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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Haskel, Peter, author.
Title: Zen master tales: stories from the lives of Taigu, Sengai, Hakuin, and Ryōkan/ Peter Haskel.
Description: Boulder: Shambhala, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references andindex.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025328 | ISBN 9781611809602 (trade paperback)eISBN 9780834844339
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Classification: LCC BQ9265.6 .H375 2022 | DDC 294.3/927—dc23
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a_prh_6.0_139378365_c1_r0

For HannahYe men of gloom and austerity, who paint the faceof Infinite Benevolence with an eternal frown;
read in the Everlasting Book, wide open to your view,the lesson it would teach. Its pictures are not in blackand somber hues, but bright and glowing tints;
its music—save when you drown it—is not in sighs
and groans, but songs and cheerful sounds.
Listen to the million voices in the summer air, andfind one dismal as your own. Remember if ye can,the sense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of
day awakens in the breast of all your kind who havenot changed their nature; and learn some wisdom…
when their hearts are lifted up they know not why
by all the mirth and happiness it brings.
—CHARLES DICKENS,
Barnaby Rudge, 1841
Meaning comes not from systems of thought
but from stories.
—LORD JONATHAN SACKSCONTENTS

Introduction
TAIGU TALESSENGAI TALESTALES OF HAKUIN AND HIS FOLLOWERSRYŌKAN TALES
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
E-mail Sign-Up

INTRODUCTION

When I was pursuing my graduate studies at Columbia, theuniversity’s specialist in Chinese and Japanese Zen was Philip B.
Yampolsky, a formidable and exacting scholar of Zen history who
also served as the director of the East Asian Library. With his curlingmustache, sideburns, and perpetual scowl, he had the intimidating
appearance of an antebellum riverboat gambler or, for some of his
Japanese subordinates, a sengoku daimyo, one of the samurai
warlords whose perpetual feuding terrified late fifteenth- andsixteenth-century Japan.
My dissertation, many years in the making, dealt with Bankei
Yōtaku (1622–1693) and certain of his Zen contemporaries, alleccentric and colorful individuals, like Bankei himself, and thesubjects of many anecdotes and legends. I submitted the draft toProfessor Yampolsky in his office, a cozy aerie overlooking the oldwood-paneled library. Chewing on a well-worn cigar, he paged
carefully through my offering, starting, as always, with the endnotes.
As he proceeded through the text, his face gradually flushed a bright
red. Finally he looked up from beneath beetling brows and riveted
me with an accusing stare.
“But these are just stories!” he protested. “They’re not history…”
Of course he was right. Crestfallen, I slunk back to the library andbegan the task of reworking my paper along strictly academic lines,a sobering but invaluable learning experience. In a lighter vein, andperhaps to buoy my flagging spirits, Professor Yampolsky phonedme the next day to suggest that I might retain these portions for thefuture, something I could pick up again “after my dissertation,” and I
have always promised myself to do just that.
Even now, at a remove of some forty years, I confess that suchstories—as that is to varying degrees what they are—still charm me.
Indeed I plead guilty to finding more “Zen” in them by and large thanin the more factual—or at least historically verifiable—records of Zen
in premodern Japan. Casual readers who share these feelings arequite welcome to skip the following introduction and the individual
biographies for each section and simply go right to the stories
themselves, which are, after all, the core of the book.
In my defense, Zen, from its still misty beginnings in China, where it
is read “Chan,” has been deeply intertwined with its myths, its tales
and “stories.” Indeed, it is the preservation and celebration of thesethat have imparted to the teaching much of its distinctiveness andappeal. Put another way, it is stories and their enduring fascinationthat lie at the heart of so much that has come to be associated with
Zen and its development.
Among Chan’s most familiar myths are the stories surrounding
Bodhidharma (d. 528?), the semilegendary South Indian monk andputative First Patriarch of Chinese Chan. Carrying the teaching from
India to China, crossing the Yangtze River on a single slender reed,
he is said to have spent nine years meditating before the wall of acliff. There, he is approached by an aspiring pupil, the monk Huike(487–593), later Chan’s Second Patriarch, who stands in the snow
ignored by the Indian master till Huike cuts off an arm todemonstrate his sincerity.[1]Other such stories lie at the heart of what might be called Chan’sfounding scripture, the Platform Sutra. Despite the many references
to celebrated texts from the Buddhist canon, certain elements makethe Platform Sutra distinct and distinctively Chinese. Notably, this is
the only sutra dealing specifically with a Chan school, and the only
sutra that purports to convey not the teachings of Shakyamuni, thehistorical Buddha, or another Indian buddha or bodhisattva, but
those of an ordinary Chinese individual, a “living buddha” present in
a particular time and place. In the text, set in the early Tang dynasty(618–907), Huineng, an illiterate layman peddling firewood in themarket, is suddenly enlightened on hearing a line from the Diamond
Sutra: “Manifest the mind that does not attach anywhere.” He thengoes to the temple of the Fifth Patriarch, Hongren (600–674), where
he is relegated to work as a kind of human treadmill hulling themonastery rice.[2] One day Hongren challenges his students tocompose a verse expressing their understanding of Chan. The
temple’s senior monk, Shenxiu (605–706), brushes his submission
on a public wall, and seeing it, Huineng begs a lettered monk to readit to him and then inscribe his reply. The upshot is that Hongren
secretly summons Huineng in the dark of night and picks him fromamong the eminent monks of his assembly to become the sixth (andlast numbered) Chinese patriarch, his successor in Chan. Huineng,
fleeing his jealous brethren, secludes himself in the forest among aband of hunters, ultimately emerging to champion the mind-to-mindtransmission of sudden enlightenment passed on from Bodhidharma
himself.[3]This direct and mysterious transmission from teacher to disciple
is the central theme of the collections of Chan biographies thatappear in China in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. These
deploy dramatic stories that frequently feature the lightning give-andtake of encounter dialogues between various protagonists. The
earliest of these compendia, the Patriarchs’ Hall Collection (Zutang
ji, 952),[4] appeared in the closing years of the Five Dynasties period(907–942), a brief but, for Chan, critical time of social and political
upheaval between the collapse of the Tang dynasty and the foundingof the Song dynasty (960–1279). Called “the oldest extant history ofChan,”[5] the Patriarchs’ Hall was followed by collections of Chanbiographies that purport to chronicle the “transmission of the lamp” of
intuitive wisdom from master to disciple, most notably the Jingde

Transmission of the Lamp (Jingde chuandeng lu) of 1004 and its
1036 successor Extensive Tiensheng Transmission of the Lamp
(Tiensheng guangdeng lu).[6] The latter collection, the Guangdeng
lu, aims to make the case for the superiority of not just Chan among
other schools of Chinese Buddhism but of a particular line, that ofMazu Daoyi (709–788), with whom Chan as we know it is sometimes
said to begin and whose methods for teaching might include beating
students with a stick, shouting at them, and pulling them violently by
their noses.[7]The seemingly gratuitous displays of violence and abuse in therecords of Mazu and his descendants may at first glance seem
shocking or offensive. They were intended to be so. Such forcefulwords and acts have been regarded by generations of East Asian
readers not as instances of random aggression but as prods toawakening. They are thought of as a means of dramatically shortcircuiting the delusive framework that separates us from reality, asort of intervention to startle students awake. The roughhousing iscloser in spirit to the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy than to theblind violence and invective of a street brawl. Zen’s “barnyard”
quality, as one scholar terms it, was especially appealing to the wellbred and highly educated members of China’s bureaucratic elite.
Indeed, this roughness is itself part of Zen’s distinct urgency andcharm, hard-hitting and direct, but hardly an endorsement of or
invitation to brutality for its own sake.
In the Guangdeng lu, Mazu is hailed as the spiritual descendentof Bodhidharma and the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, as well as thespiritual progenitor of Linji Yixuan (d. 866), revered as the mostillustrious representative of the Mazu line. The inclusion of a prefaceby the Song emperor Renzong (r. 1022–1063) lends the collection
and its particular view of Linji Chan as the school’s single orthodox
teaching something of an official imprimatur.[8]Such transmission accounts (deng lu), whose depictions of Chanteachers and their interactions with students and with one anothergrow increasingly more outré, lead in turn to works devoted to theteachings of a single Tang- or Five Dynasties–era Chan master.
Known as yu lu (J. goroku), records of words or sayings (though
including a variety of wordless responses), the prime example ofthese texts is the record of Linji Yixuan, for whom the Linji (J. Rinzai)school, which ultimately dominated Song Chan, is named.[9] Linji’srecord, the Linji lu, is notable for elements of the “madcap” Chanfrequently associated in the popular imagination with the later Tangand Five Dynasties masters. An example is the following account of
the death of Linji’s obstreperous colleague Puhua (d. 860), who was
known for wandering the streets and ringing a small bell:
One day Puhua went about the streets asking people he met for a
one-piece gown [a typical sewn Chinese monk’s outfit]. They all
offered him one, but he declined them all. Linji had the steward of thetemple buy a coffin, and when Puhua came back, the Master said,“I’ve fixed up a one-piece gown for you.”
Puhua put the coffin on his shoulders and went around the streets
calling out, “Linji fixed me up a one-piece gown. I’m going to the East
Gate to depart this life.” All the townspeople scrambled after him towatch.
“No, not today,” said Puhua, “but tomorrow I’ll go to the South
Gate to depart this life.” [Again,] all the townspeople scrambled after
him to watch.
After Puhua had done the same thing for three days, no one
believed him anymore. On the fourth day, not a single person
followed him to watch. He went outside the town walls all by himself,
got into the coffin, and asked a passerby to nail it up. The news
immediately got about. The townspeople all came scrambling; upon
opening the coffin, they saw he had vanished, body and all. Only thesound of his bell could be heard in the sky, receding away: tinkle…
tinkle…tinkle…[10]Familiar as they are to students of Chan, many of the episodes
described in the Chan classics and noted above are patently fiction,
not fact. Even the moving story of Huineng in the Platform Sutra has
been characterized as “a brilliant and religiously meaningful bit offiction.”[11] Yet some intangible quality about these stories has
captured the imagination of generations of Zen adepts, andcontinues to do so. Inherent in all these texts is the notion that thetransmission and what is transmitted must be living, direct,
constantly functioning, like a ball tossed spontaneously back andforth among players. As Iriya Yoshitaka, the late scholar of Chinese
language and Zen, observes in speaking of Mazu, Chan insists on
the manifestation in daily activity of one’s concrete experience ofreality.[12] As such, the “words and deeds,” the tales of the oldmasters, however seemingly exaggerated or farfetched, are viewed
as revelations, testimony to the ancients’ profound understanding ofthings as they are.
As with so many of the figures from the “golden age of Chan” in
the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, our specific knowledge of
Mazu’s and Linji’s often brash words and unorthodox teaching
methods derives exclusively from later, primarily Song dynasty
sources. Recent scholarship in both East Asia and the West has
begun to upend the accepted, frequently sectarian picture of Chanas descending directly from the masters depicted in classics such as
the Record of Linji. Albert Welter, for example, makes a strong
argument that Mazu, Linji, and the whole cast of “hero Chanmasters” from Chan’s golden age are for the most part “myths,”
created retrospectively by chroniclers in early Song China.[13] The
chroniclers’ purpose was to offer a fresh, dynamic, and at times raw
and outspoken teaching that would appeal to the cultural andpolitical power brokers of the new age, inaugurating a new Chanorthodoxy, that of the Linji line. By deftly inserting this revolutionary
picture of Tang Chan into the framework of a dimly rememberedpast, the new teaching was endowed with both a history and apedigree, however specious and contrived.
The Linji record, as we have it, Welter contends, is “not areflection of Linji the man and his teachings” but “a carefully drawn
formulation at the hands of later storytellers.” In part, thisdevelopment was culturally determined, attributable to a “Chinesepenchant for fictionalization in history and biography, coupled with
the importance of stories.”[14]At present, all that can be said with certainty is that the records ofthe eighth- and ninth-century Chan masters, with their arsenal of
impulsive antics and wild words, exist in written form from at least
the cusp of the Song dynasty. But whether these narratives, and thevivid world they conjure up, predate their tenth- and eleventh-century
chronicles, and if so, by how much, remains a vexing and possiblyunanswerable question.
The koan (gong’an) method, which has dominated much of Zen
since the Song dynasty, centers also on narratives of uncertain
authenticity: the responses, spoken or otherwise, of the revered
teachers of the past, particularly the masters of the preceding Tangand Five Dynasties periods, recorded in classic Chinese koan
collections such as the Blue Cliff Record (Biyan lu, 1128) and
Gateless Gate (Wumen guan, 1229).[15] These collections include
brief interlinear comments (hsialu) that introduce a new idiom to theliterature of Chan, a distinctive and deliberately jarring juxtaposition
of Buddhist terminology with elements drawn from literary andpopular Chinese culture, including proverbs, imprecations, and otherexpressions heavily imbued with the slang of the period. (“You don’tknow the smell of your own shit!” “Washing a dirt clod in mud.”“Dragging each other into a fire pit.”)[16]
The Blue Cliff Record opens with the koan “Zhaozhou’s ‘Wu!,’ ”
which, with the Linji master Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163), revered as
the koan method’s foremost proponent in Song China, became aprincipal entrance for koan study and remains so today.[17]Zhaozhou was asked by a monk “Does a dog havebuddha nature or doesn’t it?”Zhaozhou said, “Wu!” (J. Mu!; literally, “no,” “itdoesn’t,” etc.).[18]Dahui urged his students to focus unremittingly in their meditation
practice on the huatou, the “nub,” “crux,” or “essence” of the koan
(here, for example, Zhaozhou’s answer, “Wu!”).[19] This, Dahui held,
led in turn to “great doubt” (dayi), an all-consuming existential
struggle with the koan, culminating in “great satori” (dawu), an
ecstatic spiritual breakthrough into the original nature of things that
overturns all the student’s prior experiences of reality. “You may be
assailed by doubts,” Dahui wrote to one of his students, “doubts by
the thousands, the tens of thousands; but all these will [resolve into]a single doubt. Just break through the doubt surrounding yourhuatou and instantly you’ll shatter all your doubts…. Just take up thecase ‘A dog has no buddha nature….’ If you can penetrate this ‘Wu!’
penetrate it immediately through and through, you won’t need to goquestioning others, asking about the Buddha’s words, the patriarchs’
words, the words of reverend masters everywhere, but will be
forevermore enlightened about being and non-being.”[20] While
seated meditation, zuoshan (J. zazen), was crucial to this endeavor,
most effective of all in sundering the barrier of the huatou, Dahui
maintained, was uninterrupted practice amid one’s daily activity.[21]Like the fanciful episodes surrounding Bodhidharma, the Sixth
Patriarch, and Puhua, the koan collections are most often stories ofthe past recalled, recorded, perhaps even contrived in later
generations for the edification of Chan students. For such adepts,
they are true, not in a literal but in a more compelling sense: they
reveal in a quirky, enigmatic, and at times deliberately jolting fashionsomething about the human mind and its place in the universe thatcannot be conveyed by mere words. It is this something, inherent insuch stories, that has sustained the teaching in all its manifestations
in East Asia over a millennium, first in China, then Korea, and lastlyin Japan.

It is not the continent but Japan of the Edo period (1600–1867/68)
that is the source of the materials presented here. Although also a
premodern setting, it is one far distant in time and culture from theTang and Song masters who formulated what we today know as
Zen. But Iriya Yoshitaka’s observation about Chinese Chan still holds
true: Japanese Zen likewise established its “focus on the individual’s
ordinary activity as the function, the manifestation of theabsolute.”[22] Most of these Japanese stories, however unabashedly
humorous and at times crude, impart something of the character ofthe Zen masters involved, whose attainment must be plainly
manifest in even the most humble and unlikely of situations.
The new age inaugurated in 1600 by Tokugawa rule, though likeits medieval precursors essentially a feudal society governed by amilitary elite, was to prove a period of unprecedented peace andprosperity for Japan. The Zen school, which had flourished during
the preceding age of internecine warfare dubbed the “Warring
States” or Sengoku period (approximately 1467–1568), continued toreceive the patronage of both the leading samurai clans, theemperor and imperial court, and the rising merchant class, whose
chōnin, or townspeople, culture quickly came to dominate cities suchas Edo (now Tokyo) and Osaka.
Zen and the other sects of Buddhism, however, found themselves
under assault by a Confucian establishment that in many respects
provided the ideological framework for the Tokugawa regime and its
many powerful vassals. These included the daimyo, or hereditaryclan chieftains, whose domains straddled the nation’s seventy-two
traditional provinces. Many Confucians carped that a teaching suchas Zen, conducted largely in the isolation of temple precincts, hadlittle to offer to the Japanese masses—the farmers and artisans who
performed the actual productive functions that sustained Tokugawa
society. As in Marxism, the merchant class was reviled by most Edoera Confucians as little more than a parasite on the national body,and as such was relegated to the bottom rungs of the social order,
together with the Buddhist priesthood.[23]While nominally subscribing to the Confucian ethic that in theory
underpinned Tokugawa society, Buddhism, including Zen—aparticular object of Confucian ire—rarely rose to a spirited defense of
its own teachings. Yet the frequent encounters in this period’s Zen
stories between Zen masters and ordinary men and women of allclasses of Japanese society, and their preservation in written form bymonks and laypersons, testify to a new integration of Zen with theworld outside the temples and hermitages. The stories seem toattest, in a kind of implicit rebuttal to the Confucians, that if Zen is tofunction, it must function everywhere. If it is to work, it must work foreveryone, from prostitutes and professional entertainers to daimyo,from the bartender to the rice farmer. Sengai carouses with the town
drunk. Ryōkan spends his days playing ball with the village children
and joins the locals in their all-night dances costumed as a flirtatious
maiden. And Hakuin interacts freely with the common folk of his
native Shizuoka, handing out koan and bringing his neighbors tosatori, according to his testimony, with the aid of their own pungent
dialect and slang.[24] Indeed, Hakuin celebrates in his art and writing
the villagers’ labors and pastimes, enthusing in the humor andraucousness that fill the rural society around him.
As my other Columbia advisor, Yoshito Hakeda, loved to point
out, the protagonists of the Chinese Chan stories—even theuntrammeled Mazu and the vituperative Linji—though memorably
and dramatically presented in their records, remain somehow
remote, semihagiographic figures. By contrast, the Zen masters who
enliven many of the anecdotes culled from Edo Japan present
themselves, seemingly at firsthand, warts and all. They appear as
true-life personalities interacting within a vivid environment thatstands forth in its own right in full color and detail. Additionally, one
can’t help remarking that the vast number of episodes in the classic
Chinese records, apart from those few that record interactions with

local commanders or officials, show the Tang and Song teachers
primarily confronting other Chan monks and masters. By contrast,
the tales surrounding Ryōkan, Sengai, and Hakuin, while offering
many vignettes involving their priestly followers and disciples, areconspicuous for the number of ordinary villagers and townspeople,
sometimes anonymous but often identified by their given names,
who are a regular feature of such anecdotes. Only Taigu Sōchiku isprobably an exception in this respect, being something of amisanthropist and dedicated loner.
Like many of their early Chinese counterparts, the Edo teachers
assembled here tended to remain in provincial temples throughout
most of their lives as Zen masters—Hakuin and Ryōkan in thevicinity of, respectively, their native Hara and Izumozaki, and Sengai
in Hakata. Yet at least as depicted in the stories about them, allstayed in close contact with the local population, unlike the Chinese
masters. (Again, Taigu is the exception, being reclusive in later life,and prior to that having spent time in Kyoto serving as abbot of
Myōshinji and involved in the politics central to the life of the great
Rinzai headquarters temple.)
Many of these features may reflect the “democratization” of Zen
in Edo-period Japan. This was a development spurred in part by
Confucian critiques of the teaching’s lack of practical application tothis-worldly concerns in the still largely agrarian society favored by
Confucian scholars.[25] But it was also driven by the vigor of theemergent townspeople culture. It was this chōnin culture—emanating from the bustling cities of Edo and Osaka, from themetropolises’ busy markets and trading houses and colorful
entertainment districts—that came to dominate much of the
distinctive, and distinctively Japanese, popular art forms thatcharacterize the period of Tokugawa rule. These include haiku;
Kabuki; bunraku (puppet dramas accompanied by music andnarration); and ukiyo-e, the prints (and paintings) of the “floating

world” of professional actors, sumo champions, courtesans, and thelike who occupied a cult status among urbanites of the day.
One surprising aspect of some of the Japanese Zen stories inthis period is the role played by women, who figure as serious Zen
students in a land that was, and in many respects remains, a “man’sworld” (otoko shakai). Though generally relegated to thebackground, women in premodern Japan were not infrequently key
figures in their families’ business enterprises in the cities and towns.
In the countryside they were crucial to many aspects of farming andcrafts work. Even in typical warrior households, the samurai wife wasindispensable to her husband’s economic survival. Though we hearof few, if any, celebrated female Zen masters, prominent maleteachers such as Bankei and Hakuin openly testify to the full abilityof women, both lay and religious, to realize the deepest truths of Zen
enlightenment.
During the Middle Ages, Zen, particularly Rinzai Zen, had been aform of Buddhism associated with the ruling elite in the capitals of
Kamakura and Kyoto, a teaching carrying enormous “snob appeal.”
Only gradually in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and largely
because of its aristocratic associations, did Rinzai Zen begin to
attract the patronage of provincial warlords and the rising merchantclass in commercial centers such as Sakai. In the new age ofTokugawa rule, certain teachers seemed to sense that, as withliterary and artistic culture, the time had arrived for Zen to beaccessible to the common people, even in rural Japan. The
essentials of zazen, koan study, and enlightenment, such masters
affirmed, could be conveyed to all members of Japanese society,presented directly not in the classical Chinese-inflected language
written and read by the temple monks but in the speech of ordinary
Japanese, including even comic verse and work songs.
While this involved a certain recasting of the teaching, the aim
was not a watered-down, accommodationist version of Zen practiceand enlightenment simply incorporating familiar devotional beliefs

that had persisted since the Middle Ages, such as the worship ofredeeming buddhas and bodhisattvas like Amida (Amitabha) andKannon (Avalokitesvara). While such popular accommodations were
not wholly rejected, what was required, many masters maintained,
was “the thing itself,” the Zen mind, transmitted through generationsof buddhas and patriarchs. Some sought to reinvent Zen practice assomething for everyone, whatever their circumstances. Bankei
Yōtaku, who attracted overflow crowds to his public lectures,famously dispensed with the koan as an artificial device and insistedon direct experience of the “Unborn Buddha Mind, brightly
illuminating.” Suzuki Shōsan (1579–1655), a former samurai whose
warrior training imbues his teachings, sought to spread Zen among
the different classes of Japanese society, not by vitiating it but by
stripping it of what he viewed as extraneous elements. In theprocess, he concocted a teaching very much of its time and place—that is, Japan in the premodern period.
Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1769) too sought to make Zen available tomen and women of every class, not by reinventing the teaching but
by resurrecting it through a revival of the dynamic koan Zen of theSong masters such as Dahui and Xutang Zhiyu (1185–1269).[26]
Presented by Hakuin in a popular format, Dahui-style koan study
leading to sudden enlightenment was now the prerogative ofJapanese from every station of life and no longer the preserve ofpriests, warlords, social-climbing commoners, and the like. Hence,
Hakuin’s later adoption of his own “Sound of One Hand” koan, in
place of “Wu!”(Mu!). Hence, too, his multitude of vernacular works
presented in popular contemporary format, embracing evensupernatural elements such as possession by native deities. The
same is true of Hakuin’s humorous, fanciful brush paintings ofreligious and mundane subjects. The two at times combined, so that
Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy, is given the face of one of
Hakuin’s country neighbors,[27] while various other buddhas,
bodhisattvas, Zen patriarchs, and even the stock Edo comic figure

“Grandma” bear a suspicious resemblance to Hakuin himself in themaster’s occasional self-portraits.[28]It is not hard to see how such creative and colorful personalities
could lead to folk traditions surrounding Zen teachers with links tothe common people of premodern Japan. Figures such as Hakuin,
Taigu Ryōkan (1758–1831), and Sengai Gibon (1750–1837) came tobe regarded as both Zen masters and beloved local charactersabout whom humorous, even outrageous accounts were soon
circulating. Such tales hearken back to the late medieval Zen masterand poet Ikkyū Sōjun (1394–1481), an unconventional figure crucial
to the restoration of the great Kyoto headquarters temple Daitokuji.
Ikkyū’s at times outrageous behavior, including his open affair with ablind female courtesan, became the stuff of legend even in his
lifetime, and during the Edo period, stories, often comic ones,
surrounding the Zen master were published for popular consumption
under the rubric Ikkyūbanashi (Ikkyū tales).[29]Even in this relatively recent period of Zen’s development, then,“stories” seem to have retained a certain importance, answering anunarticulated need on the part of both monks and laypeople. Hakuin,
revered as Japanese Rinzai Zen’s “second founder,” shared in thisas well, freely embroidering his many autobiographical writings withepisodes that often strain belief. An example is Hakuin’s well-known
description of seeking out the anchorite Hakuyūshi in 1710 at
Hakuyūshi’s cave in the mountains of Shirakawa, east of Kyoto.
Finding the young Zen monk physically and mentally depleted fromhis arduous koan practice, Hakuyūshi instructs Hakuin in a series of
Taoist-inspired revitalizing meditation techniques, which enable
Hakuin to persist in his quest and reputedly continue to sustain him
through his long and exacting subsequent career.[30] Hakuin’s
account of his meeting with the mysterious Hakuyūshi, however, is
now acknowledged by Japanese scholars to be an invention,
devised by Hakuin to lend color to his narration, Hakuyūshi having

fallen to his death from a cliff a year before the master claims tohave visited him in his cave.[31]Perhaps of more consequence, Hakuin’s Dharma descendants,
who by and large constitute what is today the Japanese Rinzai
school, base their sect’s lineage on yet another story, Hakuin’s
sanction and acknowledgment as heir by another of his teachers, theZen master Shōju Rojin (Dōkyō Etan, 1642–1721), whom Hakuin
met in 1708. The story is detailed in Hakuin’s “authorized” biography,
Chronological Biography of the Zen Teacher Hakuin (Hakuin oshō
nenpu), by his Dharma heir Tōrei Enji (1721–1792), an undated text
on which Hakuin is known to have closely collaborated. The worktells how the young Hakuin, following years of grueling practice on
the “Mu!” koan under a succession of teachers, finally believes he
has realized satori when, after ten days and nights of single-minded
meditation, he happens to hear the evening gong of a nearby
temple.[32] Having learned of Shōju’s reputation, he then travels topresent his hard-won realization to the old master at his temple inIiyama, a village in the province of Shinano (now Nagano
Prefecture). Shōju promptly disabuses him of the idea that he has
attained satori and instead delivers a drubbing to the astonished
Hakuin, who is knocked off the temple verandah and lands on the
ground unconscious, to Shōju’s loud laughter. Devastated, Hakuin
nonetheless remains to study with Shōju and plods on with his koan
practice.
After ten consecutive days and nights struggling with the “Mu!”koan, Hakuin is begging in the local village and positions himself
before a particular house, whose elderly landlady, in no mood toprovide alms, shouts at him to move along. But so preoccupied is
Hakuin with his koan that he remains frozen to the spot, dazed andinsensible to the old lady’s abuse. Annoyed, she smacks the monkwith a bamboo broom and at that moment Hakuin suddenly
experiences satori. He rushes to Shōju, who instantly recognizes his
attainment, acknowledging his enlightenment experience.[33]Although he spent his entire teaching life in Shinano as an
obscure country priest and became known to posterity primarily by
way of Hakuin’s writings, Shōju boasted an illustrious lineage
through a branch of the Kyoto headquarters temple Myōshinji, alineage tracing itself directly to the founders of the so-called Ōtōkan.
This composite term refers to the three celebrated medieval teachers
from whom the Rinzai school derives the authenticity of its
transmission: Daiо, who carried from Song China the koan Zen of his
teacher Xutang; Daiо’s leading heir, Daitо (Shūhо Myоchо, 1282–
1337), founder of the celebrated Kyoto headquarters temple
Daitokuji; and Daitō’s heir Kanzan Egen (1277–1360), founder of
Myōshinji. Hakuin believed himself to be a reincarnation of Xutang
and saw his mission as revitalizing the particular strain of Song koan
Zen propagated by Daiō and his line, a strain that Hakuin regarded
as the only authentic transmission of Zen brought to Japan from thecontinent.
In his writings, Hakuin vividly describes his eventual
enlightenment under Shōju and the master’s recognition of his
realization, continually referring to Shōju as his principal teacher andpraising Xutang and the celebrated Japanese members of Xutang’s
lineage. The latter include Shōju’s teacher Shidō Mu’nan (or Bu’nan,
1603–1676),[34] an early popularizer of Zen, and Mu’nan’s illustrious
teacher Gudō Toshoku (1579–1661), who had opposed the entry ofPure Land—inflected Ming Zen at Myōshinji and was close to theretired emperor Gomizuno’o (1596–1680), an important patron of
Zen in seventeenth-century Japan.[35]Again, however, modern scholarship has found no evidence that
Shōju actually gave Hakuin inka (literally, “seal of approval”), a Zen
master’s formal written sanction of enlightenment. In Japanese
Rinzai Zen, inka constitutes proof of a student’s attainment andspiritual connection with a particular master, whose signatureappears on the document along with the name of the student.
Indeed, by his own admission, the young Hakuin stayed with Shōju amere eight months before moving on to study with a variety of other
Zen teachers in an effort to resolve his lingering spiritual doubts. And
while Hakuin’s writings quote admiringly from Shōju’s teachings,
Hakuin never again returned to see Shōju. In 1718, when Hakuin
became a Zen master in the Myōshinji line, it was not as Shōju’s heir
but as heir to the heir of the local Zen monk who had first ordained
the thirteen-year-old Hakuin—a succession practice common in Zen
temples in premodern Japan.[36]In spite of this, those within Hakuin’s teaching lineage—one thatembraces not only Hakuin’s heirs and their immediate progeny but
nearly all present-day Rinzai Zen masters—implicitly accept thenotion that Hakuin received Shōju’s sanction and was heir to histeaching of Zen. This claim cannot be documented, although it
appears on any standard lineage chart of the Rinzai school. This
lineage—traced back from the present day through Hakuin, Shōju,
and the leading members of the Ōtōkan to Xutang, Linji, and the
Sixth Patriarch—is recited routinely as part of the liturgy at Rinzai
temples. As has often been noted, Rinzai Zen in Japan is Hakuin
Zen. But while present-day Rinzai Zen’s descent from Hakuin andhis heirs is clearly delineated, Hakuin’s own succession from his
teacher is not. The modern Rinzai sect, which prides itself on
indisputable evidence of succession from a given master to his
disciple, seems to have suspended its normal standards of evidence
for Hakuin’s “story.” This story, promulgated in Hakuin’s later
writings, substitutes for the usual proofs of Dharma succession akind of retrospective spiritual identification with Shōju, emphasizing
Hakuin’s commitment to the revival of Xutang’s brand of koan Zen,
which Hakuin believed to be embodied by Shōju and his line.[37]It should be noted that Hakuin’s inventing, dramatizing, or
distorting the details of his life in autobiographical works would havebeen considered in no way reprehensible in the Zen world of Edo
Japan. Hakuin’s purpose in the bulk of his many writings, his
autobiographical works included, was not documentary, to clarify ornail down facts. It was rather to propagate Dahui’s style of koan
study, to urge the effectiveness of all-out submersion in the koan inorder to spur numbers of men and women, lay and religious, to satoriand to then exhort them to assist others and to extend their efforts so
as to experience a lifetime of satoris large and small.
Hakuin seems to have delighted in formulating and evenpublishing many of his own tales. Most of the Zen stories translated
here, however, were assembled by third parties, masters’ disciples
and their priestly descendants, or lay enthusiasts in the particular
localities with which figures such as Sengai and Ryōkan wereidentified. As in the more formal Chinese records, the object of theseoften homespun Japanese narratives is to put on display themasters’ manifestations of Zen in daily life. Unlike in China, though,there is a conspicuous emphasis on the Japanese Zen teachers’
encounters with not merely students in a monastic setting but peopleof every stripe—the ordinary men and women, young and old, who
populated the world outside the temples. It is precisely for thisreason that such stories, however homely at times, were dear to
those who remembered, retold, and recorded them: they constituted
testimony to what was viewed as the enlightened nature of theircolorful protagonists. Whether fact, legend, or a blending of both,such Zen stories were preserved in Japan because they suggest a
special kind of dramatic synthesis. They narrate the perfectinterpenetration of the worlds of enlightenment and common humanexperience, which the Zen teacher, by tradition, is expected todemonstrate in even his most humble activities and interactions.
This is also apparent in another aspect of many of the Zen stories
that follow—namely, the element of humor. This particular facet ofZen can probably be traced back to its Chinese roots and inparticular to the influence of philosophical Taoism and texts such as
the Zhuangzi (fourth century . . .), with its madcap dialogue andcast of deliberately outrageous eccentrics. But it is also a familiarfeature of many of the tales surrounding figures such as Sengai andRyōkan. The mind awakened to reality itself is frequently associatedin the Zen records, and even the popular imagination, with a quirky
hilarity—with “getting the joke.” This cast of mind can be seen topervade Sengai’s and Hakuin’s brush paintings, most especially intheir depictions of Zen figures such as the First Patriarch,
Bodhidharma, and the “laughing Buddha” Hotei (Ch. Budai, d. 916),with his ragged appearance and the huge cloth sack (hotei) fromwhich he takes his name. The image of the sage as a preposterous
old man convulsed with delight, a common idiom in both Taoism andZen, is quite foreign to the dignified demeanor and occasional
pathos expressive of holiness in most Eastern and Western religious
traditions. Indeed, Zen may be the only religion in which carefreelaughter and the expression of wisdom are so seamlesslyintertwined.

