai, while farmers,
who were tied to their land and to landowners, were not allowed to
move. Most of the nation was governed by great and minor lords.
Because Izumosaki was of significant strategic importance for thetransport of gold, however, it was one of the regions directly
controlled by the central Edo government. Due to tight government
control over revenue, farmers had to work extremely hard to survive.
The village headman’s responsibility was to manage the revenue,
coordinate with the local magistrate of the central government, andhost traveling officials and their company. Because of these
responsibilities, Tachibana-ya was wealthy, equipped with a large
house.
Later, Ryokan reflected on the days of his youth:
What I remember of my youth:
reading books in an empty room,
pouring oil into the lamp,
savoring a long winter night.
From age eleven, Eizo was sent to stay with relatives in the villageof Jizodo about nine miles away from home. As planned, during thistime he studied Chinese and Japanese literature at a private school
run by the Confucian scholar Shiyo Omori.
Eizo’s father, Jirozaemon, wanting to retire from the village
headman’s position, made Eizo a village headman-in-training at age
sixteen. But Eizo abruptly escaped, becoming a novice at a Zen
temple in the adjacent village of Amaze.
The cause of Eizo’s dropping out is unclear. Legend has it that he
was deeply distressed after witnessing the decapitation of a criminal.
According to another legend, Eizo miserably failed to mediate a
dispute between the samurai government’s regional chief magistrate
and the villagers because he was too honest, lacked diplomacy, andoffended both parties. At any rate, Eizo proved himself to be unfit tobe part of the rigidly established feudal society and sought out inner
wisdom and freedom instead.
At age eighteen, Eizo was ordained by Genjo Haryo, abbot of the
Kosho Temple, where he had taken refuge, and was given his monkname Daigu Ryokan (Great Fool, Good and Broad).
Four years later, Zen master Tainin Kokusen—Haryo’s teacher
and a long-term abbot of the Entsu Monastery—visited the Kosho
Temple to conduct an ordination ceremony. Struck with Kokusen’s
humble yet accomplished personality, Ryokan became his student
and accompanied the fifty-six-year-old master to the Entsu
Monastery in Bitchu Province (in present-day Okayama Prefecture)in the western region of Honshu Island. The monastery, located atop
an isolated round mountain in the village of Tamashima, wasrelatively small. Kokusen had, however, established practiceguidelines for the Entsu Monastery and maintained strict communal
practice, thereby elevating it to one of the top-ranking dharma
training centers of the Soto School.
Kokusen diligently followed the Zen practice established by Eihei
Dogen, who emphasized that practice is itself enlightenment andprescribed minute details of daily monastic procedure. Ryokan joined
other monks and participated in the rigorous daily schedule fromearly in the morning till late at night—meditating, cleaning themonastery compound, cutting firewood, cooking, serving, listening todharma talks, receiving personal instruction from the master, reading
scriptures and Zen texts, and takuhatsu. According to Ryokan, hismaster’s teaching style was “pulling boulders and carrying soil.” Itseems that much of Kokusen’s instruction was given through thesilent joint endeavor of meditation and labor.
Later, Ryokan wrote a poem (figure 9) about his training period:
Since residing in the Entsu Monastery,how many winters and springs have passed?
In the neighboring town of one thousand houses,
did I know a single person?
When my robe got filthy, I washed it with my hands.
When food was gone, I went to the city to beg.
What I learned from biographies of accomplished monks:

remaining poor suits us seekers well.
Here Ryokan reveals his understanding that the desire for fame,status, and comfort contradicts the search for genuine freedom. He
must have heard Dogen’s words: “Those who practice the way must
be poor.”In 1790, at age thirty-three, Ryokan received a ritual stick with anapproval verse from Kokusen. (This verse includes good, fool, andbroad, which represent ideographs in Ryokan’s name.)
My good fool, your way is broad.
Freely living as you are, who can grasp you?
Now I entrust you with a mountain-shaped stick.
Wherever there is a wall, there is a place to doze.
Thus Ryokan completed his Zen training. Then he left to further
his practice as a monk, wandering the world like clouds and water.
Kokusen passed away the following year.

Figure 9.“Since residing in the Entsu Monastery . . .”In his pilgrimages, begging for food and lodging, Ryokan managed
to make his way to many temples and monasteries on Honshu,
Kyushu, and Shikoku Islands. (See “Maps of Sites Related to
Ryokan.”) But he became disappointed with the severe lack of
genuine spirit among Buddhists in his time.
All Japanese people were legally obliged to register at their
Buddhist temples in order to prove that they were not believers inChristianity, which was strictly forbidden. Those not authorized bytemples were stripped of their civil rights and regarded as
nonhumans. People were not allowed to change their temples.
Priests received ample income by performing funerals and memorialceremonies for the temples’ member families. Temples owned
farmlands, from which they collected rice crop revenue through thelabor of farmers fixed to the lands. Monks were supposed to becelibate, but many of them were unofficially married. Ryokan saw
these phenomena as signs of corruption and a decline of thedharma, writing in the poem titled “Monks”:
You who have left the household,I hear you shouting day and night.
In order to satisfy your mouths and stomachs,
you run around all your lives.
Particularly criticizing Buddhists’ sectarianism, Ryokan wrote thisas part of a long poem, “Discourse”:
The ancestral way becomes fainter day by day.
Teachers can’t see past the name of their school;
students enable their teachers’ narrow-mindedness.
They are glued to each other,
unwilling to change.
If the purpose of the dharma were to establish schools,
sages would have done so long ago.
Now that people have declared their schools,
whom on earth should I join?

A Poet Emerges
Because many poets, including his father, lived in his birthplace of
Izumosaki, Ryokan had been writing haiku from a very young age.
Later, on a portrait somebody painted of Basho (1644–1694), whoestablished the poetic genre of haiku, Ryokan wrote a poem:
There was no Basho before Basho.
There will be no Basho after Basho.
Ah, Basho, Basho!
Thousands of years later still adored.

During his Wandering Period, from age thirty-three to thirty-nine,
Ryokan wrote some tanka poems, which reflected his study ofclassical poetry, including those in Kokin Shu—an early-tenthcentury imperial anthology written during a time of flourishing court
culture in the capital city of Kyoto. Ryokan memorized the ancient
poems, adopting phrases or lines into his own compositions.
In his later life, he wrote a Chinese-style poem:
Forty years ago when I was wandering,
I struggled to paint a tiger, but it didn’t even look like a cat!
Reflecting back, as I release my grip on the cliff’s edge,
I am still Eizo of my young days.
We don’t know what this obscure pilgrim was doing on his journey,
except for a brief unpublished narrative by Banjo Kondo, a scholar inJapanese literature who lived in Edo:
Many years ago, when I visited Tosa Province [on Shikoku
Island], a shower poured down before I got to the city [ofTakamatsu]. I saw a shabby-looking hut at the foot of amountain off the road. I went there and asked for lodging. A
monk with a thin, pale face welcomed me to his fireplacebut said that he had no food or bedding. After speaking a
few words, this monk kept silent, not meditating, sleeping,or chanting. When I spoke to him, he only smiled. Thinking
he had a mental problem, I lay down at the fireplace. WhenI awoke, I saw him lying next to me asleep, using one of hisarms as a pillow.
It was raining too hard for me to go out, so I asked him tolet me stay longer. He said I could stay as long as I wanted.
I was so glad. At midday he mixed barley powder with hotwater for us to eat.
I looked around and noticed that he had no possessions
to speak of except for a small wooden image of Buddha
and two books placed on a small table. One of the books
was a Chinese classical Zhuangzi [Chuang-tsu]. Inside wasa sheet of paper on which a poem was written in cursivestyle, perhaps by this monk. As I had not studied Chinesestyle poetry, I could not tell whether or not the poem wasgood. But the calligraphy was astoundingly splendid.
So I took out two folding fans of my paintings from mybackpack basket and asked him to add calligraphy to them—one of plum blossoms with a bush warbler and the otherof Mount Fuji. He immediately did so. I forgot what he wrote
but remember that at the end of his calligraphy on MountFuji, he signed it this way: “Who says this? Written by
Ryokan from Echigo Province.”
In 1778, the year before Ryokan joined the Entsu Monastery, his
younger brother Yushi Yamamoto became the village headman intraining. In 1783 their mother, Hideko, died. In 1786 their father, Inan,
retired and Yushi took over.
In 1795 Inan left a death poem, as was customary for a literary
figure, and drowned himself in the Katsura River in Kyoto. Nobody
knows why. According to legend, he was an advocate of therestoration of imperial rule and wrote a manuscript titled “Record of
Heavenly Truth.” But under the tight oppression of the Shogun
government, he was unable to publish or distribute it.
After being notified of his father’s death, Ryokan went to Kyoto
and participated in a forty-nine-day memorial service. After that hewent southeast, climbed up Mount Koya—the head temple
compound of the esoteric Shingon (Mantra) School—and wrote atanka in memory of his father:
In an old temple
deep in Mount Koya,
Kii Province,
I listen to raindrops
falling from a cedar tree.
Then Ryokan went back to his home province of Echigo.

Longing for the AncientRyokan lived in several places near his hometown, Izumosaki. Then,around 1796, at about the age of thirty-nine, he settled in a thatchroofed hut on a steep hill of Mount Kugami about twelve miles
northeast of the port village. This mountain, the name of whichmeans “province top,” stands high in Echigo. It houses the Kokujo
Temple, a large ancient Shingon School temple. There is another
Shingon sanctuary called the Hongaku Temple down below on thewestern slope. It is here that Ryokan was invited to live in a oneroom hermitage called Five Scoop Hut behind the temple. This hut
had been built some time earlier for a monk who helped rebuild thetemple on an allowance of five small scoops of rice per day.
Ryokan lived in this humble abode for twenty years, from age
thirty-nine to fifty-nine. This period may be seen as the Mature
Period of his poetry and calligraphy. From an acquaintance, heborrowed a copy of Ten Thousand Leaves Anthology (Man’yo Shu)—the earliest, most extensive collection of Japanese poetry fromancient times, compiled in the mid-eighth century before thedevelopment of highly refined court poetry. In following these naive
and straightforward expressions of sentiments by people of all
backgrounds, Ryokan established his own poetic voice. His study ofclassical calligraphic masterpieces by Huaisu and Tofu Ono also
helped him find his unique style of calligraphy.
On a copy of Dogen’s essay called “Continuous Practice,” part of
the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo), Ryokan added
his own note. He offered incense and read it in the severely cold,bamboo-cracking winter. From this note, we can assume that he kept
on reading Dogen’s writings. From his compilation of stories ofChinese Zen practitioners in “Continuous Practice,” Dogenconcluded:
Do not run around after fame and gain in the realm of sound andform. Not running around is the continuous practice transmitted
from person to person by buddha ancestors. Mature hermits,
beginning hermits, one person, half a person, I ask you to throw
away myriad matters and conditions and continuously practicethe continuous practice of buddha ancestors.

Ryokan ponders in his Chinese-style poem titled “Reading the
Words of Eihei Dogen”:
On a somber spring evening around midnight,
snow sludge sprinkled the bamboo in the garden.
I wanted so desperately to ease my loneliness.
My hand reached behind me for the Words of Eihei Dogenbeneath the open window at my desk.
I offered incense, lit a lamp, and quietly read.
Body and mind dropping away is simply the upright truth.
In one thousand postures, ten thousand appearances, a dragon
toys with the pearl.
Beyond ordinary thinking the precious tiger is captured.
Thus, Dogen’s writings reflect the Buddha’s teaching.
I remember the old days when I lived at the Entsu Monasteryand my late teacher lectured on the True Dharma Eye.
It was then that I had a breakthrough.
I was granted permission to read it and studied it intimately.
Until then I had depended solely on my own limited
understanding.
Soon after, I left my teacher and became a wanderer.
What is my relationship to Dogen?
Everywhere I went, I devotedly practiced the true dharma eye.
How many years have passed since then?
Forgetting myself, I returned home and now live in leisure.
I take this book and examine it quietly.
Its tone is not in line with the teachings of others.
No one has asked whether it is a jade or a pebble.
For five hundred years, it’s been covered with dust
simply because no one has an eye for dharma.
For whom was all of his eloquence expounded?
Longing for ancient times and grieving for the present, my heart
is exhausted.
As I was sitting by the lamp one evening, my tears wouldn’t
stop.