My choice of stories to include in this volume was subjective,
predicated on those I personally found to be most engaging while
best lending themselves to translation. I have, for example, omitted
many stories that were based on the punning and other wordplay so
beloved of the Japanese, materials whose humor is often lost amid awelter of tiresome notes and explanations. I have also tried to avoid
repeating text found in my earlier books. Hence the absence of any
stories concerning Takuan and Tōsui and of materials from Itsuzan
Sonin’s Dharma Words of Zen Master Bankei (Bankei zenji hōgo)
and Kera Yoshishige’s Curious Accounts of Zen Master Ryōkan(Ryōkan zenji kiwa)—both rich firsthand sources for these beguiling
figures but ones I’ve translated elsewhere.
In addition, the capsule biographies that precede the sections foreach of the four Zen masters are not intended as exhaustive reviewsof their lives and teachings. Rather, these are thumbnail sketches
highlighting the salient aspects of the masters’ careers andapproaches to Zen, especially those that may help in appreciating
the image of the masters presented in the accounts that have cometo surround them. The treatment of Hakuin, in this respect, issomewhat more extensive, given his pivotal role in the subsequent
history of Japanese Zen, as well as the abundance of (albeit often
unverified) autobiographical material in his writings. Ryōkan’s life issimilarly treated at greater length due to the wide recognition themaster received in Japan during the twentieth century and theplethora of studies and other works that accompanied this revival ofinterest.
For reasons of space and continuity in a work essentially devoted
to stories, I have also deliberately passed over a number of subjects
touched on in my previous books and exhaustively dealt with by
Japanese scholars. Among these are the institutional developmentof Japanese Zen in the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods; thefounding of the first Zen temples by émigré Chinese masters andJapanese monks returning from the continent; the tensions between
the official Gozan, or “Five Mountains,” temples and those Rinzai
and Sоtо headquarters temples, such as Daitokuji and Myōshinji,
Eiheiji and Sōjiji, which were largely outside the system and all ofwhich became dominant in the Zen world of late medieval and Edo
Japan; and changes in the Song koan Zen introduced by the
temples’ Chinese and Japanese founders, which in many cases
came to resemble an Esoteric Buddhist—style secret oraltransmission that continued into the Edo period itself. I’ve likewiseomitted any discussion of the temple system of the Tokugawa
bakufu, or military government, which sought to control the Buddhist
sects, including Zen, while deploying the parish temples as enforcers
in its ongoing persecution of Christianity in Japan. Zen masters,even eccentric ones such as Sengai, were not exempt fromparticipation in the bakufu’s “religious census” (sometimes referred
to as shūmon aratame) and other measures aimed at rooting out
hidden Christians.[38]The book uses “Edo,” the new capital of the Tokugawa shogunate
and the site of present-day Tokyo, as a shorthand for “Edo period,”
as is often done with other important place names used to designate
periods of Japanese history, including religious and cultural history.
Examples are Kamakura and Muromachi—the former, the military
capital of Japan from 1192 to 1333; the latter, a district of Kyoto thatgave its name to the period of the Ashikaga shogunate, which ruled(though often in name only) from 1333 to 1573.
While this is a book on Japanese Zen personalities, I’ve opted byand large to use Chan when the context is plainly Chinese. Master iscapitalized in the translations when referring to the particular Zen
priest who is the subject at hand—that is, Taigu, Sengai, Hakuin, or
Ryōkan. Otherwise it is lowercase.
This book involved the efforts of many organizations andpersons. The First Zen Institute of America in New York City
graciously made available to me its library and computer facilities.
Maria Collora, Michael Hotz—my high school sidekick and now
president of the First Zen Institute—John Storm, and Peeter Lamp allread the manuscript at various stages and offered countless valuablesuggestions, as did my friend Dan Stevenson, professor of religion at
the University of Kansas, who lent valuable perspective on the
Chinese portions of the material. Ikuyo Nakagawa offered her help in
untangling difficulties in certain of the Japanese texts, while theinstitute’s Ian R. Chandler, Milan Nikolic, and Melissa Lebruin werealways ready to augment my rudimentary computer skills. Matt
Zepelin, Shambala’s editor extraordinaire, assisted in skillfully
shepherding the book from acquisition to publication. Thomas Y.
Kirchner, a longtime Rinzai monk attached to Kyoto’s Hanazono
University International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism, kindly
assisted me in assembling many of the Japanese materials. He andJeff Shore, another distinguished member of Hanazono’s faculty anda lay Zen master in the Rinzai school, made available the researchfacilities at the university’s handsome library. But this book is really atribute to the Zen priest and scholar Nōnin Kodo, also a faculty
member at Hanazono, who over the past years has performed aremarkable task of assembling, editing, and seeing to publication amass of stories surrounding leading Edo-period Zen masters,
including all those assembled here. This volume is a direct result of
Nōnin’s valuable and extensive work, from which I and others havegreatly benefited.
—PETER HASKELNew York City, Summer 2021

Springtime arrives in the human world
bestowing innumerable blessings
Each and every flower an offering,a thus-come buddha!
Unexpectedly, the lingering snow
has melted away
And everything in the vast universe
beams with delight.
—TAIGU SŌCHIKU,
Taigu oshō gyōjoitsu, Taigu oshō goroku, 197

Taigu (also read Daigu, 1584–1669) is generally ranked among theleading figures of seventeenth-century Rinzai Zen. Like nearly allcelebrated Rinzai masters of the early Edo period, with the notable
exception of Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645), he was a prominent
member of the Myōshinji line, Myōshinji being the powerful Kyoto
temple whose masters would come to dominate Japanese Zen.
In his 1703 collection of Japanese Buddhist biographies Honchō
kosōden, the Myōshinji scholar priest Mangen Shipan laments thatthe authentic Zen transmission failed to survive beyond the first fiveor six generations of teachers, having languished till its revival by ahandful of early-Edo Myōshinji masters, including Taigu, Gudō
Toshoku, and Ungo Kiyō (1582–1659).[1] Taigu was a close
colleague of Gudō and Ungo, both of whom he accompanied for atime on a renowned 1607 angya, or Zen pilgrimage, and, like them,was sought out by the retired emperor and Zen enthusiast
Gomizuno’o.
Many of the details of Taigu’s biography are lacking.[2] He wasborn in 1584 in the town of Sano in the old province of Mino (nowGifu Prefecture) to a family named Takefu (also read Mutō). Mino
had been a leading center of the Myōshinji line’s expansion during

the preceding Muromachi period, and at age ten, Taigu entered thenearby Zen temple, where he became a monk under the Myōshinjiline teacher Jōgen Sōkō (d. 1610), receiving the religious name
Sōchiku. In 1615 he reportedly received Dharma transmission from
Jōgen’s heir Chimon Genso (d. 1630), along with the second
Buddhist name Taigu, “Great Fool.” Subsequently he is said to have
served a term as abbot of Myōshinji, receiving the imperiallyconferred purple robe. In 1626 Taigu became abbot of Nansenji, aMyōshinji branch temple in Edo, but in 1630 was expelled from
Myōshinji (an event described in one of the stories) and was notallowed to return to the temple until 1636. In the interim, in 1634, hefounded Enkyōji in what is now Shiga Prefecture, and that year at
the temple he experienced his first great enlightenment. Between
1657 and 1660, under the patronage of Matsudaira Mitsumichi(1636–1674), daimyo of Fukui (present-day Fukui Prefecture), Taigu
founded Daianji, in what is now Fukui City. In 1664, the aging Taigu
received the honorary title Shosō Hisō Zenji (Zen Master All Forms
Are without Form) from the emperor Reigen (r. 1683–1687) and five
years later passed away at Daianji at age eighty-five.
As apparent in the episodes that follow, Taigu could be an
abrasive and cantankerous teacher. But he remains honored as oneof the pillars of Myōshinji Zen during this formative and at times
troubled period in the temple’s history, when the shogunate wasclamping down on the major Zen temples’ autonomy and thetemples themselves were divided internally over the arrival in Japanof a new generation of Chinese Zen masters, the most important ofwhom was Yinyuan Longqi (1592–1673).
Within Myōshinji in the late 1650s, opposition to the newly arrived
Chinese teachers was spearheaded by Gudō and Taigu, who viewed
the syncretic Ming Zen they espoused, freely incorporating Pure
Land and even some Taoist elements, as alien and degenerate. At
the same time, a steady stream of enthusiastic Myōshinji monks andteachers continued to flock to the Nagasaki temples where theChinese masters had established themselves. Some of these
Japanese monks became the Ming masters’ disciples, and there waseven an attempt, led by one of the temple’s distinguished masters,
Ryōkei Shōsen (1606–1670), to make Yinyuan the abbot at
Myōshinji. This movement was adamantly opposed by Gudō, Taigu,
and other temple “conservatives” who reputedly sought to restore
what they regarded as the founder Kanzan’s original Song-style Zen,with its unalloyed emphasis on koan practice and the classic Songkoan collection the Blue Cliff Record. The resulting acrimony
ultimately led Ryōkei to abandon Myōshinji in 1664 to become
Yinyuan’s first Japanese Dharma heir. Ryōkei’s name wasconsequently stricken from the temple register the following year,
together with those of other Myōshinji priests who had become
followers of the immigrant masters, the founders of what became the
Rinzai Ōbaku school.

The Taigu oshō gyōjitsu, from which the following anecdotes aretaken, was originally compiled in 1768 at Nansenji.[3] The text,
including Taigu’s goroku, or collected poems and other inscriptions
for particular formal religious occasions, was published in 2012 by
Hanazono University’s Institute for Zen Studies. The volume, editedby Nōnin Kōdō, is entitled Taigu oshō goroku, shūi, gyōjitsu (Formal
record, gleanings, and biographical accounts of Master Taigu).
In the fifth year of Keichō (1600), the Master found himself caught up
in the warfare engulfing Gifu.[4] The Master fled, shouldering his
book satchel (kyū) and taking his elderly teacher Jōgen.[5]A renegade warrior brandishing a sword attempted to make off
with the Master’s book satchel, but the Master grabbed the thief’sarm, pursuing him and shouting loudly, “These are the personal
records of my Dharma transmission and I’m not letting you get away

with them—even if it costs me my life!” And so saying, the Mastersnatched back the satchel from the bandit’s hand. The bandit,
fearing the Master’s strength, let go the satchel and fled.
Having routed the renegade warrior, Taigu bid farewell to Jōgenand traveled on pilgrimage to the Atsuta shrine in Owari, where heoffered fervent prayers that he might realize the great matter ofenlightenment. After this, the Master traveled to study under various
Zen teachers, dwelling alone in forests and fields, and never forgetfulof his purpose for even a single day.
After the passing of Jōgen, the Master became Dharma heir to
Chimon.[6] Early in the Genna era (1615–1623), the Master resided
in Edo and served as abbot of Nansenji, of which he was recognized
as the temple’s second founder.

There was a certain Korean Zen master named Myōkan, who lived in
Yoshino, in Yamato Province.[7] Myōkan was a practitioner of
exceptional endowments, who had meditated deeply on this matter[of Zen].
One day Myōkan asked a monk, “You have traveled widely on
Zen pilgrimage, interviewing teachers. Who among them have you
found to be a man of transcendent insight?”
The monk replied, “In all Japan there are no real Zen masters
apart from one man called Taigu. His behavior is coarse, and heloves to drink, so that he goes about half drunk and half sober,cursing everyone, with no restraint over what comes out of his
mouth. Yet for all that, one cannot fathom his spiritual depths.”
Myōkan, delighted, exclaimed, “That is my true friend and master!
I won’t take up drinking myself, and I won’t adopt his coarse
behavior, but I’ll just follow his teaching.”
And that very day, Myōkan packed for his journey.

After going some one hundred ri, Myōkan came to a rooflesshouseboat.[8] The Master received him just as if they had been oldfriends, and together they talked and laughed all day.

On one occasion the Master participated in a vegetarian feast.[9]A certain Zen teacher who was present held up his bowing mat
and asked, “See it?”[10]“I see it,” the Master replied.
“What do you see?” the teacher demanded.
The Master told him, “I see you squirming in agony while you
truckle to the parishioners.”

There was an old woman whose child died and who beseeched theMaster to officiate at the cremation service. When the service wasended, the old woman approached the Master and said, “I havebeen most fortunate to receive Your Reverence’s care andcompassion. Please tell me, where has my child gone now?”
The Master found himself unable to reply, and the old woman,grieving piteously, left.
The Master thought, “Till now I always believed I’d attained somerealization. But now, when it came to leading a funeral service, I had
no idea where the deceased had come to rest. How can I call myself
abbot of a Zen temple?”
And so saying, he left the temple behind and set off once moreon pilgrimage.
One day on the road, crossing the ridge at Hibara, the Masterencountered a monk who had realized the Way. Their incisive
challenges and responses flew back and forth, the clatter of theirwords like thorny chestnuts, and the Master found himself unable toeither advance or retreat. He asked the man his name, but the monk
would not answer.
This experience inspired the Master to renewed resolve, and heset off directly for Suse in Mikawa. Here he erected a simple retreat
and retired into strict seclusion, his doubt weighing on him like a
mountain.[11]Next, the Master took his well-worn meditation cushion to themountains in Ōmi. He encountered a daimyo named Horita Shinanono Kami, who provided the Master with a secluded retreat. Here theMaster would spend all day sitting in meditation on a rock and allnight sitting in meditation on the platform cover over a well.
Suddenly one night the Master’s meditation cushion wore
through and the wood slats of the well platform supporting him
snapped. At that moment he experienced realization of the koan hehad puzzled over till that time and composed a gatha:
Dust and dirt: the squabbling over right and wrong,loss
and gain
What kind of man surrenders to the other army
without
a fight?
As night wears on, the rain lets up
It’s hard, they say, to forget the places to which one’s
grown accustomed
Tears without end line my cheeks.

One day the Master experienced a profound realization of the wordsof the monk at Hibara. “These days,” he thought to himself, “there’s
no one who can tell a tortoise from a terrapin.[12] Rather than waste
my time searching after some teacher’s phony written sanction,better to obtain the invisible sanction of the buddhas and patriarchs
themselves.”

So saying, the Master burned incense and murmured a silent
invocation: “If my experience is genuine, let all the buddhas of thethree worlds and the successive generations of Zen patriarchs testify
to my enlightenment![13] But if my experience is false, let me here
and now suffer the punishment of all the dragons and gods and all
the major and minor deities of heaven and earth!”
At that moment, day broke, the first morning of the new year.
The Master recited a gatha:
Springtime arrives in the world of men
bestowing immeasurable blessings
Each and every flower an offering, a thus-comebuddha!
Unexpectedly the lingering snow has melted away
And everything in the vast universe beams withdelight.[14]During the Genna era, Nansenji was established in Edo, and Taigu
was installed as founding abbot.
At this time, the daimyo Horie Yamashiro Tadaharu kept a pair of
prostitutes.[15] The first was named Cricket, the second, Bell-Ring
Cricket. In the daimyo’s residence was a handsome young page who
had just reached manhood, and the two prostitutes were always
trying to catch sight of him, though with scant success. One day,however, when the daimyo had gone out, a group of pages andsamurai retainers were drinking and carousing, and the young page
was secretly observed by the prostitutes through a peephole. Therefollowed an exchange of letters, and soon the three were amorously
entangled, the page unable to resist the prostitutes’ advances.
When word of this reached the daimyo, he was furious. The page
was sent a blade and ordered to commit suicide, while the two
prostitutes, terrified, fled to Nansenji, where they pleaded forassistance. Taigu hurriedly shaved their heads and gave them nun’srobes, after which they hid themselves in a remote alley.
The irate daimyo dispatched samurai retainers to track down theprostitutes, and learning they had gone to Nansenji, the warriors
entered the temple precincts in search of the pair.
Taigu told the daimyo’s men, “I know nothing of this.” To which
the enraged samurai declared, “In that case, we demand to search
the temple!”
Taigu allowed them to proceed, but though they searched highand low, they failed to find their quarry and returned home emptyhanded.
News of these events was soon circulating in the city and thence
to all the temples, including claims that the two prostitutes werebeing concealed at Nansenji. A greedy individual thereupon
produced a woodblock print, which was hawked by a local gangster
and featured two attractive Buddhist nuns, to which was later added
the image of a giant Buddhist priest. By this means, false rumors
were spread about, rumors that the Edo branch temples reported to
the Kyoto headquarters temple, Myōshinji, in Kyoto. Taigu wasconsequently banned from the main temple.
Determined to clear his name, Taigu departed abruptly for theimperial capital [i.e., Kyoto], reaching the post station at Akasaka,
where he hired a horse and groom.
From time to time, the groom would casually sing a ditty popularamong packhorse drivers:
Spring showers at Kitayama—
Pay them no heed
And they’ll clear up.[16]Deeply struck by the song, Taigu clapped his hands and told thehorse driver, “I won’t be going to Kyoto!” He thereupon returned toNansenji, reflecting, “This is the best way for me to humble myself. If
I appeal to the authorities at Myōshinji, the rights and wrongs of thematter will remain murky. For now I’ll just stay quiet.” So the Masterabandoned his plan to travel to Kyoto and simply returned to Edo
and Nansenji.
In the seventh month of Meishō (1636), seven years after Taigu’s
expulsion from the headquarters temple, Tenkai wrote to Myōshinji
on the twelfth memorial of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s death asking that
Taigu be pardoned and praising him as an eminent monk. “While I do
not know the truth or falsehood of the matter,” Tenkai wrote, “if proofof guilt is lacking, Taigu should be promptly restored to full privileges
at the temple lest its reputation thereby be tarnished.”[17]Myōshinji complied with Tenkai’s request, and Taigu proceeded
directly to the Kyoto temple, reciting a gatha before the founder
Kanzan’s pagoda, Misshō-an:
Neither an ill-omened owl nor an auspicious phoenix
Yet skilled both at concealment and freely flying
about
When circumstances are right, the crooked will cease
toconceal the straight
And the mountains of self-and-other be everywhereDestroyed.

Praise of Taigu’s realization of Zen reached the retired emperor[Gomizuno’o], who had Master Gudō summon Taigu to an audience.
The Master, however, declared, “I can be a host; I can never be aguest.”The retired emperor did not invite the Master again…
Later, the Master was heard to remark, “Had I responded to theimperial summons, our school would likely have fallen into the dirt!”

Another account of the episode is included in part 7 of the Zenmaster and scholar Mujaku Dōchu’s (1653–1744) Shōbōzanshi, ahistory of the Myōshinji line:

The retired emperor was greatly taken with Zen. Master Gudōfrequently praised Taigu to His Majesty, who consequently wished tomeet the Zen master in person. Gudō communicated the retired
emperor’s wishes to Taigu, who replied, “I’m just a country priest. I’m
not someone who’s suited to appear before noble persons. Nor can I
be compared with teachers like yourself.”Gudō reported this to the retired emperor, who observed, “Taigu
is boastful about Buddhism.”
When this comment reached Taigu, he declared, “The retired
emperor lacks a deep-seated faith [in the Dharma]. Had I presented
myself at court, I’d have just spoken out spontaneously, wildly, andgotten myself exiled for sure. That’s why I don’t involve myself withpeople’s affairs but hide from the world and keep my head down.”

In the second year of Meireki (1656), the Master suffered a bout oflumbago and traveled to bathe in the hot springs of Kaga. His route
led throughout the [neighboring] province of Echizen. Here there
resided a certain Shimada, a samurai retainer of the domain, whose
layman’s Buddhist name was Hōsetsu and who came to study under
the Master when the Master was in Edo. Shimada therefore
prevailed upon the Master to stop at his mansion, where he tended
to him devotedly. The Master remained ill and was unable to returnhome.
The following year, the great lord of the province, Minamoto
Mitsumichi,[18] departing the imperial court, dispatched a messenger
to inquire about the Master’s illness. The daimyo went to call on him

—the Master having now recovered—[at the home of his retainer]
Shimada.
Although his illness had passed, the Master’s legs remainedcompletely numb. Unable to walk on his own, he would hoist himself
on top of his bed quilt and use it to pull himself along.
The daimyo prepared to welcome the Master, who, haulinghimself along on the quilt with his own hands, entered the daimyo’s
presence. His Lordship received the Master with the utmost
reverence and devotion.
Master Gudō, too, had come to make His Lordship’s
acquaintance, and the daimyo exclaimed, “The chance to glimpse
the udumbara in bloom is as nothing compared to the difficulty ofmeeting a single true teacher.[19] Now today I have met two sagelike
masters!”
Gudō declared, “Your Lordship is endowed with surpassing
wisdom such as is rarely encountered and would be prized in any
land.”The daimyo replied to Gudō, “I thank Your Reverence forattesting to my realization.”
At this, the Master flushed and said, “Old man Gudō, you can’ttell good from bad and hand out your sanction indiscriminately. What
can this pasty-faced kid know about anything?”
The daimyo, visibly taken aback, thought to himself, “I am lord of
the entire domain. Who is there dares reproach me to my face likethis? Truly, here is one worthy to be my teacher!”
On another day, when he had invited the Master to a vegetarian
feast, the daimyo told him, “It was my misfortune that my father diedprematurely, so from a young age I had to assume his position andduties. Yet now it has been my good fortune to encounter Your
Reverence. What I wish is to offer you a site on which to erect a
temple, so that you may serve as my teacher.”
The Master bowed in agreement, saying, “I receive Your
Lordship’s command.”The daimyo then immediately ordered his palanquin and took the
Master to view the site he had in mind. His Lordship himself laid out
the boundaries for the temple, which was completed in two years
and named Daianji.
With his own hands, the Master himself planted auspicious
shrubs and rare trees, and had countless others planted as well.
A monk asked, “What are you doing planting all these deep in themountains?”[20]The Master replied, “You tell me: Why do I have to do this?”
The monk said, “How about working but not getting any merit?”
The Master told him, “I’m inept; I haven’t anything to teachpeople.”The monk stifled a laugh.
Another monk remarked, “Your Reverence does not observe[Confucian] practices of respect and ceremony, but wherever hegoes, [unobtrusively] leads the assembly of monks in performing
manual labor. Is there any benefit in this?”
The Master said, “Not particularly. Just to see yourself.”
The monk asked, “What do you mean by ‘see’?”
The Master told him, “You don’t see yourself.”

Once the Master was at the mansion of Layman Hōsetsu. So many
male and female lay adherents arrived to pay their respects that it
was like a marketplace, and the Master took advantage of theopportunity to deliver a sermon.
Hōsetsu said, “Your Reverence talks about Buddhism day in andday out, but I’ve yet to hear you say anything about the business ofour school [i.e., Zen].”
The Master told him, “If I did say anything about that, I’m afraid
people wouldn’t even have a clue.”On another occasion, the layman brought up the story of the heretic
and the sparrow.[21] The layman asked the Master, “What is themeaning of the Buddha’s answer?”
The Master replied, “Suppose you tell me what you would havesaid.”The layman answered, “If anyone were present and asked me,
I’d probably shout at him, ‘What a lot of meaningless noise! Sizzle,
sizzle!”[22]The Master said, “You’re just talking about yourself.”
The layman asked, “Your Reverence, how would you answer?”
The Master said, “The World-Honored-One had nothing particular
to teach. He just wanted to settle things once and for all.” On anotheroccasion the layman asked, “I’ve always understood the Way to lie inconcentrating mind (J. nen). How have I failed to understand?”The Master told him, “You have the capacity for enlightenment.”
Another time, the layman asked, “I beg Your Reverence for some
expedient means to guide me to realization.”
Again the Master told him, “You have the capacity forenlightenment.”

The daimyo of Awa invited the Master to assume abbacy of Kōgenji,
declaring, “The Zen temple Kōgenji is the place of our ancestors’
tombs and from generation to generation has been under ourguardianship. I humbly request that Your Reverence will condescend
to serve as abbot.”
The Master said, “I will accept an abbacy for the sake of the Way,but never to occupy a particular office.”
A monk remarked, “Kōgenji is a prestigious temple that was
originally branch temple of another Zen lineage, and it is now to begranted to Your Reverence. Should Your Reverence assume its
abbacy, would this not be a great coup for our line?”
The Master told him, “His Lordship is only interested in thegraves of his ancestors; he has no interest in the Way.”

The Master happened to run into Master Gudō [Toshoku] in Kyoto.
Gudō [subsequently] dispatched a monk to inquire about the
Master’s well-being. The Master then ordered his attendant to bringsome sesame buns to thank the monk, but the monk would not eat
them.[23] The Master then sent for more of the buns, but still themonk refused to eat.
The Master called, “Attendant, attendant, bring me my staff! Thislordly envoy declines to eat sesame buns. Perhaps I can thank our
distinguished visitor by simply letting him have a taste of my stick!”
The monk fled.
It once happened that the shogun Iemitsu held a grandvegetarian feast on the occasion of a memorial for his wet nurse, Her
Ladyship Rinshō-in.[24] The Master was requested to deliver a
sermon on Zen [at the memorial] but declared, “My particularteaching is grounded in the seat of Dharma itself. Unless a monk has
been studying Zen for a long time, I do not permit him to see me forprivate instruction. One must not haphazardly permit beginners in
Zen practice and study to interfere with others’ questioning andexamining with the teacher. That’s why the abbots of Zen temples
and teachers of advanced standing in our line just select from theirassembly of monks a few dozen [capable] students. Then host andguest can confront each other, and attainment be weighed in thegive-and-take of dialogue to the wonder and admiration of both monkand lay followers.”[25]The shogun told the nun Sushi, abbess of Saishōji, “For sometime I have heard of Master Taigu’s reputation for wisdom. Now, by

good fortune he is to come. I greatly look forward to meeting him,and I am sure I can rely on you to arrange things so that this will bepossible.”
Privately, the Master received word of the shogun’s intentions
and that very night secretly left the capital.
Long afterward, the Master was questioned about this by a monk:“It is said that the Buddha’s teaching must be bestowed on kings,
ministers, and powerful supporters. So why, in years past, did Your
Reverence run away?”
The Master replied, “Those who dedicate themselves to theDharma do not shrink from death or destruction.”
The monk said, “I am still in doubt as to Your Reverence’s
meaning.”
The Master told him, “By nature I’m coarse in my manner andincapable of smoothing things over with consoling words.”[26]Master Gudō prepared a poem to present at the three hundredth
memorial service for Myōshinji’s celebrated founder, Kanzan Egen,held in the second year of Manji (1659).
The poem read:Of the twenty-four lines of Japanese Zen,[27]Most, alas, have perished
Fortunately Kanzan has GudōAnd the torch continues to be passed on,its fragrance carried across three hundred years.

Before delivering the poem, Gudō showed it to Taigu forcomment.
Taigu said, “Two characters in the third verse need to bechanged.”Gudō asked, “How?”

Taigu said, “What do you think about adding ‘…and fortunately
Taigu too’?”
Gudō laughed and agreed to change the line to “Kanzan isfortunate to have descendants.”
Taigu then declaimed his own verse to those assembled for the
memorial:
For most of the twenty-four lines of Zen
carried to this land by the teachers of old
There remains neither realization nor transmission
But among the followers of the soaring dragon[28]on the mountain of authentic teaching[29]Rain still leaks through the roof
and into a woven bamboo basket.[30]The Master asked a monk, “How old are you?”
The monk replied, “Thirty-one.”The Master said, “At twenty-nine, the Buddha had alreadyrealized enlightenment, and here you are showing the same oldface.”The monk asked, “How old is Your Reverence?”
The Master replied, “Over eighty.”“Shame on you!” the monk scolded him.[31]The Master made a low bow.

His Lordship the daimyo once asked the Master, “I have served Your
Reverence with devotion, granting you land and erecting there atemple.[32] What I still can’t figure out is how you’re going to dosomething for me.”The Master told him, “As for me, empty space.”Again the daimyo questioned the Master, saying, “I have heard thatthe Blue Cliff Record is the preeminent text of the Zen school. Is that
correct?”[33]The Master answered, “Yes.”
The daimyo said, “I beseech Your Reverence, instruct me in one
or two of the work’s koan.”
The Master shouted, “‘Empty and boundless, nothing holy!’[34]Does Your Lordship understand?”The daimyo replied, “I do not.”The Master told him, “My lecture is over.”The daimyo, however, persisted, and the Master told him, “Words
and phrases, words and phrases—by explaining things rationally you
can get some sort of toehold, but it’s all idle talk, tedious blather! And
I’m sure this learned priest can explain it just fine,” the Master added,
turning his head and indicating a nearby monk.
The daimyo’s regard for the Master grew stronger by the day, and heasked the Master for a Dharma name.[35] The Master thereupon
brushed the name, “His Lordship of Daian temple, the Layman Ten
Thousand Virtues—Nothing! Nothing!”[36]In the fifth year of Kanbun (1665), the Master was seventy-nine andbeset by the infirmities of age. He spoke to the [Echizen] daimyo,
who proposed erecting for him a special detached hermitage within
the temple grounds.
The Master told him, “Forget it! Even if you manage to set upsuch a place, I’ve got no more than a few days left.”
The daimyo replied, “My late elder sister, the nun Jōkan, hadintended to relocate from her temporary dwelling to a retreat in themountains. If Your Reverence has no objection [to occupying the
spot], I am certain my late sister would have been overjoyed.”[37]The Master acquiesced, saying, “Let’s move there!”This hermitage is today the [Daianji] subtemple Shōun-in.[38][During his last years,] the Master would live in retreat at Hōtōji in
Harima or return to convalesce at Shōunji in Echizen. One day, when
the Master was eighty-five and staying at Hōtōji, he announced tothe assembly of monks, “The time has arrived for me to be off onpilgrimage.[39] I’m going to Echizen.”
The monks said, “In consideration of Your Reverence’s great age
and virtue, go to pass away in that temple.”
The Master added, “Some time ago, I was in Echizen and had
the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the province’s daimyo.”
The Master then summoned his palanquin and departed.
At the time, Echizen had been ravaged by fire, reducing thedaimyo’s entire castle to ashes. Learning of this, the monks sent a
messenger after the Master to halt his journey. But the Master told
him, “Having come this far, I’m not turning back. My connection withthis world is almost up. What other chance will I have?”In the seventh month, during autumn of that year [1669], theMaster had begun to show slight symptoms of illness, but his pulse
was normal, and he was not experiencing any severe discomfort.[40]Some fourteen days later, he brushed his death verse:
The Dharma heir of the western skies [i.e., India]
The Hun-lun Mountain of the eastern seas (i.e.,
Japan)[41]
One’s ordinary dynamic activity
Is the teaching of nonduality.[42]To which the Master added the inscription, “Three days before mypassing.” Then, having discussed with those present thearrangements for his death, he said not another word.
The following evening, the Master summoned the attendant monk
Ridatsu and asked for writing paper. Ridatsu, bearing the paper
between his palms, presented it respectfully to the Master. The
Master slapped him.
The next day, the sixteenth day [of the seventh month], theMaster peacefully passed away.
The lord of the province told his retainer, Layman Hōsetsu, “It’sbad luck that I’m down with the flu and unable to hasten to His
Reverence. Please hurry there in my place.”
The layman, attiring himself in the robe and headgear of thedaimyo, [set off for the Master’s temple]. He then stood facing thecoffin containing the Master’s body and prostrated himself just as hewould do when the Master was alive.
Some sixteen years before the Master’s passing, the daimyo had aportrait of the Master painted, which he asked the Master to inscribe.
When he had completed the inscription, the Master postdated it“sixteenth day of the seventh month.” Now, in astonishment, thedaimyo wondered, “How did the Master know?”

The followers of Buddha are extolled in every quarter
The disciples of Confucius are praised throughout the land
I sit on a rock among vines and creepers
Now and then watching the drifting clouds
that pass before my eyes.
—SENGAI GIBON

Among the most beloved and eccentric figures in the history ofJapanese Zen is the Rinzai master Sengai Gibon (1750–1837). Like
his contemporary the Sоtо Zen master Ryōkan, Sengai waslegendary for his warm and unassuming personality, his naiveté, andhis close relations with the common people who were his neighbors.
Sengai’s friends included the Fukuoka daimyo Kuroda Narikiyo (n.d.)and his samurai retainers, local artists and literati, and assorted
farmers, old ladies, drunks, and merchants—the full sweep of society
in Hakata, the important port town on the northern tip of Kyushu
where Sengai’s temple, Shōfukuji, was located. As late as 1930,
children in the area all knew stories about “Sengai-san” (Mr. Sengai),as he was affectionately referred to, and the people of northern
Kyushu often spoke of him as “Sengai Bosatsu” (Bodhisattva
Sengai). Exceedingly stunted and bizarre in appearance, always
dressed in ragged robes, Sengai was said to have resembled a“mummified monkey,” an impression borne out by several of his
portraits. Besides his ready wit and abilities as a Zen master, Sengai,
like Ryōkan, was celebrated for his brushwork, especially his playful
drawings, which collectors went to inordinate lengths to wheedle outof him.
Little information exists regarding Sengai’s early years.[1] The
master himself recorded nothing on the subject, nor did his disciples
leave any detailed accounts. Even Sengai’s date of birth iscalculated only by counting back from his age at death. We knowthat he was born in 1750 in the old province of Mino, now Gifu
Prefecture. The master’s father, a certain Itō Jinpachi (d. 1788), issaid to have been a tenant farmer for a samurai family, theKawamura. It was probably to unburden himself of an extra mouth tofeed that led Jinpachi to place the ten-year-old Sengai as a novice at
Seitaiji, a nearby Rinzai Zen temple patronized by the Kawamura
and now part of Mino City. Here Sengai served under the temple’s
aging abbot Kuin Enku (n.d.), from whom, while still a child, he took
religious vows as a Zen monk. Kuin was a distinguished Myōshinjiline master who had served a term as the main temple’s abbot andlater in life returned to Myōshinji to deliver a series of well-attended
lectures on the Blue Cliff Record. In 1762, Kuin retired as Seitaiji’s
abbot, leaving the temple in the care of a disciple.
Rinzai Zen in Sengai’s period was dominated by two importantteaching lines, both centered on the great Kyoto headquarters Zen
temple Myōshinji: the line of Hakuin Ekaku, and that of Hakuin’scontemporary Kogetsu Zenzai (1667–1750/51). In 1768 Sengai
traveled north to Musashi Province and sought out Kogetsu’s heir
Gessen Zenne (1702–1781) at Gessen’s temple, Tōki-an, in what is
now the city of Yokohama.[2] After several years of study under
Gessen, Sengai reportedly realized enlightenment when he passed
the koan “Xiangyan’s ‘Up a Tree’ ” after presenting the following
verse:[3]Three thousand years since Shakyamuni passed on
And Maitreya isn’t due for another billion or more
The sentient beings of earth haven’t a clueThat their nostrils are hanging right over their lips![4]The poem is said to have been greatly praised by Gessen, who
subsequently awarded Sengai his inka, or sanction of enlightenment.
After Gessen’s death in 1781, Sengai may have completed his
Zen study under Gessen’s heir Seisetsu Shūcho (n.d.), before
setting off once more on pilgrimage. Later that year he returned toMino and Seitaiji, where he had been proposed for the temple’s
abbacy. The appointment, however, was reportedly overruled by the
temple’s patrons, represented by the Kawamura, Jinpachi’s
employer, on the grounds that Sengai, the son of a poor farmer, wasunsuited for so lofty a position.[5]In 1788 in Kyoto, Sengai became a disciple of the Zen masterBankoku Shōteki (d. 1792), abbot of Shōfukuji, and at that time
resident at the Myōshinji subtemple Unsho-in. Traditionally regarded
as Japan’s earliest Zen temple, Shōfukuji had been established by
the monk Eisai (also read Yōsai, 1141–1215) in 1195, four years
after Eisai’s return from studies in Song China, where he hadreceived his Chinese teacher Xuan Huaichang’s (n.d.) sanction. In
1789, after serving for thirty-four years, Bankoku retired as abbot of
Shōfukuji, conferring Dharma succession on Sengai, who at age
thirty-nine became the temple’s 123rd-generation abbot. At his
inauguration, which coincided with the memorial of Eisai’s death,
Sengai recited a poem:
When Zen first arrived in our land
Twenty-four lines were handed down
Yet today where are the founders’ progeny?
Our school’s teaching is dead and gone
Only this blind donkey stumbles about.[6]—Sengai would largely remain in Hakata for the following thirty years,
living in extreme simplicity and fending off repeated invitations toassume honors at Myōshinji, though he finally yielded in 1790,
receiving advanced rank in the Kyoto temple and delivering a formal
sermon. Further honors followed in 1798 and again in 1800, when
Sengai undertook to refurbish Shōfukuji’s monk’s hall, now filling withstudents as the master’s fame began to spread.[7] In succeeding
years, Sengai oversaw repair and restoration of Shōfukuji’s othermain buildings. The master seems to have come to regard himself
as custodian for the historic temple, and it is largely due to his efforts
that Shōfukuji’s principal structures remain intact today.
Sengai was awarded abbacy of Myōshinji in 1802, and the Kyoto
temple sent a formal acknowledgment of the honor to the senior
officials of the Kuroda clan, daimyo of the Fukuoka domain. In 1811
Sengai turned Shōfukuji over to his leading disciple and Dharma heir
(hassu) Tangen Tōi (d. 1855) and retired to a subtemple, Kyohakuin. Here he continued to live in retreat, with an occasional trip to
Kyoto and beyond. In 1823 he returned to visit Seitaiji, site of his
early training as a monk, and delivered to the assembly a series oflectures on the letters of Dahui.
Even at home in Kyohaku-in, Sengai by no means lived as arecluse. His acquaintances spanned the gamut of local society,including Confucians and literati, shakuhachi players, tea devotees,
and even the occasional boisterous drunk. Sengai reputedly loved
both sake and tea, and the plentiful artwork he produced during thisperiod is in part testament to his conviviality, infused with themaster’s special brand of earthy humor and whimsy, and often
created as gifts to friends. His paintings include a variety of subjects,
from vegetables and bamboo to landscapes of mountains and rice
fields, picnics under the cherry blossoms, farmers at work, local
gods, birds, and animals. Even when Sengai’s subject is Zen, hispaintings and calligraphy reflect his playful temperament. A portraitof Bodhidharma, who on arriving in China, according to legend,practiced meditation for nine years facing the stone wall of his
mountain retreat, bears the inscription, “Nine years facing a wall—
what a drag!”[8] Perhaps tired of the incessant requests for samplesof his brushwork, in autumn of 1823, Sengai is said to haverenounced all further artistic activity and had the resolution—itself apoem—carved in stone and set up outside his hermitage:
Here in Fukuoka in my black robes

I’m putting down my brush for good
Having brought only trouble and shame on myself
As a result of all my scribbling.[9]—In 1837, Tangen committed some infraction for which he wasremoved from the abbacy of Shōfukuji and sent into exile onŌshima, so that Sengai, at age eighty-seven, was forced to become
the temple’s abbot once more.[10] Later that year he was able tohand over the abbacy to another disciple and return to Kyohaku-in,
where he passed away several days later. His death verse, for which
he seems to have broken his ban on poetry and calligraphy, contains
a pun in the use of the word “cliff,” the second of the characters thatmake up Sengai’s name—“Hermit Cliff”:
When arriving, know where you came from
When departing, know where you’ve gone
Without letting go the edge of the cliff
The clouds are too thick to know where you are.[11]In 1841 Emperor Ninkō (r. 1817–1846) awarded Sengai theposthumous imperial title Fumon Entsū Zenji, “Zen Master with
Perfect Knowledge of All Dharma Gates.”
Sengai left behind five Dharma heirs, two of whom served as
Shōfukuji’s abbot, along with a plethora of brush paintings andcalligraphy that continue to be greatly appreciated, both in Japanand abroad.

Sengai is the sort of figure about whom legends and folk stories
naturally arise. The following are a selection of such tales from
Sengai oshō itsuwasen [Selected tales of Master Sengai] (Kyoto:
Hanazono University’s Institute for Zen Studies, 1999), edited by

Nōnin Keidō and based principally on a 1930 collection of Sengai
stories, Sengai oshō hozoppone (Master Sengai’s Belly Button) by
Kuramitsu Daigu.[12]The Master had a reputation for never thanking people. One rainy
day, on a street not far from the temple, the thong of his geta broke,and observing his distress, the lady at the local tofu shop ran andpurchased a new thong and hurried to him with it.[13] The Master,
however, did not thank her but just bowed and returned home
without a word.
Thereafter, whenever the lady met the Master, he still failed to
thank her, leaving her filled with indignation.
“What a rude priest!” she thought to herself. And to an
acquaintance she complained, “Everyone praises the Master forbeing such a worthy man, but he isn’t anything of the sort. On a rainy
day his geta thong broke and he was really in a bad way. But eventhough I went and bought him a new thong and replaced it for him
myself, he never thanked me. I can’t imagine a more ungratefulpriest!”
The woman’s acquaintance visited the temple and reported thisto the Master. Sengai said, “When people finish saying thank you,that’s the end of the matter right there. But I intend never to forget akindness as long as I live.”[14]Once a day laborer noticed under the main hall of the temple freshbones from a sea bream. Fish was forbidden in the monastery, andthe worker hurried off to the Master with the evidence.
“Master! Master! Look what I found under the monks’ hall!” heexclaimed. “How embarrassing to have fish bones turn up here at
the temple.”“Well, well,” said the Master, “the novices nowadays havecertainly gotten soft. Back when I was a novice, we never left overeven the bones!”

Lord Kuroda Narikiyo, daimyo of Chikuzen, prided himself on his
knowledge of plants and flowers, particularly chrysanthemums andpeonies. Not only did he depict these in many brush paintings, but
he also raised splendid specimens in his gardens, where he would
entertain guests at elaborate viewing parties.
One day it happened that a dog invaded the flowerbeds andtrampled one of His Lordship’s most prized chrysanthemum plants.
Enraged, the daimyo held the gardener responsible and announced
that he was going to execute him himself.
Learning of this, Master Sengai remarked, “Killing a man justbecause of a little plant—what a foolish daimyo! Very well, I have an
idea.”
That evening, the Master concealed his face under a broadbrimmed straw hat and, with a sharpened sickle in hand, stole into
the daimyo’s flowerbeds, where he proceeded to cut down every oneof the precious chrysanthemums. Seeing this, a watchman raised
the alarm. The daimyo, burning with rage, arrived on the scene.
“Scoundrel!” he shouted, and drew his sword, posed to deliver a
blow to the intruder, when he suddenly realized that the faceconcealed under the straw hat belonged to none other than Master
Sengai.
Utterly unperturbed, the Master told him, “As long as the plants
have been cut down, you can save them to use later on for fodder.”Astounded, the daimyo sheathed his sword and asked the Master
why he had cut down his chrysanthemums. In reply, Sengai picked
up a chrysanthemum branch that lay on the ground and faced thedaimyo. Holding up the flowers beside his own face, the Masterdemanded, “Which life is more important?”
The daimyo suddenly realized his error. “How mistaken I’ve
been!” he apologized profusely and, promptly pardoning thegardener, told the Master, “I would like to offer a present to Your
Reverence.”“There’s really nothing I want,” the Master said. “But since you’ve
expressed a desire to give me something, what about that plum tree
over there?”
The plum in question was prized by His Lordship to the same
extent as the chrysanthemums.
“You put me in an awkward position,” the daimyo told the Master,
clearly troubled. “To take away the plum tree would be like taking myhead.”
Sengai replied, “If it remains here at your place, I’ll probably haveto come back and cut it down. So if you want to see it, please cometo the temple.”
And with that, the Master returned home with the tree, which heplanted right in front of the temple.

One summer day, two old women from the village came to visit
Sengai at the temple.
“My, my!” they exclaimed when Sengai appeared. “What arethose red spots all over your face?”“Oh, those,” said the Master. “They’re mosquito bites.”“Yes, but why should the mosquitos be biting you up so much?”
the old ladies asked.
“To tell you the truth,” the Master said, “I’ve already had mymosquito net stolen three times.”“Three times?” the women exclaimed. “You’ve been robbed threetimes?”

“That’s right,” the Master confirmed. “They took all my mosquito
nets. What a headache! Every night I pull the bedding over my headfor protection, but a mosquito always manages to hide inside andchew me up while I sleep. It itches like crazy!” he told them,
grimacing.
The old women both expressed great sympathy for the Master,
who suggested, “Ladies, if you’re willing, I have a plan.” Grinning
broadly, he said, “Could you make me an all-white mosquito net?”“Yes, certainly,” the old ladies agreed, and pooling all their rainyday funds, they made up the all-white mosquito net just as the
Master had requested and brought it to him.
Sengai was overjoyed, and immediately taking out his brushes
and ink, he set to work on the net. He covered its sides with
depictions of death’s heads and ghosts and its top with a terrifying
picture of the thunder god accompanied by streaks of lightning.[15] At
its corners he painted overturned lanterns and gravestones, ghastly
hands and funerary objects. When he was done, he hung up the net
and stood back to admire it. “Well, that should do the trick!” theMaster announced with a laugh.
That very night, two thieves snuck up to the temple carrying
lanterns. The Master was already sound asleep inside his new
mosquito net. He had closed the shoji but left open the shutters.
Sliding aside the shoji, the thieves slipped into the Master’s room,and shining the lantern on the mosquito net, they suddenly beheld aghost standing before them. Trembling with fear but greedy for thenet, one of the thieves approached and prepared to cut it from its
hanger, when Sengai suddenly began banging his metal wash basinand shouting, “The god of thunder is here before you!”
Terrified, the two ran screaming into the night.
Hearing all the commotion, the temple’s monks and the nearby
villagers came running. When Sengai told them what had occurred,
everyone exploded with laughter. When they entered the Master’s
room and looked around, they found that the thieves, in theirdesperation to escape, had dropped a towel, a tobacco pouch, andpipe.

The Master would close his gate and on it paste a sign that read,“Out Today,” meanwhile plainly sauntering back and forth in his front
yard.
Once a certain samurai official of his acquaintance passed byand, noticing the Master, went to open the gate and greeted him.
“Your Reverence,” he called out, “I haven’t seen you in some time.
How have you been?”
In reply, Sengai merely pointed to the sign and told the samurai,“Please read what it says.”“But, Your Reverence,” the samurai pleaded, “you’re here, aren’tyou? You must just be kidding.”
Sengai dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “That sign,” hereminded the samurai, “says I’m out. It’s true as anything can be.”And so saying, he refused any further conversation.
Another neighbor, a farmer from the nearby countryside who wasa devoted follower of the Master, came to visit him at the temple,
carrying a load of Sengai’s favorite sweet potatoes.[16] The Master
was indoors wearing a sleeveless jacket and cooking up some rice.
“Hello!” the farmer called out from the gate. “Is Your Reverencein?”“I’m out! I’m out!” Sengai called back.
“You’re out?” the farmer repeated. “But I’ve brought your favorite
sweet potatoes—”
No sooner had the Master heard the words “sweet potato” thanhe flung open the shoji, stuck out his head, and said, “No, I’m in! I’m
in! Just me.”The Master was known to be immensely fond of sweet potatoes,
and people, it’s said, would often use them to lure him out.

Ghosts and ghost tales were a fixture of popular culture in Sengai’sJapan—an interest that may be reflected in the following story.
From the time the Master became abbot of Shōfukuji, he would use
any spare time he had from the temple’s affairs to sit under a tree oron a rock to practice zazen. One night, a mischievous samurai of his
acquaintance was passing through a pine grove near the temple
when he noticed the Master deep in meditation on a rock under oneof the pines, looking just like Bodhidharma.
The next evening when the samurai passed by the spot, there
was the Master again, seated in meditation.
“People say that for such a runt of a man, the Master’s got plentyof guts,” the samurai mused. “Well, this looks like a perfect chance tofind out!”
The next day at twilight, the samurai went to the pine grove,
climbed a pine tree next to the rock where Sengai did zazen, hidhimself, and waited for the Master to appear.
The Master, with no idea of the trap being laid for him, arrived
and plunged into deep samadhi, sitting cross-legged as usual on therock. No sooner had he begun to meditate than the samurai, in thetree above, reached down and grabbed the Master’s head. But
instead of being alarmed, as the samurai had expected, Sengai justwent on meditating, still as a stone buddha.
Next, the samurai tried bellowing, “I’m going to get you!” But thistoo had absolutely no effect. Finally, feeling ashamed, he crept down
silently from the tree and went off.
The following morning, the samurai went to visit Sengai at the
temple. He asked to be conducted to the Master and was promptly
shown into the abbot’s private quarters. The instant the samurai
stepped through the door the Master shouted from the shadow of thehalf-opened shoji, “Aha! The ghost!”

“Wha—!” exclaimed the samurai, grabbing for his sword.
The Master nearly split his sides laughing and remarked, “It’s a
bad business when one ghost is scaring another!”
The samurai, red in the face, slunk off.

One day when the master was in front of his temple weeding thegarden, two samurai appeared.
“Is Master Sengai in?” they demanded.
“He’s out,” Sengai replied.
“None of your lies!” they barked at the Master together. “You’re
Sengai, aren’t you?”
Each samurai then grabbed one of the Master’s arms anddragged him inside, where as a crowning indignity they ordered him
to produce for them a piece of calligraphy. It was just the same as
highway robbery!
The Master, however, remaining perfectly calm, brushed apainting of a copper coin, beside which he inscribed the following
haiku:
Two “knights”
dragging away a monk
—It’s a holdup!

Among the Master’s followers was a man who served the domain’s
daimyo, Lord Kuroda, as official executioner.
One snowy day when the man came to visit the temple, Sengai
asked him, “You make your living cutting off people’s heads. Whatabout giving up this kind of sinful business?”“But, Your Reverence,” the man explained, “His Lordship, thedaimyo, can command even my own execution—I’m completely

blameless in this.”
The Master did not reply but, changing the subject, said, “Right
now it’s the end of the year and I have to get the temple grounds
cleaned up. I hate to ask, but could you go into the thicket over there
and cut down the bamboo?”“Certainly, Your Reverence!” the executioner instantly agreed,and entering the thicket proceeded to cut down the bamboo.
No sooner had he begun, however, than all the snow that had
piled up on the bamboos’ branches hurtled down with a crash on theexecutioner’s head.
“Oh, it’s cold!” he protested, brushing off the snow and returning
to the Master’s quarters.
Sengai told him, “The snow on the bamboo should have fallen onme, who asked you to do this; but instead it fell on you. Tell me, then:Who is guilty when you cut off someone’s head? I want you to
consider this carefully.”
At these words, the executioner went away.

The Master was extremely small, and at first glance might bemistaken for an old lady or a novice priest. He disliked being
recognized by people who would exclaim, “That’s Master Sengai!”and he always looked scruffy and down-at-the-heels.
One day, dressed in a dingy, frayed robe, Sengai was picking tea
leaves in the tea garden near his temple when a man came to ask
for a piece of the Master’s calligraphy.
“Hey, you—novice!” the man called out. “Where can I find thevenerable Master Sengai’s temple?”
Sengai, not in the least put out to be mistaken for a novice,promptly assumed the role and directed the visitor to Kyohaku-in,
saying, “Yes, sir, you can find Master Sengai over there.”It’s said that several times a day Sengai resorted to suchstratagems in dealing with importunate visitors.

On his way home from Edo, the Master arrived at the checkpoint at
Hakone.[17] As he approached, the guard shouted at him, “No nuns
allowed to pass this checkpoint!” and refused to let him through.
Laughing, the Master told the guard, “Very well, shall I show you
my bona fides?” And pulling up his robes, he said, “Take a look! Maleor female?”Once, when Sengai and the Zen master Don’ei of Sūfukuji wereinvited to the home of an old, established Hakata family, they noticed
that the alcove was adorned by a magnificent potted orchid. Both ofthe masters begged to have the plant.
Their host told them, “You both want it? Then we’ll have a penis
contest, and whoever wins will take the orchid home.”
Sengai immediately announced, “They say, ‘Small man, big
pecker’—so I win!” And triumphantly tucking the orchid under hisarm, he went off.

Someone once came and left a drawing of a penis on the gate of
Sengai’s temple. Sengai erased it, but the next morning an evenlarger penis had been drawn on the gate. Again Sengai rubbed itout, but in the morning, a still larger penis had been drawn.
Alongside appeared the inscription: “Touch it and it gets bigger.”“Ah,” the Master exclaimed, “this time I’ve been beaten!”

Among the teachers of jujitsu in the employ of the Fukuoka domain
was one Shōbayashi Matashichiro. A master of ki power,
Shōbayashi with a single shout could reportedly knock a man overfrom behind a screen or bring down a bird in flight by staring at it
fiercely.[18]One day, Shōbayashi went to visit Master Sengai.
“Your Reverence, why don’t we have a little contest,” hesuggested. “Your samadhi power against my ki power.”“Certainly,” Sengai replied. “Feel free to demonstrate your ki
power at any time.”
Shōbayashi chuckled sardonically. “I’m going to really teach you
a lesson!” he promised, and went into the next room, where focusing
his full force he gave a powerful shout—“EeeeEEEEEH!”“I must have knocked that Zen master right on his can!” hegloated. But when he peered into the room, he saw Sengai calmly
drinking tea. Shōbayashi therefore tried again, with a second great
shout, but Sengai remained completely unfazed. Even the famous
Shōbayashi couldn’t match the power of Zen meditation.
This reached the ears of the lord of the domain, andconsequently Shōbayashi’s stipend was reduced by fifty koku.[19]When Sengai learned of this, he was greatly concerned about
Shōbayashi’s situation and secretly summoned him to the temple.
“Let’s have another match,” Sengai suggested. “This time I’ll
teach you a surefire way to win.”
The Master then instructed Shōbayashi in the meditation
technique of counting breaths.[20]Returning home, Shōbayashi practiced the technique singlemindedly night and day, striving to enter the samadhi of breathcounting, till suddenly he became one with his breathing: there wasno self apart from his breath, no breath apart from his self. He
shouted, and the force of his shout filled heaven and earth. It
seemed as if at that moment nothing existed in the vast universe. Atthe same time, when he shouted, the entire universe suddenly
appeared.
“That’s it!” he cried out spontaneously and rushed off to see
Sengai, presenting his realization.
Astonished, Sengai exclaimed, “Shōbayashi, you’ve done it! Thatshout is Rinzai’s jeweled sword of the Vajra King.[21] You’ve knocked
down not only me but heaven and earth and all there is. I’ve lost thematch!”
Through his practice of breath-counting meditation, Shōbayashi
realized the indestructible diamond samadhi. Thereafter, not only
was the fifty koku restored to Shōbayashi’s stipend but an additional
fifty, it is said, was awarded him.

In Hakata there lived a teacher of swordsmanship who had formerly
been a retainer of the daimyo of Fukuoka but had become a ronin, or
masterless samurai, and had sent his son to become a monk under
Master Sengai. Later, when the sword master had once again foundemployment with a lord, he petitioned Sengai to allow his son to
return to lay life and become the family heir. Sengai agreed, and the
young man returned home, where under his father’s instruction hedevoted himself to the practice of swordsmanship.
One day the son returned to visit Sengai. The Master asked him,
“You’ve been at it for some time now. Have you gotten yourswordsman’s credentials?”“Not yet,” the young man replied, “I’m still not qualified.”Sengai then wrote something and handed it to him, saying, “Takethis back with you and show it to your father.”
Returning home, he did as Sengai instructed.
When his father received the document, he was startled to read:“Between the Way of Zen and the Way of the sword there is only adifference of words, and this is itself the essence of the teaching of

swordsmanship transmitted in our school. Fortunately my son has
trained in the Way of Zen under Your Reverence, so that there
remains no further problems.”
The sword master promptly conferred on his son successor-ship
in the school’s innermost teachings.

One day a samurai named Genyū came to the temple. Demandingthat the Master paint something for him, he refused to budge till
Sengai complied. Having no choice, the Master took a clean sheet ofpaper on which he painted two circles before handing it to thesamurai.
Genyū examined the painting but, unable to make out what it
meant, asked the Master to inscribe it with a title.
Sengai promptly took his brush and wrote: “Genyū’s balls.”
Red with embarrassment, the samurai took the painting and fled.

The monks of Shōfukuji had assembled on the outskirts of Hakata togreet their new abbot. But they waited and waited, and still no one
resembling an eminent Zen master appeared. Tired of waiting, they
noticed a stunted, bedraggled beggar priest pass along the mainroad in the twilight, and they called out to him, “Hey! On the boat
here, did you happen to meet the eminent priest called Master
Sengai?”
Pausing, the beggar monk remained silent and then quietly
replied, “Sengai…Yes, that’s me.”
The monks, taken aback, kept staring at the beggar monk. “Thisis the famous monk Sengai?” they all wondered.
The Master, accompanied by the monks, proceeded to his new
temple. On the way, the monks stopped at a tea stall, and Sengai
joined them all for buckwheat noodles in broth. When they had

finished eating and were about to leave, one of the monks
complained, “Those noodles we just had were made with fish stock.
[22] And Master Sengai himself partook of such food.” Many of theother monks could be heard muttering their disapproval as well.
Sengai told them, “I don’t know anything about fish myself, but
the soup tasted delicious, so I ate it. I can assume you all must be
used to eating fish, and that’s why you’re so familiar with the taste.”
The monks all looked away shamefaced.

There were many monks training at Shōfukuji under Master Sengai.
Not far from the temple was a red-light district that attracted manymonks who at night would scale the monastery wall to secretly visit
the brothels. Because the wall was quite high, the monks would
leave under it a footstool to help them get over and back down again
on their return. Among the miscreants was Sengai’s favorite disciple,
Tangen, whose participation in these outings was something that the
Master could not avoid learning of.
One evening, at the hour he knew the monks would be returningfrom their foray into the pleasure quarter, Sengai stationed himself
under the wall, removing the step stool and sitting down to practice
zazen and await the monks’ return. Toward dawn, the unsuspecting
monks tiptoed back to the temple and climbed the wall. But as theylowered themselves down on the other side, they were disconcerted
to find that the footstool they always left behind was missing. Their
feet groped in confusion in the darkness for the stool. Finally they
managed to find something in its place that allowed them to lower
themselves from the wall, and placing their feet on it, one by one
they stepped down into the temple yard. As they peered around in
the shadows, they were astonished to discover that the object they
had used as a footstool was the shaved head of their teacher! White
with fear, they prostrated themselves on the ground. But MasterSengai, in admonishing them, blamed only himself, saying theirmisbehavior was due to his own negligence in teaching.

One year, the Hakata area was in the grip of a cholera epidemic. The
head of the merchant house of Happyaku-ya,[23] a frequent visitor to
Sengai’s temple, arrived looking severely distressed and told theMaster, “Your Reverence, this year, expecting big demand forsquash, I bought up a huge quantity. But now people are saying thateating squash will give you cholera, and as a result, no one isbuying. If I don’t sell the squash, my family is ruined. Please, you’ve
got to help me!”“That’s really terrible,” Sengai commiserated. “Very well, I’ll
become your business manager and sell them for you. Please bringme all your squash.”
The merchant wondered what Sengai had in mind but dutifully
loaded all the squash onto a cart and brought them to the temple.
Sengai then piled all the vegetables in front of Shōfukuji’s main gatewith a big sign that read Magical Cholera-Prevention Squash, andspreading his meditation mat alongside, he sat down and practiced
zazen.
Immediately word spread throughout the area, and before long
the whole district was flocking to buy the squash. By noon thesquash had all sold out, and the fortunes of the firm of Happyaku-ya
were restored.

On New Year’s Day, Sengai was roasting holiday rice cakes over thefire when a monk came to visit. Seating himself before the brazier
directly in front of the Master, the monk proceeded to put forward
various petty theories, challenging Sengai to engage in a Zendialogue.

The Master remained silent and simply listened. Suddenly hegrabbed the tongs and seizing the hot rice cake he’d been roastingover the flame, he hurled it smack against the cheek of theastonished monk, shouting, “You’re a great talker. Try chewing on
this!”“Hot! Hot! Hot!” the monk howled in pain.
“There’s no need to make such a fuss,” Sengai reproved him.
“Something hot is going to be hot.”

When a Shinto priest visited the Master at Kyohaku-in, thediscussion turned to heaven and hell.
“Your Reverence,” the Shinto priest asked, “where is heaven to
be found?”“On the Plane of High Heaven to which you pray every day,”Sengai replied.[24]“Then how about hell?” the priest demanded.
“The Plane of High Heaven’s next-door neighbor.”
On another occasion a monk from Buzen asked the Master,“What about heaven?”[25]Sengai promptly lay down as if going to sleep.
“And what about hell?” the monk persisted.
Sengai closed his eyes and began to snore loudly.
“I’ve come all this way to question him on the Dharma, and hehas the rudeness to just fall asleep!” the monk grumbled, and glaring
at the Master, he started out of the room.
At that moment Sengai sat up abruptly and, pointing at the monk,
remarked, “That is hell.”

The Master was extremely relaxed and informal. Tachibana
Kanzaemon, a senior samurai official of the domain, came to call onhim at Kyohaku-in in the course of visiting a gravesite.[26] The
Master had just stepped into the bath but, hearing the official had
arrived, jumped right out and searched around for a robe.
The official, who was waiting in the next room, called out, “Please
don’t trouble yourself, Your Reverence. As you are is just fine.”“Well, then, if you’ll excuse me…,” Sengai announced, andentered the room stark naked, to the amazement of the senior
official.

There was a sarcastic fellow named Chōeimon who was a favorite of
the Master and could provoke a fight with only two or three words.
One day he came to Sengai and complained, “Your Reverence, I
don’t want to put on any more years.”“What’s that?” said Sengai. “While you’re alive it’s all the same
year.”On another occasion, when Sengai had been sightseeing at Keya no
Ooto in Itoshima, he became hungry on his way home andapproached a tea shop.[27]“Excuse me,” he called out, “but I’ve got a young novice with me
and he says he’s so hungry he just can’t walk anymore. Can you
serve us some food?”
The tea shop owner brought out portions for two people, andSengai contentedly polished both portions off.
Suspicious, the tea shop owner asked, “What about yournovice?”“Oh…well…,” Sengai sputtered and rapped himself sharply
exactly twice on the head.

Sengai was extremely fond of sweet potatoes. Knowing this, thelocal people, when they wished to obtain pieces of the Master’scalligraphy, would buy a quantity of sweet potatoes and bring themalong when they visited Sengai, deliberately placing the yams to be
used where he could see them.
“Your Reverence, please paint something for me,” the person in
search of calligraphy would ask.
“Forget that for now—where are you taking those sweet
potatoes?” Sengai would demand.
“I’m bringing them someplace else,” the local would reply.
“Turn them over to me and I’ll paint something for you,” Sengai
would say.
“Very well,” the man would agree, “if you paint something for me,
they’re all yours.”
Using this sort of strategy, it is said, people would regularly
wheedle paintings out of the Master.

One summer day, a certain sword master from Fukuoka named Toda
arrived at the temple to visit Sengai. He found the Master stark
naked and napping on his back. Suddenly grabbing Sengai by thetesticles, Toda shouted, “What is this?”
Sengai, totally unperturbed, without even opening his eyes,
replied, “A wasted possession,” and then resumed snoring loudly.

In the eighth year of Tenpō (1837), Sengai fell ill and took to his bed.
By that autumn, his life seemed to be rapidly approaching its end,and his disciples gathered around him.
One of them beseeched the Master, “Your Reverence, pleaseleave us some final words of wisdom.”

Sengai [took up his brush and wrote:] “We die alone! We diealone!”The disciples, finding such a sentiment shockingly morbid for arevered religious teacher, pressed the Master for something else.
Above it, Sengai then inscribed: “It’s true! It’s true!”

During the period before Master Sengai had retired to Kyohaku-in, acrisis arose in the Kuroda domain that engulfed the Buddhist
priesthood of every school and was centered in Hakata. The causeof this crisis was Gōchō (n.d.), an eminent priest of the Tendai sect,
who was in temporary residence at Kaidan-in in Dazaifu.[28]Gōchō would make the rounds of all the domain’s temples,
defeating each of their abbots in religious debate. The keenness of
his arguments was prodigious. None could stand up to his lightning
retorts. It seemed [to the other abbots] that there was simply no one
among them able to defeat Gōchō; and as the wild rumors ofGōchō’s rhetorical powers continued to grow, the Buddhist priests ofthe domain felt like sparrows in the sights of a hawk.
One day the monks of the domain held a meeting, whose result
was to form an alliance among themselves to expel Gōchō from thedomain. One and all agreed that the only man for the job was Sengai
of Shōfukuji, and a delegation of all the local abbots descended on
the temple to meet with Sengai and entreat his assistance.
The Master told them, “Very well, I’ll go and get him to leave, so
don’t worry.”
The very next day Sengai went to see Gōchō at Kaidan-in, where
he found the teacher sweeping the temple grounds.
Approaching him, Sengai said, “I’ve come to speak with you on
something of a private nature.”“What?” Gōchō snarled. “Just what is it you came to tell me?”In almost a whisper, Sengai replied, “What if I told Your
Reverence that your life was in mortal danger? Well, that’s the truthof the matter, and if you value your life, I ask you to make haste andescape from here.”“What’s this all about?” Gōchō barked.
“There’s no time to go into all that,” Sengai told him. “You’ve got
to hurry, pack your things, and get away. A crowd of men from the
Kuroda domain is on its way here now to kill you!”
And having delivered his message, Sengai returned to his
temple.
Like the coward he was at heart, when Gōchō heard this hestarted to tremble all over with fear. “Of course,” Gōchō reasoned tohimself, “I’ve been going all over the domain debating Buddhism
and, without intending to, must have provoked everyone into wanting
to kill me, and now there’s not a moment to be lost!”
Hastily gathering up all his traveling gear, Gōchō fled the temple
for good that very night.
People in the domain were convinced that Master Sengai musthave bested Gōchō in debate and driven him right out of theprovince, and as word got about, people marveled, “That Sengai-san
is really amazing!”[29]The following story, dealing with Sengai’s wayward follower Shienand his family and descendants, is by far the longest and mostinvolved of the Sengai selections translated here. Despite the often
confusing juxtaposition of timelines and characters, however, thestory offers a rare glimpse of life in Japan during the early to midnineteenth century as well as a delightful picture of the master as
seen by his Hakata neighbors.

Not far from Hakata, in the town of Katakasu, there lived a haiku
poet named Kawagoe Shien.[30] A follower of Master Sengai, Shien
was a frequent visitor at Kyohaku-in, where he would receive
instruction in Zen from the Master and have him look over his haiku.
Shien passed away in fall of the tenth year of Tenpō (1839) and wasburied at Genjū-an in Hakata, receiving the posthumous Buddhist
name Layman Setsuzan.
Shien’s family were hereditary equerries of the Kuroda daimyo,with a stipend of five hundred koku, but for certain reasons, thestipend is said to have been reduced to some two hundred fifty or
three hundred koku during Shien’s generation.
One day a dejected-looking Shien came to visit the Master.
“Why so down at the mouth?” the Master asked.
Scratching his head, Shien replied, “To tell you the truth, I’ve
done something pretty awful. I’ve knocked up one of our family
maidservants. If this is made public, I could end up getting strippedof my stipend and having to commit hara-kiri.”
The Master said, “When lascivious thoughts run wild, that’s
always what happens. Well, you had better just leave the matter tome.” And so saying, the Master promptly left the temple.
The Master then went to talk with a Mr. Hirano, likewise a follower
from Katakasu.
Sengai told him, “There’s a woman I know whom I’d like you totake on as a maidservant for a little while.”“Of course,” agreed Hirano, readily grasping the situation.
“Anything to oblige Your Reverence.”“Ah, what a relief!” the Master exclaimed, and returned to thetemple where he explained things to Shien. The maidservant wasthen dispatched to Hirano’s, where she safely delivered a healthy
male baby.
The maid had, however, contracted an infection of the nipples
that rendered it impossible for her to suckle the newborn child. Shienhad not enough money to hire a wet nurse, leaving the couple[31]utterly at a loss, as they took turns cradling the infant in their arms.
One day while the Master was making his usual begging rounds,
he stopped to visit Shien, whom he found once again sunk in
despair.[32]“Now then,” the Master told Shien, “there’s no need to getyourself so upset over this. How about letting me have the baby for awhile?”Taking up the child, the Master nestled him in the capacious
sleeves of his monk’s robe, balancing him tenderly in his arms.
Continuing on his begging rounds, the Master inquired if any
nursing mothers had spare milk to suckle the baby, and repeated thisplea every day. The citizens of the village of Katakasu, witnessing
the Master’s deep devotion, could not restrain their tears, and one
new mother after another pressed forward to suckle the child,
exclaiming, “Me too!” “Me too!” In this way there naturally developed
between the Master and Shien a feeling akin to that of father andson.
Years later, I[33] heard that Shien’s great-granddaughter, Ms.
Kawagoe Takako, was living in the Nakano district of Tokyo, and I
went to visit her.[34] Happy to receive me, she gave me the following
account:“Shien was my great-grandfather. He was born in Katakasu near
Hakata, and until around age nineteen, he cared for his ailingmother, to all intents and purposes fulfilling the role of a servant.
“One day, Shien turned to his mother and pleaded, ‘To this day
I’ve been given no opportunity to study, which has left me truly at a
disadvantage. So I am asking you, please allow me to begin myeducation.’“Shien, whose mother had always been a lady of considerable
refinement, promptly acceded to her son’s request, and from thatday on Shien began to study Chinese and Japanese literature.

“Our family had served for generations as hereditary equerries tothe Kuroda daimyo, with a stipend of five hundred koku. At one time,
however, something happened to cause the stipend to be reduced,
and by Shien’s generation the family was receiving a scant two or
three hundred koku. The equerry would have to travel to work from
Katakasu to the daimyo’s castle, a considerable distance; and I
understand that when Shien turned nineteen, the household moved
to the Fukuromachi section of Fukuoka.[35] Not only had his motherremained ill but the whole family was impoverished, leaving themwith no choice but to obtain advance payments on the stipend fromthe Kuroda, till one day no payments remained, leaving them at theirwit’s end. One year, I’m told, they even begged the castle for a straw
sack of soybeans, augmented in the same year by a gift of rice andmoney from the mother’s family. Meager though this was, it enabled
them to eke out a bare existence.
“Living on in this manner, Shien continued his studies, reading
the Chinese and Japanese classics and even gaining a reputation in
his own right as a haiku poet. He also began to drink heavily and toborrow money, which only compounded his poverty. Yet ever casualand self-indulgent, Shien, it is said, remained utterly unperturbed byhis family’s circumstances, and till well past dawn would sit up
drinking sake and composing haiku with his friends.
“When Shien reached marriageable age, he was wed to adaughter of the wealthy Tomita family of Hakata. However, it was notlong before he began to sell off his wife’s entire trousseau—her
kimono, hair ornaments, and coverlets—at the secondhand store, till
the household could no longer meet its living expenses. In the end,
they were supported entirely by Shien’s in-laws, down to the barest
necessities. All the while, Shien’s friends continued to congregate at
the house, lost in the composition of poetry, and at mealtimes it wasthey who received whatever rice there was, though I heard that
nothing remained as a side dish but greens flavored with ordinarysalt.

“Shien was a follower of Sengai and a diligent Zen practitioner.
His devotion to the Master resembled that of a child to a parent,
while, in return, the Master loved Shien like a son and is said to havegiven him various pieces of calligraphy, tableware, clay figurines thathe’d made by hand, and the like. Until recently, Shien’s home wascrammed with six-panel folding screens decorated with the Master’s
brushwork, depicting giant goblins from whose long noses dangled
bottle gourds, beneath which were drawn large sake cups.[36]Unfortunately, tears developed in the screen, leading my family toburn it. All that remains is an image of Bashō, given to me by the
abbot of the Hakata Genjū-an.”And so saying, Ms. Kawagoe fetched from another room theportrait of Bashō and showed it to me. It was a figurine of light-grayunglazed pottery, the piece being altogether around one shaku threesun (fifteen inches) high and one shaku two sun (fourteen inches)
wide. The back of the figurine consisted of two parts, an upper andlower. On the upper was incised, “Fourth year of Bunka (1817),
image of Bashō, at the request of Shien”; and on the lower, “Evening
on the banks of a pond among spring grasses / A tree frog plunges
in—the sound of water.[37] Made by Sengai.”
I felt mysteriously moved at seeing this image, preserving as it
did the very fingerprints of Master Sengai, which remained clearlyvisible around the neck behind the figurine’s head.
Ms. Kawagoe then continued her story: “I heard that when Shien
was about sixty, he erected a house in Katakasu for a concubine.
When summer guests came, Shien would pick eggplants from thefields behind the house, mashing them in a mortar as a side dishwhile everyone drank sake.
“Such was the state of poverty to which Shien had been reduced.
But his son, Mataemon, by cultivating business relationships with the
Kuroda domain, was able to restore the family fortunes, and thestipend from the Kuroda clan burgeoned with each passing year.

“Mataemon had two children, a son, Mochitarō, and a daughter,
Koma. Mochitarō became a student of Kirino Toshiaki and also
enlisted in the academy of Saigo-san.[38] At age twenty-three,
Mochitarō perished at Shiroyama in the fighting against the imperial
army.[39] The upshot was that Koma’s elder daughter—myself,
Takako—was designated Mochitarō’s adopted child, allowing the
Kawagoe family to continue.[40]“The family retained many examples of Master Sengai’s
calligraphy and other articles belonging to the Master, but in thefighting of the tenth year of Meiji (1877) and the terrible panic that
followed news of the advancing imperial forces, all these treasures
were hidden in the well of a house where we had moved in the
Su’noko district of Fukuoka and were subsequently lost.”

Among the Master’s lay followers was one Yorozu-ya Sōhei, also
known as Sakai Sōhei (1803–1881), the third son of the Sakai family.
[41] He was the grandfather of Sakai Toranosuke of Hakata andgreat-grandfather of Sakai Munenosuke. In the first year of Tenpō(1830), Sōhei went to the house of the Kano family in Hakata andopened a sake shop. Day after day, lines of drinkers could be foundpushing their way up to his shop counter.
Among these was a confirmed drunkard named Iwane, who liked
to trade drinks with Master Sengai at the temple in exchange forsamples of the Master’s calligraphy. He was constantly badgering
the Master, demanding, “I gave you a drink. Now brush me
something!” And the Master, finding himself with no recourse, had tobrush something for Iwane.
The shop’s proprietor, who was privy to these transactions, alsocollected the Master’s brushwork, and when Iwane would show up at
the shop carrying samples of it, Sōhei would ply him with liquor andthen when Iwane was unable to pay for his drinks, he would make

Iwane sell him the Master’s paintings. That is why, to this day, theKano family possesses many examples of the Master’s brushwork.
In his time off from the shop, Sōhei would visit the Master at
Kyohaku-in, listening reverently to his sermons. And because Sōhei
loved Chronicle of the Three Generations of the Sanada Clan,reading it every day, he also asked the Master to teach him to readclassical Chinese martial arts texts, such as The Six Secrets andThree Essentials.[42]It was not long before Sōhei, by applying himself to business, had
become a wealthy man. The Master was heard to exclaim, “ThatSōhei is a good man, even when it comes to making money!”
Moreover, Sōhei, realizing that the Master was fond of yams,
would lay in a supply to give the Master in exchange for hisbrushwork. Sōhei then taught this trick to others, and they, too,would employ it to get the Master to produce samples of hisbrushwork.[43]Once, the Master remarked to one of these people, “You’ve
probably been told by Sōhei to come here and scrounge somebrushwork from me. People like that wouldn’t shrink from plucking
out a horse’s eyeballs or ripping out a living man’s intestines andgobbling them up!”In the Master’s eighty-seventh year,[44] the year of his death, heinscribed the following cautionary verse to Sōhei, brushing it onto thebottom of a tray, which the Master then gave to him:
In My Eighty-Seventh Year
Don’t get a swelled head:
Even the glory of the moon at its fullLasts only for a single night.
—Bodhisattva [Sen]gai

Sōhei placed this tray on top of the shop counter where he sat
every day.

In his late years, Sōhei could regularly be found in winter, seatedcross-legged draped in a hand towel in front of the six-sided hibachi
on his counter, puffing away at his pipe as he regaled his customers
with many interesting stories.
With the overissue of new paper money by [the Fukui reformers]
Hisa no Geki, Shirōzu Yōtei, and others, Sōhei was able to speculate
on the Hakata rice market, using the dealings of the [competing ricemerchants] Tomo’ichi of the Maru-ya and Heizō of the Takahashi-ya
to his own advantage to eliminate them both from the marketplace.
[45] It is even reported that Sōhei would appear at the market tomanipulate the rice prices, bearing a thousand-gold-coin strongbox
that actually contained nothing but an empty tea canister and somerocks and which he deployed as show money.
Meanwhile, Sōhei found himself employed by the Kuroda clan to
manage the domain’s finances and even lent money to the clan’schief retainers. During periods of famine, Sōhei would distribute riceto the needy, an act for which he was often commended by the
daimyo himself. And yet, amid all his successes, Sōhei carried withhim like a shining beacon in the depths of his heart, the words of theverse the Master had given him.

During the Bunsei and Tenpō eras (1818–1843), there lived in
Hakata a noodle-shop proprietor called Sokyū-san, whose actualname was Fukuda Hisaemon. He was known by everyone, even Edo
Kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers. He was indeed a man amongmen, kindhearted and chivalrous, and at his establishment he could
always be found tending to the needs of sumo wrestlers, Confucian
scholars, Buddhist priests, and even the occasional stray cat.
This Sokyū numbered among Master Sengai’s devoted
adherents and is said to have frequently visited Kyohaku-in, bearing

in each hand the Master’s favorite bean-jam dumplings along withthe first fruits and vegetables of the season.[46]Plain and simple in his nature, Sokyū was utterly lacking in
affectation about his appearance. Even when paying a visit to the
Master at his retreat, he would present himself, it’s said, just as hewas, wearing his ordinary noodle maker’s work clothes.
On one such day, Sokyū arrived to see the Master, bearing in hisarms a pile of steaming bean-jam dumplings and still dressed in his
usual work outfit smeared all over with noodle flour. Arriving at theentry to the temple’s reception area, he called out, “Is the Reverend
Master in?”
Master Sengai emerged from his quarters and exclaimed, “Well,what do you know, it’s Sokyū! What can I do for you?”
Sokyū replied, “I made some bean-jam dumplings and wanted tobring them to Your Reverence while they were still warm.”
The Master said, “Ah, would you mind waiting just a minute?” He
then scurried back indoors, reemerging at the entryway dressed in
his formal priest’s robes and respectfully accepting the bean-jam
dumplings.
Somewhat bewildered, Sokyū could only stammer, “Your
Reverence, I’m very much honored by such formality…”
The Master said, “Not at all, Sokyū. You came wearing theuniform of your vocation, and I could only greet you by putting on my
Buddhist robes, the uniform of mine!”

Among Sokyū’s offspring were two noted eccentrics, his elder son,
Kikushō, and his second son, Hisafuchi. Kikushō entered the worldof Osaka sumo wrestling under the professional name Tobi-ume(Flying Plum Tree). Hisafuchi, meanwhile, received headship of thefamily from Sokyū, composing waka and haiku and continuallyastonishing the people of Hakata by his offbeat and original
behavior.[47]Once when his wrestler son, Tobi-ume, was returning to Hakata
after a long absence, Sokyū stuck a radish into the base of his
topknot and went rushing distraught through the town. Mystified byhis behavior, people asked him what he was doing, and lightly
brushing the top of his head, Sokyū explained, “What am I to do? My
boy is coming down from the big city and all the blood is rushing up
to my head!”
By which Sokyū meant to say that he had stuck the radish into
the base of his topknot to stem the rush of blood to his head![48]Once Sokyū had gone to drink sake at Kohei’s grog shop, theWatermill, in Hakata, when he noticed posted on the main pillar asign that read, “Payment in advance for all drinks.” Looking at thesign, Sokyū tossed back a drink and loudly declaimed an
extemporaneous verse to the many other patrons crowding the bar:
He may call himself Kohei (literally, “small peace”)
But he’s really Ōhei (big arrogant bastard).[49]Sokyū’s grave lies at Zendōji in Hachisu. Carved into thetombstone is the death poem he composed:
What a laugh! It’s through—My existence in this floating world
empty as a dried-out gourd[50]Sobered up, passed away
The drunkenness of ignorance.