They soaked into the book of the ancient buddha Eihei.
In the morning an old man living nearby came to my thatch hut.
He asked me why the book was damp.
I wanted to speak but didn’t, as I was embarrassed.
Deeply distressed, I could not explain.
I dropped my head for a while before finding my words.
“Last night’s rain drenched my basket of books.”
The writings of Dogen were forgotten for four hundred years after
his death. Ryokan might not have been fully aware of it, but there
had been a resurgence in Dogen studies since the seventeenth
century, in which his teacher Kokusen played a part. A copy of“Continuous Practice,” which Ryokan had borrowed from a friend,
was perhaps printed and distributed by his dharma brother Gento
Sokuchu, successor in the abbacy of the Entsu Monastery. Sokuchu
later became the head of the Soto School as fiftieth abbot of the
Eihei Monastery, restoring the monastic buildings according to its
founder Dogen’s specifications. Sokuchu was instrumental in theinitial publication of the entire Treasury of the True Dharma Eye(Shobo Genzo), comprising ninety-five essays. (This publication took
place in 1816, nine years after Sokuchu’s death and fifteen years
before Ryokan’s death. Ryokan had no way to acquire a copy of thismonumental text by Dogen, but perhaps he had access to thehandwritten copies of several independently distributed essays fromthis book.)
Ryokan wanted to follow Dogen’s instructions to the letter.
Realizing no one else wished to wholeheartedly practice the ancientmaster’s way, Ryokan felt helpless. He expressed his grief in the
conclusion of the Chinese-style poem “Discourse” quoted earlier:
When a great house is about to crumble,
a stick cannot keep it from falling.
Unable to sleep on a clear night,
I toss in bed, chanting this poem.
Ryokan outlined in the poem “Discourse,” quoted earlier, thetransmission of the Zen teaching from Shakyamuni Buddha throughBodhidharma and Tiantong Rujing of China to his Japanesesuccessor Dogen. But it was not in Ryokan’s nature to remain in amonastery, lead a community of monks, and try to reform thesystem. He saw himself as ill-suited to preach, organize, or lead. He
was self-disciplined but inwardly inclined. He wrote:
I don’t tell the murky world
to turn pure.
I purify myself
and check my reflectionin the water of the valley brook.
Withdrawing from the practicing community, he walked alone
through mountains and villages, ringing a belled staff and chanting averse of a sutra at each house. He treated everyone with respect
and loving-kindness. Whether people offered him food, ignored him,or harshly drove him away, he was determined to remain true to hispath as a monk:
Neverwill I taintmy renounced life
for the Buddha,
for the dharma.
There was at least one person who practiced Zen seriously with
Ryokan—his boyhood friend Saichi Miwa. Unfortunately, he diedyoung. Hearing the sad news, Ryokan wrote:
Ah, the single lay practitioner
who studied with me for twenty years,
one who penetrated what is within—No others are worthy of receiving the dharma.
In the meantime, while Ryokan was living at the Five Scoop Hut,his brother Yushi gradually failed to manage the headman’s office,as well as the family household. As a result of his losing a court
dispute with the Kyo-ya family of Amaze Village, the entire property

of the Yamamoto family was confiscated by the government in 1810,
and Yushi was expelled from his home village. After the death of his
wife, Yasu, a grief-stricken Yushi became a monk in 1811. Ryokan
unconditionally loved his haiku-poet sibling. At times they saw andwrote to each other. Once Ryokan wrote to him a tanka titled “At
Izumosaki Peninsula”:
Morning and evening
I gazed at
Sado Island,
remembering
our deceased mother.

Lazy and Foolish
In 1826, at age fifty-nine, Ryokan moved to the forested compoundof Otogo (Youngest Child God) Shinto Shrine, located below the Five
Scoop Hut on Mount Kugami. It had become increasingly difficult for
him to make trips through the deep snow to villages from the Five
Scoop Hut. His two-room hut at the shrine stood at the side of its tiny
thatch-roofed sanctuary. He lived there for ten years. This era can be
regarded as the Later Period in his poetry and calligraphy. Despite
his struggles with malnourishment and sickness, he was quite
prolific. It was during this time that he wrote:
When young, I learned literature but was too lazy to become ascholar.
Still young, I practiced Zen, but I never transmitted the dharma.
Now I live in a hermitage and guard a Shinto shrine.
I feel like half a shrine keeper and half a monk.
Perhaps he not only kept the shrine clean but also followed some
Shinto procedures such as making offerings and reciting prayers in
exchange for his residency. During this time, Buddhism andShintoism were by and large integrated. Ryokan therefore probablyhad no problem being a Shinto shrine keeper and a Zen monk at thesame time.
He said in another poem:
In my hometown, there are two brotherswith contrary characters.
One is clever and eloquent,
the other foolish and silent.
The foolish one
seems to have all the time in the world.
The clever one
is always busy depleting his life.
Apparently Ryokan had affinity with the one who was stupid andsilent. Although there is no evidence that he ever used one of his
Buddhist names, Daigu (Great Fool), he was indeed a great fool—having practiced Zen intensively and being well versed in literature
but showing no trace of his achievement. Anecdotes of Zen Master
Ryokan says:
On an autumn evening, Ryokan was playing hide-and-seek withchildren in the village as usual. Ryokan hid himself in newly
stacked straw. At dusk the children went home, leaving Ryokan
behind.
Early next morning, a farmer pulled some straw out from thestack and found Ryokan inside.
The farmer said, “Oh, Rev. Ryokan!”
Ryokan said, “Shhhh! The children may catch me.”In another account from the same collection:
A messenger delivered a letter to Ryokan and waited for his
reply. Ryokan went to another room but did not return for a longtime. When the messenger heard laughter coming from theroom, he took a peek inside and discovered Ryokan spinning
his iron bowl on the end of the handle of his ceremonial whisk.
Every time the bowl fell, Ryokan laughed.

Annoyed, the messenger reminded Ryokan of the reply he
was awaiting. Ryokan came to and gave his written reply. The
messenger went back, telling his master the story. Amused, themaster opened Ryokan’s reply:
When I turnmy iron bowl, it goesround and round.
Many of the hilarious stories included in Anecdotes portray
Ryokan as overly trusting, forgetful, whimsical, and naive. We could
also see him as absurd, filthy, and disgusting. Yet he was always
loving and joyful. These colorful episodes, along with his splendid
artistry and devoted Zen practice, made Ryokan extremely popular
after his death.
Although they may be exaggerated, some of the stories are often
imbued with subtle teachings. While some may in the end simply befunny, how to interpret the stories is up to us. In any case, it is clearthat Ryokan’s sincere Zen practice brought him to a point of
nondiscrimination and nonattachment.
Renouncing the world, renouncing the body, I have become aperson of leisure.
Keeping company with the moon and blossoms, I spend myremaining life.
So clear—rain, clouds, and spirit.
I am awake, as are all things in the world.
Ironically, his diligence merged with total relaxation; his wisdom
converged with seeming stupidity. Through his lack of possessions,comfort, and regular human contact, he found contentment in each
moment. He expresses this in this tanka:
As long as I don’t aim,
I won’t miss.
With the catalpa bow,
I shoot an arrow
toward the open sky.

Because he did not strive to become free, he was always free fromattainment—even from attainment of freedom.

Love in Ryokan’s Final Years
Although I wish to comeon a cane
to see you,this sickly bodywill not let me.
In 1826, at age sixty-nine, Ryokan had become too weak to collectfirewood, fetch water, and walk the distance to the villages fortakuhatsu. Motoemon Kimura, a student and influential supporter ofhis, invited Ryokan to move into his house in Shimazaki, a section of
Washima Village, on the plain in the midpoint between Izumosaki
and Mount Kugami. Ryokan accepted his invitation but insisted onliving in the former firewood shed behind the garden. It was therethat he spent the last five years of his life. This era can be regarded
as the Final Period in his poetry and calligraphy.
One day in the following year, Teishin—a young nun—came tomeet him. She left a tanka for him, as he was away:
You who play in the buddha way
bouncing a ballendlessly
must be the one.
Is it your dharma?
Ryokan sent a return poem:
Try bouncing a ball.
One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
You end at ten
and start again.

Later, they met.
passionately wrote:

Teishin,alreadyanaccomplishedpoet,

The joy ofmeeting youin this way—
I wonder if it is a dream
I have not awoken from.
Ryokan responded reflectively and rather impersonally:In the dream world
there is dozing.
Further within,speaking and dreamingof the dream as it is.
Thus, Teishin became Ryokan’s student. She was twentynine
years old to his seventy. Originally from a samurai family, she had
married a physician but was widowed after five years. A few years
later she was ordained by Zen master Taizen of the Toun Temple.
She was living in the Emma Shrine in Fukushima, six miles
southeast of Shimazaki, across the wide Shinano River, when she
met Ryokan.
She asked Ryokan a great many questions about buddha dharma.
He was delighted to speak about what he had learned through his
lifetime practice and study.
In Dew on the Lotus (Hachisu no Tsuyu)—Teishin’s memoir of
Ryokan and a collection of his poems—she wrote the phrase, “In lateevening speaking intimately on dharma,” as a short preface to thefollowing poem by him:
My arms are chilly
under my white robe.
On an autumn evening,the moon shines overthe center of the sky.

One day when she was in her shrine, a friend told her that Ryokan
was visiting the nearby castle town of Yoita. She went to see him
and learned that he was leaving the following day. People gathered
to converse with him and bid him farewell. Teishin said to Ryokan,“Your complexion is dark and your robe is dark, so from now on I willcall you a crow.” Laughing, he said, “That suits me well,” and wrote
the following poem:
Tomorrow
I will fly away
to who knows where,
as someone has made mea crow.
Then Teishin wrote:
Oh mountain crow,
if you are going home,please bring alonga young crow,even one with fragile wings.
Ryokan, a shabby old monk, must have been utterly flattered bythis young, beautiful woman’s subtle yet public confession of love.
The notion of love between a nun and a monk would be dangerous
anywhere, particularly in their old-fashioned rural society. In his
return poem, he told her jokingly to slow down:
I wish I could
bring you along,
but what would become of us
if people started
to talk?
Teishin did not give in but pushed further:
A kite is a kite,a sparrow is a sparrow,a heron is a heron.
A crow with a crow—
who should suspect?
Meetings of master and disciple were rather infrequent. Teishin
and Ryokan’s relationship developed slowly, sublimated by way of
their poetry. One spring, Ryokan suggested that she should comeback and see him after the bush clover bloomed. Teishin could notstand such a long separation, so she arrived early, offering an
apology:
Waiting
for the autumn bush clover to bloom,
I pushed throughthe dew-covered summer grass
to visit you.
Ryokan accepted her excuse with the following verse:
Too long to wait
for the autumn bush clover to bloom,
you have pushed throughthe dew-covered summer grass.
Oh, here you are!
Another time, Teishin came to Ryokan’s backyard hut to find only alotus blossom in a water-filled jar at his door. So she left a note:
I got here
but no one was home.
How splendid!
A fragrant lotus
guarding your hut.
Ryokan sent a poem in response:
No one here
to greet you.