It happened one year that the seventh Ichikawa Danjirō stopped forthe night at the home of the noodle maker Hisaemon, popularly
known as Sokyū.[51] Danjirō discussed with Sokyū his desire to
make the acquaintance, however briefly, of the celebrated Zen
master Sengai as a kind of memento of his visit to Hakata. Having
heard the Master loudly revile actors as decadent “theater riffraff,”[52]Sokyū knew that on his own he could never be successful in going to
the Master and gaining his consent to meet Danjirō. “Why not ask
Sengai’s bosom friend Chōeimon to speak to the Master,” Sokyū
thought. “Perhaps Chōeimon could succeed in arranging themeeting.”
Deciding it was worth at least a try, Sokyū set off to see
Chōeimon, and the latter immediately grasped the situation.
“Certainly,” he told Sokyū, “let’s get them together, by all means!”
Chōeimon then went off to see the Master at Kyohaku-in andasked him, “How about letting me arrange for you to meet Danjirō?”
But the Master firmly declined, saying, “I don’t want to meet withtheater riffraff!”
Chōeimon, however, would not take no for an answer, and finally
the Master relented. “All right,” he said, “I’ll meet him.”
Yet another version of the story has it that even though the
Master remained unrelenting in his refusal, the very next day
Chōeimon brought the actor in tow. In any case, Danjirō arrived at
Kyohaku-in in high spirits escorted by Sokyū and Chōeimon, andthey all sat waiting in the anteroom of the Master’s private quarters.
Yet wait though they did, there was no sign of the Master. Whenthey finally peered inside his quarters to see what the Master was up
to, he was kindling a fire under the hearth, and eventually they heard
the sounds of powdered tea being prepared.[53]Relieved, Sokyū and Chōeimon whispered to each other, “The
Master may talk about ‘theater riffraff,’ but he’s even taking out thepowdered tea. Thank heaven!”

The next sound they heard, however, was that of the Masterslurping the tea himself, followed by the noise of the tea things being
cleared away. As Sengai had still made no sign of emerging,
Chōeimon, unable to restrain himself any longer, called into the
Master’s room, “Your Reverence, it’s taking awfully long, don’t you
think? Why don’t you come out and just say hello, even for a
moment?”“All right, I’m coming, I’m coming,” the Master grumbled. After this
there was another long pause and then suddenly the sliding doors to
the Master’s room opened. Sengai abruptly stuck his head out,
glared at Danjirō, and exclaimed, “What big eyeballs!”
No sooner had the Master said this than the doors again
slammed shut and were bolted.
Sokyū and Chōeimon couldn’t help feeling sorry for Danjirō.
“Well, we tried, and look at the result!” they said, apologizing to thefamous actor.
But Danjirō declared, “On the contrary, I’ve obtained a wonderful
keepsake of my visit! The Master is indeed a living buddha! Theeyes are the whole heart and soul of the art of the house ofIchikawa. And now I’ve been honored to receive the essence of thegreat Master Sengai’s essential teaching. I am sincerely grateful for
his words and wouldn’t exchange them even for a chest of goldcoins! I have found an awesome keepsake to carry back with me toEdo.”
And so saying, Danjirō stood facing the Master’s door andhumbly prostrated himself.

One story has it that this close friend of the Master’s, Chōeimon, wasvery poor. Saddled with many children, he was unable to imbibe thesake he loved. At nightfall he would walk about the town to beg
drinking money, guessing that this would be a busy time in everyfamily and picking out those households with a new bride. Should
the young lady refuse to help him, he would let forth with a stream ofdisparaging remarks, reproaching her with being a shrew, and soforth, all of which seemed to cow her into complying with his
demands for drinking money. Even Sokyū, albeit without being
subjected to this sort of treatment, was known to give money to
Chōeimon on occasion. This technique, of course, did not work
every time, and when it failed, Chōeimon would make his way to
Kyohaku-in, armed with a load of calligraphy paper, and try towheedle some pictures out of Master Sengai.
The Master was well acquainted with Chōeimon’s perpetual
shortage of funds and so would cheerfully brush pictures for him.
One day, hoping to get some drinking money, Chōeimon went toKyohaku-in armed with the usual bundle of rice paper. On the
stepping-stone before the entrance to the Master’s quarters, he sawthat the Master had left his footware as usual and, assuming him to
be in, called out, as he always did, “Your Reverence, please! Master,
please!” But no answer was heard from within.
Chōeimon proceeded to circle the Master’s quarters, calling him
as he went, but all of his cries were met with silence.
Downhearted, Chōeimon prepared to leave, grumbling as hewent. “I came, thinking, ‘Sengai, Sengai,’ ” he reflected, “but he isn’t
here, and now I won’t have any drinking money. What am I to do?”Just then the Master peered from the outhouse, where, in order
to see what was going on, he’d concealed himself the moment
Chōeimon had arrived. Chōiemon, tired of looking for the Master,
was about to depart, sighing audibly, and the Master, spying him
through the outhouse window, was moved to pity.
“Hold on, Chōeimon, I’m here!” the Master shouted.
Startled, Chōeimon swung around and happily rushed to the
Master’s side. “Aha!” he exclaimed, exulting in his success. “So
that’s where Your Reverence was, eh? Now, please, let me have apiece of brushwork.”

The Master selected a sheet of the rice paper, took up his brush,and promptly wrote out a poem:
I hope you won’t hold it against me
that I was hiding in the outhouse
But all the folks who come here
are always bearing sheets of paper!

During the Master’s later years, when he lived in retirement at
Kyohaku-in, there dwelt in the nearby village of Teranagaya a man
known as Iwane, or Iwa-san. He lived with only his aged mother, towhom he was reportedly much devoted. However, his real delight
was sake, and it was this that brought ruin to his family and led him
to squander his fortune. Precious to him as his mother was, he also
wanted to imbibe! When no money remained for drinking, Iwa saw a
way out of his difficulty by visiting the Master and asking him forbrushwork. So when he needed a drink, he could be found at
Kyohaku-in importuning Sengai. And knowing that Iwa was a
devoted son, the Master would always oblige and do Iwa a painting
when he came begging like this. Afterward Iwa would promptly
scamper off to the Yorozu-ya sake shop and proceed to trade thepainting for sake—or when he was broke, to sell it at a good price.
The proprietor of the Yorozu-ya recalled the following:“One summer when Sengai-san was laid up by illness, I
understand Iwane came to care for him. Iwane’s mode of nursing
was, however, eccentric. Distinguished well-wishers from every
corner of the land arrived to visit the ailing Sengai, among thememinent monks, scholars, and others, all of whom knelt at arespectful distance from the Master’s sickbed, palms reverentiallyjoined as they listened to the Master, asking after his well-being andexpressing their heartfelt sympathies. Only Iwane sat right at the
Master’s bedside, squatting with bared thighs on the low woodenabbot’s chair, which he had pulled over so that he might fan the
Master’s head with a round bamboo fan. So great was the casual
intimacy the two displayed toward each other that it was often hardfor visitors to tell which was Sengai and which was Iwa!”

Among the Master’s contemporaries in Hakata was an eccentric
known as Gyokuran.[54] According to an aged resident of Hakata,from a young age Gyokuran would hawk soy sauce from a carrying
pole balanced across his shoulders. “Soy sauce! Soy sauce!” hewould call out, as he plied his business in and around the village of
Torigai.
The village contained a renowned academy of the Kamei school,[55] and while Gyokuran would pause for an hour to eat his lunch andrest his weary shoulders, he would avail himself of the opportunity toenter the school and undertake study of the Chinese classics. He
threw himself wholeheartedly into these studies. Yet when he would
return home, he gave not the slightest indication of the erudition hehad acquired. Instead, he concealed his accomplishments from one
and all, patiently persevering as he mastered the reading of theChinese classics and the practice of calligraphy.
In this fashion, unbeknownst to anyone, he passed six or sevenyears, till he was able to compose accomplished poems in classicalChinese and copy out formal documents. When they finally realized
what a fine scholar he was, Gyokuran’s parents and acquaintanceswere utterly astounded. A quick learner, Gyokuran went on to
deepen his knowledge of classical Chinese and even to familiarize
himself with the painting style of the Tosa school.[56] In addition, heloved to model in clay, making all sorts of objects.
Gyokuran became friendly with the Master, who brushed apainting of him to which he added the following inscription:
The Eccentric Gyokuran: A Short Appreciation

Oku[mura] Gyokuran delighted in modeling figures in clay. From
tormenting devils in hell, hungry ghosts, beasts, and fighting demons,
to men, devas, sravaka and pratyeka buddhas, and bodhisattvas,
there was nothing Gyokuran could not make.[57] Having finished his
figurines, he would arrange them on a tray and then hurl them all to
the ground, reducing them to smithereens by crushing them withblows of his fist, laughing hilariously and asking, “Where did theycome from? Where did they go?” Then, after several loud laughs, hewould go on as normal. No one understood what he meant, so
people dismissed him as an eccentric.
—Twelfth month of the Bunsei era, Year of the Dragon [1830]
Title and painting by Monk Sengai

One day, a man from Hakata named Yoshiemon came to visit the
Master.
“Please excuse me,” Yoshiemon addressed Sengai.
“Ah, Yoshiemon, is it not?” the Master greeted him. “Good to seeyou. What can I do for you?”“Well,” Yoshiemon answered with hesitation, “the truth is I cameto ask you something odd.”“That’s all right,” the Master told him. “What is it?”“Well,” Yoshiemon explained, “when I go to the True Pure Land
temple and they worship the Buddha, they say, ‘Naman, Naman,
Naman.’[58] But in Zen they say, ‘Namu Amida Butsu!’ Which isactually correct?”“Hmm,” the Master considered, “so that’s the problem. Let me
have a while to give it some thought, and then you can come back.”“Very well,” Yoshiemon agreed, rising to his feet, “I’ll call again
later.” [59]Just as he had turned and started to walk away, the Masteryelled, “Hey, Yoshi!”Yoshiemon looked back over his shoulder and answered, “Yes!”“There,” the Master told him, “that’s Naman, Naman!”“Aha!” Yoshiemon replied.
Then the Master shouted at him, “Mister Yoshiemon!”Yoshiemon answered, “Yes!”
The Master explained, “That’s Namu Amida Butsu!”
Yoshiemon, amazed at the Master’s quick-wittedness, could only
stammer his admiration, and after nine low bows to the Master, hedeparted.

Among the Master’s followers in Hakata was an eccentric old ricemerchant named Ōta Tadaemon. One day, Ōta dispatched amessenger to the Master, stating, “I would like to offer to Your
Reverence a vegetarian meal of some humble boiled barley andrice.”[60] The mention of barley and rice delighted the Master
exceedingly. “I’ll bet that’s with grated yam!” the Master thought tohimself, and set off in high spirits.[61]But what the Master found when he arrived was a heaping tub ofplain boiled barley and rice, unaccompanied by so much as a single
shred of pickled radish.[62] Even the Master could not help wincing at
the sight.
“Trying to pull a fast one, are you, sly old man?” Sengai thought.
But without a word, the Master helped himself to a big mouthful andbegan to chew. Grandpa Ōta watched this all impassively, smirking
and feigning complete innocence.
Finally, patting his full belly, the Master rose without a word andstomped off briskly toward the temple. Ōta, seeing this, glaredangrily, visibly insulted. “Master!” he shouted after Sengai. “Is thatwhat you call behaving like a Buddhist priest—stuffing your belly as
someone’s guest and just heading home without a word of thanks?”

Without missing a beat, the Master replied, “I came because I
was invited for boiled rice and barley. No one ever mentioned
anything about asking me to come and say thank you.” And with asweep of his hand, the Master stroked the old man’s head andwalked straight off without a backward glance.
“Confound it!” Ōta swore to himself. “And after all the trouble I
took to outwit him! ‘I was invited by you for boiled rice and barley, but
you never said anything about asking me to come and say thankyou’ indeed! To stroke someone’s head is to make a monkey out ofthem!” he sputtered angrily. But Ōta’s chance to even the score with
the Master had already passed him by.
“Woe is me!” Ōta lamented. “Isn’t there any way for me to geteven?”
And just then, as he was lost in brooding, who should comerunning into the house but the Master himself. It seems a sudden
shower had caught him on the road without an umbrella, and hearrived scampering along barefoot and hitching up his robes.
“Lend me an umbrella and geta!” he pleaded.[63]“Now is my chance to pay him back!” Ōta thought, andcourteously produced the requested geta and umbrella. “Surely he’ll
have to say thank you this time,” Ōta rejoiced. “Then I’ll have had my
grudge match and can stop feeling mortified.” Such was Ōta’s
curious obsession.
Once again, however, without a word, the Master strode off
briskly toward the temple.
It wasn’t long before a small novice arrived to return Ōta’s things.
This novice happened to bear a striking resemblance to the Master,and he, too, didn’t utter a word of thanks.[64]Several days later, the Master returned to visit Ōta, who spying
his chance, lit the fuse by remarking, “I dare say, the other day you
must have found yourself trapped by that downpour.”“I certainly was,” the Master agreed. “I had my novice bring you
back the geta and umbrella.”

“Yes, I received them. Very good of you, I’m sure,” Ōta muttered,noting that the Master had somehow turned things around and had
him saying thank you! The Master just smiled, but Ōta’s
exasperation had reached the breaking point.
“Your Reverence is certainly stubborn,” he fumed. “How about
just a single word of thanks?”
Quietly the Master told him, “When people say thank you, they
feel the account is closed, the debt removed from the ledger. That is
why instead of saying thank you with my lips, I always keep thethought in my heart. If one is kind in expectation of being thanked, orwhatever, that’s not real kindness.”
Thus did the Master earnestly admonish Ōta in the meaning ofsecret virtue.[65]One day, several samurai retainers of the Kuroda domain werediscussing how they might give Master Sengai a scare. The upshot
was that they invited him to a tea party. The Master, who knew
nothing of the samurai’s actual intentions, arrived at the party, took
his place, and with both hands received the teabowl he was offered.
No sooner had the Master started to take his first sip than—BANG!—a blank gun discharged loudly under the very floor where he wasseated.[66] The Master, however, showed no signs of being startled,
but calmly finished drinking his tea as if nothing had happened.
Afterward, when the host had finished drinking his tea, thosepresent were assailed by an obnoxious odor.
“Something stinks!” the samurai all complained, holding theirnoses or covering them with the sleeves of their robes and creating
quite a stir.
Then the Master, retaining his perfect composure, announced,“Oh, that smell. A bit crude, but it’s my little gift to you.”[67]It is said that the Master filled a mixing bowl with water and kept it
beside the toilet. After relieving himself, he would wash his hands inthe water. Then at lunchtime he would use the same bowl to prepare
the vegetables to accompany the boiled rice, which he also added tothe bowl, which thus served as his rice tub as well. Should a lay
follower come by to offer some food, the Master would produce thesame bowl, into which he proceeded to place the donated food. The
same bowl, time and time again! Serving as a hand-washing bowl aswell as a rice bowl, its uses were inexhaustible.[68]One day a guest cautioned, “Your Reverence, are you sure it’s allright to use the same bowl to wash your hands and then serve
food?”The Master replied, “When I put food into it, it’s rice tub world.
And when I wash my hands in it, it’s washbowl world. At the moment,
I’m serving rice in it and ladling the rice from the tub ‘that in all theworld is alone to be revered.’[69] To you, a washbowl seems filthy. To
me, there’s neither pure nor polluted.”

Another account tells of a lay patron who went to the Master’s place
bearing all kinds of food and drink.
“There’s a pottery bowl over there,” the Master told him, “just toss
your things inside for me.”[70]“But, Your Reverence,” the layman protested, “please separate all
the different items.”“What for?” the Master asked. “Once it goes into my stomach, it’s
all one meal.”In Master Sengai’s day, many farmers and townspeople economized
on rice consumption by eating mugimeshi, a boiled mixture of riceand barley. Samurai and wealthy merchants, however, turned up
their noses at this, objecting, “Boiled rice and barley—ugh!” and forthe most part insisted on eating only rice. Indeed, most of them were
picky eaters, and so one day the Master told a group of
acqaintances consisting of upper-ranking samurai and wealthy
merchants, “Come to my temple and I’ll treat you to a meal of boiled
rice and barley.”
The Master’s invitation had piqued the curiosity of the samurai
and rich merchants, who duly assembled at the temple. Having been
told that boiled barley and rice was on the menu, they all took it for
granted that this would be served accompanied by a delicious cold
broth[71] and waited expectantly for the meal to arrive.
But even though it was lunchtime, there was no sign of food.
They waited a while longer and peered into the kitchen to see ifanything were about to appear. There was not the slightest
indication, however, that the meal trays were being prepared.
By this time they were all starving and waited with increasing
impatience. Yet no lunch seemed to be forthcoming. As for the
Master, he sat by the fireside with an air of being completely
unaware that his guests were growing weak from hunger and madeidle conversation about gemstones with Layman Sekishin, who wassomething of a connoisseur of such things.
In this way, some three hours passed, with the guests rubbing
their empty bellies, when finally the individual lunch trays werebrought in and set down before each of the diners. When they saw
that the trays’ contents consisted of nothing more than boiled barley
and rice with four wrinkled shreds of pickled radish, someone asked,“Your Reverence, aren’t we going to have cold broth with this?”
The Master replied, “The invitation was for boiled barely and rice.
There was no invitation for cold broth.”However, in the extremity of their hunger, given that this was all
there was to eat, it was agreed that the delectability of this ordinary
boiled barley and rice far exceeded that of the pure white rice [towhich they were accustomed].
After everyone had eaten, the Master turned to his guests andquietly admonished them, “Depending on how you go about cutting
it, even an egg can be made square![72] When your stomach is
empty, even boiled barley and rice tastes delicious.”[73]The Master was expert at shadow sumo wrestling.[74] When at times
samurai, professional sumo wrestlers, judo masters, and such would
come to visit, Master Sengai would leap down into the garden andperform his shadow sumo, falling down with a great thud andexclaiming, “Well, looks like I won this match! Get it?”[75]But no one had any idea what he meant.
The following was told to me by the Zen master Takazu Hakuju, aformer abbot of the Ōbaku school:[76]“During the Master’s lifetime, my father lived in Nagasaki, working
as an instuctor in swordsmanship and undertaking Zen study withMaster Hakugan Enyo, the twenty-ninth-generation abbot of theŌbaku headquarters temple.[77] It was through the good offices ofMaster Hakugan that my father came to visit Master Sengai at his
temple in Hakata.
“Of course, when Father first went to visit, the Master was awarethat he was a sword instructor and greeted him, exclaiming, ‘Hey, I’m
just going to do some shadow sumo in the garden. Try giving me ablow of your sword!’“And so saying the Master leaped down into the garden andstomped his feet sumo-style, grunting, ‘Yo ho! Yo ho!’[78]“‘Come on, attack me,” the Master insisted.

“Such, I understand, was the indescribably marvelous flavor of
Master Sengai’s unconstrained world.”

Among the Master’s works of brush painting, one often comes
across pictures of children wrestling. When asked the reason for thisby an old resident of Hakata, the Master said it was because he’dalways liked children. Indeed, day after day the local children would
come to fish in the stream that flowed through the back of Kyohakuin’s grounds, and on their way home they would stop to play at the
temple, one of their favorite places.
“Your Reverence, draw me a picture!” they would all clamor atonce.
And the Master, half in jest, would tell them, “All right, but first
you’ll have to have a sumo wrestling competition, and whoever is thewinner I’ll do the picture for.”
It is said that this is how the Master came, on occasion, to paintand give away the pictures of wrestling children.

At Kyohaku-in, where the Master lived in retirement, every day
hordes of children would come to play, climbing the pines in thegarden, wrestling, and the like. The Master loved children anddelighted in their play.
One day the Master called to the children, “Hey, kids, listen up!
I’m offering to do a painting as a prize to whoever of you can seethat crooked pine tree over there as straight.”
The children were thrilled, and, screaming boisterously, they ran
to the crooked pine. Some tried staring up from underneath the tree;
others scaled the tree and tried looking down to the ground; yetothers tried to get a view by stooping over and sticking their heads

out between their legs. But no matter what they did, the crooked tree
couldn’t be made to look straight.
Some of the children shouted to the Master, “Your Reverence, I
did it! I did it! When I looked down at the tree from above, it wasstraight!” Or, “When I bent over forward and looked through my legs
it was straight!” and so forth. But to all of them the Master could only
shake his head and say, “No good, no good.”
Then a small child trailing snot from his nose came running up.
“Your Reverence,” he exulted, “I saw it straight!”“How did you manage it?” the Master questioned him.
The child [whispered something into the Master’s ear],[79]whereupon the Master’s eyes widened in amazement.
“You are an extraordinary child indeed,” the Master praised him.
“You’re the only one who gets a painting.” And so saying heproceeded to brush a picture, which he handed to the child.
So, how did this child see the crooked pine straight? Master
Hakuin used to torment his monks by telling them, “It’s said, ‘In
under a minute one can pass straight through a narrow mountainpath with forty-nine twists and turns.’ Right now, at this moment, how
do you pass straight through it?”[80]There was a man with blood ties to the Kuroda clan named Hakuhōin. His present-day descendent is a man named Kuroda Naomi. At
the time of Hakuhō-in’s death, the Master was asked to compose thememorial inscription for the tombstone, and taking up his brush, hewrote out, “Grave of Hakuhō-in.”[81]The family of the deceased, wishing to show its gratitude, sought
to reward the Master with much money and other valuables but first
asked the Master what his favorite dish was.
The Master said, “I haven’t any desire for gold or things, but what
I really love is Kawabata candy, so just send me some of that.”

This was a kind of penny candy, which even at that time wasdisparaged as “tartar” candy because of the way it stuck to one’s
teeth.

In Hakata there lived a certain day laborer. On New Year’s morning,
his wife, thinking she would deftly prepare some rice cakes, ended
up doing such a poor job that the cakes turned out mushy.[82]“These rice cakes are simply hopeless!” her husband shouted,
and seizing in one hand the iron pan in which they’d been prepared,
hurled it onto the dirt floor. Unable to contain his anger, he thenstormed out of the house.
He wandered aimlessly, till suddenly the thought of Master
Sengai flashed across his mind, and he set off to see the Master at
Kyohaku-in.
After exchanging New Year’s greetings, he described to the
Master what had just occurred and how he had come in search of a
way to deal with his overpowering rage.
The Master, smiling, told him, “All right, just let me handle yourmarital squabble. I’ll draw up a one-page agreement in writing andgive it to you.”[83]The Master then spread out a sheet of paper he had beside him
and wrote:
As Mount Fuji’s snows
melt in the morning sun
So shall your anger be melted bythis special New Year’s morning meal.

It is said that the hired laborer received the document the Masterhad brushed for him and, restored to good humor, hurried home.

When Igami Kyūeimon, the samurai official governing Hakata, paid aformal visit to the graveyard at Shōfukuji, the founder’s hall was in
the midst of construction.[84] He thereupon proposed that he donate
the cost of roof tiles for the building.[85]The Master, however, refused.
As he subsequently explained, “People who announce they wish
to donate things to the temple all just want to promote their own clan
by putting their family crest on things.”

Nomura Hayato, a senior councilor to the Kuroda clan, stopped tosee Master Sengai on the occasion of a formal visit to the temple’s
graveyard.[86] The Master, however, refused to see him. Hayato, in afury, declared, “What rudeness, refusing to see me after I went to all
the trouble to visit here!”
The Master replied, “If he’d come here just to see me, I’d meet
him, but I imagine his real purpose in coming was to meet thebuddha.”[87]And so still refusing to meet Hayato, the Master finally had him
turned away.

One day, accompanied by his attendant, the Master was returning
down Chūōdō Street in Hakata when he chanced upon a married
couple who belonged to the temple having a quarrel in their home.
The Master came to a halt in front of the house. Inquiring of aneighbor what had caused the fight, the Master declared, “Ah, surely
a cause for congratulations!” and simply proceeded on his way backto Shōfukuji without attempting to intervene.
Later someone asked, “Your Reverence, a while ago on Chūōdō
Street you saw a husband and wife quarreling and said, ‘Ah, surely acause for congratulations!’ I don’t understand what you meant.”

“After all,” the Master explained, “there’s simply nothing so
fortunate as that sort of business. Listen, when the wife is ill, she’s
weak and can’t fight with her husband; and the same goes for him. In
other words, if I’d found them on the brink of death, the two would
have been in no shape to squabble with each other. But when ahusband and wife are fighting together like that, it means they’reboth in robust health. That’s why I say surely a cause forcongratulations!”

Among the carpenters of Hakata was a man named Jinbei. A
follower of the True Pure Land school, he was continually repeating“Namu Amida Butsu!” even while sawing or urinating.[88]One day the carpenter was at Kyohaku-in, and the Master,observing him repeating Namu Amida Butsu! even as he worked,
went and stood next to him and said, “Jinbei!”“Nanmaida, Nanmaida,” Jinbei continued muttering. “Yeah, what
do you want? Nanmaida, Nanmaida…”[89]“Jinbei!” the Master repeated.
“Yeah, Nanmaida, Nanmaida…”“Jinbei!”“Yeah, Nanmaida, Nanmaida…If you want something, hurry andspit it out! Nanmaida, Nanmaida…”“Jinbei!” the Master called again.
“Nanmaida, Nanmaida…You’re annoying me. Nanmaida,
Nanmaida…Get a move on and tell me…Nanmaida, Nanmaida…
what you want! Nanmaida, Nanmaida…”“My, my!” the Master exclaimed. “That Mr. Amida is certainly abusy fellow!”
When Jinbei heard these words, it was as if he had suddenly
been startled awake. Right then and there he stopped repeating

Namu Amida Butsu! and from that day on, it is said, would come to
the Master’s room for individual Zen study.[90]There was an unusual bottle gourd, and the Master, who loved todrink, longed to own it. Try as he might, however, he failed to obtainit till finally, after three years, it came into his possession.
One day there was a certain man who begged the Master
incesssantly for the gourd, and to the astonishment of everyonepresent, the Master casually handed it over to him.
Unperturbed, the Master merely remarked, “Whoever wants athing, it’s all the same.”

There was a certain Mr. Aoki who could expertly imitate Master
Sengai’s brush paintings. Aoki brought some of these productions toshow the Master and asked him, “How about it, Your Reverence,aren’t they pretty much exact copies?”“Even better than the originals,” confirmed the Master, wholly
unfazed. “In fact, here’s my personal seal—why don’t you just stamp
it right on?”[91]
Among the Master’s contemporaries, there were some dozen
individuals able to perfectly replicate the Master’s calligraphy, ofwhom one was this Aoki. He acquired the name “Aoki Sengai” andposed a real headache for collectors of the Master’s calligraphy.
Another calligrapher able to produce perfect imitations of Master
Sengai’s brushwork was Miyamoto Tōsai, who could also makecopies of the Master’s clay sculptures.[92]After the Master’s death, Tōsai received his seal, but after Tōsai’s
death it is said to have disappeared.

One day a rapacious collector came to see the Master at Kyohakuin, bringing with him an outsized piece of silk that had been preparedfor brushwork. He then proceeded to pester the Master to do a large
painting on it for him.
“Very well,” the Master told the man, “but I expect you to really
put your back into the work of grinding up all the ink for me.”[93]Whereupon the Master produced a huge inkstone and filled itwith water right to the brim. There was so much water, in fact, that[grinding the inkstone] to get the liquid dark enough was hardly
possible, and finally the collector, drenched with perspiration,
pleaded with the Master, “Your Reverence, it must be ready by now!”
The Master, relenting, told him, “All right, that’s fine.”
The Master then disappeared down the temple corridor and, after
a time, returned carrying in both hands the pair of straw sandals he
used for the lavatory.
“Now!” the Master exclaimed, and with a piercing shout plunged
the sandals right into the middle of the ink that the man had justspent the whole day preparing. Then, getting down on all fours, theMaster crawled about all over the silk till, as the collector watched, it
was covered completely with ink.
“There,” the Master pronounced. “It’s finished! Take it home!”
The collector was outraged. “What the hell kind of painting isthat?” he demanded.
“You can’t tell?” asked the Master. “It’s a crow flying [in thedarkness]. Isn’t it splendidly done?”A student asked, “What can I doto become awakened to my own mind?”
The Master said, “What is that which asks sucha question? Is it your mind? Is it your original nature?
Is it some kind of spirit or demon? Is it inside you?
Outside you? Is it somewhere intermediate?
Is it blue, yellow, red, or white?
“It is something you must investigate and clarify
for yourself. You must investigate it whether you arestanding or sitting, speaking or silent, when you areeating your rice or drinking your tea. You must keep at itwith total single-minded devotion. And never, whatever
you do, look in sutras or in commentaries for an answer,
or seek it in the words you hear a teacher speak.”—KAIEN FUSETSU,translated by Norman Waddell, The Zen Master Hakuin, 61–62

Hakuin was born in 1685 in Hara, a modest farming village withinview of Mount Fuji that now forms part of Numazu City in the oldprovince of Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture).[1] Hara lay about midway
on the Tōkaidō, or “Eastern Sea Road,” the three-hundred-mile
highway that linked the imperial capital of Kyoto with Edo, Japan’s
administrative capital under the Tokugawa shogunate. Originally afishing village, then a garrison town, Edo, by Hakuin’s day, hadgrown into a bustling commercial center. It was experiencing acelebrated flowering, associated with the popular “townspeople,” orchōnin, culture of the Genroku period (1688–1704), an era roughly
coinciding with the years of Hakuin’s childhood and adolescence.
Hakuin’s family members were themselves commoners, hereditary
proprietors of the Hara post station, Odakaya. Odakaya was thethirteenth of such inntype facilities, some fifty-three in all, wheretravelers from Edo could change horses, hire porters, or obtainrefreshments at the nearby tea stalls, which also served as roadsidebrothels.[2]Although a tiny country town, Hara, situated on a particularly
busy and scenic portion of the Tōkaidō, was host to a steady streamof visitors of every sort who lent the place a certain cosmopolitan
character. From his vantage point at Odakaya, Hakuin was witness
to a colorful cross section of Edo-period society: daimyo and theiroften elaborately costumed retinues, traveling from their domains to
Edo for their required periods of alternate attendance on the shogun;
street people, including beggars and prostitutes; performers of every
description, from jugglers and acrobats to musicians, animal trainers,
and storytellers—all of whom would come to figure prominently in themaster’s celebrated artwork.
At age thirteen, Hakuin was ordained a Rinzai Zen monk at
Shōinji, the small family temple in Hara where his father was aparishioner. (Hakuin’s mother was a follower of the Nichiren, orLotus, sect.[3]) Hakuin’s head was shaved and he was given thereligious name Ekaku, “Wisdom Crane.” Hakuin’s ordination teacher,Tanrei Soden (d. 1701), was a member of the Myōshinji line,
centered in the great headquarters temple in Kyoto. Tanrei wastroubled by poor health, and Hakuin soon moved to another Rinzai
temple, Daishōji, in nearby Numazu. Here, Hakuin spent several
years in study and training, reputedly memorizing the entire Zenrin
kushū, the phrase collection that remains indispensable in Rinzai
Zen koan study.
In 1703 the young Hakuin set out on what would become
fourteen years of angya, Zen pilgrimage, traveling widely to visit avariety of teachers and temples, pausing occasionally for periods ofsolitary retreat. His wanderings took him through both Honshū and
Shikoku, two of Japan’s main islands, and during this time he is said
to have studied under masters of all three major Zen sects, namely

the Sōtō school, founded by Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253); the Ōbaku
school, introduced by immigrant Chinese masters in the previous
century; and Hakuin’s own Rinzai school. The last included leading
students of Bankei Yōtaku, whose teachings Hakuin would later
harshly denounce and whose followers were then active in theprovince of Mino (now Gifu Prefecture).
It was at a temple in Mino in 1704 that Hakuin chanced on a bookthat would change his life. Titled A Whip to Drive [Students] Throughthe Barrier of Chan [Zen] (Chan guan cejun; J. Zenkan sakushin),[4]the work had been compiled barely a century before in 1600 by the
Ming Zen master Zhuhong (1535–1615). Zhuhong’s short anthology
assembled materials exemplifying Song-style koan practice in the
tradition of Dahui and later proponents of the koan method such as
Gaofeng Yuanmiao (1238–1295) and Gaofeng’s noted disciple
Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323). As described earlier, thisapproach involved an all-consuming focus on the huatou (J. hattō),or crux of the koan, especially the koan “Mu!” (Ch. Wu!),
engendering a great doubt leading to sudden awakening. The fervorof the Chinese teachers described in Zhuhong’s collection, theirunswerving devotion to koan study, left an indelible impression on
Hakuin, who thereafter, he tells us, always kept a copy of the book at
his side.[5]Hakuin returned to Shōinji in 1707, intent on solving the “Mu!”koan. He meditated relentlessly, refusing to interrupt his practiceeven during an eruption of nearby Mount Fuji that sent his fellow
monks scurrying for safety. The following year found Hakuin again
on pilgrimage and wrestling with “Mu!” This despite what hedescribes as multiple breakthrough experiences, for which he uses
the term kenshō, literally “seeing one’s nature,” an expression
borrowed from Chinese Chan.[6] It was at this point, in 1707, that
Hakuin’s unceasing efforts resulted in his enlightenment on hearing
a distant temple gong. Thereupon, in hope of finding someacknowledgment of his experience, he traveled to seek out the Zenmaster Shōju Rojin, the man he would revere as his true teacher.
Although Shōju discounted Hakuin’s breakthrough, the old master
reportedly acknowledged a second enlightenment that Hakuin
experienced under his instruction. He also warned the young student
against contenting himself with a modest attainment and impressed
upon him the importance of ongoing training to further one’s
enlightenment.
Taking leave of Shōju after a mere eight months, Hakuin resumed
his pilgrimage, still assailed by doubts about the “Mu!” koan. At thisjuncture, physically and emotionally debilitated by his efforts, Hakuin
reports meeting the recluse Hakuyūshi, who, as described in the
introduction, taught Hakuin the rudiments of a Taoist-inspired
hygiene in order to restore his inner energy. Rejuvenated, Hakuin
resumed his rigorous koan practice, which included a period ofsolitary retreat in Mino around 1715. During these years, Hakuin
reports many more satori experiences, once after falling into a
stream he was fording, and all accompanied by an exuberant
laughter that had him literally leaping for joy, “so happy I thought I
was crazy.”[7] Strenuous meditation was essential in the quest forenlightenment, Hakuin insisted, but true zazen, or seated meditation,
also involved bouts of wild hilarity. Multiple satori, both great andsmall, also became a keynote of Hakuin’s Zen, Hakuin stating that
he had experienced so many satori that he could no longer evenrecall the precise number.[8]In 1717, Hakuin’s period of wandering ended with his return toHara and Shōinji, where, Tanrei having died, Hakuin was asked toassume the temple’s abbacy. Henceforth, Shōinji and Hakuin’s
hometown of Hara would become the center for the master’s
teaching activities. The temple itself, in Hakuin’s description, was ina dismal state of disrepair and sadly impoverished, its roof like asieve in the pouring rain and its few monks clad only in paper kimono
even in the depths of winter. Any ritual objects had long since been
dispatched to the pawnbrokers, while meals consisted of a thin gruelswimming with maggots. None of this interfered with Hakuin’s harddriving curriculum of meditation and koan study, a curriculum
observed alike by Shōinji’s monks and their teacher, who still
struggled with the problem of how to integrate his experience ofrealization with the realities of daily life.[9] At night, Hakuin would
have himself securely tied to a discarded palanquin and hoisted
under a tree, where he would meditate on his koan till dawn, when
the temple’s monks returned to lower him. Gradually, laypeople fromthe surrounding area—as well as monks—were drawn to the temple,
and laypeople initially may have made up the largest cohort ofHakuin’s early followers.
Hakuin soon received formal appointment as Zen master in the
Myōshinji line, and the temple in 1718 acknowledged him as heir toTanrei’s own Dharma successor, Tōrin Soshō (d. 1754), with theadditional religious name Hakuin, literally “white concealed.”[10] Now
a Rinzai Zen master in his own right, qualified to give koan
instruction and to sanction the enlightenment of his students, Hakuin
soon saw his followers increase, spreading beyond the confines ofthe small temple to nearby houses and abandoned shrines. But
while now a recognized Zen master with his own following, Hakuin,true to Shōju’s admonitions, continued his own intense koan
practice.
On an autumn evening in 1726, Hakuin was reading the Lotus
Sutra when the chirping of a cricket in the temple garden brought on
his first “great enlightenment.” It was this pivotal experience, he later
claimed, that revealed to him the truth of Shōju’s Zen, in particular
the need for cultivation after enlightenment. Interestingly, there is no
mention of any teacher in connection with Hakuin’s initial “great
enlightenment.” Shōju himself was, of course, long dead by this time,so that Hakuin had not studied with or even visited the master forsome eighteen years. All of which suggests that like many Myōshinjiline Zen masters who preceded him, Hakuin’s first significant satori
was actually “realization on his own and without a teacher” (mushi

dokugo), making Hakuin “self-enlightened and self-certified” (jigojisho)—all terms used to describe the independent awakening
experiences of Bankei, Taigu, and others of the early Edo period.[11]The 1726 experience also highlighted for Hakuin the importanceof the four vows, or bodhisattva vows,[12] which enjoin helping others
to reach enlightenment:
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to enlighten
them allAfflictions are endless; I vow to sever them all
The gates of Dharma are inexhaustible; I vow tomaster them all
The Way of Buddha is ever beyond; I vow to attain it.

Hakuin’s dedication to the four vows informs much of his subsequent
activity, in particular his efforts to bring koan practice andenlightenment to the countless monks and lay followers that
continued to flock to Shōinji. It is also the motivating force behind
Hakuin’s vast production of printed works and brush paintings, both
frequently incorporating the popular culture of the day.
The year 1740 saw the appearance of Kaien fusetsu, the first of
Hakuin’s published works. Ostensibly a series of comments on therecord of Xutang, Kaien fusetsu was above all a tribute to Song koan
Chan and an expression of Hakuin’s determination to revive its
essentials as transmitted by Xutang to his Japanese disciple Daiō,and across the generations of Ōtōkan masters to Shōju and Hakuin
himself. Once again, the work emphasizes an unrelenting
concentration on the koan’s nub, or hattō, leading to a “great doubt”
that resolves itself in sudden awakening, kenshō. Hakuin compares
this process to the felling of a tree, each blow of the ax drawing
closer to the core till suddenly the tree crashes to the ground.[13]Dramatic as it may be, however, kenshō is only the beginning,
Hakuin cautions, and must be followed by lifelong postenlightenment cultivation. While short on details, Hakuin does

mention in this regard the need for continued koan study, focusing
on what he terms the “hard to penetrate” (nantō) koan.[14]The success of Kaien fusetsu drew increasing numbers ofstudents to Shōinji, whose assembly steadily swelled, overwhelming
the surrounding area. Among the new arrivals were two monks who
would become Hakuin’s principal disciples and heirs—Tōrei Enji (in1743), for whom Hakuin would establish a nearby training temple,
Ryūtakuji, and Suiō Genro (in 1744).[15] The following years saw
Hakuin lecturing regularly to crowds of as many as 500—monks,
nuns, laymen, and laywomen—while at other times some 150
students could be found seated in formal posture waiting in line forsanzen, their private koan interview with the master.
Now in his sixties, Hakuin undertook an intensive regimen ofteaching and writing that would continue virtually till the end of hislife. His teaching included travels to other Zen temples, some as far
distant as Okayama in Bizen (Okayama Prefecture), a threehundred-mile journey from the master’s home base of Shōinji. It wasalso at this juncture, beginning in or around 1747, that Hakuin tells ofa new refinement in his koan instruction, replacing “Mu!” with a koanof his own devising, the celebrated “Sound of One Hand” (sekishū noonjō).[16] Hakuin explains that he found this koan infinitely more
effective in raising the student’s “ball of doubt,” leading to theexperience of kenshō, and he identified it with the authentic teachingof Zen, which had long since expired in Japan.[17] “So, what is thissound of one hand?” Hakuin writes in his eponymous book Sound of
One Hand (Sekishū onjō). “When you bring two hands together you
produce a sound. But when you raise one hand there is no sound….
You can’t hear that sound with your ears!”[18] Ultimately, Hakuin
presented this to his students as a two-part koan, “Hearing theSound of One Hand and Stopping All Sounds.”[19]Those followers who realized kenshō by penetrating this“formidable barrier of the double koan ‘Sound of One Hand’ ” wereawarded dragon certificates, sanctions in Hakuin’s own brushwork.

[20] These depict a priest’s staff metamorphosing into a dragon,

possibly a reference to a famous case in the Blue Cliff Record,“Yunmen’s Staff”: “Yunmen held up his staff and addressed theassembly of monks: ‘This staff turns into a dragon and swallows up
the universe! Where are the mountains, the rivers, and the greatearth?’ ”[21] Many examples of these cards remain, and Hakuin
describes how on two visits to Edo between 1759 and 1761 he
distributed seventy such certificates.[22] Most recipients of Hakuin’s
dragon certificates were laypersons, including a number ofhousewives, among them the wife of his longtime physician, andsuch individuals formed associations dedicated to promoting
Hakuin’s teachings. Similar cards were also bestowed on various
monks, among them a number of Hakuin’s leading disciples,
acknowledging their having passed other koan.[23] Hakuin, however,emphasized that the cards, attesting as they did to one’s initial
kenshō, were only the beginning of Zen study, an encouragement to
the holder to pursue a lifetime of what the master termed “aftersatori” (gogo) cultivation.[24]The last decade of Hakuin’s life seems to have been marked by atremendous burst of activity, and these years are responsible for thebulk of the master’s surviving writings and art. As noted, many ofthese works show Hakuin’s familiarity and even sympathy with the
popular culture of the day, an extension of Hakuin’s commitment tobring the teachings of koan Zen to a broad spectrum of Japanesesociety. In his art and published writings, Hakuin regularly invoked
comic characters that were fixtures of mid-Edo street culture. One
such figure, alluded to previously, is Obaba—“Grandma,” thewrinkled crone with a welcoming, almost maternal expression—who
is dubbed by Hakuin “Mastering-Mind Grandma” (Shūshin Obaba).
Another familiar character Hakuin borrows from contemporary
popular culture is the prostitute Ofuku, or Otafuku, literally “great
good fortune.” A homely, rotund, perpetually cheerful courtesan wellinto middle age, Ofuku projects an irrepressible good humor and inHakuin’s day served as a kind of good-luck deity. She is among thefavorite subjects of Hakuin’s brush paintings, where she seems toembody a wholesome, bodhisattva-like grace and warmth. Even
Hakuin’s female neighbors and relations might be depicted by themaster as Ofuku, among these a second cousin, Otsu, who hadstudied Zen under Hakuin since age sixteen, and a celebrated local
beauty who toiled at her father’s broiled eel stand.[25]The two, Ofuku and Obaba, make a joint appearance in Hakuin’s
Grandma’s Grinding Songs (Obaba dono kohiki uta, 1760), an
extended verse composition accompanied by Hakuin’s own handdrawn portraits of the two raucous characters.[26] The work openswith an introduction by Ofuku, and features Mastering-Mind
Grandma as a vehicle for expounding Hakuin’s teachings on koan
study framed as a vernacular work song in alternating lines of sevenseven-seven-five syllables.[27] Despite its ostensibly vulgar format,
Hakuin’s intended audience for Grinding Songs is not neophytes orcasual readers but the most advanced monks of his assemblies, withGrandma declaiming on such topics as the “hard to penetrate koan,”the “‘Sound of One Hand’ dual barrier,” and the need for continued
practice after enlightenment. In Grandma’s verses, Hakuin
articulates through the most demotic, “down home” of formats his
ultimate teaching of Zen enlightenment.[28]As with the Song Chan classics that incorporated medieval
Chinese popular language and culture, Hakuin in his large body ofart and writings mined the folk traditions of his own day tocommunicate his teaching. The occasional supernatural, grotesque,humorous, even ribald elements conspicuous in Hakuin’s surviving
works reflect the ubiquity of such elements in the popular culture of
mid-Edo Japan. Hence the ghost stories, tales of possession, andthe stream of curious characters that crop up in the master’s
published writings. At times, such features seem designed merely toentertain, but often as not, they are Hakuin’s means of projecting his
vision of a revived Song-style Zen.

When Hakuin passed away quietly in his sleep in 1769, he left anindelible mark on Japanese Rinzai Zen, one like that of few teachers
before or since. A New Year’s Day poem he inscribed shortly before
his death concludes:
An elderly monk of eighty-four, I welcome in yet one
more year
And I owe it all—everything—to the Sound of One
Hand barrier.[29]Right to the end, Hakuin insisted that only koan practice made it
possible to attain or transmit Zen enlightenment.[30] In this, hecontrasted with luminaries of the previous century, such as Takuan
and Bankei.[31] Nonetheless, it is Hakuin’s forceful advocacy of koan
practice and that of his disciples that has continued to shape Rinzai
Zen study in Japan to the present day, not least the notion of the
Rinzai training temple, for monks and laypersons alike, as a kind ofsatori factory. At the same time, despite differences over the uniqueefficacy of the koan method, Hakuin seems to have shared with his
more freewheeling predecessors, such as Takuan and Bankei, abelief that the final goal of all Zen practice is nothing more than amatter of awakening to things just as they are, or as he put it,“realizing one’s originally existing self nature.”[32]The following anecdotes are taken from Hakuin monka itsuwasen(Tales of Hakuin [and his] followers). This is a translation into modern
Japanese of Keikyokusōdan (Tales from the Forest of Thorns),
composed in 1829 by Hakuin’s fourth-generation disciple Myōki
Seiteki (1774–1848) and published in 1843. Along with the modern
Japanese-language version of the text, Hakuin monka itsuwasen
includes notes, the original Sino-Japanese (kanbun) text, and its
reading into classical Japanese (yomikudashi). The book wasprepared by Nōnin Kōdō and issued in 2008 in Kyoto by Hanazono
University’s Zen bunka kenkyūjo (Institute for Zen Studies).
There was a certain Masa, who was the wife of a Mr. Sugiyama ofHina. After her husband’s death, she lived alone with her son andstrove to master Zen under the instruction of the Zen teacher
Gedatsu at his temple, Muryōji. Fervently taking up her koan, she
generated a great ball of doubt. There were even times when, lost all
day in meditation, she forgot to prepare the family’s meals. When her
son returned from outside, he had nothing to eat and was fed by theneighbors, who felt sorry for him.
One day when her son returned home, Masa looked at him andinquired, “Whose child are you?”“Mama, what are you saying?” her son asked.
To which Masa replied, “All right!” and returned to meditating.
This sort of thing continued for several days on end, whensuddenly Masa experienced enlightenment. She then went to see
Hakuin. The Master proceeded to examine her on several koan, andMasa answered each one without the slightest hesitation. Hakuin
then acknowledged her understanding.

The Layman Furugori Kentsu, headman of Hina, was a samurai
retainer of the Inaba clan and originally a follower of the Nichiren
school. One day Master Gedatsu brought him to meet Hakuin.
“This person wishes to study Zen,” Gedatsu told the Master.
“Won’t Your Reverence please give him a koan?”
Hakuin replied, “Why bother giving and taking? Right here, in thisvery moment, the truth is completely manifesting!”
Gedatsu pleaded, “He is only a layman. Please offer some
expedient means to guide him toward enlightenment.”Seizing a brush, Hakuin then wrote, “What is the true nature ofthinking and hearing, perceiving and knowing?”
Receiving this gratefully, the layman returned home.
A year afterward, the layman experienced awakening andpresented Hakuin with a poem:
When one loses one’s hold over a ten-thousand-footprecipice
One’s hoe sends forth flames consuming heaven andearth
When one’s body is reduced completely to ashes,
things spring back to life.
The paths between the paddies are as they were
The rice plants are putting forth ears.

Hakuin then submitted the layman to rigorous Zen training.
Yamanashi Heijirō, Layman Ryōtetsu (Penetrating Realization),
belonged to the powerful Ihara family, heirs to a large fortune. Bynature he was self-indulgent, sunk in debauchery. His wives andconcubines were of great beauty, and even his female servants werealluring and flirtatious, so that his days were passed in laughter andamusement.
On a late spring day, Heijirō was disporting himself by the falls of
Isabu.[33] Sake and fish had been set out, and there was flute andbiwa music, making for an altogether delightful excursion.[34]Clearing mist cloaked the trees, and wildflowers bloomed
everywhere in profusion. Heijirō’s wives and courtesans ambled
about, picking and gathering new-grown grasses. Suddenly realizingthat everyone was gone, Heijirō began to stroll alone. The waters ofthe mountain stream and the falls poured down in a rushing torrent,
sweeping along countless rocks, some of ordinary size, others aslarge as a foot or as small as an inch, but all vanishing in the end.
Ryōtetsu suddenly perceived the impermanence of things andlamented to himself, “Human existence, too, is like this. Whether ourspan of life is long or short, is it really any different from a bubble?”Overcome with grief and losing all sense of enjoyment, the layman
summoned his palanquin and returned home.
On another occasion, the layman happened to overhear one of
his child servants reciting [a passage from] Takusui: “He who would
realize the Buddha Way must first see into his own nature. Thosesentient beings of dauntless courage will realize buddhahood
instantaneously, while those who are feckless will never attainnirvana, even with the passing of innumerable kalpas.”[35]On hearing these words, Ryōtetsu considered, “According to
Takusui’s words, even a useless old nag like me must make one
supreme effort to crack the whip and spur himself on!”That very evening, Ryōtetsu went into seclusion and sat firmly in
meditation. He contended with the demons of thought, andperspiration bathed his whole body. By the fifth watch [3:00 a.m.–
5:00 a.m.] he had fainted from his exertions. Suddenly he revived
and saw the first pale light at the corner of his window and heard
sparrows twittering busily in the garden. He opened the door andstepped outside. His whole world seemed totally different. He
thereupon wished to see Hakuin and, mounting his palanquin,ascended the slopes of Mount Satta.[36]When his bearers, panting with exhaustion, paused for breath at
the mountain’s summit, Ryōtetsu slid open the palanquin’s door andgazed at the surrounding scenery. The landscape of fields and inlets
resembled a painting. All at once, without realizing it, Ryōtetsu foundhe had lost all traces of self. He went and saw Hakuin, who
examined him with several koan, all of which Ryōtetsu answered
without the slightest difficulty.
Hakuin told him, “You have experienced great penetration.”
On a subsequent occasion Hakuin remarked to someone, “Notsince Shigong has there been such a man as Ryōtetsu!”[37]Master Chōsa Ehō was abbot of Zuiōji in Tōtōmi. He subsequently
became an ardent devotee of Hakuin, longing to realize the Master’s
teaching. He would attend rohatsu every year at Hakuin’s temple,
with no thought to the long journey involved, always coming andjoining in the intensive meditation practice.[38] Yet he had nevermanaged to find an entrance to enlightenment.
Once, at the conclusion of the rohatsu observances, Chōsa, as
was customary, came to bid farewell to the Master.
Hakuin told him, “Your being at the rohatsu every single year isjust like ‘ducks huddling in the water when it’s cold,’ traveling all thisway for nothing, not even the tiniest result.[39] Don’t you realize all
the straw sandals you’re wearing out year after year? I won’t havethat sort of worthless person here, so don’t come back again!”
Chōsa thereupon redoubled his courage, vowing to himself,“Unless I win through to realization now, I won’t return home alive!
Better to die like a man trying to solve my koan once and for all!”For seven days Chōsa secluded himself in a fisherman’s hut by
the seashore, practicing meditation. He neither ate nor slept, yet
when the seven days had expired, he had still failed utterly to realize
his goal. Preparing to throw himself into the sea and die, he removed
his sandals and stood on a jetty, when suddenly he caught sight ofthe morning sun reflected off the ocean, which seemed washed incrimson. At that moment, Chōsa experienced great enlightenment.
Chōsa ran to the temple and entered Hakuin’s room. The Mastertook one look at him and declared, “You have penetrated!”

A novice monk of seventeen or eighteen belonging to a branch
temple of Tōjiji became secretly involved with a prostitute from
[Kyoto’s] Kitano district. Their attachment for each other grew more
intense with each passing day. One evening, believing the steward
monk to be absent, the novice stole one hundred gold coins, placedthem in a pouch, and accompanied by the prostitute, fled into thenight.
They traveled by boat to Fushimi,[40] then proceeded to Osaka.
But when the novice searched his belongings, he could not find thegold coins.
He thought, “Last night I left the pouch hanging from a hook on
one of the temple pillars and must have forgotten it when I fled!” The
two were overwhelmed with consternation, not knowing where to go,
and in their extreme despair, the monk and his lover hungthemselves from a tree.
That night, sounds of wailing and anguished moaning were heard
from a room adjoining the branch temple.
“I hung the pouch here,” a voice cried out, “but where is it? Oh,
how terrible!”
The wailing was accompanied by the sounds of fingers runningover the hooks of the temple pillars, groping along the room’s walls
and beams. There was also heard from time to time the voice of awoman.
Thereafter, this was repeated every evening. Hearing sounds ofsuch misery and bitter affliction, the temple’s monks were scared outof their wits and before long deserted the temple, which was left
without a single monk. At this time, Master Tōrei was about to visit
Tōjiji and was told in confidence of the foregoing situation. The
Master [Tōrei] said, “There is no reason for distress. I will stay in theroom.”The very evening of the Master’s arrival at the temple, all tracesof the mysterious spirits disappeared.
One night, when the Master had been invited away to anothertemple, the duties of caretaker were assumed by the priest Shō ofMikawa, the Master’s attendant as well as an accomplished Zen
student. A young maiden appeared, exceedingly lovely inappearance. Standing before the priest, her head bowed, she said, “I
have come to ask a favor.”

“Just tell me,” Shō replied.
“I am one of the dead,” she began. “I hung myself in Osaka
because of forgetting some money and now am unable to freemyself from the bitter round of transmigration. It is my fervent wish tobeseech the great teacher of this temple to save me.”“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Shō asked.
The apparition replied, “It would be unseemly for a master ofsuch lofty virtue to be approached by a lowly woman. How much lesscould I, someone from the world of shadows, dare to put to him arequest?”Shō nodded in acquiescence, whereupon the woman thanked
him and departed.
When Shō subsequently conveyed this to Tōrei, the Master said,“Such things do happen, then!” And during the sutra chanting, he
had a bowl of clear water placed before him and performed the
ceremony for the repose of hungry ghosts.[41]From that time on, the ghosts never appeared again. Later, thepriest Shō died an untimely death, and Tōrei is said to have greatly
mourned his passing.

Master Suiō Genro was born in Shimotsuke. Though by nature fondof wine, he was a man of superior talent. At age twenty-nine, Genrofirst met Hakuin, who perceived his endowment to be out of theordinary and subjected him to severe and painful Zen training.
Genro’s private interviews with Hakuin were always conducted in thedead of night, so his traces were invisible to others. He studied sometwenty years under Hakuin, but the loftiness of his wisdom remained
concealed, swallowed up among the other monks of the assembly.
Genro secluded himself in a hut at Ashihara, some thirty ri from
Hakuin’s temple [Shōinji].[42] Unless a lecture day was scheduled atthe temple, however, Genro would never go there. Indeed, as soon
as the lecture was over, he would leave.
On one such day, Hakuin summoned Genro, but the attendant hesent was unable to find him. “Genro has already left,” someone told
the attendant, who promptly pursued and overtook Genro and told
him, “The Master has sent for you. Hurry back!”
Genro replied, “The Master is doing the summoning—not me,”and, sweeping his sleeves, he continued on his way.
Such was Genro’s typically high-handed attitude. He had no truck
with trifling matters, gave no heed to trivial things. He neither did
zazen nor recited sutras. He had no fixed abode but would stretchout and sleep wherever he found himself. When drunk he consideredhimself happy. He loved to play go and to paint. And so he driftedalong at his ease, wholly content, and no one could tell whether he
was a fool or a sage.
When [in 1764] Genro received advanced rank at Myōshinji, he
selected his own formal teaching name, Suiō, “Drunken Old
Man.”[43] Questioned as to his choice by the priest at the sponsoring
Myōshinji subtemple, Genro replied, “Because I’m fond of drinking.
That’s why!”
The priest responded that such a name seemed highly
inappropriate. He suggested instead substituting another similarsounding Chinese character, meaning “to attain or accomplish,” inplace of the character “drunken.”
Genro replied, “That’s all right, too.”
Following the ceremony, Genro traveled to Osaka, finally
returning to Shōinji and offering [Hakuin] the following poem:
On a morning in the sixth month of the first year of
Meiwa[44]I accorded with hallowed tradition at the founder’spagoda[45]Now in the twelfth month I’ve come back to serve
as abbot of my ramshackle temple

Having emptied completely the karmic winds, I’m
letting them blow as they will.

After the ceremony, Genro did not seek to stay with Hakuin but
lived in solitude at Ashihara for three years. As Hakuin’s healthdeteriorated, however, Genro returned to [Shōinji] and attended theMaster by his bedside till he passed away. Genro then assumed[Shōinji’s] abbacy but, willful and wayward as ever, refused toconcern himself with temple affairs. To anyone who came and asked
for instruction in Zen, he replied, “What do I know? Go study with
Tōrei!”—In the summer [of 1789], Master Gasan was to lecture on the Blue
Cliff Record at Rinjōin in Edo.[46] The Master wished to go, but[because of his precarious health] the monks of the temple sought todissuade him.
Genro told them, “It’s my duty to the teaching,” and set off forEdo.
On the way there, however, Genro suffered from heat exposure,and returning to his temple in the sixth month, he was confined with
illness to his bed and never rose from it again. He had taught the
Dharma for some sixteen years.[47]On the twentieth day of the twelfth month of the first year ofKansei [1789], the Master’s attendant monk begged him for a final
verse.
Genro scolded him, but the attendant returned again with thesame request.
Genro wrote:
After seventy-three years deceiving buddhas andpatriarchs
What do I do for a final verse?
Katsu![48]Genro then shut his eyes, turned on his side, and passed away.

Master Tōrei was lecturing on the Blue Cliff Record at Tōhokuji, in
Edo, when he took up the record’s third case, “Sun-Faced Buddha,
Moon-Faced Buddha.”[49]
Among those in attendance was Shibata Genyō’s[50] mother,
then over sixty years of age. No sooner had she heard Master
Tōrei’s words than her mind seemed suddenly and spontaneously to
open. After the lecture, she went to see the Master and presented
her understanding. Tōrei was overjoyed.
As she lay dying, this woman instructed her granddaughter,“Though you are young, you should strive to take refuge in the
Buddha’s teaching. Why? Because from the moment long ago when
I heard Master Tōrei present ‘Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced
Buddha’ and suddenly experienced enlightenment right up till now,there hasn’t been even a speck of dust in my mind, which has
remained bright as a mirror. Now I’m dying, but I feel quite peaceful,just as if I were going home. What is there to trouble me?
“Should you fail to take refuge in the Buddha’s teaching,” sheadmonished, “you are no granddaughter of mine! Remember!”
And with these words, she simply passed away.

Master Chōdō of Chikugo studied under Kogetsu and attained
realization of the “Mu!” koan. At that time, the Dharma teaching of
Hakuin was enjoying great popularity, and monks were flocking to his
temple. Chōdō, too, determined to set off there, hoping to engage
the Master in a Zen dialogue, and went to take his formal leave ofKogetsu.
Kogetsu advised him, “Postpone your departure for a while.”Chōdō, however, refused, and Kogetsu then told him, “Very well,
if that’s how it is, I’ll write an introduction for you,” and writing out anote, he handed it to Chōdō.
Chōdō went off to interview Hakuin. He found the Master in thebath, but Chōdō went right into the water, introduced himself, andpresented his understanding of Zen.
Hakuin told him, “One may say that your coming here was not in
vain. Now withdraw.”
Chōdō then thought to himself, “He’s approved me!”
When Hakuin emerged from the bath, Chōdō dressed himself in
his most formal monk’s robes and entered the Master’s room tointerview him again and present Kogetsu’s letter.
Hakuin opened the seal and read the letter. It said: “It is not that
this youngster lacks any merit. But he is simply a person of limited
capacity. I beg Your Reverence to find some suitable expedient toteach him.”
When Hakuin had finished reading, he turned on Chōdō. “Even if
someone with your meager endowment and inferior spiritual
potential were to realize the great matter,” Hakuin angrily berated
him, “what would be the use?”
At that moment, feeling that his whole realization had been
snatched away, Chōdō became deranged, and from then on, he wasnever normal again. Hakuin was often heard to lament, “I havealways taught huge numbers of students. But among these I only
went wrong with two—Chōdō of Chikugo and one other, whosename escapes me.”Subsequently, Chōdō returned to Chikugo and became abbot ofa temple. He erected a small monk’s hall, where all alone he carriedout the Zen temple observances. Every rohatsu he would bring thechild priests and temple cats into the meditation hall with him to do
zazen. When the cats would run out, he would grab them and hit
them with the keisaku, berating them, “Why won’t you follow therules in my temple!” [51] In this way, countless cats died at his hands.

Yet strictly maintaining his monastic practice, it is said Chōdō ended
his days at the temple.

Master Gasan Jitō was a native of Mutsu. He became a monk under
Master Gessen Zenne of Kōke-in in Miharu. On reaching the age of
sixteen, Gasan undertook an extensive Zen pilgrimage. He traveled
first to Bungo, where he undertook koan study with Korei Soō of
Manjūji and attained a small realization. But even after knocking at
the gates of more than thirty other Zen masters, he found none aworthy match for him. Gasan returned to see Gessen, who approved
his realization and told him, “Don’t go anywhere else; just stay here.”“I’ve completed the great matter of enlightenment!” Gasan
thought to himself.
Gasan had frequently passed by Hakuin’s temple, but he hadlacked any interest in interviewing the Master. One day, however, heconsidered, “I went to see Zen masters all over Japan and couldn’t
find even one able to show me the Way. Hakuin is the only man left,
the one master whose worth I still don’t know.” He therefore
determined to set off to meet him.
When Gasan went to tell Gessen, the latter said, “There’s noneed for you to go. Why do you have to meet Hakuin?”
Gasan followed Gessen’s advice and remained with him for one
more year. Then he happened to learn that Hakuin was to lecture on
the Blue Cliff Record at Tōrinji in Edo. Gasan thought, “If I fail tomeet this old fellow, I can’t truly call myself a man of determinedspirit.” He therefore resolved to go.
Gessen once more sought to stop him, but this time Gasan would
not be dissuaded. Traveling directly to Tōrinji, he saw Hakuin andpresented his understanding.
“What sort of bad teacher’s place are you coming from, spewing
out all this evil breath and smelling me up!” Hakuin railed at him. Hethen beat Gasan and drove him out.
Gasan, however, would not be put off and returned three times tointerview Hakuin, but each time he was beaten and driven out.
“I really have experienced enlightenment,” Gasan thought tohimself, “but he’s deliberately undermining me.”One evening, after Hakuin had concluded his lecture and Gasan
had resumed his place in the meditation hall, he considered, “Hakuin
is known to be among the greatest and wisest teachers in the land.
How could he simply beat someone for no good reason? Surely hemust have superior attainment.” Thereupon, he entered the Master’sroom, and expressing profound contrition, he declared, “The otherday, in error, I gave offense to Your Reverence and now humbly
beseech your forgiveness. I beg you, bestow upon me yourinstruction.”
Hakuin told him, “You’re still young, but you’ll spend your whole
life hauling around a bellyful of lifeless Zen![52] However much you
jabber and jabber, when you arrive at the moment of death, you’ll
find yourself completely helpless. If you want to be joyful your whole
life long,” Hakuin concluded, “you must hear my ‘sound of one
hand.’ ”
Gasan prostrated himself in gratitude before the Master anddeparted. From that day on he became Hakuin’s devoted follower.

Master Ryōsai Genmyō, abbot of Kagakuji in Mikawa, was a nativeof Owari.[53] He first experienced enlightenment under Master
Kogetsu in Hyūga and subsequently went to see Hakuin at Shōinji.
Hakuin took one look at Ryōsai and declared, “Here comes
Manjusri!”[54]Ryōsai remained at Shōinji several years, profoundly penetrating
the mysterious essence of Zen, and Hakuin formally sanctioned hisrealization. Subsequently, Ryōsai assumed abbacy of Kagakuji, on
which occasion he delivered the following verse:
Some grow long, some grow short—a thousand pines
Some grow crooked, some grow bent—a dense clumpof bamboo
Don’t let those who come understand this as referringto the outside
Ringing the gong, a monk stands amid the rays of theevening sun

When Ryōsai began to teach, he attracted an assembly of overfour hundred and was extremely active in propagating Hakuin’s Zen.
Nevertheless, Hakuin once declared, “I gave Ryōsai inka too soon.
That’s why he’s still incomplete. If only I’d waited three more years
and then given him my sanction, no one in the land would have beenable to touch him!”
An attendant monk asked, “Why then did Your Reverence
sanction him so soon?’“At that time I thought I’d never find such a man again,” Hakuin
replied. “Ah! When it comes to conferring the sanction ofenlightenment, a Zen master must take great care!”Daikyū Ehō was investigating the koan “Nanquan’s Flower.”[55] At
this time, Hakuin was to pay a visit to Unzan,[56] and Daikyū
accompanied him. Along the way, Daikyū presented Hakuin with his
understanding of the koan.
“You couldn’t even feed a dog that kind of bad understanding!”
Hakuin chided Daikyū and struck him with his staff.
When Hakuin arrived at [Unzan’s temple] Kongoji, he looked
back, but Daikyū was nowhere to be seen. “He must have fallen
behind,” Hakuin thought, and he and Unzan spent the whole nighttalking together.

Daikyū, meanwhile, had gone to the house of the local village
headman and sat in meditation until, without realizing it, he had cut
off both past and future.[57] Suddenly opening his eyes he noticed
that the moon had gone down, birds were singing, and the easternsky was beginning to brighten.
At that moment, Daikyū grasped the meaning of “Nanquan’s
Flower.” He hastened to Hakuin and presented his insight, and theMaster praised him lavishly.

Kaigan and Daikyū were staying at Hakuin’s temple.
Hakuin told them, “Our temple kitchen hasn’t much and can’t feedyou. Tomorrow, go to beg food from the villagers.”
The two monks bowed in assent and withdrew.
The next morning there was fierce wind and rain, and the twowere waiting in the quarters for newly arrived monks for the rain tostop when Hakuin appeared carrying his stick. “What do you think
you’re doing here?” he demanded.
Kaigan explained, “The rain and wind were so bad we weren’t
sure what to do.”“You layabouts!” Hakuin scolded them. “Are you going to befrightened off by some wind and rain? Aren’t there plenty of people
traveling back and forth along the Tōkaidō? Get going this minute or
I’ll beat the living daylights out of you both!”
Cowering in fear, Daikyū and Kaigan made their departure,
turning to each other at the temple gate to exclaim, “What a harshteacher!” Then, donning bamboo hats and straw raincoats, they set
out into the pounding rain.
By noon they had reached Kashiwabara, and the sky was
gradually beginning to clear. That evening they returned to thetemple with some seven or eight measures of rice offered by thetownspeople.

Hakuin was delighted when he saw them. “Now that’s just what
you young monks should be doing!” he exclaimed.

Master Ishin Eryū was a native of Izumo. He studied under Hakuin
and received Dharma transmission from the Master. His severity intraining students was greater even than Hakuin’s. It was Ishin’s
custom when receiving students in sanzen to keep an unsheathedsword at his side, and when a student showed the slightest
hesitation, to brandish the sword and chase him out. Monks would
often back down, finding themselves face-to-face with the principle of
Ishin’s Zen.
When Reigen came to visit, he announced, “I, Etō of Tango, havecome here specifically to seek an interview with the Master.”
The attendant monk went and reported this to Ishin, who said,“This is one of Hakuin’s students, the head monk Etō.”
The attendant monk then invited Reigen to follow him upstairs to
the Master’s quarters, and Reigen accompanied him. Formallyarranging his robes, he mounted to the second floor and presented
himself before the Master.
The instant Ishin saw him, he said, “Monk Tō, let’s just dispensewith the formalities. I have a question for you: A demon of huge
strength seizes you by the arm and is about to hurl you into theburning fires of hell.[58] How can you save yourself?”
Etō did not know what to say. Instantly, Ishin sprang up andkicked him down the stairs. Etō was stupefied. Rearranging his
robes around him, he went to the latrine behind the abbot’s quarters
and sat there in meditation. After seven days he experienced
realization and ran back up the stairs to present his understanding toIshin.
“Since you’ve understood this much, our business is done,” Ishin
declared.

Such was the usual rigor of Ishin’s style of teaching.

Master Reigen [E]tō was with Hakuin for many years, relentlessly
pursuing his Zen practice and living in seclusion at a hermitage
some twenty ri from Hakuin’s temple. He would come and go insilence, palms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed straight ahead. If
he encountered one of his fellow monks, he would merely bow hishead and continue on his way without exchanging even a simple
word.
Once the monks of the assembly met together and said, “BrotherTō appears to have had some sort of enlightenment experience, butthere’s no way to tell how shallow or deep it is.”One monk spoke up. “Wait a bit,” he said, “and I’ll test him andfind out.”
The following day, the monk ran into Reigen on the road andasked, “Brother Tō, what about the koan ‘Shushan’s Pagoda’?”[59]
But Reigen simply bowed his head and walked on. The upshot
was that people had no way to gauge the extent of his realization.
It happened that for over one hundred days Reigen was sufferingfrom an abscess in his navel, and in the midst of his groans andagonies he penetrated the meaning of “Shushan’s Pagoda.”
Reigen was frank and straightforward, without attachment towords and letters, given over entirely to hardship and struggle. It issaid that is why his spiritual strength far surpassed that of others.
In later life, Reigen served as abbot of Zenshōji in Tango, andsubsequently abbot of Tenryūji. Students flocked to study withReigen, and he became a leading teacher in the [Kyoto] area.
Kaimon came to interview Reigen, whom he encountered on his
way to Kyoto. Stepping forward and making a low bow, Kaimon
introduced himself, saying, “This insignificant person is Kaimon,
Dharma heir of Daijū.”Reigen instantly stuck out his hand, pointing it at Kaimon, anddemanded, “How does my hand resemble the Buddha’s hand?”
Kaimon was at a loss how to respond, whereupon Reigen kicked
him to the ground.

Master Kankei Sotei of Ishihara in Tōtōmi studied under Hakuin andthoroughly realized the great matter. Later, he became abbot of
Shōkōji. There, he lectured on the Blue Cliff Record to an audienceof over one hundred monks. Addressing the assembly, he said:“When it comes to the koan ‘Huangbo’s “Drinkers of Wine Dregs,”‘ in
Zen temples today, they toss it aside like it was a clod of dirt.[60] My
teacher Hakuin would say, ‘Huangbo’s “Drinkers of Wine Dregs”‘
must be as if it comes from your own lips; only then can you get alook at Huangbo’s innards—his liver, bladder, heart, and stomach.’ ”
Kankei added, “And not only will you see Huangbo’s liver, bladder,heart, and stomach, but you’ll also meet face-to-face with Master
Hakuin. So, all of you, train hard!”
One day when Kankei was at Hakuin’s temple, he was serving as
the Master’s attendant and lightheartedly asked, “Master, when you
were traveling on pilgrimage, do you recall any strange
happenings?”
Hakuin replied, “Long ago I was living in retreat [at Mount Iwata]in Mino. One day I climbed the mountain and strolled about. Coming
upon a large, flat rock, which could easily have accommodated overten men, I climbed up and sat a while in meditation. A few of thevillage farmers who were engaged in tilling some newly cleared
fields shouted to me, ‘Don’t go up on that rock! The local kami haveplaced a curse on it!’[61]“Hearing this, I got down and wandered about, slowly making myway through the nearly impenetrable thicket.

“Returning to my hut that evening, I sat in meditation. It wasaround the time of the second watch [approximately 10:00 p.m.] that
I heard the sound of deliberate footsteps. Suddenly [the footsteps]
had leaped down from the mountain and were right in front of myhut, which they seemed to be trying with all their might to cave in.
“‘Master Hakuin!’ the creatures shouted loudly, their voices
shaking the trees of the forest. [They were so huge that] when I
peered out at them, I could see only up to their waists. Their feetwere as large as stone mortars, and they stood there towering overthe house, the area above their waists wholly obscured by the edgeof the eaves.”
Kankei asked, “And what happened next?”
Hakuin said, “I was really tired that day, and before I knew it I’dfallen fast asleep. When I awoke and opened my eyes, the smokefrom the incense stick I’d lit for my meditation had vanished andalong with it all traces of those ghostly apparitions.”

The Zen master Daijū Zen’nyo was a native of Hōki. He wasendowed with great keenness of intellect and had made a deep
study of both Buddhist and Confucian texts. The only area of study
he had failed to penetrate was the Yi jing (Book of Changes).[62] Hetherefore traveled to Edo, hoping to satisfy his curiosity under some
Confucian scholar.
On his way, he passed by Hakuin’s temple. Thinking, “Here is tobe found the greatest teacher of the realm,” Daijū asked for lodging
and went to interview Hakuin.
Hakuin asked him, “Where are you off to?”Daijū replied, “I am going to Edo.”
Hakuin asked, “And what do you intend to do there?”
Daijū explained, “I have not yet fathomed the meaning of the Yi
jing and am hoping to hear some Confucian lectures.”Hakuin told him, “As for the Yi jing, without any experience ofseeing your true nature, you can’t hope to understand it. You had
better stay here awhile and strive to realize enlightenment. If you see
your true nature, then I’ll teach you about the Yi jing.”“I shall do as you command,” Daijū agreed. He thereupon joined
the assembly of monks at the temple and, devoting himself toexhaustive practice, finally realized the great matter of seeing into
one’s nature. He then served the Master over ten years, compiling
Poison Flowers from a Thicket of Thorns (Keisō dokuzui).[63]Daijū subsequently became chief abbot of Jishōji in Buzen.[64]Here, students underwent rigorous training under Daijū, who earned
a reputation for extreme severity.
In instructing the assembly of monks, Daijū would only employ
the koan “Doushuai’s ‘Three Barriers.’ ”
Not long after assuming abbacy of Jishōji, Daijū passed away.
Subsequently, those who were his disciples also relied only on the“Three Barriers,” to the complete exclusion of all other koan. Overand over, each one would repeat to his students, “When theelements of the physical body disperse…When the elements of thephysical body disperse…[65] Penetrate this and your Zen studies are
finished for life. I don’t care if all the Zen teachers of the land criticize
me!” Thus they stubbornly defended their exclusive focus on the
koan.
Personally, I have some serious questions about this wholematter.[66] On consideration, does not such a dubious approachseem quite unworthy of Daijū? Here, after all, was someone who had
served under Hakuin for years and even compiled the Poison
Flowers collection of the Master’s teachings, someone who had
assuredly received the Master’s exhaustive koan instruction in
private interviews.
In all likelihood, Daijū’s adherence to the “Three Barriers” koan
for teaching students was no more than an expedient for those in theearly stages of their Zen studies. It’s what the old masters referred toas “sick bay” Zen.[67] Also, Daijū having passed away at so young anage, his students were unable to fully penetrate the innermost
secrets of his teaching. Was not Daijū’s untimely departure from theworld the likely explanation for these things?