Just think of me,
looking at the lotus blossom
in a small jar.
Ryokan’s love of Teishin deepened. While suffering fromdeteriorating health and persistent diarrhea, he became eager to see
her. He wrote:
Have you forgotten?
Has the path disappeared?
These days
I have spent waiting and waiting,but you have not yet arrived.
When she came after the snow melted, he wrote:
More precious thanjewels and gold
spread under the sky—
your visit
at the beginning of spring.
In the winter of 1830, upon falling severely ill, Ryokan retreatedinto his hermitage and stopped receiving visitors. In response to
Teishin’s note wishing his recovery, Ryokan wrote:
As soon as spring
has arrived
full as a drawn bow,please visit this grass hut.
I do want to see you.
At the year’s end, Ryokan fell into critical condition. Teishin rushed
to see him. Overjoyed, he wrote:
When? When?
You, whom I have been
eagerly awaiting,are finally here.
What else is there to want?
Teishin, Motoemon, and brother Yushi tended to him. Ryokan
passed away on the sixth day of the first month, 1831, at the age ofseventy-four.
One of Ryokan’s death poems summarizes his lifelong loneliness,
openness, and reconciliation with transiency:
Showing its backand showing its front,
a falling maple leaf.

WANDERING PERIOD

1790–1796 (age 33–39)

New pond.
No sound of a frog
jumping in.

Short of breath,a sardine vendermakes his way to the top.

At a place called Ako I slept in the
Tenjin Shrine forest. Chilling storm.
Mountain storm!
Don’t blow so hardat night on my journey.
I sleep on one sleeveof my white robe.

The following day I arrived in aplace called Karatsu. This evening
I also had no place to stay.
Did I expect this?
Tonight again
I sleep outdoors,
tamping down weeds
alongside the road.

On the evening of the harvest moon
Together with others
I view the moon
above the capital city,
but I long forthe feel of the land.

On a grass pillow,
my journey’s lodging
changes night by night.
Dreams of my village
remain.

If anyone
is going to my hometown,
send a message that
I have passed
Omi Province.

MATURE PERIOD

1796–1816 (age 39–59)
While living at Five Scoop Hut on Mount Kugami

Arriving here at this village,peach blossoms
in full bloom.
Red petals reflect
on the river.

TAKUHATSU
On the first day of the eighth month
I walk into town, begging.
White clouds follow my high-spirited steps.
Autumn wind rattles the jade rings on my stick.
A thousand gates open at dawn.
Bamboo and plantains paint themselves in front of my eyes.
House to house, east to west, I beg for food;wine shop, fish market, it’s all the same.
Looking directly at the world,
one crushes hell’s mountain of swords.
Walking slowly evaporates the boiling cauldron.
Long ago the prince of King Shuddodana taught
and the Golden Ascetic intimately received transmission.
It has been more than two thousand seven hundred years.
I, too, am a child of the Shakya family.
One robe, one bowl—totally clear:
Old man Vimalakirti once said,“Give and receive food as you would give and receive dharma.”
I take his point.
Practicing solidly, who will not reach the year of the donkey?

See and realizethat this worldis not permanent.
Neither late nor early flowers
will remain.

Since I left the household,throwing myself into the world as it is,I have erased all dates.
Yesterday I lived on a green mountain;
today I play in town.
More than one hundred pieces patch my robe.
A single bowl knows no years.
Leaning on my walking stick, I sing into the clear night;
laying out a straw mat, I sleep under the moon.
Who says I don’t count?
This body of mine is just this.

The cloud-covered sky
is all open.
The heart of takuhatsu
as it is—a gift from heaven.

In town I finish begging for food.
Content, I carry the cloth bag,wondering which place to call home.
Could that be my hut near the white cloud?

A bent ritual stickDon’t liken it to a tile or pebble.
Don’t even compare it to a jewel.
It is as rare as a black dragon’s horn,
as vital as a blue elephant’s trunk.
It supports a dharma talk on an autumn evening,keeps me company as I sleep on a spring afternoon.
Although useless for dusting,it purifies the heart of the way.

Past has passed away.
Future has not arrived.
Present does not remain.
Nothing is reliable; everything must change.
You hold on to letters and names in vain,
forcing yourself to believe in them.
Stop chasing new knowledge.
Leave old views behind.
Study the essential
and then see through it.
When there is nothing left to see through,then you will know your mistaken views.

Great is the robe of liberation,a formless field of benefaction.
Buddhas have authentically transmitted it.
Ancestors have intimately received it.
Beyond wide, beyond narrow,beyond cloth, beyond threads;
maintain it thus,
then you are called a keeper of the robe.

What was right yesterday
is wrong today.
In what is right today,
how do you know it was not wrong yesterday?
There is no right or wrong,no predicting gain or loss.
Unable to change their tune,
those who are foolish glue down bridges of a lute.
Those who are wise get to the source
but keep wandering about for long.
Only when you are neither wise nor foolish
can you be called one who has attained the way.

You see the moon by pointing your finger.
You recognize the finger by the moon.
The moon and the finger
are not different, not the same.
In order to guide a beginner,
this analogy is temporarily used.
When you have realized this,
there is no moon, no finger.

When Zhaozhou asks, “Yes?” I say, “Yes.”
When he asks, “No?” I say, “No.”When you ask, “Yes?” I say nothing.
When you ask, “No?” I say nothing.
When you ask, “How is it so?”still I say nothing.

If someone asks
about the mind of this monk,say it is no more thana passage of windin the vast sky.

In an autumn field,
hundreds of grasses
burst into bloom.
Kneeling down,a male deer cries.

Reflection on leaving the household
I came to the mountainto avoid hearing
the sound of waves.
Lonesome now in another way—
wind in the pine forest.

Autumn advancesand I becomea bit sadclosing the gate
to my hut.

Back in Echigo Province,
I am no longer
used to the climate here.
Cold is increasingly
harsh on my skin.

MONKSYou shaved your heads and became monks.
Now you beg for food and nourish your original aspiration.
If you see yourselves in this way,
how can you not realize and awaken?
You who have left the household,I hear you shouting day and night.
In order to satisfy your mouths and stomachs,
you run around all of your lives.
Those who wear white robes without way-seeking mind
can still be forgiven.
Those who have left the household without way-seeking mind,
how can you purify your defilement?
Cutting off the hair of attachment in the three realms,
you wear the robe that destroys ideas of gain.
The journey from the realm of human obligations
to the realm beyond doing is not an idle thing.
When I walk in the world, I see
men and women performing their tasks.
If they don’t weave, what can we wear?
If they don’t farm, how can we eat?
Now you call yourselves children of Shakyamuni,
although you have no practice and no enlightenment.
Wastefully you spend donations from your supporters
without reflecting upon your three types of actions.
You talk big,but your habits never change.
You deceive old women in the countryside
by appearing serious.
You regard yourselves as able people.
Ah, when will you awaken?
Even when approached by a herd of nursing tigresses,

don’t stumble onto the path of fame and gain.
An ocean cannot clean
the slightest thought of fame and gain.
What have your teachers been doing
since they ordained you?
Offering incense,
they pray to buddhas and deities
to solidify your aspiration for the way.
How can you not betray them
the way you are today?
The three realms are like a guesthouse.
Human life resembles a dewdrop.
Time for practice easily evaporates;
true dharma is rare to encounter.
One must sustain vigorous effort.
Do not wait for encouragementfrom one after another.
I offer you harsh warnings
not for my own pleasure.
Starting now, think deeply.
Change your selfish ways.
Those in later generations,let go of your fear!

Impermanent and swift,transformed in an instant,a youthful face will not remain.
Black yarn on the head turns into white threads;
the backbone bends like a bow.
Skin wrinkles like waves over a stormy visage;
cicadas inside the ears chirp all night.
Blossoms fly endlessly over the eyes.
Standing up you take a deep long sigh.
You walk on your cane absentmindedlyor ponder pleasures of younger days
accompanied by today’s worry.
How pitiful, you who regret your old age!
You are like a branch covered in frost.
Among those who have received life in the three realms,
who can avoid arriving here?
Moment to moment nothing stays,
how long are youthful and mature ages?
The four elements decay day by day;body and mind dwindle night by night.
Once you lie in sickness,
you don’t part from the pillow for a long time.
Even if you keep talking aloud,
what can your talking accomplish?
The six roots have nothing to depend upon
if one breath is cut off.
Your relatives wail into your face.
Your wife and children sadden while rubbing your back.
They call you, but you won’t answer.
They cry for you, but you won’t know.
Total darkness is the path in the Yellow Spring.
Dazed, you walk alone.

SONG OF CHUGENMy parents departed long ago.
How often I grieve in sadness!
I had only two aunts left:
my mother’s elder sister, Myogo, and younger sister, Myoshin.
Last year Myoshin died in the fifth month.
Myogo was alive at the time of chugen but
became a resident of the Nine Fields this year.
Last year I went to Kyoto and sobbed.
This year I moved to the shore of a lake and a river.
My grief multiplies as I move through space and seasons.
My wandering south and north stops for a while;
here and there on the valley stream, I pick floating weeds.
In the distance, I visualize the Ki River bank.
Monks perform an urabon ceremony after cleaning the temple.
The chanting of sad voices resounds to the red banners.
Then a cool breeze arrives;cleansing and darkening showers merge with the dust.
Rain over, plantain shadow under the leaning sun—the spirit of my father appears before me.
After the ceremony I return to the monks’ quarters,
making a silent dedication for his liberation:“Spirit, do not stay sunk forever.
Quickly prepare a boat and cross to the other shore.”DISCOURSE
Customs become diluted year after year.
Both the noble and the common decline.
The human mind grows fragile with time;
the ancestral way becomes fainter day by day.
Teachers can’t see past the name of their school;
students enable their teachers’ narrow-mindedness.
They are glued to each other,
unwilling to change.
If the purpose of the dharma were to establish schools,
sages would have done so long ago.
Now that people have declared their schools,
whom on earth should I join?
Everyone, shut your mouthand listen!
A discourse should have a beginning.
Let me begin with the one on Vulture Peak.
The Buddha is the deva of devas.
Who can criticize him?
Five hundred years after the Buddha passed away,
people gathered two or three volumes of his teaching.
Bodhisattva Nagarjuna came to the world
and wrote a treatise explaining emptiness.
He said he was simply called to do so.
Who is right and who is wrong?
The Baime Monastery was first founded
after the buddha dharma moved eastward.
Our master Bodhidharma came from afar.
It was then that all teachings found their source.
Zen flourished in Great Tang.
Never had it been so magnificent.
Guiding the assembly and correcting the crowd,each teacher was a lion in dharma.
Although sudden and gradual teachings emerged,
there were not yet Southern and Northern Schools.
In the later dynasty of Song,the white jewel began to be marred.
The Five Schools exposed their spearheads;
the Eight Schools competed with one another.
Their influences spread far and wide,
impossible to stop.
Then came our Eihei Dogen,a true pioneer in the ancestral domain.
He carried Taibo’s seal of approval.
His voice resounded like thunder throughout this country.
Vigorous was his work of spreading dharma,
so vigorous that it overshadowed
other dragons and elephants.
Even hermits did not miss being illuminated.
He also guided those living on remote islands.
He eliminated what should be eliminated,
offered what should be offered.
Since the master left this land of Shinto deities,
how many years have passed?
Thornbushes grow around high halls,
fragrant flowers wither in the weeds.
Vulgar songs fill the days.
Who will expound the luminous teaching?
Ah, I, a humble one,have encountered this era.
When a great house is about to crumble,
a stick cannot keep it from falling.
Unable to sleep on a clear night,
I toss in bed, chanting this poem.

Day by day, day by day, and day by day,quietly in the company of children I live.
In my sleeves, tiny embroidered balls, two or three.
Useless, intoxicated, in this peaceful spring.

Rain frogs
disappear into
my scrubbing of the pot.

Blue sky, cold geese honk.
On a bare mountain, tree leaves flutter.
At dusk in the village, smoke billows from every house.
Alone with my empty bowl, I head home.