Master Sōgai studied Zen under Hakuin and attained enlightenment.
Shortly thereafter he departed for [his native province of] Hyūga andassumed abbacy of [his original teacher Sekitei’s] temple. Over one
hundred monks attended the intensive ninety-day meditation retreat(kessei), where Sōgai delivered lectures on the Record of Linji.
At the retreat’s end, Sōgai traveled to Suruga to see Master
Hakuin again.
“Previously Your Reverence favored me with his compassionate
teaching,” Sōgai said, “and that is what has brought me directly towhere I am today.”
Hakuin asked, “Since assuming abbacy of the temple, have you
found someone to stay and do the cleaning for you?”
Sōgai said, “Unworthy though I am, last winter at the insistence ofthe more than one hundred monks attending my retreat, I delivered
lectures on the Record of Linji—”
The words were hardly out of Sōgai’s mouth before Hakuin
leaped up, grabbed his stick, and, glaring fiercely at Sōgai, loudly
berated him: “What’s a pip-squeak like you doing sounding off withsuch a big mouth! And what makes you think the Record of Linji iseasy to lecture on? You go mouthing off again and I’ll beat you to apulp!”
The force of the Master’s words was like the crash of raging
thunder. Prostrating himself, Sōgai expressed his profoundcontrition. He subsequently spent an additional three years studying
under Hakuin.

Later, Sōgai lived in seclusion at Ryūkokuji in Harima [but soon
found himself] surrounded by students.
On one occasion he remarked to [the Zen master] Gankyoku[Zenko], “Master Hakuin used the ‘Mu!‘ koan [about manifesting]original nature within karmic consciousness. Yet I have nevermanaged to penetrate the koan. Why?”
Angrily, Gankyoku scolded, “Here you are an old man and still
making up your mind! If you try to understand about manifestingoriginal nature within karmic consciousness, do you think it’s evergoing to happen?”
Admitting defeat, Sōgai withdrew.

When Master Sōgai was studying under Hakuin at Shōinji, he wasfrustrated at his inability to rouse the ball of doubt and so would
meditate with a skull placed in the palm of his [cupped] hands. Sōgai
then began to advance in his practice till finally he smashed throughthe black lacquer bucket.[68]For those beginning their study of Zen, this is among the primary
expedients.

Master Sōten Hōsai studied under Hakuin for many years. When he
subsequently assumed abbacy of Ryūshoji in Shinano Province,
Sōten came to take his leave of Hakuin. As a farewell present,
Hakuin brushed a picture of Bodhidharma, to which he added averse [in Japanese]. He also presented Sōten with a self-portrait,
inscribed with the following poem [in Chinese]:
Beneath the cliff there flows a stream
Rushing on, never ending
If your practice is like thisCan the moment of kenshō be far off?

This poem had been composed by the Master when he wastraveling on his Zen pilgrimage and stopped at a mountain temple inHarima. There, as he watched a stream passing through a gorge, he
was moved to write this verse.[69]

Master Suiō was invited to visit [the Confucian scholar Yamada]
Zeigan at the latter’s home. Zeigan received the master and seated
him in the formal reception room, where the two talked together.
It happened that Zeigan’s son, a youth of fifteen or sixteen, wason his way out, and he paused to bow to his father. Seeing him, Suiōbowed in return.
Zeigan’s son angrily declared, “I’m bowing to my father. Why
should I bow to a Buddhist monk!”[70]Suiō patted Zeigan on the back and said, “What a precocious
child!”
Later, Zeigan was heard to remark, “Hakuin is a true Buddhist
teacher. He does not truckle to the times or seek favor with others.
Suiō is merely a run-of-the-mill monk.”
My own view of the matter: Zeigan is just a trivial Confucian;Hakuin is like a thunderclap sundering a stone wall; Suiō is like a
man stroking one’s head with hands gentle as the softest cotton.
With someone like Zeigan who follows a different teaching [i.e.,
Confucianism], one will never be able to find common ground!

We know not even the birthplace of the Zen master Sekie, “Stone
Robe.” The master lived in a hut some two ri from Hakuin’s temple[Shōinji]. He owned no winter clothes, and on cold nights he would
hold a [large stone] in his arms and circumambulate his hut, walking
in meditation, only stopping when he had managed to warm himself.
People called him “Master Stone Robe.” Of his end, nothing isknown. He was just like the eccentric sages of long ago. The stone
still remains before his hut.

Grandma Satsu was the daughter of Hakuin’s paternal uncle.[71] On
reaching the age of fifteen, she thought to herself, “It’s true I’m nobeauty, but thankfully I have a sound body. It seems to me I’mnearing the time for marriage. I just hope I can find a good man!”
Secretly, she prayed to the Kannon of Akeno, and day and night
recited the Tennō Kannon Sutra, even when doing the washing andsewing.[72] After several days, she suddenly experienced
enlightenment.
Once, looking in on Osatsu, her father saw her in the sleeping
quarters sitting crouched on [a copy of] the Lotus Sutra. “She musthave gone crazy!” he thought.[73]“What do you think you’re doing, squatting on the Lotus Sutra?”he gently remonstrated with her. “You’ll surely be punished by the
Buddha!”Osatsu replied, “What’s the difference between the Lotus Sutra
and my ass?”
Finding this strange, Osatsu’s father reported it to Hakuin, who
told him, “I’ve got a way to deal with this.” He thereupon brushed [thefollowing] waka [on a strip of paper] and gave it to Osatsu’s father:[74]
When in the dark of the night
You hear the voice of the silent crowThat is the yearning for the father before one wasborn.

Hakuin then told him, “Go and paste that to the wall where she’ll be
sure to see it.”
Osatsu’s father went and did as he’d been told.

Seeing the paper, Osatsu said, “Why, that’s Master Hakuin’s
calligraphy. Is Hakuin like this, too?”Her father, still mystified, reported what had occurred.
Hakuin told him, “You bring Osatsu here to me. I’m going toquestion her.”
The father then brought Osatsu to the Master. Hakuin examinedher [understanding of Zen], and Osatsu responded smoothly to all
his questions. Hakuin thereupon gave her one or two koan, andOsatsu considered them intently.
Hakuin told her, “All right, go and work on them.”
Over the course of the next two weeks, Osatsu broke throughseveral stages of koan and finally the Master assigned her thehighest level of koan. Osatsu, however, would not budge from her
understanding, and there was considerable arguing back and forthwith Hakuin, who finally took his stick and struck her.
This sort of thing happened several times.
Half a year elapsed, during which Osatsu managed to penetrate
the highest level koan and completely passed through all the mostcomplex cases of the old masters.
Osatsu’s father now found a [prospective] husband for his
daughter, but Osatsu would have nothing to do with him.
The father went to Hakuin and reported what had occurred.
Hakuin then summoned Osatsu and told her, “You have completed
your realization of the law of Dharma. Why do you revile the law ofhuman society? Marriage is the paramount duty for men and women.
Please follow your father’s wishes.”
Osatsu bowed in assent.
Years later, Osatsu mourned the death of a grandchild, overcome
with grief. An old man who was her neighbor admonished her,“Grandmother, why do you grieve so bitterly? Everyone in theneighborhood is saying, ‘Formerly this old woman studied under
Master Hakuin and realized enlightenment. Now she’s overcome

with grief, mourning her grandchild’s death. What’s that all about?’
Grandmother, reflect on this!”
Glaring at her neighbor, Osatsu upbraided him, “Baldy, what do
you know about it? A grandmother’s weeping and mourning for her
grandchild surpasses even offerings of flowers and candles. Baldy,
what do you know!”
Such was Osatsu’s typical acrimonious response. The monks at
the temple came to dismiss her as “that old woman,” while often
suffering defeat at her hands in their Zen exchanges.
When Osatsu passed away at home, [Hakuin’s disciple] Suiō
presided at her cremation, delivering a eulogy that stated in short:“For seventy-five years she startled men from their idle dreams andwith a single step trampled to bits the world of delusion.”
Addressing the assembly of monks, Suiō said, “When Master
Hakuin was alive there were a great many enlightened laywomen,
but Grandma Osatsu surpassed them all. Even among Zen monks
who have spent long years in religious practice, her equal is not to
be found!”At Harajuku there lived an old woman.[75] It happened one day that
she was in the audience listening to Hakuin’s sermon, when the
Master said: “Mind alone is the Pure Land; one’s own body is Amida
Buddha. When Amida manifests himself, the mountains, rivers, andthe great earth, [including] the trees, grasses, and forests, will
instantaneously send forth radiance. If anyone wishes to realize this,he has only to search for it single-mindedly in his own heart. As it issaid, ‘Within you lies the proof that mind alone is the Pure Land.
What further adornment does that Pure Land need? Within you lies
the proof that one’s own body is Amida Buddha. What further marksof physical excellence does Amida require?’ ”[76]The old woman, hearing this, thought to herself, “That doesn’t
seem so difficult.” And returning home, she devoted herself day andnight to examining [Hakuin’s words], trying to resolve them whether
asleep or awake.
Then, one day, while scrubbing a skillet, she suddenly brokethrough to realization. Tossing aside the skillet, she ran to see
Hakuin, exclaiming, “I’ve penetrated the meaning of ‘Your own being
is Amida Buddha’! The mountains and rivers, the great earth,[including] the grasses, trees, and forests, all emit a vast radiance.
How wonderful!” she rejoiced.
Hakuin told her, “Isn’t that kind of talk just emitting radiance fromyour shit-hole?”
The old woman edged closer and gave Hakuin a slap, saying,“This old master still doesn’t get it!”
Hakuin exploded in laughter.

Master Daikyū of Iyama would tell his assembled monks, “Herebefore you it’s already manifesting and fully alive, so what keeps you
from realizing it and freeing yourselves?”
But in the entire assembly there was not one who grasped theMaster’s meaning, to Daikyū’s deep regret.

The nun Eshō was [originally] the wife of a certain man from the post
station of Eijiri. Later, she became a nun, studying under Hakuin andrealizing enlightenment.
Once, Eshō was seated in Hakuin’s Zen room together with [thelayman] [Yamanashi] Ryōtetsu. The nun questioned Ryōtetsu,
saying, “I’m old and can’t stand up on my own. I wonder if you could
help me up—without using your hands.”
Ryōtetsu was unable to reply.

The nun said, “If you can’t even manage that, don’t ever let mehear you say, ‘I’ve studied with Hakuin’!”The layman turned red.
Hakuin, observing from the side, burst out laughing. Ryōtetsu
would later realize enlightenment. And the nun Eshō would confirm
his realization.

[At the Hara post station] was a tea stall run by an old lady who,
having studied Zen with Hakuin, was endowed with great spiritual
power. Whenever Hakuin observed a Zen monk wavering, his mind
lost in speculation, not having severed the roots of sentient
existence, he would exclaim with a sigh, “Like this, when are you
ever going to realize enlightenment? Go study with the old tea-stall
lady!”
It was not uncommon that when a monk would come to see her,the old lady would immediately demand, “Studying Zen?”“Yes,” the monk would reply, and the old lady, retreating behind afolding screen, would shout to him, “Come in here!”
When the monk went behind the screen, the old lady promptly
confronted him with a Zen question, and the moment the monk
began to hesitate, she drove him out with a pair of iron fire tongs.
Even longtime students of the Master were likely to be subjected tothe same treatment, in numbers too great to recall.
It seemed that the old woman’s powers of attainment surpassed
those of others, just as if she were endowed with all the dexterity of askilled Zen monk.

PLAYING WITH THE CHILDREN
Early spring
The landscape is tinged with the firstfresh hints of green
Now I take my wooden begging bowl
And wander carefree through town
The moment the children see me
They scamper off gleefully to bring their friends
They’re waiting for me at the temple gate
Tugging from all sides so I can barely walkI leave my bowl on a white rockHang my pilgrim’s bag on a pine tree branchFirst we duel with blades of grass
Then we play ball
While I bounce the ball, they sing the song
Then I sing the song and they bounce the ballCaught up in the excitement of the gameWe forget completely about the time
Passersby turn and question me:“Why are you carrying on like this?”
I just shake my head without answering
Even if I were able to say something
How could I explain?
Do you really want to know the meaning of it all?
This is it! This is it!
—TAIGU RYŌKAN, RZ 1:149

Despite the quantity of tales and legends surrounding Taigu Ryōkan(1758–1831), many of the facts of his life remain unclear. We haveoccasional hints in Ryōkan’s poems (almost all undated) and incursory biographies by friends and contemporaries but few actual
dates or details. The master himself seems rarely to have touchedon his past. That many parts of Ryōkan’s biography remain sketchyis hardly surprising given that he led his life as a shabby beggar
monk in a remote corner of Japan, never founding or serving as
abbot of a temple and having no disciples or heirs to record theirteacher’s “words and deeds.”[1]Ryōkan was born in Izumozaki, a once bustling coastal town in
the old province of Echigo (now Niigata Prefecture), Japan’s snow
country. The area had long served as a penal colony, with its long
winters, deep snows, and brutal natural environment. Izumozaki
itself, however, was a scenic spot on the Sea of Japan facing theisland of Sado, a haunt of artists and writers as well as home to aprosperous middle class of merchants, brewers, and doctors. Rich
veins of gold had been discovered on Sado, and Izumozaki hadserved as the transshipment point for the precious metal along with
regional commodities such as rice and fish, the town’s pier areas
jammed with rice boats and brothels. By the time of Ryōkan’s birth,
however, Izumozaki had begun to decline and was already being
bypassed for the neighboring port of Amaze, which was better
situated to handle the Sado gold trade.[2]Ryōkan was the eldest son and heir of Yamamoto Tsunamichi(1736–1795), Izumozaki’s headman (nanushi) and one of the town’s
leading citizens. A locally known haiku poet under the literary name
I’nan, Tsunamichi, born to a country farming family, had been
adopted by marriage into one of Izumozaki’s wealthy merchantclans, the Yamamoto, which operated under the shop name
Tachibana.
From ages ten to nineteen, Ryōkan attended a nearby academy,
where he and his peers studied Chinese literature and culture, with
an emphasis on poetry, under a noted Confucian scholar and poet,Ōmori Shiyō (d. 1791), studies interrupted by Shiyō’s departure forEdo. It was during this period, too, that Ryōkan seems to havebegun studying Zen at a local Sōtō temple.
By age sixteen, Ryōkan was assisting Tsunamichi in the familybusiness and helping his father in his duties as headman. This was atrying time in Echigo, which had recently been stricken by drought(1770) and then devastated by plague (1772). Eleven years later theprovince would be convulsed by a great famine that saw food riots inthe streets of Izumozaki.[3]After only a year as his father’s understudy, Ryōkan renounced
his position as the Yamamoto heir and abandoned Izumozaki toenter Kōshōji, a Sōtō Zen temple in Amaze. There he became anovice, adopting the Buddhist name Ryōkan (Virtuous and Tolerant).
Whether Ryōkan’s decision to enter the temple was motivated bywhat he had seen of life as a businessman and village official or by
his newfound enthusiasm for Zen is unknown. In retrospect, Ryōkan
only observed, “People all say, ‘Become a monk and then study
Zen.’ But I studied Zen and then became a monk.”[4]In 1779 Kōshōji was visited by the Sōtō Zen master Tainin
Kokusen (1722–1797), the abbot of Entsūji, a well-known training
temple in western Japan in what is now Okayama Prefecture.
Kokusen, who had assumed Entsūji’s abbacy in 1769, was amember of a distinguished Sōtō lineage that included Gesshū Sōkō
(1618–1696), the teacher of the celebrated Zen master and scholar
Manzan Dōhaku (1635–1714). Both Gesshū and Manzan were key
figures in the early Tokugawa reform movement that shaped thepresent-day Sōtō school, with its emphasis on the sect’s medieval
founder Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253), especially Dōgen’s writings on
Zen and his formulation of monastic rules. When Kokusen departed
for Entsūji, Ryōkan accompanied him on the nearly four-hundredmile journey.[5]We know nothing of Ryōkan’s studies under Kokusen, but themonastic rules at Entsūji, an establishment with a reputation forstrictness, included the regular periods of zazen and two annualintensive meditation retreats (ango, or kessei) typical of Zen training
temples, along with chanting of Buddhist texts, group begging, andchores such as cooking, cleaning, and gardening.[6] Ryōkan
eventually advanced to the rank of shuso, meditation hall supervisorof the annual retreats.
In 1790, at age thirty-two, Ryōkan, along with several of
Kokusen’s other students, received the Zen master’s inka in the formof a Chinese poem, which Ryōkan kept with him throughout his life,
along with a staff of wild wisteria. At this time Ryōkan may also havereceived the second Buddhist name Taigu (Great Fool).[7] Ryōkan
was also permitted by Kokusen to begin studying a collection of
Dōgen’s writings.[8]With Kokusen’s death the following year, Ryōkan seems to havedrifted away from Entsūji and, despite his recognition by Kokusen,
would never reenter the Sōtō temples. As he had rejected theprospect of succeeding to leadership of the Tachibana clan and its
enterprises or to the office of Izumozaki headman, Ryōkan neverseems to have been comfortable for long as a member of any
organization or hierarchy, however advantageously placed within it
he may have been, and remained instead a determined loner.
By his own account, Ryōkan next spent years wandering Japanon pilgrimage or simply drifting from place to place. Our only source
for this period is the record of a brief encounter of Ryōkan and theEdo poet and scholar Kondō Banjō (1776–1848), included in Banjō’s
1845 collection A Bedside Companion (Nezame no tomo). Travelingthrough the old Shikoku province of Tosa (present-day Kōchi
Prefecture), Banjō is caught in a rainstorm and forced to seek shelterin a ramshackle hut. The hut is occupied by a solitary monk, whowillingly shares his simple food and accommodations. The monkrarely speaks, and when questioned only smiles, leading Banjō toconclude that he is probably crazy. Banjō cannot help noticing,however, the impressive samples of calligraphy scattered about andthe monk’s Chinese edition of the Taoist classic Zhuangzi. When

after two nights the rain finally lets up, Banjō prepares to continue on
his journey, offering his reticent host—whom in retrospect he realizes
to be Ryōkan—some money in appreciation. The monk, however,refuses the proffered cash, remarking, “What am I going to do with
that?” He is nevertheless delighted by Banjō’s gift of somecalligraphy paper and poem cards.[9]By 1795 Ryōkan had returned to his native area, where he wasdiscovered living as a beggar in a lean-to on the beach.[10] During
his absence, things had not gone well for the Yamamoto family. After
Tsunamichi’s retirement in 1786, Ryōkan’s younger brother Yoshiyuki(also read Yūshi, 1762–1834) had taken over the family businessand the position of Izumozaki headman but proved an inept
administrator.[11] Tsunamichi, meanwhile, abandoned the family todrift about the country and lead a life of drink and dissipation,
culminating in his suicide by drowning in Kyoto’s Kamo River in
1795.
Ryōkan refused all attempts by his family to lure him home,moving on to a series of vacant huts on the grounds of local temples.
By 1800 the master had retreated to Mount Kugami, a picturesquepeak some twelve miles north of Izumozaki. By 1804 he had settled
into Gogō-an, a hut in the precincts of a Shingon temple on themountain’s western slope. The retreat would remain Ryōkan’s home
for the next dozen or so years and is the subject of many of his
poems.[12]While Gogō-an’s solitude was among its attractions for Ryōkan,his life there was hardly that of an anchorite, and into old age hecontinued to wander the area, often staying with friends. Eventually
he established a second hut on the foothills of Mount Kugami in the
precincts of a deserted Shinto shrine, Otogo jinja. Situated in a
cryptomeria forest and surrounded by a grove of bamboo, the Otogo
hut probably served as Ryōkan’s permanent residence after 1816.
The year before, the master had been joined by a fourteen-year-old
Shingon monk, Henchō (1801–1876), who served as Ryōkan’sattendant for the next ten years, aiding him in performing some of
the more exacting chores and watching over the hut while Ryōkan
was absent.[13]Ryōkan’s routine on Mount Kugami varied with the weather. On
rainy days, or when trapped indoors by Echigo’s legendary snows,
Ryōkan would occupy his time composing poetry, performing zazen,
practicing calligraphy, smoking his pipe, reading sutras, or studying
the ancient Chinese and Japanese classical poets. Among his
favorites were the poems of Hanshan (Hanshan shi, “Cold Mountainpoems”);[14] Manyoshū (Collection of the myriad ages), the earliest
collection of Japanese verse, compiled in the mid-eighth century;[15]and Kokinshū, the first imperial anthology of poems, particularly
waka, completed in 905. Ryōkan even undertook studies of Chineseand Japanese phonetics, for which his handwritten notes remain.[16]On clear days, however, Ryōkan would take his staff and bowl
and walk down the mountain at dawn, begging his way from village
to village and not returning to his hut till nightfall. Times were hard—
harvests in Echigo were devastated by a succession of blizzards,
floods, and earthquakes, contributing to widespread famine—but
Ryōkan’s neighbors freely shared with him whatever they had.[17]Unlike the strictly ordered group begging that was routine for monks
at Zen monasteries, Ryōkan’s begging was unstructured andrelaxed. He was always ready to interrupt his rounds to play with thevillage children, pause to drink sake with a farmer, stop by to visit
acquaintances, or pick flowers and wild vegetables by the wayside,
the last an activity in which the master was frequently joined by the
local boys and girls and even their parents.
As the modern Ryōkan anthologist and scholar Tōgō Toyoharu
suggests, begging was essential to Ryōkan’s practice. It was not
merely the Buddha’s time-honored tenet for a monk to sustain
himself but Ryōkan’s principal means of teaching through actual
face-to-face contact with his neighbors.[18] Not surprisingly, Ryōkan
became a regular fixture of the area around Mount Kugami, welcome

at festivals and wine shops, and a particular favorite of the local
children, who would swarm him on sight, insisting he join them inendless games of handball, tag, hide-and-seek, or sumo wrestling.
[19] Mercilessly teasing the indulgent master, the children would often
detain him till sundown, so that Ryōkan was left with no chance to
beg and found himself returning home with an empty bowl. “The
Master is always accompanied by children,” we read in the earliest
biography of Ryōkan, an 1811 account by his friend the Confucian
scholar Suzuki Bundai (1796–1870). “When he is out begging, hecan be found playing with them in the shade of trees and in thefields, tugging at blades of grass,[20] sumo wrestling, and bouncing
balls. His mind is like a mirror, looking neither forward nor
backward.”[21] And in 1895, Bundai’s adopted son Tekiken (1836–
1896) recalled:
Whenever the Zen Master went out, children would follow him.
Sometimes they would shout at him loudly, and the Master would
shout back in surprise, throwing up his hands, reeling backward andalmost losing his balance. Whenever the children found the Master,
they were always ready to do this. Ordinary people frowned on the
Master’s behavior. My late father once questioned him about it. The
Master laughed and said, “When the children surprise me this way, it
makes them happy. When the children are happy, it makes me happy.
The children are happy, and I’m happy too; everyone is happy
together, and so I do it all the time. There’s no truer happiness than
this!” This happiness of the Master’s was itself a manifestation of theultimate truth.[22]Ryōkan’s particular combination of simplicity, naiveté, andwarmth endeared him to the local population and gave rise toendless tales about the master, some of which remain staples ofJapanese children’s literature. A pervasive ingredient of these stories
was Ryōkan’s absentmindedness, which led him to constantly forget
his belongings. Ryōkan’s poems and letters attest to this, and themaster tells of forgetting his walking stick, his precious begging bowl,

his books, even his underwear, despite a checklist of personal items
he carried with him (and promptly forgot).[23]Ryōkan maintained a wide circle of admiring friends drawn fromevery strata of local society, from amateur literati to wealthy
merchants, and including doctors, brewers, and unlettered peasants.
His love of sake was legendary, though the poems make plain that
his drinking was rarely solitary but in the company of others. “Whenpeople offer the Master sake,” a contemporary notes, “he can imbibe
and remain completely relaxed. If people urge him to get up anddance, he doesn’t hesitate. When he’s had enough, he simply leaves
without a word.”[24]Despite the delight Ryōkan took in his neighbors and rustic
accommodations, he remained essentially an impoverished beggar,
and his life was a hard one. The master had to haul his own water,
firewood, and other necessities up Kugami’s treacherous slopes. He
often faced starvation, and when ill or snowed in and unable to go
out begging, he had to depend on friends and neighbors, sometimes
themselves in dire straits. Most of Ryōkan’s roughly two hundred
surviving letters are appeals for help or thank-you notes, often
disarmingly blunt, with no traces of pleading or unctuousness, andan occasional poem attached.[25] From the letters we know that themaster’s needs included food, clothes, medicine, bedding, candles,
sake, tobacco, even cash, but especially calligraphy supplies.
Indeed, Ryōkan’s brushwork, still treasured for its childlike freedom
and directness, was appreciated, collected, even forged for saleduring the master’s lifetime.[26]Besides poverty, Ryōkan was burdened by poor health, which
was aggravated by his increasing age and the rugged conditions on
the mountain. By 1826 the master was forced to accept thehospitality of his prosperous merchant friend Kimura Motouemon(1778–1848) and move to a small, detached cottage, a former
workshop, on the grounds of the Kimura family mansion in the villageof Shimazaki. Although only seven miles south of Mount Kugami, themove was a painful dislocation for Ryōkan, who hated being in atown, removed from old friends, and longed for the mountain homewhere he had passed some thirty years.
It was at this difficult juncture in his life that Ryōkan met abeautiful young Buddhist nun, Teishin (1798–1872). Widowed earlyin life, Teishin had become not only a nun but an accomplished waka
poet and had sought out Ryōkan for his instruction in Japanese
poetry. At the time they met, Ryōkan was sixty-nine, Teishin twentynine, yet the two seem to have fallen deeply in love. Teishin faithfully
nursed the master during his final illness, which left him bedriddenwith severe diarrhea and abdominal pains and often unable to sleep.
The moving poems the two exchanged during the four years of theirassociation are preserved in Teishin’s 1835 collection Dew on the
Lotus (Hachisu no tsuyu).[27] Teishin and Kimura were at themaster’s bedside when, shortly after New Year’s, 1831, Ryōkan
passed away seated in meditation posture “just as if he were falling
asleep.”[28]Among the best sources for Ryōkan’s daily life is his poetry. None
was published in his lifetime, though manuscript copies circulated
widely among local literati. By the end of the nineteenth century,
some of the poems had begun to appear in publication, but it was
only in the twentieth century that interest in Ryōkan was dramaticallyrevived, largely through the widely read 1918 biography Great Fool
Ryōkan (Taigu Ryōkan) by the writer Soma Gyōfu (1883–1950), whodevoted his later life to the study of the master. Soma’s book was
based on tales about Ryōkan, part from the Curious Accounts of theZen Master Ryōkan (first published in 1918) and part from oral
traditions surviving in Echigo. This was followed in the twenties andthirties by works from local historians who collected and published
Ryōkan’s writings and related biographical materials.
The postwar period witnessed a “Ryōkan būmu” (Ryōkan boom)with numbers of tales and legends collected and the formation
throughout Japan of Ryōkan societies and study groups. A 1975

survey of Japanese elementary school children found that 99
percent were familiar with Ryōkan; and the century between 1885
and 1985 saw 3,600 books on Ryōkan published in Japan, 362 in
1983 alone.[29] Although his life was spent largely as an obscurebeggar priest in his native area, Ryōkan has somehow come toepitomize those qualities that the Japanese still like to feel are thetimeless essence of their national character: simplicity, trust,goodness, and sincerity.
It is worth recalling that the title zenji, or Zen master, wasbestowed on Ryōkan not by the emperor in a formal rescript,[30] as
was customary in premodern Japan, but by the friends, families, andnameless individuals in Ryōkan’s locality, including even his brother
Yoshiyuki[31]—a kind of informal sanction from those with whom heshared his Zen on a daily basis. Ryōkan certainly never referred tohimself in this manner. While contemporary Sōtō school lineage
charts recognize Ryōkan as his teacher Kokusen’s Dharma heir,
Ryōkan never “taught” Zen but lived it, his admirers would contend,
sharing it freely among his neighbors.[32] Nor did he ever deliver
sermons. Kera Yoshishige (1810–1859), who studied poetry underRyōkan and whose family regularly welcomed the master at theirhome during Kera’s childhood and young adulthood, recalled:
The Master stayed several nights at our home. Young and oldbecame harmonious, and a peaceful atmosphere filled the house forseveral days after his departure. Just one evening of talking with the
Master made us feel that our hearts had been purified. The Masternever held forth on the scriptures or classics or the importance of
ethics. Sometimes he would be in the kitchen tending the fire,sometimes in the parlor practicing meditation. In his conversation henever alluded to classical poetry or ethical teachings, and his manner
was indescribably casual and relaxed. It was just his own innate
goodness that naturally guided others.[33]Ryōkan, it is true, went his own way. After his training, he neverreturned to the Sōtō monasteries or became abbot of a parish

temple. But we know he regularly practiced zazen, albeit in an
informal setting, whether in his hut or by the rushing streams ofMount Kugami. He also continued to revere the Sōtō school’s
founder, Dōgen, and his writings. Like Dōgen, he venerated theLotus Sutra, which he tells us was always at his side and on which
he composed a series of devotional poems.[34] Ryōkan’s favorite
bodhisattva, Jofukyō Bosatsu (Bodhisattva “Despising No One”),
appears in the sutra’s twentieth chapter, which describes him bowing
down to and revering each person he meets, because eachindividual contains buddha nature.[35]The relation of Ryōkan’s life and poems to his Zen attainment is asource of necessarily subjective speculation—speculation on which
academic, if not popular, opinion may differ. Some modern literaryscholars have taken the position that Ryōkan’s frequently ironic, selfdeprecating tone betrays a crippling self-doubt. Analyzing Ryōkan’s
Chinese poetry, for example, Iriya Yoshitaka, a highly regarded
expert on Chinese language and Zen texts, views the master as agreat poet haunted by his father’s suicide and his own history as a
dropout and serial failure in both the secular and religious worlds.[36]Such views, to me at least, take at face value in certain of
Ryōkan’s poems what is a standard pose of classical Chinese poetswith whom Ryōkan was intimately familiar, a mood of melancholy,
regret, and isolation. It likewise appears to me that, in other poems,
scholars have mistaken the openness and honesty of Ryōkan’s
expression as the sign of an unawakened mind. Instead, as myfriend Professor Abe has so often observed to me, Ryōkan’s poetry,his Zen, his eccentric and haphazard way of life are all of one piece.
The master’s willingness to reflect in his verse the full range ofhuman feelings, from joy to moodiness and despondency, was not
an admission of defeat but an essential part of Ryōkan’s genius. It
represents his personal actualization of the unity of ordinary
experience and enlightened mind that underlies not only Zen but
Mahayana classics such as the Heart Sutra and Awakening of Faith.

[37]Similarly, in the stories, Ryōkan’s refusal to protest when
mistreated or falsely accused does not bespeak a somber fatalism orresignation but a graceful acceptance of things as they are, however
foolish or misconstrued.
For those of Ryōkan’s neighbors who preferred to see a sermon
rather than to hear one, this was the precious teaching the masterhad to offer. As Tōgō Toyoharu remarks, unlike the literati andaesthetes who admired Ryōkan’s art, the reverence in which thecommon people held the master, conveyed in the many stories andtales about him, was based not on his poetry or calligraphy but on
the actual character of Ryōkan’s daily life, which charmed andamazed them, just as it continues to delight Japanese of our own
day.

The materials here are drawn largely from the Ryōkan den, by
Matsushima Hokusho (1814–1844). Like the Ryōkan zenji kiwa,
translated elsewhere,[38] the work is among the earliest accounts of
Ryōkan and similarly served as the basis for many of the later stories
that circulated about the master. In a brief introduction,[39]Matsushima describes how he had heard the accounts from acertain native of Echigo, one Miura Hakukō (n.d.), a doctor andConfucian scholar studying in Edo. Matsushima laments that Ryōkan
is little known outside of his home province of Echigo and hopes thata record of tales about the master will remedy this situation andpreserve Ryōkan’s memory. Nōnin Keidō, editor of Ryōkan zenji
itsuwashū, from which these accounts are taken, used a
photographic reproduction of a woodblock edition of Matsushima’s
text in the collection of Kansai University. Nōnin notes in his foreword
that the anecdotes are an important source for the study of Ryōkan
because they began to be recorded within ten years of the master’s
death and so are not simply fanciful tales and fabrications but

important materials for our understanding of Ryōkan’s enduringlegend as an eccentric, poet, and Zen master, and of his special
place in the Japanese imagination.
The Master was originally a samurai in the Nagaoka domain.[40] His
secular name was Ogawa Sazaeimon.[41] As a child, he did not
mingle with the other children, and as a young man, he was little
afflicted by lust. He pursued no particular occupation and grew
habituated to indolence so that he was unable to associate withothers in a dignified manner.

At age nineteen, on the pretext of poor health, the Master resigned
from all his duties.[42] One day, he accompanied his friends to abrothel, where they became boisterously drunk, sang, shouted, anddropped one hundred gold coins on the spot. Thereupon the Mastershaved his head and gave himself the Buddhist name Ryōkan. He
traveled to Kyoto, where he remained for three or four years before
returning home, erecting a small hermitage, and settling among thehills of Nagaoka, drifting about at his leisure.

On one occasion when Master Ryōkan was out begging, heapproached a home. It happened that an object had recently gone
missing at this house, and the householder, suspecting the Master of
the theft, bound him hand and foot. The Master only hung his headin silence.
Just then, an acquaintance of the Master’s happened by and wasable to have him released.
“Why didn’t you tell them you were innocent?” he berated theMaster.

Seemingly lost in thought, the Master replied, “Even if I’d
explained, I wouldn’t have been let off. Best not to make any
explanations and just hope for the best.”

There was a wicked child who, hearing that Master Ryōkan would
tolerate any sort of children’s misbehavior, secretly got aboard a boatwith the Master and then came up behind him and pushed him into
the water. The Master barely escaped drowning but showed no signof resentment.

Always dressed in a ragged robe, Master Ryōkan would stroll about
town. When offered a good robe as a replacement, the Master would
immediately put it on without the slightest demurral. When cold or
hunger afflicted the world, however, the Master would take off his
robe and give it away, along with all the food in his begging bowl.

One evening a thief stole into Master Ryōkan’s hut, but seeing
nothing but the four bare walls, he could not find anything to steal.
The Master took off his robe and gave it to the thief, sending him on
his way.

Master Ryōkan was skilled at both Chinese and Japanese poetry
and was especially adept at grass script, the varying movements of
his brush seemingly divine.[43] He was, however, unwilling tocasually write out samples of his work for people.

In the village was a wealthy man who raised peonies in his
garden. Each year when the blossoms appeared, the Master would
arrive to admire them, and he never left without breaking off abranch to take with him. The proprietor had long sought a sample ofthe Master’s brushwork, but although the Master had agreed, therich man had never succeeded in obtaining one.
Now there occurred to him a scheme. The rich man dispatched aservant to report to the Master that the peonies had come into
bloom. The Master hurried over and once again broke off a cluster ofblossoms for himself. The rich man, pretending to be incensed, had
the Master confined in a room, which had been furnished with ink,
paper, and brushes. In a loud voice, he instructed the guard
assigned to hold the Master, “If he does any brushwork, release him.
If not, don’t let him out!” The Master then proceeded to inscribe a folk
ditty, which said, in effect, “A gentleman may be deceived but cannot
be impugned.”[44] The rich man was dumbstruck.
On his way back, the Master brushed open a green banana leaf
whose color looked to him like lapis lazuli. Jumping for joy, heyanked out the leaf and set off for home.

Master Ryōkan loved to play ball. The result was that when people
wanted to get a sample of his calligraphy, they would trick him into it
by first sending along a ball. The Master would then cheerfully takeup his brush. Other gifts that were sent for this purpose, even thoseas precious as gems, he simply ignored.

Kameda Bōsai, a man of Edo, was traveling in Echigo.[45] Seeing asample of Master Ryōkan’s calligraphy, he was amazed and went tovisit him. Finding the Master seated in zazen, Bōsai knelt there andwaited for half a day. Then, quickly realizing that Bōsai was no

ordinary practitioner, the Master engaged him for some time in afriendly and openhearted discussion. When he was about to leave,
Bōsai exclaimed, delighted, “I have truly been able to advanceanother step in my brushwork!”
For someone like Bōsai, celebrated for his grass script
throughout the land, to speak like this makes one realize the extent
of the Master’s skill with the brush.

Master Ryōkan passed away in a certain year of the Tenpō era(1830–1844) at age sixty.[46] Several days before the Master’s
death, he was visited by the headman of Aozu, a certain Mura’osa.
Smiling, the Master asked him, “Some years back I left a bundle ofthings at your house. Do you still recall it?” The headman had no
idea what the Master was referring to but, searching through his
home, finally turned up a traveling bag, which, on close inspection,
was found to contain thirty small gold coins, which the Master had
apparently carried with him to provide for funeral expenses.[47]Regarding these coins, another story has come down to us thatthe granddaughter of Kimura of the Shimazaki Noto-ya related atage eighty-two:[48] “According to my elderly relations, when I wasonly one or two, the Master, in his spare time from religious practice,would care for me tenderly, carrying me on his back and rocking mycradle. However, the Master passed away when I was no more than
three. In disposing of his bedding, there were discovered some forty
small, bright gold coins secreted among the bottom layers of his
futon. Everyone, from my family members to the assembled
onlookers, was happily surprised, struck with admiration at the careof the Master’s preparations and esteeming him all the more. Forwith these funds the Master’s funeral was conducted, his memorialservices carried out, and a gravestone erected. And despite theMaster’s bedding having been reduced to tatters, several of thesefragments were carefully preserved.”
The magnificence of the Master’s funeral ceremony was an
expression of people’s lasting respect and reverence for him. Whenhe had nothing, the Master would beg, and when he had anything,
he would give it to others; yet these coins he carried with him as if
sealed away in a purse. In all likelihood, when the Master was still
living in Tamashima,[49] he had received the coins from his parents,
so that in case he should die, whether in the fields or among themountains, if someone took care of burying him this money could be
used, thereby benefiting both himself and others.

Master Ryōkan was born a son of Yamamoto, village headman of
Izumozaki, and given the childhood name Eizō.[50] He was by nature
exceedingly dull and careless, wholly incapable of such things asstraightening his garments when meeting others. That’s why, it’ssaid, the local people nicknamed him “the headman’s ‘lantern inbroad daylight.’ ”[51]This happened when Master Ryōkan was six or seven:
One day the Master slept late and was scolded by his father. The
Master looked up and stared at his father intently, and his father told
him, “Anyone who glares at his father like that will surely turn into aflounder.”Hearing this, the Master fled suddenly from the house and bynightfall still had not returned. Worried, the whole household
searched everywhere for him, but the Master was loitering, dejected,
on a cliff by the ocean.
When the searchers finally found the Master, they shouted athim, “What are you doing here?”
The Master is said to have asked them, “Haven’t I turned into aflounder yet?”As a youth, the Master’s only joy was reading, and he would keep
himself shut up at home. One evening during the Bon festival, acrowd of people performing a Bon dance happened to pass by thefront of the family mansion.[52] The Master’s mother seized theopportunity to urge her bookworm son to get outside and join in thefestivities. Making a sour face, the Master silently left the house.
As the red lanterns of the festival passed through the street, theMaster’s mother thought she would step into the garden, but when
she glanced about she noticed a mysterious figure in the shadow
cast by the stone lantern. Hastily concluding it must be a robber, shereturned to the house and reappeared holding a curved halberd(naginata) with which she approached the intruder. However,examining the figure at close hand, she was startled to recognize her
own son, lost in his reading of the Analects.[53]The following episode presents a wholly contradictory picture of theyoung Rydkan’s attitude to the Bon dancing.
On the seventeenth day [of the seventh month], during the Bon
festival, the young Master, who delighted in the [Bon] dances,
seemed to be dancing happily as always, while drinking sake allnight long. However, the next day, it is said, he suddenly shaved hishead and entered Kōshōji.

It is said that Master Ryōkan got married in the period before
entering the monastery but only lived with his wife for some six
months before abandoning lay life.

Master Ryōkan’s family had served for generations as headmen of
Izumozaki. As the oldest son and head of the family [after his father’s
retirement], the Master, too, was originally expected to succeed tothis office. However, one day, it is said, he was called on to attend
the execution of a thief and, after witnessing this scene, returned
home and promptly became a Buddhist monk.
This following version of the Master’s path to the priesthood washanded down within the Master’s family, the Yamamoto:At age seventeen, following the family tradition, Master Ryōkan
became headman of Izumozaki. At this time, however, there arose adispute between the shogunal magistrate and the local fishermen, adispute that proved particularly intractable. In such cases, matters
had to be submitted to the village headman for mediation. The
Master began his mediation efforts but would convey to each party inthe dispute exactly what was said by the other, reporting to themagistrate every bit of foul language and abuse heaped on him by
the fishermen, and then reporting to the fishermen every angry andslanderous word expressed toward them by the magistrate. The
result was that the gulf between the two sides only grew wider anddeeper, till any resolution became impossible.
Scolded by the magistrate for his simple-minded honesty, theMaster lamented, “A man has to be honest. Fortunately, I was able
to avoid distorting the truth about this. Today’s world is degenerate,with people morally superficial and shallow-minded, so that those
who lie to others are hailed as clever. A rootless world, alas, withnothing one can count on!”And fleeing straight to Kōshōji, he became a monk.

When the Master was training to be village headman, the shogunal
magistrate for Sado was preparing to set sail for the island from
Izumozaki. However, such was the length of the handles on themagistrate’s palanquin that it could not be accommodated on any
local boat, and the Izumozaki boatmen were at their wit’s end.[54]Seeing this, the Master suggested, “You’d better shorten thosehandles,” whereupon the boatmen proceeded to cut away thehandles of the palanquin.
When he saw what was happening, however, the magistrate was
furious, and this caused a breach between the magistrate and theheadman. It was this that led directly to the Master becoming amonk.

In the seventh year of the Kansei era (1795), when the Master was
thirty-seven, his father, Yamamoto I’nan, committed suicide,drowning himself in Kyoto’s Katsura River. At that time, I’nan
entrusted to a friend a bundle, with the instructions, “After my death,a monk named Ryōkan is sure to come from western Japan asking
about me. Please give him this.” And so saying, he plunged into the
Katsura River.
Afterward, the Master was visiting Kyoto and was given thispackage as a remembrance of his father. In it, he found a haiku
inscribed on half a sheet of Chinese drawing paper:
The silk tree’s flower[55]sunk one step lower
In the morning mist.

With this was another haiku composed on a small vertical poem
card (tanzaku):
The evening frost
will be goneEven before the ivy’s crimson flowers.

Reading these two haiku, the Master grieved over his father’s
death, adding a waka in small characters at the margin of the firstpoem:
The brush’s traces
grow hazy through my tears
As I think backover things of long ago.

The Master then proceeded to Mount Koya in order to performthe funeral service for I’nan and from there made a pilgrimage to theIse Shrine.[56] Throughout his life, it is said, the Master always kept
these memorabilia of his father.

An old man has passed down the following account, which dates
from the final year of the Kansei era (1801):
A short distance from Teradomari lies the village of Gōmoto.[57]Formerly there lived in this village a beggar monk, lodged in a thatch
hut. It is not known when this mysterious monk arrived there or from
where he came. His possessions consisted of a bedraggled robeand straw hat, along with a monk’s begging bowl and staff. On rainydays he would sleep, on clear days he would go out to beg, and he
was always to be seen at play with children.
The monk’s behavior was out of the ordinary, and the villagers all
wondered at him. Someone said, “Why, that looks like the son of theTachibana firm of Izumozaki, the one who became a monk!” The firm
was notified and, when the monk was pointed out, agreed that it was
the Master after all. A Tachibana representative was promptly
dispatched to welcome him back into the family, but in the blink of aneye, the monk had vanished, leaving behind only a single dented

cook pot. Seeing they were unable to dissuade the Master from his
purpose, the Tachibana [retainers] gave up and returned home.

The Master enjoyed perusing the Analects of Confucius. One day,
happening upon a portion of the text that was unclear to him, theMaster asked Suzuki Bundai. Bundai told the Master, “It must be
explained in the commentaries. Has Your Reverence read them?”
To which the Master replied, “I’ve always made it a point not toread commentaries. One can be misled reading such things andinstead end up increasing one’s doubts.”

Once, someone asked the Master, “Of all the ancients, whom did
you study the most? Priest Saigyō? Priest Kisen?”[58]The Master told him, “I don’t study the well-known works ofanyone. I try to study those works that everyone overlooks.”
The man then asked, “Nevertheless, you must have given somestudy at least to [the poetry of] Master Ikkyū.”[59]“Yes,” the Master replied, “that’s true.”“Well,” the questioner persisted, “which aspects [of Ikkyū’s
works]?”“This,” said the Master, drawing from the pocket of his robe acopy of the Confucian Analects.

Among the three things Master Ryōkan liked best were children,
boys and girls; playing ball; and shooting marbles.
Children he liked because in their innocence they did not lie.
When people would beg the Master for samples of his calligraphy, he
was extremely reluctant. But when it came to children, if one would

bring him a ball or a piece of shell used as a marble, the Masterwould beam with delight and would immediately decorate these
items with his calligraphy.

From time to time Master Ryōkan would visit the entertainment
district and would join the circle of prostitutes shooting marbles,
participating freely in the fun. Learning of this, the Master’s younger
brother, Yūshi, sought to remonstrate with him by way of a waka:
While wearing a Buddhist monk’s black robes
You fritter away your days
Playing games with whores—such is your mind.
—YūshiTo which the Master wrote in reply:
Frittering away one’s days
as life transpires in this floating world
Even if I say, “Fine, who cares?”others will scold about brothel girls!
—RyōkanWholly dissatisfied with his brother’s response, Yūshi dispatcheda second poem:“Fine,” you say, “so I fritter away life in this world—whocares?”
But what sort of thought
can you be giving
To the world that’s yet to come?[60]—Yūshi

The Master replied again:Frolicking my way through life
Even in this world
What sort of thought am I to giveTo a world that’s yet to come?[61]—RyōkanMaster Ryōkan had only a single wooden bowl, which he used togrind miso and then to wash his face, hands, and feet.[62]One year, bamboo shoots sprouted under the floorboards of the
Master’s hut. The Master then tore up the floorboards to help theshoots grow. In time, the bamboo shot up and then pushed their way
through the Master’s roof. Untroubled by this, the Master simply
continued about his daily life, meditating under the bamboo.

This happened at the Seba ferry crossing in Jizōdo.[63]A notorious ferryman, an outlaw, plied his trade there. Knowing
Master Ryōkan to be gentle, meek, and inoffensive, the ferryman
took him aboard. But once he had left the shore behind, the ferryman
deliberately rocked the boat, tumbling the Master into the water.
Then, seeing the Master on the verge of drowning, the boatman
became alarmed and rushed to his aid, plucking him from the water.
Thereupon, the Master, believing the boatman had saved his life,
thanked him profusely for his act of selfless kindness.

[The following story was collected from Koetsu Masaharu, a modern
descendant of Koetsu Chūmin, resident in Natsudō:]
In Natsudō, in the town of Teradomari in the district of Mishima,
lived a doctor by the name of Koetsu Chūmin. Chūmin was returninghome to Natsudō one day, his medicine box in his hand, when hechanced to pass the beach at Gōmoto. For some reason, a crowd ofvillagers was setting up a great clamor, and when Chūminapproached to have a look, he found a single bedraggled monk
being buried alive in a hole.
It seems that a salt-cooking hut had burned down,[64] and there
was no doubt in the villagers’ minds that it had been burned by the
beggar monk.
“Wait, hold up!” Chūmin shouted. “Let me deal with this!”
Distributing sake and food to the villagers to mollify them, the doctor
managed to extricate the Master from the crowd and return him tohis own home.
Though he had barely escaped being buried alive, the ragged
monk seemed rather unconcerned, and Chūmin asked, “Why didn’t
you say anything?”
The Master told him calmly, “What would have been the point?
Since everyone was convinced I was responsible, what could I do
but accept the fact?”
The ragged monk was Master Ryōkan.
The Master remained at Chūmin’s home for some time, during
which Chūmin became utterly enchanted by the Master’s boundlesserudition.
Brought together by such fortuitous circumstances, the Masterstayed at the Koetsu home for nearly two years, often playing withthe doctor’s youngest son and, it is said, even teaching him to read
and write with a primer he produced himself.

Once, in a nearby farming village, a complaint was lodged with thelocal official that a sneak thief was breaking into homes in broad
daylight.[65] The villagers declared, “It must be the work of that monk
who’s been hanging around here lately,” and the official promptly
took the monk into custody for questioning. However, no matter what
the monk was asked, he would not say a single word. Finally losing
patience, the official accused the monk of the crime and ordered thevillagers to dig a hole and bury the monk alive.
Just at that moment, a wealthy farmer of the village happened tobe passing and, horrified by what was happening, took pity on themonk and told the official, “The fact that the prisoner will say nothing,even with things having gone this far, shows he is no ordinary
person. I’ve heard lately about the presence of a training monk from
Entsūji. Outwardly, it’s said, he looks just like a regular person, but in
actuality he is one who has experienced deep enlightenment.
Perhaps this is that monk.”
Thereupon the official questioned the prisoner all over again, andfor the first time the monk opened his mouth and replied that he wasindeed the Entsūji monk. He then went on to say, “Once people’s
suspicions have been aroused, however much explaining you do, inthe end, is no more than useless apologies. Knowing this, I resigned
myself to taking responsibility for this crime of some sort that no one
had actually witnessed, resolved to endure in silence, and preparedto submit to whatever torment awaited me.”Thereupon, the villagers and the official humbly apologized fortheir error and promptly released the monk, who, it is said, was noneother than Master Ryōkan.

According to the Master’s student and anthologist Henchō (1801–
1876), Dr. Koetsu Chūmin’s prized possession was a rosewood

netsuke, a toggle that he wore and that became the subject of thefollowing satirical verse:
The rare rosewood
How exquisite its color and patina.
But rather than rosewood
Better put your back into your work![66]At some time or other, Master Ryōkan had borrowed a copy of theKusha ron from Man’inji in Izumozaki.[67] After reading the work, hereturned it to the temple, along with a present of tofu as an
expression of thanks, appending the following waka:
The wild geese and ducks
have flown off and left me behindThankfully there are no feathersin the tofu!

The piece of calligraphy described below, along with the explanation
appended to the lower portion of the mounting by Ryōkan’s friend
Suzuki Bundai, still survives. It is dated the sixth year of the Kaei era(1853) and resides in the Fujisaki family collection. Bundai’s
inscription states:
Besides his erudition, Master Ryōkan excelled in the compositionof both Chinese and Japanese verse and was a matchlesscalligrapher. A collector able to obtain even a single characterbrushed by the Master on a sheet of rice paper cherished it as a
priceless treasure. As a result, dishonest dealers in calligraphy
would defraud collectors, mixing genuine articles with fakes. Having

myself been long associated with the Master, I can attest that many
people came begging him to inscribe for them even a single word.
There is a piece owned by a Mr. Tōju of the Tsubame post
station. One day, Tōju came and told me the following: “Once when
the Master came to Tsubame to beg, a young boy approached him,
holding out a piece of paper, and said, ‘Please, write something on
this paper for me!’“The Master asked, ‘What are you going to use it for?’“The boy said, ‘I want to use it to make a kite. Please write thefour characters, “High in the sky a great wind” (J. Ten jō tai fū).’“The Master complied and handed it back to the child. Lately thepiece has come into my possession, and I have had it mounted todisplay as a scroll. I would like to request that you set down [on thebottom of the scroll] an account of this.”Now, unrolling the scroll and looking it over once more, I cannot
help but be struck by the simplicity and selflessness of thebrushstrokes. I recall those years long ago when [the Master and I]
would talk and laugh and, filled with regret, take up my brush and set
down this account.
Sixth year of Kaei (1853)
Layman Bundai[68]Master Ryōkan had a high regard for farm work. “From one
seedling,” he would say, “myriad plants.” [That is,] when one riceseedling is sown, myriad plants will be produced. Such was the
Master’s view of the farmers’ hardships. He would brush pictures
depicting the farmers at work, breaking the ground for planting andbringing in the crop at harvest time. The Master would then pastethese on the walls of his hut, burning incense before them andmaking offerings of flowers.
The Master composed a waka that says:

Soon, it seems, it will be timeto transplant the rice seedlings
And in my hut
I’ll be painting pictures of the scene
And offering flowers and incense.

Master Ryōkan loved the craftsmanship of carpentry andconsequently was extremely fond of carpenters.
“In the world,” he would often remark, “there is nothing so honest
as carpentry.”
The Master’s calligraphy turns up in all sorts of places, and heseems to have inscribed in black ink the six Chinese characters forthe invocation “Namu Amida Butsu!” (Praise to the Buddha
Amitabha!) on an undistinguished paulownia box. According to acertain eminent priest, this was probably inscribed by the Master toexpress the notion that the craftsman had the same frame of mind in
fashioning the box as one has in reciting the invocation to Amida
Buddha.

The Sōtō master Dainin Rosen, like Master Ryōkan, hailed from [thetown of] Amaze in the Mishima district.[69] [Dainin,] who was abbot of
the Kyoto temple Kōshōji in Uji,[70] was Dharma heir to the Zenmaster Reitan Roryū, the twenty-third-generation abbot of Keifukuji
in Edo.
Dainin was a poetry companion of the Master, and once when
Dainin had left Edo to visit his native area, the Master happened tostop by his lodgings. However, not a single word was exchanged
between the two, who just sat together in silence for several days
writing out linked waka.[71]They say that after the Master had returned home and Dainin had
departed for Edo, the members of the household entered Dainin’squarters to sweep up and found the whole room crammed helterskelter with linked verses the friends had tossed off on pieces of
paper.

The following account is from the period when Master Ryōkan had
settled at the Otogo shrine.
One evening, a sneak thief broke into the Master’s hut. However,
he could not find a single item there worth stealing, and he wasabout to give up and return home empty-handed when the Master
called him back. Shedding the old cotton-quilted bedclothes he was
wearing, the Master sent the thief off with them. Just then, noticingthat the moon had risen over the eastern mountains, the Mastercomposed the following waka:
Left untouchedby the thief in his haste—
The moon in the window.[72]

Master Katsugen Taiki, the twenty-seventh-generation abbot ofTokushōji in the village of Yoita, revered Master Ryōkan for his highspiritual attainment and would frequently visit the Master at his
Shimazaki hermitage, receiving his instruction.
On one of these visits, Master Ryōkan said, “I’m going to gather
something we can use to make soup for lunch,” and taking a small
bucket, the Master approached a cremation ground and began togather wild celery.
Returning home, his basket brimming with wild greens, theMaster set to work using them in a miso soup, which he then offeredto Master Katsugen. Katsugen balked but, fearing to show disrespect
to a senior priest such as the Master, could barely swallow a single
bowl of the stuff. However, seeing Katsugen’s expression, and his
reluctance to down even half a bowl of the soup, Master Ryōkan
carefully questioned the Zen teacher as he pressed on him a second
helping.
“How is it that while you pronounce ‘delicious’ vegetables thathave been manured,” the Master demanded, “when it comes to wildcelery growing near a cremation ground, you find it objectionable
and claim it’s unclean?”
Master Katsugen, on hearing this, is said to have attained
enlightenment and proceeded to happily down several bowlfuls of
the soup.
This probably explains why Master Ryōkan left final instructions
asking Katsugen to officiate at his funeral service.

Even when people asked him to do so, Master Ryōkan was
extremely reluctant to provide samples of his calligraphy. Yet when
seized with enthusiasm, he would brush calligraphy with abandon.
Once, while visiting a wealthy farmer in the village of Shichi-nichi,
the Master, perhaps because the mood had struck him, immediately
borrowed brush and ink and set about inscribing a waka entitled“Iron Begging Bowl” on the sooty sliding screen in the maids’
quarters.[73] Looking over the ink marks he had just spattered on thescreen, the Master couldn’t help giving a smile of satisfaction and,without a word, promptly left and returned home.

Once Master Ryōkan stayed the night at the Satō home in the village
of Nakayama. The sliding doors had been newly repapered. Seeing
this, the Master was roused to his usual propensity, so that by firstlight he was up and covering the length and breadth of the screenswith his brushwork, after which he promptly fled.

The following is another story of an occasion on which the Master
simply could not restrain himself from brushing the calligraphy thatjust seemed to well forth from his fertile imagination.
Freely wielding his brush on thick Chinese-style paper andsliding-screen paper, the Master let his brush move as it wished,spontaneously and without constraint, drawing such large charactersthat the dripping ink marks spread beyond the paper and onto thetatami.
According to a certain person’s account, this seems to haveoccurred at the home of Mr. Yamada of Yoita, who subsequently, it issaid, had the pieces of calligraphy mounted as scrolls and kept themas treasured possessions.[74]The Niigata calligrapher Makiri Yōko returned from Edo to his native
province of Echigo at a time when his fame as a master ofbrushwork was nearly universal.[75]It happened that a certain wealthy man had commissioned Makiri
to decorate a pair of gilded folding screens with his calligraphy.
Having completed the first screen, Makiri retired to another room torest. Into the now vacant room stepped an old monk. Brandishing acalligraphy brush, the monk freely proceeded to cover the remaining
screen with characters and then departed.
When the members of the household saw what had happened,
they reported it to the owner, who, scowling, went together with
Makiri to have a look.
When Makiri examined the calligraphy, he saw that thebrushstrokes truly possessed a forcefulness and vivacity that

distinguished the work as a rare masterpiece.
Makiri exhorted the master of the house, “Let’s quickly go after
him!” and they started off in pursuit of the old monk. In the meantime,
Master Ryōkan, seeing people from the house chasing after him andhaving no idea why, abruptly seated himself on the bare ground andbegan to plead for his life, beseeching his pursuers, “For heaven’s
sake, spare me!”“You’ve got it all wrong,” they reassured him, escorting the Masterback to the house as they explained.
The proprietor treated the Master with the warmest cordiality and,joined by Makiri, expressed his heartfelt gratitude for the Master’scalligraphy on the second screen. Indeed, the full pair, with one
panel by the Master and the other by Makiri, has been preserved, aproud possession of the family.

Master Ryōkan’s brush painting could not be mistaken for that of anamateur. He is said to have received the art by studying with a monk
named Ugan, who had erected a hermitage at Tsubame.[76] Ugan
had studied the Kano school of painting, and his own artwork is said
to have displayed tolerable skill.[77]Like Ryōkan, Ugan was also a noted eccentric, as the following
story attests.
When the monk Ugan was serving as abbot of Mannōji in
Tsubame, an old cherry tree stood in the temple garden. One spring,
Ugan was gazing up at the tree’s blossoms, beneath which he hadpropped the handle of the broom he used to sweep the garden. Just
then a traveling monk arrived and said to Ugan, “I have come from
Saga in Hizen, and our town’s temple, Kōdenji, has no abbot.[78]Since Your Reverence has some lineage connection with the temple,
we all discussed the matter and I have come to invite you to assume
the abbacy.”Ugan replied, “As a Buddhist monk, I have no fixed abode, so I’ll
be glad to go. I’ll be leaving later, so you go on ahead.”
It wasn’t long, however, before Ugan had utterly forgotten his
promise.
During cherry blossom season the following year, as Ugan gazedonce again at the flowering trees, he suddenly remembered thepromise he had given the year before. And so, equipping himself fortravel, he hastily set off for Kōdenji in Saga, only to find when hearrived that another abbot had already been installed. He casuallydeparted, making a pilgrimage through various provinces and thenreturning to Echigo, where he is said to have lived in retreat at
Tanomo-an in Niida village.

One day before Master Ryōkan’s death, he inscribed a waka on
various sheets of paper, which he cut into small pieces anddistributed among his friends and acquaintances. The poem said:
What keepsake have I to leave?
In spring, the cherry blossoms
In summer, the warbler’s song
In autumn, the maple’s crimson foliage.[79]

Master Ryōkan’s funeral service was attended by a large number ofmourners. Apart from Master Katsugen, who officiated at the service,
there were some 80 monks from fifteen Buddhist temples whochanted sutras, as well as 295 ordinary mourners. According totraditions preserved within the Kimura family, who hosted the event,the funeral procession was so long that even once the officiating
priest had reached the cremation ground, Master Ryōkan’s coffin
had still not cleared the door of the Kimura home! The distance fromthe Kimura residence to the cremation grounds was approximately
three chō.[80]ABBREVIATIONSBGD Nakamura Hajime, ed. Bukkyōgo daijiten. 3 vols. Tokyo:
Tokyo Shoseki, 1976.
BJ

Ui Hakuju, ed. Bukkyō jiten. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha,
1978.

BZ

Haskel, Peter. Bankei Zen. New York: Grove Atlantic, 1984.

BZZ

Akao Ryūji, ed. Bankei zenji zenshū. Tokyo: Daizōshuppan,
1970.

DNBZ Suzuki Gakujutsu Zaidan, ed. Dai Nihon bukkyō zensho. 94
vols. Tokyo: Kōdansha Hatsubai, 1970–73.
GF

Abe Ryuichi and Peter Haskel. Great Fool: Zen Master
Ryōkan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.

HKD

Mangen Shipan. Honchō kōsōden (v. 63 of DNBZ).

HMI

Nōnin Keidō, ed. Hakuin monka itsuwasen. Kyoto: Zen
Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2000.

HON Katō Shōshun, ed. Hakuin oshō nenpu. Kyoto: Shibunkaku,
1985.
HOZ

Goto Mitsumura, ed. Hakuin oshō zenshū. 8 vols. Tokyo:
Tokyo Ryūginsha, 1967.

HZHZ Yoshizawa Katsūhiro, ed. Hakuin zenji hōgo zenshū. 15
vols. Kyoto: Zen Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1999–2003.
LG

Haskel, Peter. Letting Go: The Story of Zen Master Tōsui.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.

ROI

Nōnin Keidō, ed. Ryōkan oshō itsuwasen. Kyoto: Zen Bunka
Kenkyūjo, 1999.

RZ

Tōgō Toyoharu, ed. Ryōkan zenshū. 2 vols. Tokyo:
Sōgensha, 1959.

SOI

Nōnin Keidō, ed. Sengai oshō itsuwasen. Kyoto: Zen Bunka
Kenkyūjo, 1999.

T

Takakusu Junjirō et al., eds. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō. 100
vols. Tokyo: Taishō Issaikyō Kankokai, 1924–34.

TOG

Nōnin Keidō, ed. Taigu oshō goroku, shūi, gyōjitsu. Kyoto:
Zen Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1999.

TOZ

Takuan Oshō zenshū kankokai, ed. Takuan oshō zenshū. 6vols. Tokyo: Zen Culture Research Institute, 1928–30.

ZD

Miura Isshū and Ruth F. Sasaki. Zen Dust. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966.

ZS

Hori, Victor. Zen Sand. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2003.

ZZ

Dai Nihon zoku zōkyō. 150 vols. Kyoto: Zōkyō Shoin, 1905–
12.

ZB

Zen bunka magazine

NOTESINTRODUCTION
1. The story can be found in the Jingde Era Transmission of theLamp (Jingde chuandeng lu, see below), T 51:219b. An earlier
version appears in the late-eighth-century Record of the Jewel ofDharma through the Ages (Lidai fabaoji, T 51:181a), an early
Chan text discovered among the many documents at Dunhuang,a network of fourth- to fourteenth-century cave temples in thewestern Chinese province of Gansu, on what was originally the
Silk Road connecting medieval China and the West.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1

2. T 48:348a. That is, hulling rice with a heavy foot-operated pestle(tatui). The expatriate Japanese Zen master Sokei-an (Sasaki
Shigetsu, 1882–1945) gives a notional description of Huineng
working the device: “The mortar was a very big stone, and thepestle was made of heavy wood with a very long shaft. Twocrosspieces were balanced with stones, and when you stepped
down the stone crashed down. The Sixth Patriarch was treadingon this shaft every day. As he was a small man, his weight was
not enough to press the pestle down, so he carried a large stonearound his waist.” See Sokei-an’s commentary to the sutra in
Original Wisdom: Zen Comments on the Sixth Patriarch’s
Platform Sutra (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2010), 17–18.
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3. Again, the account regarding the hunters appears not in the
Dunhuang version but in the 1291 “Yuan,” or “Ming,” text, T
48:349c.
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4. The work survives in a Korean edition published in 1245 anddiscovered in a Korean temple in the 1930s. There is noevidence that the text was ever printed in China, where it
apparently went for the most part unread. Zutang ji has been
extensively studied by modern Japanese scholars, and a
facsimile of the Korean text was published by Hanazono
University in Kyoto in 1960. Some Japanese scholars havetheorized that despite its given date, Zutang ji is actually acreation of the same period of the Song that produced the early“lamp” histories. ZD, 369.
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5. ZD, 359.
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6. The first edition of the Jingde Era Transmission of the Lamp
(Jingde chuandeng lu), published in 1011, no longer exists.
References are to the second edition, published in 1132 (T 51,
no. 2076). As Thomas Y. Kirchner observes, the work constituted
a major source for Zen koan. See Ruth F. Sasaki and Thomas Y.
Kirchner, The Record of Linji (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 2009), 393. The Extensive Tiensheng Era Transmissionof the Lamp (Tiensheng guangdeng lu) is the Taiwan edition of
the Japanese Zoku zokyo?, 78, no. 1553. Altogether, the last
three of the five “lamp” collections were issued in 1101, 1183,
and 1202, respectively.
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7. Iriya Yoshitaka, Baso no goroku (Kyoto: Zen Bunka Kenkyu?jo,1985), iii.
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8. Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political
Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 188–90.
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9. The term yu lu seems fairly elastic and, in the view of somescholars, describes many varieties of Chan literature, including
the “lamp” histories and the dialogues with which they areassociated. Albert Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan
Orthodoxy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 46.
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10. T 47:504b. Translated in Sasaki and Kirchner, Record of Linji,
311. The Sasaki and Kirchner version is based on the standard
1120 printing of the text, the Zhenjou Linji huizhao chanshi yu lu(T 47, no. 1985). The evolution of the Linji text is well covered in
Welter’s Linji lu, which traces the work’s development over time
toward the brusque, often shocking words and behavior withwhich we are familiar from the 1120 version.
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11. John R. McRae, Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation,
and Geneology in Chinese Chan Buddhism (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 2003), 67.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11

12. Iriya, Baso no goroku, iii.
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13. Welter, Linji lu, 149. In his earlier Monks, Rulers, and Literati,
Welter examines the means by which this new Chan and its texts
formed part of an “imagined tradition” adapted to the tastes andpreferences of the Song court and bureaucracy. Welter, Monk,
Rulers, 77–102, 125–26, 171–80. See also Wendi Adamek, “The
Lidai fabaoji [Record of the Jewel through the Ages],” in The Zen
Canon: Understanding the Classic Texts, ed. Steven Heine andDale S. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 83,
86–87, 96–98. For a dissenting view, see Mario Poceski, The
Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature(New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Poceski calls for amore balanced picture of Mazu and his descendants, one thatcredits the very real importance of Tang Chan, even while
acknowledging the effects of reinterpretations during thesubsequent Five Dynasties and Song periods. See, for example,
Poceski, Records of Mazu, 30–37, 138–41. That is, while
rejecting the traditional or sectarian approaches that accept all
Chan materials at face value, Poceski cautions equally against
distortions arising from the “overly aggressive debunking,deconstructive applied analysis, unnecessary obfuscation, or
overinterpretation” that are unquestioningly applied in somerecent academic works on Chan history (36). Poceski thus
presents his book on Mazu and Chan as a corrective of sorts,
while concurring that there is absolutely no evidence in Tang
records of the distinctive iconoclasm of the Chan encounter
dialogues of the sort identified with Mazu and his followers. Seechart in Poceski, 155, and accompanying remarks.
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14. Welter, Linji lu, 107, 163.
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15. Ishii Shu?do?, a Japanese authority on Song Zen, statescategorically that the koan method is a Song invention,“systematized” in the early twelfth century by Dahui Zonggao(see below). “Koan Zen is not a method that dates from the early
period of Chan development,” he writes. “There is no evidence atall of its existence during the Tang dynasty.” “Kung-an Ch’an andthe Tsung-men t’ung-yao chi,” trans. Albert Welter, in The Koan,
ed. Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 111. For more on this subject, see Albert
Welter, “Mahakashyapa’s Smile: Silent Transmission and theKung-an (Koan) tradition,” in The Koan, ed. Steven Heine andDale S. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 75–
109; and T. Griffith Foulk, “Form and Function in Koan
Literature,” in The Koan, ed. Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 15–45; as well as
McRae, Seeing through Zen, 123–32.
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16. Hsialu from the Blue Cliff Record (T 48), cases 79 (305a), 36(174), and 21 (161a), respectively.
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17. Another koan favored by Dahui in his letters to students, orDahui shu, an important source for the master’s teaching, is thetwenty-first case of Wumen guan, “Yunmen’s ‘Piece of Dried Shit
(Yunmen ganshijue)’ ”: “A monk asked Yunmen, ‘What is the
Buddha?’ Yunmen said, ‘A piece of dried shit.’ ” T 48:296c. The
expression, which also appears in the Linji lu (T 47:496c), hasbeen variously interpreted to mean “a piece of shit,” “a shitwiping stick”—a bamboo device used for wiping up after using
the monastery latrine—a worthless blockhead, filth, etc. See
Yanagida Seizan, Rinzai roku (Tokyo: Daizō Shuppansha, 1973),

52; and Sasaki and Kirchner, Record of Linji, 131; as well as
Dahui’s “Reply to Minister Lu,” Dahui shu, T 47:930b. Yunmenrefers to the Chan master Yunmen Wenyan (864–949). Well into
the early twentieth century, poor farmers in the southern UnitedStates would employ “shit-wiping sticks” in their outhouses.
Hence the ironic American expression, “Getting left with thebrown end of the stick.”
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18. T 48:292c. Zhaozhou is the Chan master Zhaozhou Congshen(778–897).
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19. Jeffery R. Broughton, The Chan Whip Anthology (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2015), 129–37, has given huatou theintriguing translation “cue,” as in “to cue up” the koan to one’s
attention, “to pull the cue [into full conscious awareness].”
Broughton, Chan Whip Anthology, 136. The term is rendered as“crucial phrase” in Welter’s translation of Ishii, “Kung-an Ch’an,”
111, while Morten Schlutter, in How Zen Became Zen (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2008), defines huatou as the koan’s“crucial punch line” (107, 115). Because of Dahui’s technique of
total engagement with the huatou, Schlutter maintains that Dahui“invented a whole new kind of Chan,” but he cautions that Dahuihimself never claimed his approach to be new. How Zen Became
Zen, 116–17, 215n27. It should be noted that in other contexts,
Chinese and Japanese, huatou is used simply as a synonym for“koan.”BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19

20. “Reply to Palace Chamberlin Lu,” Dahui shu, T 47:930a.
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21. For Dahui’s conception of relentless, wholehearted practice as
the “short-cut” (jing jie) to enlightenment, see Robert E. Buswell
Jr., “The Short-Cut Approach of K’an-hua Meditation: The
Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese Ch’an Buddhism,” in
Sudden and Gradual Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese
Thought, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1987), 348–55.
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22. Iriya, Baso no goroku, ii.
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23. Unlike the Japanese Confucian model of the Edo period, where
the military caste composed a hereditary elite, classical Chinese
Confucianism saw warriors as the lowest stratum of society.
Government, ideally, and in premodern China often in practice,
was to be headed by bureaucrat-intellectuals chosen incompetitive examination for their cultivation in poetry and theConfucian classics. Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese
Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),
144–48.
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24. Keiso? dokuzui, HOZ 2:9–10.
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25. See, for example, the criticism by the Confucian Kumazawa
Banzan (1609–1691) in his Usa mondo?, where he repeatedlyattacks Buddhism for devastating the nation’s agriculture bydrawing money and labor from the farmers and consuming
arable land for temple construction, all to support a corrupt andexploitative priesthood. Atsuo, Banzan zenshu? (Tokyo: MeichoShuppan, 1940), 5:293–94, 320–21; and Shu?gi gaisho, Banzanzenshu? (Tokyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1940), 2:39–40, 52, 237, 293.
For an extended treatment of the anti-Buddhist debate during the
Tokugawa period, see Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bukkyоshi, 7th ed.
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1992), 10: 1–403.
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26. Both teachers are descended from the Linji line of Yuanwu
Kechin (1063–1135), the celebrated author of the lectures thatformed the basis for the Blue Cliff Record. Dahui was an heir ofYuanwu, and Xutang, a member of a branch of Yuanwu’s
Dharma line established by the Zen master Mian Xianjie (1118–
1186). Because the pioneering Japanese Zen teacher Nanpo
Jo?myo? (Daio? kokushi, 1235–1308) was among Xutang’s
heirs, it is this Yuanwu Mian branch from which virtually all
Japanese Rinzai masters of the Edo period, including Hakuin,
trace their descent.
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27. Phillip B. Yampolsky, The Zen Master Hakuin (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1972), 27.
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28. The wrinkled crone Obaba, or as Hakuin at times refers to her,Shushin Obaba, “Mastering-Mind Grandma.”
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29. Ikkyu? as a quick-witted child novice was even the subject of a
popular children’s cartoon series, Ikkyu? san, in which Ikkyu?
uses his Zen-inspired intuition to solve problems for people at alllevels of medieval Japanese society, from shogunal retainers tofarmers and merchants. The series ran on Japanese televisionfrom 1975 to 1982.
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30. Hakuin’s most detailed account of the story appears in his
autobiographical Wild Ivy (Itsumadegusa); see Norman Waddell,trans., Wild Ivy (Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 1999), 89–
112; HZHZ 3:17. The Hakuyu?shi story is also recounted in other
Hakuin works, including Oradegama, HZHZ 3:220–30, and To?
rei’s Nenpu. Norman Waddell, Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave
(Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009), 177–79; HON, 121–22. In
Hakuin’s accounts, he refers to Hakuyu?shi’s techniques by theterm naikan, “inner contemplation.”
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31. See Waddell, Wild Ivy, 152–54, and Hakuin’s Precious Mirror
Cave, 86–87. The facts regarding Hakuyu?shi have been
established by the Japanese Zen scholar Ito? Kazuo. Although
an initial article on the subject by Ito? (“Hakuyu?shi no hito toshi,” ZB, no. 6 [November 1956]: 48–68) claimed to confirm thetruth of Hakuin’s account, later detailed research by Ito? seems
to have credibly debunked Hakuin’s story of meeting Hakuyu?shi
in Shirakawa. Ito?’s later arguments are contained in Hakuyu?
shi: Shijitsu no shintankyu? (Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten, 1960).
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32. The episode is recorded in Oradegama, HZHZ 9:427;
Yaemugura, HZHZ 7:153; and Itsumadegusa, HZHZ 3:172.
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33. Nenpu, HON, 92–96. Oradegama, HZHZ 9:428–29.
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34. Mu’nan did not become a monk till 1654, following years ofgrueling koan study as a layman under Gudo? To?shoku, whose
Dharma heir he became. Mu’nan spent nearly his entire teachingcareer in a small hermitage in the Azabu section of Edo, and his
instruction seems to have been directed largely to the local men
and women who made up much of his following. The chiefsource for Mu’nan’s life is Shido? Mu’nan zenji gyo?roku by
Hakuin’s heir To?rei Enji. Koda Rentaro?, ed., Shido? Mu’nanzenji shu? (Tokyo: Shunju?sha, 1956), 195–206. For Mu’nan’slife and teaching, see also Furuta Sho?kin, Gudо, Mu’nan, Shоju(Tokyo: Ko?dansha, 1944), 67–177; Furuta’s article “Mu’nan no
anshu? zen,” ZB 77 (June 1975): 58–64; and in the samecommemorative issue of ZB, Ōmori So?gen, “Shido? Mu’nan nozen,” 38–45; and Ho?seki Genjo?, “Shido? Mu’nan,” 48–53. For
English translations of Mu’nan’s principal vernacular works, see
Kobori So?haku and Norman Waddell, “Sokushinki,” Eastern
Buddhist 3, no. 2 (October 1970): 89–118; and Eastern Buddhist
4, no. 1 (May 1971): 116–23; and Priscilla Pedersen, “Jisho?ki,”
Eastern Buddhist 8, no. 1 (May 1975): 96–132; and Eduardo
Cuellar, “Tokugawa Zen Master Shido? Mu’nan” (master’s thesis,
University of Arizona, 2016), which includes translations from
Mu’nan’s 1666 work Ryu?takuji ho?go, 28–31. The original textof the ho?go is contained in Ichihara Toyoto, ed., Nihon no zen
goroku: Mu’nan (Tokyo: Ko?dansha, 1979).
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35. Hakuin proclaims his descent in this line in Kaien fusetsu; see
Waddell, Essential Teachings of the Zen Master Hakuin: A
Translation of the Kaien Fusetsu (Boulder: Shambhala
Publications, 1994), 15; HOZ 2:11 (internal numbering).
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36. Waddell, Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave, 194; Nenpu, HON, 160.
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37. See, for example, Hakuin’s statement in Sokko? roku kaien
fusetsu (1743) that he is only continuing Sho?ju’s efforts toward
reviving authentic Song koan study as embodied by Xutang(Sokko?), whose record is the ostensible subject of the lecturesthat constitute the work. HOZ 2:75. The only written evidence
that Hakuin received Sho?ju’s inka is a memorial inscription of1782 erected by Hakuin’s heir To?rei at Sho?ju’s temple, Sho?juan. To?rei’s inscription states that “My late teacher [i.e., Hakuin]
received the master’s [Sho?ju’s] sanction of attainment [sho?in].”Hanazono Daigaku Hakubutsukan, Hakuin zenji nihyaku gojunen
onkinen (Kyoto: Hanazono Daigaku Rekishi, 2017), 137. See
also Audrey Seo and Stephan Addiss, The Sound of One Hand:
Paintings and Calligraphy of Zen Master Hakuin (Boulder:
Shambhala Publications, 2010), 25.
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38. As indicated by a handwritten memo dated 1788 that survives at
the master’s Kyushu temple. Sengai osho? (Fukuoka: Sho?fukuji
Bunko Kanko?kai, 1963), 13.
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TAIGU TALES
1. Honcho? koso?den, DNBZ 63:273. Following his independentenlightenment in 1631, Ungo is said to have lived a largely
humble and reclusive existence till urged by Taigu in 1636 toassume abbacy of Zuiganji in northern Matsushima (Miyagi
Prefecture), the domain of the powerful daimyo Date Masamune(1567–1636), who died later that year. Ungo served two terms as