In the evening of a thousand peaks, I close my eyes.
Among humans, myriad thoughts are trivial.
Serenely I sit on the mat.
In solitude I face an open window.
The incense has burned out and a dark night is long.
Dew is thick; my robe is thin.
Emerging from samadhi, I walk in the garden.
The moon has risen over the highest peak.

Rags upon rags,
tatter is my life.
I pluck my food on a country path.
My hut is buried in a tangle of weeds.
Looking at the moon, I hum all night;
deluded by blossoms, I forget to return.
Since leaving the monastery,what a fool I have become!

One thousand peaks merge with frozen clouds;
ten thousand paths have no human trace.
Day by day just facing the wall,at times I hear snow drift over the window.

Autumn evening,a monk stands
listening to crickets—
faraway village
buried in mist.

The sound of maple leaves fallingin this mountain village
makes it hard to tella rainy day
from one that is not.

Out breathand in breath—know that they are
proof that the worldis inexhaustible.

Water does not go,
moon does not come.
And yet,how pure its reflection
on the waves!

A statue of Buddha
in parinirvana
and Ryokan
next to each other.
Pillows side by side.

On an evening journeyTime passes, spring to autumn;
the temple is quiet, white dew dense.
Though crickets near the window run their looms,
they do not add one thread for this poor monk.

I lodge in an abandoned temple,
my only company a single lamp.
Who will dry these traveling clothes?
Singing soothes me,
rainfall rings in my ears.
I stay awake with my pillow high until dawn.

A walk in Izumosaki with Rev. Tenge on an autumn day
Human life is like a blade of grass
floating downstream.
How can one respond to such a situation?
I live this way not without reason.
Waving my belled staff, I parted from my family;
raising my hands, I bade the town farewell.
I keep repairing my patched robe.
Who knows how many springs this begging bowl has seen?
I happen to love the quietude of a grass hut.
Two of a similar spirit have met;
who can distinguish host from guest?
The wind high, the pine a thousand feet tall,chrysanthemum blossoms chilly with frost—with our hands holding what is outside the secular world,
we forget everything on this serene shore.

I carried my begging bowl and arrived in the city of Niigata,where I saw Elder Ugan giving a dharma discourse at alayperson’s house. I wrote this verse to him.
Your talk is like chopping cheap dog meatand selling it as a slice of sheep.
I am as stinky as you are.
May the pleasure of your company not go away!

After staying at the Koju Hall on an autumn night, I lean over abalcony rail overlooking early morning.
Last night I arrived at this monastery.
Here I clean myself and bow to the statue of the Buddha
on a blue lotus.
Lamplight illuminates a quiet room.
The myriad phenomena are altogether serene.
After the bell sounds the fifth night period,a voice chants in harmony with the trickling fountain.
The eastern direction starts to glow,
clear and serene, the sky after rain.
Cool autumn in the eighth, ninth months:
fresh air polishes the mountains and rivers.
The remaining mist gathers in the dark valley.
Sun rises on layered ridges,a treasure tower in the empty sky.
A golden pagoda hangs on twigs.
Splashing streams pour from steep cliffs.
Waves lap up against the sky.
Passengers in the distance walk to the ferry port.
A number of boats compete to cross.
How misty the shore!
Cedar and cypress greens look delicious.
Long ago I valued what is rare
and traveled all over to find it.
Then I visited this place
whose beauty is beyond words.
Who picked the Koju world andput it in front of me?
Looking at its manifestation in this world,
I write a single verse.
I have no choice but to leave.
Thoughts of the long journey occupy my mind.
Among humans there is waxing and waning.
How can I make plans to return?

I keep wandering empty-mindedly, attempting to go,poised with my ringed stick.

Rain and sleet
soakedmy walking robe.
Kind women dry it,
passing it from hand to hand.

On the second day of the twelfth month, I received offerings ofsweet potatoes, apricots, and so on from Shukumon. I
responded with this poem.
I climbed the mountain and collected a bundle of firewood.
The sun was already low upon my return.
You had left an offeringon the shelf below the window.
Apricots in a bag, potatoes wrapped in straw,
a piece of paper with your name.
From day to day there is no delicacy,although mountain greens and radishes happen to grow.
Quickly I cooked them in the pot and added soybean paste.
The food felt like candy for my starving stomach.
After three bowls, I was finally satisfied.
The only regret is that you, the poet, did not bring a jar of sake.
I kept two-tenths of the feast and stored it in the kitchen.
Rubbing my stomach, I walk around and think of the rest of youroffering.
Buddha’s enlightenment ceremony is six days away.
With what shall I express my gratitude?
I usually receive few offerings;
most of them are from the next temple or city.
Things cost tenfold at the end of the year.
Even if I would spend all I have, it would not be enough to fill thebasket.
Fortunately, this year with your gift, dear friend,
I can make an offering to the old man from India.
Let me see what I should offer:
Apricots with tea, sweet potatoes served warm.

My hand holds a cane made of rabbit horn.
My body is wrapped with a robe of flowers in the sky.
My feet are clad in shoes made of tortoise hair.
My lips chant a poem of no sound.

Upon hearing that Yukinori passed away
Life, less than a hundred years,
floats like a boat midstream.
You and I shared causal conditions.
How can I help not pondering them?
Long ago with a few friends,
we walked along a narrow creek,
leisurely discussing literature.
You and I studied in our master’s school.
We walked side by side like two carriages,
sat on the same straw mat,but wind took us away
and waves kept us apart.
You aspired to excel in fame and gain;
I longed for the Golden Sorcerer.
You went to the eastern capital;
I stayed in a western province.
The western seaside was not my hometown.
How could I stay there for long?
I moved back to my old village,
lived in mist above the clouds.
Finally, I found a hut made of a bundle of grassand have lived on Kugami Peak ever since.
Our old garden is not as it was.
We all change—noble and common alike.
I asked someone about you, but
he just pointed to the cemetery on the hill.
Sobbing for some time,
I could not speak.
You were my peer in the same school;
now you are under the moss of the Yellow Spring.
We used to exchange joyous words;
now one is alive and the other dead.
How vast are the three realms!
Indeed, the six paths are difficult to comprehend.

I told it to you thus and walked down the road,swinging my ringed staff as smoke from houses curled above.
Upstanding pine trees dot both sides of the road.
Temple buildings line up in the clouds.
Willow trees swing their green flags.
Peach blossoms scatter on a silver saddle.
The town is in festivity,
people coming and going in streets.
I look but don’t know them.
How can I not hide?

I don’t regard my life
as insufficient.
Inside the brushwood gate
there is a moon;
there are flowers.

Were there someone
in the world
who feels as I feel,
we would talk all nightin this grass hut.

Pass the mountain
where white clouds
linger,I will share with youa song about young bracken.

For you who
rarely visit,
though you have already arrived,
may the early evening storm
not blow so hard!

My lodging isbamboo poles
and a straw mat screen.
Kindly throw down
a cup of cheap sake.

I sit facing you, but you utter no words.
Although no words, feelings abound.
Books and their cases are scattered near the bed.
Rain patters on plum blossoms outside the bamboo screen.

Two of us
brush painting in turn;autumn night.

Take care now;
I am going fortakuhatsu.
You stay in thisborrowed hut.

We promised
to see each otherwhen rice is transplanted.
Already autumn wind is blowing
through yellow leaves.

Upon the death of Shigenori Yamada
Is it a dreamor is it real?
How will I know?
Parting from you,my mind is at a loss.

Although from the beginning
I knew
the world is impermanent,
not a moment passes
when my sleeves are dry.

On a pitch-darknight roadI get lost
watching the moonset behind the faraway mountain.

After sunset, a breeze blew.
Awakened, I walked around.
A child knelt before me
and handed me your five-ideograph lines.
Your poem, alive as waves,flowing as a fountain,
quickly healed my stagnant sickness.
I savored it, like a sorcerer’s elixir.
I offered incense, poring over it again and again.
Since then, it has stayed with me.

A stick of incense stands by my pillow.
When the lantern dims, I pour some oil.
I add more clothes as the night deepens.
If you don’t mind my bare hospitality,
please keep wandering in.

On my portrait
We meet and we part,
Coming and going—hearts like passing clouds.
Except for the marks of a frosty-hair brush,human traces are hard to find.

Hair disheveled, ears sticking out.
Patched robe half torn like cloud and mist.
At dusk in town on my way home,children flock from east and west.

With little desire, all is sufficient;with grabbing mind, myriad things are confined.
Light vegetables satisfy my hunger.
A patched robe wraps my body.
Walking alone, I am accompanied by deer.
Singing aloud, I play with village children.
I wash my ears in a creek under the boulder,delighted by pine trees on a ridge.

Hakama too short, jacket too long,
freely and quietly I pass the time.
Children on the street notice me,clapping their hands and singing bouncing-ball songs.

Autumn mountain,
maple leaves have fallen.
What should I
bring to children
for a souvenir?

I play pulling weeds with children,
having fun with one, another, and another.
After my companions have gone,a bright moon overwhelms the naked autumn night.

All four seasons have the moon,and yet we admire it especially in autumn.
The mountain is high and the water clear.
In the sky of myriad miles, a round mirror flies.
Forgetting both light and object—who is this?
Heaven is high and high; autumn is chill and chill.
Holding the treasure stick, I circle the belly of the mountain.
All directions are solitary and serene.
I gaze as the moon gushes glowing light.
Who in this evening looks at it?
What does it illuminate?
How many autumns come and go?
Looking at the moon, facing the moon, there is no end.
Transmission on Vulture Peak and Caoxi’s pointing—wondrous teachings under the moon.
The night is already deep when I chant under the moon,
settling on the river while dew grows thick.
Whose pond reflects the most luminescence?
Which wanderer has the heart of fall?
Don’t you see Jiangxi,
who on the night of moon gazing
recognized that Puyuan alone had passed beyond forms?
Don’t you also hear
Yaoshan’s famous laughter under the moon
resounding through the village from his solitary peak?
These are stories in ancient times that led seekers of the way
to look toward waxing and waning with empty minds.
Having carried much longing for the ancient,I also face the moon, robe moistened by evening dew.

Under the clear sky around midnight,
I take a cane and go out the gate.
Under the entangled vines,
how winding this pebble road is!
Birds nesting in trees chirp on branches;
black monkeys howl beside me.
Viewing the Amitabha Hall from afar,
in broad spirit I climb up.
Old pine trees are ten thousand feet high;fresh water spouts from the spring.
Wind above blows ceaselessly;
a solitary moon floats in the dark blue.
Leaning on the balcony railing,
I am a crane flying over the clouds.

LATER PERIOD

1816–1826 (age 59–69)
Residing in a hut at the Otogo Shinto Shrine on Mount Kugami

A break-in
A thief took the han and futon from the thatch-roofed room.
Who could blame him?
All night I sit alone under the quiet window—
rain sprinkles sparsely on the bamboo grove.

My dear begging bowl
is so lovely.
Since leaving the household
I have held it closeon my wrist in the morning,on my palm in the evening.
But since I left it somewhere today,
I don’t know how to stand or sit.
My mind scattered,I search restlessly—on the ground where valley toads crawl,
and in the dew-laden field,with or without my cane,to the place where heaven and earth merge.
Then somebody brings it, saying,“Here is your begging bowl.”
Is he a human being,a message from above,or a dream on a pitch-dark night?
When I picked violets
on the roadside,
I left my begging bowl
behind—that very begging bowl.

In my bowl
I mingle
violets and dandelions,
wishing to offer themto the buddhas in the three worlds.

Since leaving the household,my whereabouts depend upon cloud and mist—
one moment mingling with woodcutters and fishermen,
next moment flocking with children.
How could I be satisfied by the glory of kings and lords?
To be a sorcerer is not my wish.
Wherever I visit, I stay.
It does not have to be Bodhidharma’s Mount Song.
Renewing my practice day by day,I resolve to reach complete serenity.

Before listening to the way, do not fail to wash your ears.
Otherwise it will be impossible to listen clearly.
What is washing your ears?
Do not hold on to your view.
If you cling to it even a little bit,
you will lose your way.
What is similar to you but wrong, you regard as right.
What is different from you but right, you regard as wrong.
You begin with ideas of right and wrong.
But the way is not so.
Seeking answers with closed ears is
like trying to touch the ocean bottom with a pole.

In one thousand years,
how can Ilive up to
the true patheven for a single day?

A good old caneof unknown age,
hard as iron from the mystic Three Mountains,
straight as a string on the harp—
crossing water, it touches the bottom;
climbing a mountain, it reaches the peak.
This morning when I threw it down the stairs,
it turned into a dragon and flew to the clouds.

On a quiet evening in my thatch-roofed hut,alone I play a lute with no string.
Its melody enters wind and cloud,mingles deeply with a flowing stream,
fills out the dark valley,
blows through the vast forest, then disappears.
Other than those who hear emptiness,
who will capture this rare sound?

TO THE FLOWER THIEF
You caught a glimpse ofplum blossoms,
like viewing a sliver moon,at a temple beyond
the ragged rocky slope.
You grew a wish topull out the entire tree
and bring it home.
A misty spring day,you couldn’t keep it off your mind.
When evening came,
you left your small village full of ducks,
crossed the large field of
pampas grass,and passed along
the bird-chirping shore
toward the rough mountainfilled with straight standing trees.
Quietly, you approached
your destination from a rocky path.
When you stood on the fence,someone saw you andyelled out “Thief!”
People in the temple
hit the bells,
noisy as a storm on a mountain,
like trying to push down bamboo
with leaves thick with dewdrops.
They called out and surrounded you,leaving no way to escape.
So you were called a flower thief.

Since then it’s been many years.
I wonder if you have been
rubbing your long beard,
in your low reed-roof hut
on a small mountain,in this blossom-viewing month.
Many years like new jewels,
have passed
through my fingers.
Flower thief,a thing of the past.

How could we discuss
this and thatwithout knowing
the whole world isreflected in a single pearl?

Wait for the lightof the rising moon,then leave
as stinging chestnut shells are scatteredon the mountain path.

I stand up and look,
sit down and look,waiting for you
who promised to visit
so we could view maple leaves
at my hut.
Evening by evening rain falls.
Morning by morning frost spreads.
If wind happens to blow,
maple leaves will fall.
If maple leaves fall, what shall I do?
Maple leaves that never fall
are unheard of even in the ancient world of gods.
Thinking about it,
all I can do is tobreak off a branch.
Maple leaves
drained of their color
on one side of my garden—
who are they waiting for?
Frost has started to spread.

In the mountain shade,water in the moss
drips between rocks.
I feel a glimmerof clarity.

In town
there are soundsof flutes and drums.
But in this deep mountain
only a pine rustles.

Today I, too,
will join the blossom watchers
on a spring mountain.

This morning I will fetch water,
cut firewood,and pick herbs
during a breakin this autumn shower.

My abode isin winter seclusionon this white mountain in Echigo.
No trace of humans
coming or going.

In reality,
as in dreams,
I expect no visitor—
but old age
keeps calling.

The path is hidden
by snow,
invisible,
but thoughts of you
lead me onward.

How can I
sustain my life?
So far,winter this year
has been brutal.

For no particular reason
my heart is stirred,
unable to sleep
knowing that tomorrowis the beginning of the year.

Snow falling,
blown by wind.
Wind blows,
carrying snow.
Even in spring,drawn like a catalpa bow,cuckoos have not yet sung.
I don’t go out in the field to pick young herbs,
only stay in my grass hut,continuing to count the days.
Already the middle of the second monthhas passed.
I see by the moon thatspring has moved pastits midpoint.
I have not yet emerged
to pick young herbs from the field.

Upon getting up from sickness in late spring
The grass hut is tightly closed, west of the stone forest.
In solitude a single pillow faces the hill.
Rising from sickness, I lean on a cane and stand by the river.
Countless peach petals flow downstream.

“Cuckoos
keep chirping,”
so they say,but I can no longer hear
their songs.

Feeling slightly well when autumn comes
Not yet disappeared
like a dewdrop
on a blade of grass,
I am still in this floating world,moon in the morning.

I don’t know aboutother countries,
but in this country
there is a horrendous spirit
called Imo, god of smallpox
who comes aroundevery seven years andtortures young children.
This year is
exceptionally disastrous.
If we keep counting
the number of coffins
sent off for cremation,
our thumbs will sprain.
The few who survive
are left with demon faces.
Those who have children are panicked.
Recently, a couple sent me an offering
for the funeral I had conducted
for their infant boy.
I was told that their next youngest
had also diedof the same disease
the day before yesterday.
So I sent them this poem:
Smoke
disappears into
the heavenly sky.
A child’s imageis all that remains.

That evening I chanted the Lotus Sutra and dedicated the meritto all the deceased children known and unknown, asking
Amitabha Buddha to guide them to paradise.
Please guide
all fallen children
to the Buddha’s
dharma lotusblossom seat.

Imagining I am someone who has lost a childSeeing other people’schildren play,
I stand in the garden,
sheddingbottomless tears.

Imagining I am someone who has lost a child
If I dieof this unbearable grief,
I may run into my childon the way
to another world.

A cuckoo
hops, weeping,behind the leaves.
Does it see the world
so sad?

If I had known
how sorrowful this world is,
I would have become
grass or a tree
in a deep mountain!

FINAL PERIOD

1826–1831 (age 69–74)
Residing at a hut in the backyard of the Kimura family in
ShimazakiWritten in my hut on a snowy evening
Reflecting over seventy years,
I am tired of judging right from wrong.
Faint traces of a path trodden in deep night snow.
A stick of incense under the rickety window.

PREPARING FOR THE NEW YEAR’S DAY
People makeelaborate offerings to the Buddha.
In my hut
I dedicate
a painted rice cake.

Around the tenth day of the second month, I visited the foot ofMount Magi, where Arinori used to live. Seeing the abandonedplum tree, I reflected on our friendship.
In the past,
we used to catch falling plum blossoms
in sake cups.
Now they vainly
fall to the ground.

Noisy kids
lack coordination to catchearly fireflies.

Pushing the pole—a rice-straw-carrying boat launches
toward the sliver moon.

Wind bell chimes
three or four feetaway from the bamboo.

No one home.
Fallen pine needles
scattered at the door.

AgainI sneak into your garden
to eat aronia berries.
(Please keep yourself hidden
until I go away!)Maidens’ hands wearilytransplant ricein a mountain field.
Even their singing
sounds sad.

If someone asks
where I live,
say,“The farthest end of
the heavenly river shore.”MELONI scoop and eat,tear and eat,break and eat,then afterward
I keep it near my mouth.

The persimmon picker’s
testicles look frozen
in the autumn wind.

Hat in the sky,sandals on the ground,straw raincoat flown afar,
my body
the only memento.

Walking to a neighbor’s bath,clogs clatter loudly—
winter moon.

My hand istired of fanning,
but where should I set it?

Summer nighttransforms to daybreak.
I count fleas.

The ink-dyed
sleeves of my robe—
if only they were broad enoughto shelter
the poor.

Autumn bush clovers,
eulalias,
violets, dandelions,silk tree blossoms,
plantains, morning glories,
bonesets,
asters, dayflowers, anddaylilies,
which I planted in my garden—as I nurtured them with care,watering and shading morning to night,
people loved them,and so did I.
Then a strong storm happened to rageon the evening of the twenty-fifth dayof the fifth month.
My plants were hit by the rain,crushedinto hundreds and thousands of pieces.
I felt so sadbut had no one to blame.
One hundred grasses
I planted
at my hutdepend upon
the will of the wind.

Crimson—the seven treasures!
I hold up a gift ofpomegranateswith both hands.

Come again,
if you don’t mind
pushing your way throughdewy eulalia blossoms
to reach this twig-bound hut.

How did you wriggle
your way
into my dream paththrough such deep snowon the night mountain?

Children,
let’s go to the mountainto view violets.
If they scatter away tomorrow,
what can we do?

Won’t you sing?
I will get up and dance.
How can I sleep
with the timelessmoon this evening?

Dancing the bon dance,with a hand towel
I hide my age.

If my life
is still together,
I will occupy this hut
under the tree
next summer.

Written and sent to Yushi
Standing or sittingin this grass hut,
there is no escaping
the thought that
I haven’t seen you recently.

Seeing you,my dear,intoxicates me.
What regret shall I leave behindin this world?

Old man’s bent body—
like a snow-laden stalk of bamboo
buried in cold.

If I say it
it’s easy,
yet my diarrhea stomach
is indeed
hard to bear.

Father and Mother,be therein paradisein case I join you
today.

If you follow
the original vow ofAmitabha Buddha,
you will no longer be lostat the crossroads.

What legacy shall I
leave behind?
Flowers in spring.
Cuckoos in summer.
Maple leaves in autumn.

If people ask about
Ryokan’s death poem,
tell them it was“Homage toAmitabha Buddha.”Farewell—I will jump
onto a lotus leaf.
Let people call mea frog!

ANECDOTESIn the middle of summer, Ryokan announced: “I will air the entire
Buddhist canon in the Five Scoop Hut. Please come and see.”
The villagers went to the hut, but there were no books of thecanon; only Ryokan, lying naked. On his drum-like belly was written
the phrase “Entire canon.” The villagers were dumbfounded.

Ryokan loved smoking, but he kept losing the tobacco cases he had
been given. Someone helped him by tying a tobacco case to his obi
sash with a string six feet long.
One day, an old woman said to him, “Would you like some
tobacco?”He said, “Mine is following me.”Not understanding his words, the old woman looked behind
Ryokan. He had been dragging the tobacco case with the string.

Someone said, “It’s exciting to find money on the street.”
Hearing it, Ryokan threw his own money onto the street andpicked it up. He did not enjoy it at all. Suspecting that the man had
tricked him, Ryokan kept on throwing money, but eventually he could
not find where the money had gone. He searched for it everywhere
until, finally, he found the money and was overjoyed. Then, he said
to himself, “That man didn’t trick me after all.”Ryokan would sometimes play a go game, betting money. Many of
his opponents let him win. Then he would say, “I have too muchmoney. I don’t know where to put it.” Or he said, “People worry about
being short of money. I suffer from having too much.”Ryokan was once invited to a tea ceremony. Several guests were
supposed to share one bowl of thick tea. Ryokan swallowed theentire contents of the bowl before noticing that the guest next to him
was waiting. He spit some of the tea back into the bowl and passed it
to the next guest. Having no choice, the guest finished the tea whilechanting “Homage to Amitabha Buddha.”This could have been at the same tea ceremony. Ryokan picked
snot out of his nose and indiscreetly tried to set it on the right side of
his seat. The guest on his right pulled his sleeve and cautioned him
not to do that. Ryokan then tried to set it on his left, and the guest on
the left side pulled his sleeve. Having no place to put his snot, he put
it back into his nose.

When Ryokan was living in the Five Scoop Hut on Mount Kugami, abamboo shoot grew to the ceiling in the bathroom. Ryokan lit a
candle and burned a hole through which the bamboo shoot could
grow. But the fire spread and burned the entire bathroom.

On nice days, Ryokan would often pick lice out of his clothes in thesun. He would have dozens of lice crawling on paper andsunbathing. But at dusk, he would put them back under his robe.

One night a thief broke into the Five Scoop Hut on Mount Kugami.
Finding nothing else to steal, the thief tried to pull out the mat
Ryokan was sleeping on. Ryokan turned over and let the thief takethe mat.

Bundai Suzuki, a friend, visited Ryokan. Ryokan wanted to serve
lunch but had no extra chopsticks or bowl. So he went to acrematory and served rice and soup in the discarded bowls that had
been offered to the deceased. Bundai was appalled, but Ryokan
casually ate the meal as though nothing peculiar had happened.

On an autumn evening, Ryokan took a stroll in a potato field.
Thinking he was a potato thief, the farmer ambushed him, beat him
on the head, tied him up, and hung him on a pine tree. Ryokan thensaid, “It’s me. I am not stealing your potatoes.” Recognizing his
voice, the farmer brought him down and apologized. Ryokan left
while chanting:
One who strikes
and one who is struck
are equally
like a dewdrop, a flash.
Understand this.

Ryokan visited a man in Kariwa County who said, “I don’t want any
more status or property. There is nothing that makes me feelunfulfilled. One thing, however, goes against my wish.”“What is it?” asked Ryokan.
“I want to live till I am one hundred years old. But I don’t think thiscan be achieved,” said the man disappointedly.
“It’s easy,” said Ryokan, smiling. “If you visualize that you have
lived one hundred years, you are already one hundred years old.”

Once Ryokan passed Kirigamine Peak on the back of a horse pulled
by a man. After Ryokan got off, the man said, “That will be sixteen
pennies,” but Ryokan had only one penny in his wallet. So heapologized and said, “My name is Ryokan. I don’t have money today.
Instead of the sixteen pennies, you can beat me sixteen times.”
Recognizing Ryokan, the man didn’t want to beat him. Instead hesaid, “Then do some calligraphy for me for your ride.” He took
Ryokan to his house and got him to write a poem.

Someone sent Ryokan a stack of paper and said, “Please put downsomething you like best.”
Ryokan painted a red pepper on all the sheets of paper and said,“This is what I like best.”

Ryokan went begging at a house around Sone Village. The man of
the house was witty and thought of a trick to get Ryokan’s
calligraphy. When he served the midday meal, he set a brush andpaper at the side of the meal tray and said, “Rev. Ryokan. People
say your calligraphy is getting worse and worse. What a shame! You
need to practice some.”
Ryokan listened to him without words. After the meal, he took up
the brush and wrote: “Medicine is bitter. Sugar is sweet.”

Ryokan would write down “Mine” or “Really mine” on his straw hat
and other belongings. In the Kera family, there is still a copy of
Journal of Dream Playing (Muyu Shu) by Chomei Kamo, an essayist
who lived in the twelfth to thirteenth century. On the book, Ryokan
wrote “Really mine.”

Ryokan once borrowed a copy of the ancient Buddhist commentary
Abhidharma Kosha from the Man’en Temple in Izumosaki. When hereturned it, he brought blocks of tofu with a poem:

Geese and ducks
have flown away,abandoning me.
How happy I am that
tofu has no wings!

One day Ryokan cut a chrysanthemum stalk from someone’s garden
in Yamada Town. Finding him out, the owner drew a painting of
Ryokan as a flower thief and said to him, “Only if you write a poemon this painting will I forgive you.” Ryokan took a brush and wrote:
May the figure ofMonk Ryokan
running away with a flower
this morning
remain for generations to come.

Tadakiyo Makino, the lord of Nagaoka clan, wanted to visit Ryokan in
his hut. Hearing about it, villagers rushed to Ryokan’s hut in his
absence and cleaned the hut and pulled off all the weeds. Seeing
the beautifully prepared garden upon his return, Ryokan sighed andsaid, “As you have taken away all the weeds, the insects that sang
until last night may not sing here anymore.”
The lord arrived soon after, but Ryokan did not utter a word.
Responding to the lord’s gracious invitation to visit his castle,
Ryokan wrote a poem:
The more you burnfallen leaves,the more leaves the wind will blow.
The lord asked Ryokan to take good care of himself.

One day Ryokan visited Hikoemon Hoshi of Takenomori. Aftersupper, Ryokan and Hikoemon went to the neighbor’s house to takea bath. Upon returning, Ryokan was ready to leave and picked up acane that was standing at the entrance. Hikoemon’s child said, “Rev.
Ryokan, that’s our cane.”
Ryokan said, “No, it’s mine,” and walked off holding on to thecane. After some time, he returned and said, “I’ve got the wrong
cane.” Again he got himself ready to leave.
People in the house insisted: “Rev. Ryokan. It’s late at night.
Please stay with us. Please write something.” But they did not have
paper. Hikoemon went to the village head’s house to borrow some
paper.
Ryokan looked around and found an old funeral money book. He
picked it up, wrote a poem in the book, and left.
Whom shall I tell
how pathetic
this old body is,going home in darkness,leaving my cane behind?

Hosai Shimada, a Confucian scholar and calligrapher from Edo,
visited Echigo Province and lectured on Confucius’s Analects.
Someone in the audience was laughing hard. Hosai looked. It was
Ryokan.
Another time, Hosai lectured on another text, criticizing
Shakyamuni Buddha by using Buddhist technical terms. That nighthe heard someone calling him from above his pillow. It was a monk,
who said, “The buddha dharma you preached is rotten. It’s time foryou to stop confusing people.” Hosai realized that it was Ryokan.

A few years after Hosai returned to Edo, Ryokan went to see him.
Hosai was again lecturing. Seeing Ryokan in a dirty robe and broken
hat, a student of Hosai’s scolded him and drove him away. Hearing

about it after his lecture, Hosai said, “It must be Zen master Ryokan,a great monk from Echigo. Go get him.” The student caught up withhim, apologized for his rudeness, and asked him to return. Ryokan
just said, “Good, good,” and walked away.

Ryokan had great respect for farming. In the seasons of plowing andharvesting, he reflected on the farmers’ labor to turn one grain of rice
into many. He would draw paintings of farmers at work and then post
them in his hut, offering incense and flowers. One of his waka poems
says:
These days
rice seedlings are transplanted.
In my hut
I paint farmers andbow with offerings.

Mount Kugami, where Ryokan’s Five Scoop Hut was situated, was apart of Murakami Domain. Lord Naito, the ruler of Murakami, loved
hunting and continued doing so with no regard for the difficulties ofthe farmers who cleared out the path for his entourage.
One day when Ryokan went down the mountain, villagers werebusy cleaning the road. When he asked them why, one of the
farmers whispered: “Our lord is going hunting. As this is harvest
season, we have no time to do this. But it’s the lord’s order andnothing can be done.”
Hearing it, Ryokan said, “All right. Let me try to stop his hunting.”
He then asked the farmer to build a signpost. Ryokan wrote a poem:
On a short day
there is no time
to dry the rice stalks.
Keep the harvesting fieldin your heart.

“Harvesting field” (kariba) can also be read as hunting field. Soonthe lord came in a palanquin and read this poem. He ordered thepalanquin turned around and went away. He did not go hunting
again.

RYOKAN’S POETIC FORMS
Ryokan wrote poetry in three genres—haiku, waka, and kanshi.
Haiku is the shortest form of Japanese poetry, initiated mainly by
Basho, who was Ryokan’s predecessor by one hundred years. It
consists of seventeen syllables arranged in three phrases: five,seven, five.
Waka is an ancient form of Japanese poetry. It includes short
poems called tanka and longer poems called choka. Tanka, which is
the more common form of waka, consists of thirty-one syllables: five,seven, five, seven, seven. Choka is a repetition of five-and-sevensyllable pairs, ending with seven and seven syllables. It is often
followed by an envoi tanka, called hanka.
Kanshi is a Chinese-style poem written in ideographs, read inJapanese pronunciation. An ideograph is a symbol commonly usedin China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Though the meaning is by andlarge universal in these regions, the pronunciations are different
according to the language people speak. Ideographs are
handwritten, usually in formal, semicursive, or cursive scripts.
The complete collection of Ryokan’s poems compiled by Toshiro
Tanikawa in three separate books contains 107 haiku, 1,350 waka,
and 483 kanshi.
Japanese poetry has three levels of expression: the poem itself,
the script of the syllables, and the aesthetics of the calligraphy,
including column breaks. (Column breaks are similar to line breaks in
English, but “lines” are mostly written vertically in Japanese, hence
the difference in terminology.)
Each word or syllable can be represented by an ideographic orphonetic character or set of characters.
A phonetic letter, or kana, can be classified as a standard script
called hiragana or an ideographic phonetic called man’yo gana. A
standard kana has one letter for one syllable. Man’yo gana, which
was created in ancient times when the Ten Thousand Leaves

Anthology (Man’yo Shu) was compiled, uses an ideograph torepresent a sound, disregarding the meaning of the ideograph. In
this script, several ideographs can represent the same sound. (Thestandard kana evolved from man’yo gana, so sometimes a certain
character shares the same shape and can be seen as either
standard kana or man’yo gana.) Basho, Buson, and Issa used a
mixture of ideographs, representing meaning, as well as man’yogana and standard kana, which are pure phonetics.
Ryokan often used man’yo gana exclusively for haiku and waka.
The man’yo gana characters tend to have more strokes thanstandard phonetic letters. As man’yo gana is an archaic, elaborate,and complicated script, it requires readers to solve it like a puzzle.
Furthermore, Ryokan’s brushwork is written in extremely cursive
calligraphy (at times idiosyncratically so), making it even moredifficult to decode.
When haiku or tanka are written in calligraphy, they often appear
as a single column. When translated into another language, though,it is helpful to have haiku typeset in three lines and tanka in five, inorder to show the original phrase breaks. Because phrase breaks
are self-evident in the Japanese language, the artist has the freedom
to make random column breaks in calligraphy. This creates a
discrepancy and tension between the poetic breaks and visual shiftof the columns, samples of which you will see in the following
illustrations of Ryokan’s calligraphy.

Figure 10.“Tell me the news . . .”Here in figure 10 is a haiku that I have translated as follows:
Tell me the news
from Sumeru,
evening geese.
I would like to take you through the process of identifying andtranslating the symbols in his calligraphy. The following is the typeset
version of the symbols:

This text is read from the top down, right column to left. At the end,
Ryokan signed his name ().

These typefaces are based on the formal styles of Chinese script.
Ryokan, however, wrote them in cursive script. You may notice thatthe written and typed symbols look so different that it is difficult torecognize that they are even the same characters. So let me show
you the different ways of writing the first five characters, so, me, i, ro,and no, starting with typescript on the left, then moving throughformal script, two samples of semicursive script, and cursive script.

Formatted in a horizontal way, the verse would look like this:By definition, each ideograph has its own meaning. In other words,
each symbol represents a word. But in man’yo gana, each symbol
reads merely as a sound:so me i ro no oto tsu re tsu ke
yo yo ru no ka ri
As you can see, if we were to mechanically romanize the original
writing, there would be no capitalization or punctuation. When thisverse is typeset in five-seven-five-syllable format:

so me i ro noo to tsu re tsu ke yo
yo ru no ka ri
If we convert the above intricate man’yo gana script to thestandard kana script, it will have the same sound but look like this:In the classical style of writing, certain consonants are known asvoiceless consonants, such as k, t, or ts. These can either be used
as voiceless or be voiced as g, d, or z. To indicate the difference, avoiced or soft-sound indicator—which is a pair of small dots at theupper right side of the letter—can be added to convert the voicelessconsonant to a voiced consonant. (For example, ka turns into ga.) If
we make these conversions explicit, the expected soft sounds in thepoem will be written like this:so me i ro noo to zu re tsu ge yo,
yo ru no ka ri
For Japanese people, it is rather difficult to read a text written
solely in phonetics. Most writers favor a mixed format of ideographs
and phonetics. A text can be written in various combinations ofphonetic and ideographic characters. For example, this verse can be
written in several ways:

As you can see in this example, a writer of the Japanese language
has multiple choices for the combination of symbols to represent a
sentence of the same sounds and meanings. Each particular
combination has its own unique visual, literary, and psychologicalimplications. Choosing such a combination is an important part ofpoetic creativity.
Perhaps Japanese is the only language in the world that has thisfeature. Although in his earlier days Ryokan used a mixture ofideographs and phonetics, he often chose man’yo gana, particularly
in later times.
Visually speaking, the standard phonetics are plain, soft, and fluid,
while ideographs are intricate, rich, and dense with associations. As
man’yo gana is an ideographic phonetic, it embodies bothcharacteristics.
This poem can be put into roman script with word divisions
according to parts of speech, with an addition of punctuation andcapitalization:
Someiro no
otozure tsugeyo,
yoru no kari.
When translated word by word, we get the following:
Sumeru, of,

visit (also meaning “news”), announce (in an imperative form),
evening, geese
As presented above, here is how I have translated this verse:
Tell me the news
from Sumeru,
evening geese.
“Someiro” is a Japanese transliteration of the Chinese word
Sumilu, which is again a transliteration of Sumeru in Sanskrit, anancient Indian language. It is the name of a mythological mountainthat is regarded as the center of the world, where the heavenly deity
Indra abides. Thus, Someiro roughly means “heaven.”
Ryokan wrote this haiku in response to the death poem of his
father, Inan:
I will posta sign for
Mount Sumeru
as a memory
after I pass.
Ryokan wanted the goose to inform him of his father’s
whereabouts in heaven. It seems, however, that someiro has), which is used as a pun. So
another meaning, “dye colors” (this poem can also mean:
Tell me of the visit ofautumn’s dye colors,evening geese.
The appreciation of the calligraphic beauty of this piece (figure 10)
may include noticing the rhythmic changes of the thickness of thelines, the subtle swaying of the columns, and the extradelicate
ligatures among the last three characters. At first glance, one may be
struck by the disproportionately expansive negative space on the leftside.

Figure 11.“My dear begging bowl . . .”In figure 11 is an example of Ryokan’s tanka “My dear begging bowl .
. .” This writing can be typeset as shown above.
The horizontal format of this man’yo gana, its standard phonetics,
and its romanization are as follows:ha chi no ko wo wa ka wa su ru re to mo to ru hi tona shi to ru hi to ha na shi ha chi no ko a ha re
The standard phonetics can be put in the format of five, seven,
five, seven, five syllables with voiced sounds and romanization
dividing the parts of speech, plus euphonic changes. Also, one
missing syllable is added.

Hachi no ko wo
wa ga wasure domo
toru hito nashi
toru hito wa nashi
hachi no ko aware.
Here is the poem translated word by word and then put in a poetic
form in English:bowl child,I, forgot, but,take (it), person, (there is) no,
take (it), person, (there is) no,bowl child, pitiful
My dear begging bowl—
I left it behindbut no one took it.
No one would take it.
My poor begging bowl.
This tanka is written in two extrathin, leisurely zigzagging lines,
accented by a few wet brush marks. The last column says “Written
by Ryokan.”

Figure 12.“Broad-based Mount Kugami . . .”In figure 12 is an example of a choka, or a long waka.
When put in a horizontal format, converted into standard
phonetics, and romanized, we have the following:a shi hi ki no ku
ka mi no ya ma no
ya ma ka ke ni i ho ri
shi me tsu tsu a sa ni
ke ni i ha no ka
to mi chi fu mi na
ra shi i yu ki ka he ra
hi ma so ka ka mi afu ki te mi re ha mi
ha ya shi ha ka mi sa hi
ma se ri o chi ta ki tsu
mi o to sa ya ke shi
so ko wo shi mo a ya
ni to mo shi mi ha ruhe ni ha ha na sa ki ta
te ri sa tsu ki ni haya ma ho to to ki su
u chi ha fu ri ki a
ki to yo mo shi na ka
tsu ki no shi ku re no ame ni mo mi chi ha wo
wo ri te ka sa shi te ara ta ma no to shi no to to
se wo su ko shi tsu ru ka mo
The standard phonetics can be put in the format of five or sevensyllables with voiced sounds, and romanization dividing the parts ofspeech, plus euphonic changes:

ashibiki no
Kugami no ya ma no
yama kage ni
iori shime tsutsu
asa ni ke ni
iwa no kado michi
fuminara shi
iyuki kaera imaso kagami
augi te mire ba
mihayashi wa
kamisabi mase ri
ochitagi tsu
mioto sayake shi
soko wo shi moayani tomoshimi
harube ni wahana saki tate ri
satsuki ni hayama hototogisu
uchiha furi
ki naki doyomoshi
nagatsuki no
shigure no ame ni
momijiba wo
ori te kazashi tearatama no
toshi no totose wo
sugoshi tsuru kamo
This can be translated as follows:
Broad-based
Mount Kugami—
living in a hut
in its shade,
I go back and forthmorning and evening,
stepping on rocky paths.
As if looking into a mirror,
I gaze at the divine forest.
The roar of
the waterfall enlivens.
I am drawn tothis place.
Flowers stand up and bloomin spring.
Mountain cuckoos sing out,
flapping their wings
in the fifth month.
I break off and admirea maple branchduring showers
in the ninth month.
In this way I have been spending
new jewel-like timefor ten years.
In this poem, broad-based is the pillow word modifying “mountain.”
And new jewel-like are the pillow words for “years.” The last column
is signed, “Written by Ryokan.”
Finally, in figure 13 is an example of Ryokan’s kanshi, or Chinesestyle poetry.
The writing can be converted to a horizontal format and then aseven-ideographs-per-line format:

Figure 13.“What is my fate . . .”In Chinese it reads:
wu yu bi yan you he yuan
yi hui shu liao you yi hui
bu zhi ci shi wen a shei
da xiong diao yu ren tian shi
The lack of rhyme is common for Ryokan’s work but quite unusual
for Chinese-style poems in general. Below is the Sino-Japanesetransliteration, with euphonic changes as a result of combining
syllables. For instance, hitsu ken turns into hikken.
ga yo hitsu ken u ka en
ichi kai sho ryō yū ichi kai

fu chi shi ji mon a sui
dai yū chō gyo nin ten shi
ga yo hikken u ka en
ikkai sho ryō yū ikkai
fu chi shi ji mon asui
daiyū chōgyo nindenshi
Because there are many homonyms, or ideographs with the same
sound, it is impossible to understand the poem by simply hearing the
Sino-Japanese sounds. People in Japan, therefore, prefer to readkanshi in a modified way, with additional conjunctive words. At times
the order of the words gets changed. This is necessary because, forexample, in Chinese a transitive verb is followed by the object, while
the order is the opposite in Japanese. Some ideographs are read notin the Sino-Japanese way (called on yomi) but in the indigenous
Japanese way (called kun yomi). This manner of reading with the
mixture of on yomi and kun yomi, with word order changes, is calledkambun yomi—a Japanized way of reading Chinese. It reads in thefollowing way:
ware to hikken to nani no en ka aru
ikkai kaki owari te mata ikkai
shira zu kono koto wo asui ni tou yadaiyū chōgyo nindenshi
This can be translated as follows:
What is my fate with the brush and inkstone?
As soon as I finish one piece, there is another to write.
I don’t know whom I should ask this question.
Perhaps, Great Hero; Tamer; Master of Humans and Devas.
The three terms in the last line are some of the honorary titles of
Shakyamuni Buddha. The last line of this poem is the equivalent of“God knows.”
As you can see, there are several steps to reading andunderstanding Ryokan’s handwritten poems: (1) identifying eachideograph or phonetic ideograph (man’yo gana), (2) converting thesemicursive and cursive writings to formal script and types, (3)pronouncing each sentence as it is written, (4) dividing words andidentifying inflected forms, (5) understanding the semantics, and (6)pronouncing each sentence in a way that is commonly
understandable to the Japanese audience.
Of course, finding historical references, seeing the sentence in thecontext of Ryokan’s practice and life, interpreting it, and translating it
are another matter.

Notes

Note callouts are not used in this book. The ornament
each poem for which notes are found in this section.

follows“New pond . . .” This is a parody of Basho’s celebrated haiku:
Old pond.
A frog jumps in.
Sound of water.
“At a place called Ako . . .” This tanka is after one by Takatsuna
Minamoto (1043–1074) included in the New Kokin Anthology (Shin
Kokin Shu), compiled in 1205:
In a mountain village
where reed leaves are thatchedat night in my journey,
I sleep on one sleeveof my white robe.
—Ako: Town in Harima Province (in present-day Hyogo Prefecture).
“The following day I arrived in a place called Karatsu . . .” This tanka
is after an ancient poem written about 1077, of which the sources
include Tale of Sagoromo (Sagoromo Monogatari).
Did I expect this?
Passing a gate of trailing plants,
I sleep outdoors
on a grass pillow
alongside the road.
—Karatsu: Ancient name for Fukudomari, part of Himeji City, Harima
Province (in present-day Hyogo Prefecture).
“On the evening of the harvest moon.” capital city: Kyoto.
“On a grass pillow . . .” grass pillow: Pillow words for “journey.”

“If anyone is going to my hometown . . .” Omi: Province (in presentday Shiga Prefecture).
“Takuhatsu.” takuhatsu: Monks’ practice of going to laypeople’s
doors and begging for food in a ritualistic manner.
—hell’s mountain of swords: According to Buddhist folklore, swords
are planted on a mountain to torture prisoners.
—boiling cauldron: Also according to Buddhist folklore, there is acauldron to torture prisoners with boiling water.
—prince of King Shuddodana: A son of the king—Prince Siddhartha,
later Shakyamuni Buddha.
—Golden Ascetic: Mahakashyapa, regarded as the dharma heir of
Shakyamuni Buddha in the Zen tradition.
—It has been more than two thousand seven hundred years: Ryokan
believed thus, that Shakyamuni Buddha lived around the ninth
century B.C.E. According to Western scholarship, however, theBuddha’s dates were ca. 566–ca. 486 B.C.E.
—Shakya family: Shakyamuni Buddha’s community—Buddhism.
—Vimalakirti: A layperson who is the central figure of the Vimalakirti
Sutra.
—year of the donkey: There is no such year in the East Asiancalendar—meaning timeless time.
“Since I left the household . . .” left the household: Became a monk.
“A bent ritual stick.” A bent ritual stick: A short piece of bamboo,
wood, or horn with a curved top. As a symbol of dharma for a Zen
priest, it is used during service and teaching. Kotsu or nyoi inJapanese.
—black dragon: Regarded as having a pearl, a symbol ofenlightenment, under its jaw.
—blue elephant: Known for its capacity to walk across the ocean.
“Great is the robe of liberation . . .” The first two lines of this kanshi
refer to a robe chant, which practitioners recite before they put on a
Buddhist robe:
Great is the robe of liberation,
the robe of no form, the field of benefaction!
I wear the Tathagata’s teachingto awaken countless beings.
“When Zhaozhou asks, ‘Yes?’ I say, ‘Yes’ . . .” Zen master Zhaozhou
Congshen (778–897), China, was asked, “Does a dog have buddha
nature?” Once he said “No” and another time he said “Yes.” Afamous koan, or a paradoxical question, in the Zen tradition.
“Monks.” Those who wear white robes: Laypeople.
—three realms: Roughly meaning the entire world of phenomena
and beyond: (1) desire realm, including the six paths (realms ofcelestial beings, human beings, fighting spirits, animals, hungry
ghosts, and hell beings); (2) form realm, of those who are free fromdesire; and (3) formless realm, of those who have attained thehighest worldly mental states through meditative exercises.
—three types of actions: Body, speech, and thoughts.
“Impermanent and swift . . .” three realms: See note for “Monks,”above—four elements: An ancient Indian classification—earth, water, fire,
and air.
—six roots: Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
—Yellow Spring: The world of the deceased.
“Song of Chugen.” Written in 1796. chugen: The fifteenth (full moon)
day of the seventh month. The urabon, or bon, ceremony that
consoles the spirits of the deceased takes place around this time.
—Nine Fields: Cemetery, another world.
—Last year I went to Kyoto and sobbed: Ryokan participated in thefortyninth-day memorial ceremony for his father in 1795.
—Ki River: Runs in Kii Province (present-day Wakayama
Prefecture), where the Shingon School’s center, Mount Koya, issituated.
—urabon: See chugen, above.
—cross to the other shore: Move through the ocean of suffering to
the shore of enlightenment.
“Discourse.” Vulture Peak: A mountain in the ancient kingdom of
Magadha in northeast India, often described in sutras as a place
where Shakyamuni Buddha expounded dharma.
—deva: Celestial being.

—Nagarjuna: Ca. second–third-century India. Pioneered aphilosophical investigation on the Mahayana doctrines, centering on
the concept of shunyata, or emptiness. Regarded as the Fourteenth
Indian Ancestor in the Zen tradition.
—Baime Monastery: Built in 68 B.C.E. in the capital city of Luoyang as
the first Buddhist temple in China.
—Bodhidharma: Ca. fifth–sixth-century India and China. Regarded
as the First Chinese Ancestor of the Zen (Chan) tradition. Based at
the Shaolin Temple, Mount Song (Henan Province).
—Great Tang: Tang dynasty of China, 618–907.
—sudden and gradual teachings: Emphasis on immediate realizationof buddha nature without going through a series of stages, incontrast with a method of practice that leads step by step toenlightenment.
—Southern and Northern Schools: Dajian Huineng (638–713), theSixth Chinese Ancestor, is regarded as the founder of the Southern
School of Zen. His dharma brother Yuquan Shenxiu (d. 706) isregarded as the founder of the Northern School. The Southern
School emphasized sudden enlightenment and the Northern School
gradual enlightenment. The former alone survived.
—dynasty of Song: 960–1279, China.
—Five Schools: The major schools of Zen Buddhism after the late
Tang dynasty, China: Fayan, Guiyang, Caodong, Yunmen, and Linji
Schools.
—Eight Schools: A Japanese classification of pre–Zen Buddhist
schools: Kosha (Kusha) School, based on the Abhidharma Kasha
Treatise by Vasubandhu; Satyasiddhi (Jojitsu) School, based on theSatyasiddhi Treatise by Harivarman; Precept (Ritsu) School; Three
Treatises (Sanron) School, based on Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika
Treatise and his Twelve Gate Treatise, as well as Aryadeva’s One
Hundred Verses Treatises; Tiantai (Tendai) School; Avatamsaka(Kegon) School; Dharma-Lakshana (Hosso) School; and Mantra(Shingon) School.
—Eihei Dogen: A Japanese monk (1200–1253) who brought
Caodong (Soto) style Zen to Japan. Founded the Eihei Monastery in
Echizen (present-day Fukui Prefecture). Regarded as the founder of
the Soto Zen School. His lifework is called Treasury of the True

Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo). Dogen’s teaching and writings becamea major inspiration to Ryokan.
—Taibo: Tiantong Rujing (1163–1228), China. As abbot of the Jingde
Monastery, Mount Tiantong (also called Mount Taibo), Ming Region(Zhejiang Province), he transmitted dharma to Dogen.
—dragons and elephants: Excellent practitioners of Zen.
—Shinto: Shintoism, the indigenous religion of Japan. As Shinto
deities were regarded as local manifestations of buddhas andbodhisattvas, Shintoism was merged with Buddhism until theRoyalist Reformation of the later nineteenth century.
—chanting this poem: Chanting his own self-same poem,“Discourse.”“In the evening of a thousand peaks . . .” samadhi: Serene, settled,
and collected state of body and mind in meditation.
“A statue of Buddha . . .” parinirvana: Great death of the Buddha,
who is portrayed as lying on his side.
“I lodge in an abandoned temple . . .” with my pillow high: Lying
awake.
“A walk in Izumosaki with Rev. Tenge on an autumn day.” Izumosaki:
Ryokan’s birthplace in Echigo Province. See also introduction.
—Rev.Tenge: Abbot of the Jogen Temple in Izumosaki. As a Pure
Land School monk, he was married. His son Chigen, also a monk,
was married to Ryokan’s youngest sister, Mika.
“I carried my begging bowl . . .” Niigata: A port town in Echigo(present-day Niigata Prefecture).
—Elder Ugan: A Soto School monk (1738–1808) who was a poet,calligrapher, and painter. As a close friend, he influenced Ryokan
with his skills in art. Abbot of Tanomo Hermitage in Shin’iida.
“After staying at the Koju Hall on an autumn night . . .” Koju Hall:
Temple of Akashagarbha (Space Treasury) Bodhisattva, a deity of
Esoteric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. Ryokan wrote this poem at the Enzo
Monastery, Yanaizu, Iwashiro Province (in present-day Fukushima
Prefecture).

—the fifth night period: Before dawn. The last one-fifth of thenighttime, which is from sunset to sunrise.
—Koju world: The mystic land of Akashagarbha Bodhisattva.
“On the second day of the twelfth month . . .” Shukumon: Familyname Kera (1765–1819). Village headman of Makigahana. A
classmate of Ryokan’s when they studied with Shiyo Omori at the
Kyosen Private School in Jizodo. He was a main supporter of
Ryokan’s. His son Yoshishige wrote Anecdotes of Zen Master
Ryokan.
—enlightenment ceremony: Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment
ceremony is held on the eighth day of the twelfth month.
—the old man from India: Shakyamuni Buddha.
“Upon hearing that Yukinori passed away.” Yukinori: Family nameTomitori. A classmate of Ryokan’s when they studied with Shiyo
Omori. Later, village headman of Jizodo. Possibly died when Ryokan
was wandering about.
—Golden Sorcerer: Shakyamuni Buddha.
—eastern capital: Edo (present-day Tokyo).
—western province: In this case, Bitchu Province. See theintroduction.
—Kugami Peak: Where Ryokan’s Five Scoop Hut was situated.
—Yellow Spring: The world of the deceased.
—three realms: See note for Monks, three realms.
—six paths: See note for Monks, three realms.
—green flags: Leaves.
—silver saddle: Decorated saddle of a horse.
“For you who rarely visit . . .” Written for Sadayoshi Abe, village
headman of Watabe Village, near Jizodo.
“We promised to see each other . . .” rice is transplanted: Rice
seedlings grown thickly in a small patch of soil are planted in watercovered fields in early summer.
“Upon the death of Shigenori Yamada.” Shigenori Yamada: A waka
poet, a senior town member of Yoita, who died on the thirteenth day,the eighth month of 1806.

“On my portrait.” white-hair brush: A brush with a white bristle; also
an old artist’s brush lines.
“Hakama . . .” Hakama: A skirt with split leg holes worn over akimono.
“All four seasons have the moon . . .” transmission on Vulture Peak:
According to a Zen legend, in a great assembly on Vulture Peak, inthe kingdom of Magadha, Shakyamuni Buddha held up a flower andblinked. Mahakashyapa smiled, and the Buddha said, “I have thetreasury of the true dharma eye, the wondrous heart of nirvana. Now
I entrust it to Mahakashyapa.” See also note for “Discourse,” Vulture
Peak.
—Caoxi’s pointing: Dajian Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Chinese
Zen ancestor, taught at Mount Caoxi, Shao Region (Guangdong
Province). As a result, he was also called Caoxi. He said, “Speakingof the Buddha entrusting dharma to Mahakashyapa is like mypointing at the moon with the whisk.”—Jiangxi, who on the night of moon gazing recognized that Puyuan
alone had passed beyond forms: Zen master Mazu Daoyi (709–788)
lived in Jiangxi, China, so he was also called Jiangxi. Nanquan
Puyuan (748–834), Xitang Zhizang (735–814), and Baizhang
Huaihai (749–814) were his students. Once they were viewing themoon. Jiangxi asked, “What do you do on such an occasion?” Xitangsaid, “I make offerings to the Buddha and recite a sutra.” Baizhangsaid, “I practice zazen.” Nanquan flipped his sleeves and left withoututtering a word. Jiangxi said, “Nanquan alone has passed beyond
forms.”—Yaoshan’s famous laughter under the moon: Zen master Yaoshan
Weiyan (745–828), China, once went up a mountain, sat zazen, anddid walking meditation. He burst into laughter when the moon
appeared from the clouds. His voice was heard by villagers afar.
—empty minds: Freedom from attachment.
“A break-in.” han: A wooden board hung at a meditation space,sounded with a wooden mallet. Also called zempan.
—futon: A mat to sit or sleep on.
“In my bowl . . .” three worlds: Past, present, and future.

“Since leaving the household . . .” Bodhidharma’s Mount Song:
Bodhidharma, ca. fifth century, the First Ancestor of Chinese Zen,taught at the Shaolin Monastery, Mount Song (Henan Province).
“A good old cane of unknown age . . .” Three Mountains: Legendary
mountains where sorcerers are said to live.
“To the Flower Thief.” flower thief: In Japan, stealing flowers fromsomeone else’s garden is sometimes regarded as an elegant thing,
not as a crime. This choka was written for Jakusai Harada (1763–
1827), whose boyhood name was Arinori. He was a classmate of
Ryokan’s when they studied with Shiyo Omori. He practiced
medicine at Mount Magi in the village of Kugami.
“Today I, too . . .” blossom: In Japanese poetry, hana (blossom)
means cherry blossoms if not otherwise specified.
“The path is hidden . . .” Written for the owner of Miura-ya Sweet
Shop in Sanjo.
“Snow falling, blown by wind . . .” catalpa bow: The bow is drawn(haru, in Japanese), which is a homonym of “spring” (haru). Thus,“catalpa bow” is used as pillow words for “spring.”“That evening I chanted the Lotus Sutra . . .” Amitabha Buddha:Central deity of Pure Land Buddhism. Believed to preside over thewestern paradise for the deceased.
“Preparing for the New Year’s Day.” painted rice cake: Cakes madeof sweet rice boiled and pounded are offered to the Buddha or to
Shinto deities on New Year’s Day in Japan.
“Around the tenth day of the second month . . .” Arinori: Physician
Jakusai Harada. See also note for “To the Flower Thief.”“If someone asks . . .” heavenly river: Milky Way.
“Crimson . . .” seven treasures: Gold, silver, lazuli, moonstone,
agate, coral, and amber.
“Dancing the bon dance . . .” bon dance: Communal dancing on an
evening of urabon. See also note for “Song of Chugen.”“Written and sent to Yushi.” Yushi: Ryokan’s closest brother (1762–
1834), a poet. He became headman of Izumosaki but failed andbecame a monk. He lived in a hermitage in Yoita in the last part ofhis life.
“Seeing you, my dear . . .” Ryokan wrote this poem for his brotherYushi when he became very ill and was tended by Yushi in the winterof 1830.
“If you follow the original vow . . .” the original vow of Amitabha
Buddha: In Pure Land Buddhism, the eighteenth of the forty-eightvows of Amitabha Buddha that he made in his former life (originalvows) is most revered: “Even if I become a Buddha, I will not receive
authentic enlightenment if sentient beings in the ten directions are
not born in my land although they wish with utmost sincerity to beborn in my land and practice ten types of mindfulness. . . .”“What legacy shall I leave behind?” Flowers in spring. Cuckoos insummer. Maple leaves in autumn: This refers to one of Dogen’s
tanka poems:
Flowers in spring.
Cuckoos in summer.
Moon in autumn.
Snow in winterserene and cool.
“Farewell—I will jump . . .” lotus leaf: In Pure Land Buddhism, there
is a belief that a devoted person is taken to the western paradise ofAmitabha Buddha on a lotus leaf after one’s death.

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