Myo?shinji abbot, in 1620 and 1645, but by his death in 1659 he
had retreated to a secluded hermitage in Sendai (Miyagi
Prefecture). Ungo’s Zen involved koan study and, at least inteaching laypersons, a melding of Zen and Pure Land elements.
Ungo’s long religious poem O?jo?yo?ka (Song of the essentials
of rebirth in the Pure Land), composed in 1649 for Masamune’s
widow Yo?toku-in (d. 1653), is said to have sparked objections
among certain Myo?shinji priests for its Zen–Pure Landsynthesis. Amakuki Setsu’nan, Myоshinji roppyakunenshi(Tokyo: Daiho?ekyoku, 1930), 388. The poem is included in No?
nin Keido?, ed., Ungo osho? goroku (Matsushima: Zuiganji,2009), 641–47.
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2. See No?nin’s remarks in “Angya,” Ungo osho? goroku, 136.
Information here is based principally on No?nin’s Taigu osho?
goroku (Kyoto: Zen Bunka Kenkyu?jo, 2012); his four-part article
in ZB, “Edo zenki no san daizensho,” pts. 1–4, no. 225 (2012):
25–28; no. 226 (2012): 132–37; no. 229 (2013): 136–41; 230(2013), 70–72; the biography in HKD 63:276; and Matsukura
Zentei, “Taigu So?chiku zenji no gyo?jo?,” Zengaku kenkyu? 52(1963): 40–82.
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3. The 1768 Nansenji manuscript’s full title is Taigu osho? gyo?jitsu
narabi ni toteiki (Master Taigu’s Complete Biographical Recordand Dharma Heirs).
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4. That is, the Battle of Sekigahara (in present-day Gifu
Prefecture), the key battle in which Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated
his rivals, leading to the establishment of the Tokugawa

shogunate. The chronology of Gudo? To?shoku (Gudo? nenpu)
describes how he and Taigu wandered together through theravaged area of the battle, carrying their books on their backs as
they picked their way through the corpse-strewn fields. Quoted in
TOG, 189n1.
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5. It was customary for Buddhist monks to carry their written
religious materials in a kind of portable library on a wooden
frame that could be hoisted backpack-style.
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6. Missing from the account is any overt mention of anenlightenment experience resulting from Taigu’s years ofpilgrimage and Zen study. But reading between the lines, one
may probably assume that such a realization is implied in Taigu’s
sanction by Chimon and his subsequent recognition as a Zen
master in his own right, able to assume the abbacy of temples
and to train and sanction students of his own.
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7. Now Nara Prefecture. Yoshino and its picturesque andmountainous landscape was often the site of retreats for recluse
Buddhist monks and followers of the syncretic Esoteric Buddhist
and Shinto cult known as Shu?gendo?.
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8. A ri (Ch. li) is an old unit of linear measurement, equivalent toapproximately 2.44 miles. Myo?kan has thus traveled aconsiderable distance—nearly 250 miles—presumably on foot,to meet Taigu.
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9. Sai. Vegetarian meals traditionally provided to Buddhist monks
by lay patrons as an act of merit.
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10. “Bowing mat,” zagu. The mat a monk always carries neatly
folded and which he spreads on the ground to perform
prostrations before Buddhist images or eminent masters.
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11. As noted earlier, in Zen and, in particular, koan study, a strong
sensation of “doubt,” or gi, sometimes also referred to as the“great ball of doubt” (daigidan)—a kind of single-minded
questioning—is often considered necessary to the experience of
awakening.
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12. J. kibetsu. An old Chinese expression of disdain. A tortoise is, ofcourse, a land turtle, and a terrapin is an aquatic turtle.
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13. “All the buddhas of the three worlds,” sanzen shobutsu. That is,
all the myriad enlightened beings of the past, present, andfuture.
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14. Like many Japanese Zen poems, Taigu’s various gatha,
composed in classical Chinese, are often a pastiche of poems bya variety of earlier Chinese Zen monks and poets. For Taigu’s
particular sources in this gatha, see TOG, 56nn2–3. Such“borrowings” were not intended or regarded as plagiarism but
rather sincere tribute to one’s forebears.
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15. Horie Yamashiro Tadaharu (n.d.), a daimyo of the Matsue
domain (present-day Shimane Prefecture). Daimyo in the
Tokugawa period were required to keep often elaborate
residences in the Tokugawa capital, Edo, where they would
spend part of the year “in attendance” on the shogun, leaving
behind their families in the capital as a kind of assurance of theirfealty when they returned to their provincial domains.
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16. Kitayama (literally, “north mountain”) generally refers to anorthern district of Kyoto. No?nin links the horse driver’s verse toa phrase in case 19 of the thirteenth-century koan collection
Wumenguan (T 48:295b.):
In spring, the myriad flowers
In autumn, the moon
In summer, refreshing breezes
In winter, snow
If the mind is not tied up in useless matters
It’s always a fine time to be alive!

Nоnin Keidо, “Edo zenki no daizensho,” pt. 3, ZB 229 (2013):
141.
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17. Tenkai (1536–1643), a Buddhist priest who was an important
advisor on religious affairs to the early Tokugawa shoguns. He
had also been instrumental in engineering Takuan So?ho?’srecall from exile in 1632, on the occasion of the death of thesecond Tokugawa shogun, Hidetada. Memorials of the passingof a shogun were often the occasion for pardons to be issued by
the authorities, attesting to the magnanimity of the deceased andaugmenting his merit in the afterlife. The text of Tenkai’s letter isincluded in Kawakami Kozan’s history of the temple, Myo?shinjishi (Kyoto: Myoshinjiha kyomu honjo, 1917), 2:432–33.
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18. Actually, Matsudaira Mitsumichi (1636–1674). Mitsumichi had
succeeded to the Fukui domain as ruler of Echizen in 1645 at
age nine. He was thus only twenty years old on meeting Taigu
for the first time and had only been daimyo of the Fukui domain
for eleven years, during the majority of which, due to his extreme
youth, affairs must have been managed largely by the domain’s
senior retainers. TOG, 33n4.
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19. Udumbara (J. udonge), an Indian flower said to blossom only
once in three thousand years. A metaphor for the rarity of abuddha’s appearance in the human world and, by extension, thedifficulty of encountering an enlightened teacher.
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20. Quoting a famous passage in the Record of Linji. When Linji wasplanting pines, Huangbo asked, “What are you doing planting allthese deep in the mountains?” Linji said, “First, to make asuitable setting for the temple gate. Second, to make a model for
those who will come later.” T 47:505a. Huangbo is Linji’s teacher,
Huangbo Xiun (d. 850?). Translation based in part on Sasaki andKirchener, Record of Linji, 317.
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21. Case 65 of the Blue Cliff Record (Piyan lu). A heretic,
approaching the Buddha with a sparrow concealed in his fist,
asked, “Please tell me: Is this sparrow in my fist dead or alive?”

The Buddha mounted the threshold of the temple gate andasked the heretic, “Tell me, am I going out or coming in?”
Unable to reply, the heretic prostrated himself before theBuddha.
The actual origin of the story is unknown. T48:149c–150a.
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22. Referring to a phrase in case 5 of the Blue Cliff Record: “Forsuch a person, one who has attained solid faith [in mind], who
can grasp things and not accept the delusions of others, thewords and teachings of the buddhas and patriarchs are justmeaningless sounds.” T 48:166c. The expression translated
here as “meaningless sounds” (J. netsuwan myosho?) refers
literally to the sizzle of boiling liquid being poured into a bowl but
in colloquial Chinese signified “meaningless” or “senseless.”
BGD 2:1078b.
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23. Kobyo? (sesame buns), according to No?nin, is an ornate way ofreferring to a simple wheat roll. Such rolls, sprinkled with sesame
seeds, were said to have originated in India and were producedin China, where they are referred to most notably by Yunmen
Wenyan (864–949) in the Blue Cliff Record, case 77. T 48:204b–
205a. In the koan, a monk asks, “What is it that transcends
buddhas and patriarchs?” To which Yunmen replies, “A sesamebun.” Urs App, in Master Yunmen (New York: Kodansha
International, 1994), translates this as “sesame flatcake” andnotes that the bun in case 77 refers to “a baked flatcake four to
six inches in diameter, made from wheat flour dough, baked
plastered against the inner side of an earthen oven, andsprinkled with sesame seeds.” App observes that “this is one of
the most celebrated instances in Chan literature of presentingeveryday reality as the highest doctrine” (114n2). In theJapanese context, along with the allusions to the Blue Cliff
Record, it may simply constitute a literary way of referring to an
ordinary bun with sesame seeds.
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24. Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–1651), the third Tokugawa shogun.
Iemiitsu was a great patron of Buddhism and of various Zen
teachers, of whom perhaps the most notable was Takuan So?
ho?. And Rinshо-in is the posthumous Buddhist name of Kasugano Tsubone (1579–1643). At a future shogun’s birth, a wet nurse
would frequently be chosen from among the daughters of theTokugawa’s leading vassals. Kasuga no Tsubone was creditedwith promoting Iemitsu’s fortunes over those of his siblings, andshe was always treated with great reverence by Iemitsu following
his succession to the shogunate. The name Kasuga no Tsubone
is a court title bestowed upon Rissho?-in in 1629 by Emperor
Gomizuno’o (1596–1680), no doubt at Iemitsu’s urging. The year
1629 was also the time of the still-influential Gomuzuno’o’s
abdication—at the insistence of Iemitsu’s father, Shogun
Hidetada—and it is unclear whether the title was bestowed on
Rissho?-in prior to or after this event.
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25. Hinju shoken. “Host” and “guest” are common terms in Zen,
used by teachers such as Linji Yixuan to distinguish subject andobject.
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26. Again, Taigu implies that wherever he is, he remains true tohimself, so that Iemitsu—known for his touchiness and quicktemper—would probably find Taigu’s behavior insupportable andmight even order him executed for lacking suitable respect for
the nation’s ruler.
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27. According to tradition, twenty-four lines of Zen were introduced
to Japan from China during the Middle Ages.
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28. The Zuio?san Ryu?sho?ji, a temple founded by Nanpo Jo?myo?
(1235–1308), the master of Kanzan’s teacher Shu?ho? Myo?
cho? (1282–1337) and thus the progenitor of Kanzan’s line. The
two Chinese characters of Ryu?sho? mean literally “dragonsoaring aloft.” The temple was erected at the western edge of
Kyoto as Nanpo’s mortuary temple but was moved within the
Daitokuji precincts in the sixteenth century. See ZD, 206.
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29. Sho?bo?zan. The “mountain,” or formal, name of Myo?shinji.
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30. A reference to Myo?shinji’s founder, Kanzan, with whose
reputedly crusty behavior Taigu seems to have empathized.
According to Sho?bo?zan rokuso den, “Kanzan’s abbot’s
quarters were in extreme disrepair. The roof leaked, and when it
rained there was nowhere to sit. One day, it suddenly began topour, and the teacher [i.e., Kanzan] ordered, ‘Someone bringsomething to fix the leak.’ A young acolyte quickly came with a[loosely] woven bamboo basket, and the teacher praised him
extravagantly. Another acolyte then arrived with a wooden tub.
Enraged, the teacher exclaimed, ‘You shilly-shallying dolt!’ andstruck him and chased him from the room.” A related story in the
text records that “a certain Takanashi of Shinano Province [now

Nagano Prefecture], a patron of the teacher’s [Kanzan’s] lineage,
visited the temple to pay his respects to the abbot. But seeing
the rain leaking into the abbot’s quarters, he withdrew and told
the teacher’s attendant monk, ‘The roof of the abbot’s quarters isleaking. Why hasn’t it been repaired? I hope you will permit me
to donate whatever trifling costs may be incurred for the
purpose.’ The attendant monk reported this to the teacher, who
furiously exclaimed, ‘That layman! He says he wants to see me
and then asks what’s going to be done about repairing my roof.
Don’t let him in here again!’ ” Quoted in TOG, 90n4. Composedby the Myo?shinji master To?yo? Eicho? (1438–1504), Sho?bo?
zan rokuso den (Biographies of the Six Patriarchs of Myo?shinji)
consists of biographies of six leading Myo?shinji Zen masters ofthe medieval period. For a modern edition, see Ogisu Jundo?,
Sho?bo?zan rokusoden kunchu? (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1979).
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31. The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, is said to have died at age
eighty. No?nin suggests the monk here is castigating Taigu foroverstaying his time. TOG, 218n13.
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32. Apparently the Echizen daimyo Minamoto Mitsumichi, referred toearlier.
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33. Because of its importance in Zen, the Blue Cliff Record is often
accorded the accolade employed here by Mitsumichi,“preeminent text of the [Zen] school” (Shu?mon dai ichi no sho).
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34. J. kakunen musho?. The title of the first case of the Blue Cliff
Record, “Bodhidharma’s ‘Empty and Boundless, Nothing Holy.’ ”
Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma, “What is the ultimate
meaning of sacred truth?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty andboundless, nothing holy.” T 48:140a. The Liang dynasty in South
China extended from 502 to 557, and Emperor Wu, the dynasty’s
founder, is said to have reigned from 502 to 549.
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35. Ho?myo?. A Buddhist name bestowed by a teacher on a priest
or dedicated lay student.
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36. Bankyu? MuMu Koji. The curious religious name that Taigu
assigns the daimyo is perhaps an ironic reference to the samecase (case 1) of the Blue Cliff Record that the master cites in theprevious section, “Bodhidharma’s ‘Empty and Boundless,
Nothing Holy.” In the course of his interview with Bodhidharma,
Emperor Wu is said to have asked what merit he, as emperor,
has accrued through his many virtuous activities in support of
Buddhism, to which Bodhidharma replies, “No merit at all!”(pingwu gongde). Jingde chuan deng lu, T 51:219a. The samephrase appears in an earlier version of the story in the eighthcentury Lidai fabaoji, T 51:180c.
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37. That is, the spirit of the daimyo’s late sister would be delighted athaving a revered Buddhist master installed in her retreat.
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38. Sho?unji is a now-defunct temple in Echizen Province, presentday Fukui Prefecture.

BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 38

39. In Zen texts, “setting off on pilgrimage” (J. angya) is often
employed as a euphemism for dying.
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40. Japanese of the premodern period observed the lunar calendar.
The seventh month of autumn was approximately equivalent tolate August by modern Western reckoning.
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41. Hunlun shan (J. konron). A mountain range in western China,
used in Zen literature to symbolize a state of complete
nondistinction, or primordial chaos. See Inagaki Hisao, Glossaryof Zen Terms (Kyoto: Nagata Bunshōdō, 1991), 207.
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42. Funi no ho?mon. The Buddhist principle of the oneness of thephenomenal and absolute realms enunciated in such classic
Mahayana scriptures as the Vimalakirti Sutra (J. Yuimakyo?) andthe Awakening of Faith (J. Kishinron).
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SENGAI TALES
1. The following capsule biography of Sengai is based on materialin Nōnin Keido, Sengai osho? itsuwasen (Kyoto: Zen bunka
kenkyu?jo, 1999); Miyake Shukudo?, Hakata to Sengai (Tokyo:
Bunken Shuppan, 1978); Uratsuji Kendo?, Hakata Sengai(Fukuoka: Nishi Nihon Shinbunsha, 1990); Obata Buntei, ed.,
Sho?fukuji shi (Fukuoka: Shōfukuji Shi Bunko Kankokai, 1964),
73–74; Fujita Takushi, “Shi ni tomonai: Sengai Gibon,” ZB 224

(2012): 46–56; Furuta Sho?kin, Sengai (Sydney: Trustees Art
Gallery of New South Wales, 1985); and Furuta Sho?kin,
Sengai: Master Zen Painter (Tokyo: Kodansha International,
2000), with notes and commentary by Reiko Tsukimura; Sho?
fukuji Bunko Kankokai, Sengai osho? (Fukuoka: Sho?fukuji
Bunko Kankokai, 1963), which includes a chronology (nenpu) of
Sengai’s life by the native Fukuoka historian Miyake Shukudo?
(11–37); Miyake Shukudo?, Sengai goroku (Tokyo: Bunken
Shuppan, 1979), which contains a similar nenpu; and Nakayama
Kiichiro, Sengai: Sono sho?gai to geijutsu (Fukuoka: Fukuoka
shi Bijutsukan Kyōkai, 1992). Sengai’s longest-known written
work, Tenganyaku (Eye medicine), a composition in kanbun(Sino-Japanese) on the subject of Zen, is included in Kuramitsu
Daigu’s Sengai osho? iko? (Tokyo: Ko?geisha, 1931), 27–49 (avolume I have unfortunately been unable to locate).
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2. Another disciple of Kogetsu was Hakuin’s’ Dharma heir andbiographer To?rei Enji, who, following Kogetsu’s retirement, leftto join Hakuin’s assembly. Kogetsu and his students wereparticularly active in western Japan and are said to have been
influenced by the recently imported O?baku school, particularlythat school’s views on the precepts. Michel Mohr, “Hakuin,” in
Buddhist Spirituality, ed. Takeuchi Yoshinori (New York: The
Crossroad Publishing Company, 1999), 2:314–15.
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3. Case 5 of the thirteenth-century koan collection Gateless Gate.
Zen Master Xingyan Zhixin (d. 898) describes the predicament ofa man in a tree, hanging from a high branch by his teeth, hishands and feet dangling helplessly. At this moment, another man
asks him the purpose of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West. Ifthe man hanging from the branch doesn’t answer, he fails in his
duty. If he does answer, he falls to his death. T 48:239c. For achart showing Sengai’s place in his Rinzai lineage, see Miyake,
Hakata to Sengai, 250–54.
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4. Fukuoka shi, Sho?fukuji shi, 73–74. Shakyamuni (J. Shakya) is
the historical Buddha, Gautama. Maitreya (J. Miroku) is thebuddha who will appear in the future.
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5. Miyake nenpu in Sho?fukuji Bunko Kankokai, Sengai osho?, 12.
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6. “Blind donkey” refers to the dying Linji’s parting words to his
disciple Sansheng Huiran (n.d.): “Who would have thought that
my True Dharma Eye would be extinguished upon reaching thisblind ass!” Linji lu, T 47:506c. Translated in Sasaki and Kirchner,
Record of Linji, 340.
Furuta interprets Linji’s words here as a backhanded
compliment (of which Zen boasts a great many) and argues thatthe poem extends Linji’s supposed accolade to Sho?fukuji’sfounder, Eisai. Furuta, Sengai, 11. But a straightforwardly
pejorative tone can also be given to Linji’s last words, and byextension Sengai may be humbly transferring the celebrated
metaphor to himself.
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7. There seems to be some difference among the accounts of
Sengai’s biography as to whether he accepted or stalwartly
rejected honors and advanced rank at Myo?shinji. I havefollowed the information in Furuta, Sengai, 1–16, and the nenpu

compiled by Miyake Shukudo?, in Shоfukuji bunko kankokai,
Sengai osho?, 14–16. No?nin’s brief biography in SOI, 5, statesthat Sengai refused all honors at Myo?shinji, as does Michel
Mohr in his essay “Sengai’s Multifaceted Legacy,” in Zen Master
Sengai, ed. Katharina Eppreck (Zurich: Scheidegger and Spiess,2014), 17. (The book is an accompanying volume to an
exhibition of Sengai’s painting at the Zurich Rietberg Museum.)
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8. “Kyu?nen menpeki iya na koto!” Furuta, Sengai, 25.
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9. SOI, 216. Sengai’s painting of the monument is included in
Suzuki Daisetsu, Sengai, the Zen Master (Greenwich, CT: NewYork Graphic Society, 1971), 33.
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10. The largest of a chain of volcanic islands that make up the Izu
archipelago, O?shima lies a short distance east of the coast of
Honshu in the Philippine Sea. Until the mid-Edo period it served
as a penal colony and then as a place of exile. Tangen’s
infraction is said in some accounts to have been a dispute with
Nomura Hayato, a senior advisor to the Kuroda clan, over the
Nomura family’s meager temple donations. See below, p. 207, n.
86.
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11. SOI, 216. A photograph of Sengai’s death verse, brushed in themaster’s clearly faltering hand, appears in Shōfukuji Bunko
Kankokai, Sengai osho?, 3, no. 5.
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12. Published in Tokyo. A second, 1937 edition bears the title Sengai
osho? itsuwa.
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13. Geta are Japanese platform clogs, often worn in wet or snowy
weather.
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14. A further example of the master’s refusal to acknowledge
gratitude in the conventional manner appears later in connection
with the eccentric merchant Ōta (pp. 88–90).
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15. The thunder and lightning god, known in Japan as Raiden samaor Raijin. He is commonly depicted as a terrifying demon, clad ina tiger-skin loincloth and draped by a ring of drums, which hebeats with drumsticks grasped in his hands to produce claps ofthunder. Among the most well-known depictions of Raiden is thatby the seventeenth-century artist Tawara-ya So?tatsu (n.d.) on apanel of folding screens at the Kyoto Zen temple Kenninji.
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16. Yama no imo. Dioscorea japonica, or Japanese yam. Unlike theAmerican variety, it tends to be yellowish white inside and have asubtler, sweeter flavor.
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17. Today, a scenic town in the mountains of western Kanagawa
Prefecture. In Sengai’s day, Hakone was a station on the To?
kaido?, the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto and the site of a
key checkpoint (Hakone sekisho), where travelers to and from
Edo had to have themselves and their baggage cleared byshogunal officials. The date and purpose of Sengai’s trip to thecapital is unknown, as is the reason for turning back nuns at thecheckpoint, though in some cases, women of daimyo families
were expected to remain in Edo as de facto hostages to insure
the daimyos’ loyalty to the Tokugawa regime—a situationreflected in the saying, “[No] women out, [no] guns in” (De onna
—iri teppo?). Any attempt to bring guns into the capital or sneak
hostages out could be construed as a possible plot against theTokugawa government. By the eighteenth century, however,such measures were no longer being seriously enforced. See
Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 139–40.
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18. Ki (Ch. qi) in East Asian tradition is a kind of vital force, or
breath, the dynamic physical manifestation of mind. The concept
remains important in many Chinese and Japanese martial arts.
In China, the term was associated with Daoism, Han
Confucianism, and Neo-Confucianism and has been variouslytranslated “vital force,” “material force,” “spirit,” “energy,” as wellas “breath” and “vital breath,” the latter the meaning implied
here.
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19. A koku (also read seki, approx. 5.2 bushels) is an old unit ofmeasure for rice used as an index of wealth and, as here, tocalculate the stipends of samurai, including daimyo.
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20. Susoku, literally the “counting of breaths”—beginning, forexample, with “one” and proceeding up to “ten” without

distraction—a common technique recommended for neophyte
Zen practitioners.
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21. An expression found in the Linji lu section known as “The Four
Shouts” (shihe), in which the master questions a monk aboutfour different kinds of shouts he, Linji, employs. The first of theseis likened to the “Jeweled Sword of the Vajra King,” a symbol ofadmantine power and sharpness that severs all delusion. T
47:504a.
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22. Buddhist monks were supposed to be vegetarian.
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23. Ya is a common Japanese suffix indicating a business or shop
name.
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24. Takama ga hara, “Plane of High Heaven,” is the homeland of thegods in Japanese creation myths.
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25. Buzen is an old province in what is now Fukuoka Prefecture.
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26. In premodern Japan, it was customary to pay regular visits to thegraves of one’s relations or clan leaders. Such graves were
almost always located on the grounds of Buddhist temples, suchas Sho?fukuji, of which Sengai’s retreat was a subtemple.
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27. A basaltic cave along the shoreline of Itoshima City (Fukuoka
Prefecture), Keya no Ooto is a huge pointed rock long noted asa scenic spot for sightseers. Today it is contained within
Kyushu’s Genkai National Park, some twenty miles north of
Sengai’s temple in Hakata.
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28. Tendai (Ch. Tiantai) is one of the principal schools of East Asian
Buddhism. It was founded in China by the priest Zhiyi (538–597)
and introduced to Japan by Saicho? (Dengyo? Daishi, 767–822).
Its major text is the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-pundarika).
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29. San, as noted earlier, is used in Japan as a kind of suffix, withthe common meaning of Ms. or Mr., but when used with a firstname or a priest’s informal name, as here, carries with it a kindof affectionate familiarity. Ryo?kan, for example, was often
referred to by the neighboring villagers as “Ryo?kan-san” and is
still referred to as such in children’s stories about his
openhearted naiveté.
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30. Haiku, the traditional compact Japanese seventeen-syllable
poem, was popularized in the Edo period by Matsuo Basho?
(1644–1694) and his followers and remains popular in Japan tothis day. Shien was probably the poet’s literary name, Kawagoe
his family name.
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31. Presumably referring to Shien and the maidservant, the latterseeming to have returned to Shien’s home following the child’sbirth.

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32. Takuhatsu. Literally, “to receive in the bowl,” the traditional
begging practice in which a line of black-robed monks wearing
wide-brimmed straw hats wends its way chanting through towns,
cities, and villages in search of alms from passersby andparishioners. It is unclear here whether Sengai’s takuhatsu is theusual group practice or an individual begging expedition.
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33. The identity of the narrator here is unclear. It may be Kuramitsu
Daigu, whose Sengai osho? heso no hone served as theprincipal source for No?nin’s Sengai osho? itsuwasen. (See No?
nin, Sengai osho? itsuwasen, i.)
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34. Nakano is one of the city’s wards, or ku. Apparently this event
occurred after the Meiji Restoration (1868), when the capital’sname was changed from Edo to Tokyo (literally, “Eastern
Capital”).
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35. Site of the castle town from which the Kuroda daimyo ruled their
domain from 1600 to the time of the Meiji Restoration. This move
would presumably have shortened Shien’s commute from the
Hakata area.
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36. “Goblins” (tengu) said to bedevil lonely travelers in the wilds.
Fond of pranks, they are generally depicted with long humannoses or beaks and were reputed to have been endowed with
mysterious skill at traditional martial arts. The twelfth-century

Japanese warrior hero Yoshitsune, for example, is said to havebeen taught by the tengu, who were also frequently associatedwith the yamabushi, mountain monks who practiced a form of
syncretism involving Esoteric Buddhism and Shinto. Tengu
disguised as yamabushi are a common theme of premodern
Japanese folk art.
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37. Although composed in Sino-Japanese (kanbun), Sengai’s poem
for Shien is an obvious reference to the most celebrated of
Basho?’s haiku: “An ancient pond / A tree frog plunges in / thesound of water” (furuike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto).
This haiku was probably written by Basho? between 1686 and
1691. See Ueda Makoto, Matsuo Basho? (New York: Twayne,1970), 52. The first line of Basho?’s poem is also shorthand for afamiliar Chinese verse by the southern Song Confucian Zhu Xsi(1130–1200) recalling the evanescent joys of youth.
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38. Kirino Toshiaki (1838–1877), a late-Edo samurai and masterswordsman, served as a senior commander in the Satsuma
forces of the imperial army that unseated the Tokugawa
shogunate and installed a new government under Emperor Meiji.
Later, however, Kirino turned against the Meiji government andjoined the revolt known as the Satsuma Rebellion, led by his
fellow Satsuma samurai Saigo Takamori. Kirino’s wife, Hisa, alsoa martial arts expert, followed him into battle but, unlike herhusband, who was killed in the rebellion, lived on until 1920.
Saigo Takamori (1827–1887), though continuing to proclaim
loyalty to the Meiji emperor himself, opposed the clique of
military leaders around the emperor who were assuming politicalpower in Japan. It took the government forces some six months

to subdue the Satsuma Rebellion, in which both Saigo and Kirino
perished. See Jansen, Making of Modern Japan, 346–70.
Academies (juku) such as that mentioned here were often
established during the late Edo period by anti-shogunate
samurai like Saigo and continued into the early Meiji period.
Young men at these academies would be imbued with theirteachers’ pro-imperial values as well as being frequently
instructed in Confucianism and the traditional martial arts.
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39. In early September 1877, the remnants of Saigo’s army withdrew
to Shiroyama (Castle Mountain) near present-day Kagoshima
City, the capital of the eponymous prefecture. Saigo refused tosurrender and perished in the fighting but in 1889 was issued aposthumous pardon by the Meiji emperor. Even in his lifetime,
Saigo was admired for maintaining the traditional samurai virtuesof courage and determination, and he remains an object ofreverence and romance to many Japanese.
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40. Presumably because Takako’s husband would change his birthname and assume the Kawagoe name along with managementof the family business.
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41. Yorozuya would have been So?hei’s commercial or shop name,Sakai his actual family name.
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42. The Sanada were a celebrated warrior family of the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. Sanada sandaiki is an illustrated
account of famous warriors of the clan written under theinspiration of Chinese models by Ryusuitei Takekiyo (1821–1907) and published in Tokyo in 1882 in woodblock edition. A
copy is in the holdings of the Waseda University Library. The
original illustrated text is available at www.wul.waseda.ac.jp. The
dates, well after Sengai’s death, suggest that the account here isreferring to an earlier version of the work or has perhaps
mistaken its title. The Six Secrets and Three Essentials (Ch. Liu
tao san lue; J. Rikuto? sanryaku) is an early Chinese militarywork, probably dating to the Sui dynasty (581–618). See
Chengfeng Sima Zhongguo ren de mou lue (Guangzhou:
Guangdeng lu yu chu ben sho, 1991).
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43. The implication may be that So?hei, being a canny andsuccessful businessman, hired people to trade yams to Sengai
in exchange for the master’s brushwork, thereby augmenting his
own collection.
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44. Literally, eighty-eighth year (kome no toshi). In East Asia, one isconsidered a year old at birth.
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45. In the late Tokugawa period, Fukui, like other domains, found its
financial position precarious, and a series of new policies wereattempted from the Tenpo? era (1830–1843) by Confucianinspired reformers, many of originally humble commercial
backgrounds. Hisa no Geki (1703–1790) was a chief retainer ofthe ruling Kuroda clan who instituted reforms during the earlyyears of Tenpo?. Shiro?zu Yo?tei (n.d.) was appointed by the
Kuroda daimyo Nagahiro on his succession in 1834. Originally aprovincial eye doctor, he was chosen for his keen understanding

of the Osaka markets. Among the reforms introduced from the
mid to late Tokugawa period was the use of paper money. David
Douglas Brown, “From Tempo to Meiji: Fukuoka Han in Late
Tokugawa Japan” (PhD diss., University of Hawaii at Manoa,
1981), 97–99. Brown’s dissertation presents a detailed
discussion of the Fukuoka reforms.
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46. Batamochi, literally, “peony rice cake.” A rice-cake dumpling
coated with bean jam, its name is said to derive from its
resemblance to a peony blossom. It is prepared by boiling
together glutinous and nonglutinous rice that, while hot, isshaped into balls and covered in red-bean jam or soybean flour.
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47. Waka, literally “Japanese poem,” is the traditional Japanese
thirty-one-syllable verse form, generally consisting of units offive, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables.
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48. That is, to calm his nerves. Much like the major league sports
figures and prizefighters of our own time, sumo wrestlers were
the pampered celebrities of their day in Japan, especially in thelarge commercial cities of Osaka and Edo. As Kikusho? did with
Tobi-ume, it was and remains common for sumo wrestlers toassume separate professional names.
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49. A pun on the saloon keeper’s name. Hei, though literally the
Chinese character for “peace,” was a common component ofmale names in premodern Japan, with no particular significance.
Ko, here, is the Japanese reading of the character for “small,”while O? is the reading for the character “big.” The Japaneseword o?hei, though written with different characters, means“arrogant,” “pushy,” and so forth. The translation is somewhat
free to convey the humor of the pun.
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50. Hisago. Generic term for any kind of dried gourd. Such gourds,
emptied of their pulp and dried, were sometimes equipped with aplug and used as a flask for sake, constituting an apt metaphor
for the wine-loving Sokyu?.
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51. Ichikawa Danjirо is the professional name borne by a celebrated
line of Kabuki actors famed for its portrayal of ruffian (aragoto)
and heroic characters (tachiyaku). Such roles call for a special
attention to the movement and expression of the actor’s eyes.
Faubian Bowers, for example, describes the mie, a pose inwhich the villain and hero confront each other, the latter opening
his eyes wide and crossing one eye while the other eye glares
dramatically straight ahead—the crossed eye determinedaccording to whether the villain is positioned to the hero’s right orleft (if to the left, the right eye is crossed, and vice versa). See
Faubian Bowers, Japanese Theater (New York: Hermitage
House, 1952), 138, 191–92. The seventh Ichikawa’s dates are
1791–1859.
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52. Kawara kojiki. As in early modern Western Europe, actors in
Edo-period Japan, albeit famed Kabuki performers, were
simultaneously celebrated as stars and scorned as members ofa kind of immoral demimonde. They were often calledkawaramono, literally “riverbed beggars,” after the homelessbeggars who traditionally congregated in dry riverbeds underurban bridges—said to be the original locales of Kabuki
performances. The term is now synonymous with stage actors,
and it is invoked here by Sengai, who apparently concurred inthis prejudice against theater folk.
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53. Matcha. Powdered green tea, often used in premodern Japan forformal occasions, to conduct the tea ceremony, and to servedistinguished guests.
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54. Literally, “Jade Orchid.”
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55. Reference is to the teaching of the late Edo period Confucian
scholar Kamei Sho?yo? (1773–1836).
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56. A traditional school of landscape painting said to have been
established in Kyoto in the fifteenth century and continuing
through the Edo period. Tosa school artists were often the official
painters of the imperial court, and their paintings frequently
illustrated classical Japanese literary works, such as theeleventh-century Tale of Genji. The Tosa style was characterized
by extensive use of gold and bright colors and, in the Edo period,
came to include subjects based on Chinese models, such as bird
and flower paintings.
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57. Although only nine are listed, reference is to the ten types ofbeings, or ten realms (jikkai), a common feature of Buddhistteachings: hell dwellers (jigoku), hungry ghosts (gaki), beasts(chikusho?), fighting demons (shuras), men (ningen) and devas(heavenly beings), sravaka (sho?mon) and pratyeka (engaku)
buddhas, bodhisattvas (bosatsu), and buddhas (butsu). Theseare viewed literally as realms of rebirth or metaphorically as
constituents of being that may be elicited according to theworkings of inner and outer circumstances.
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58. That is, the popular Japanese school of Pure Land Buddhism
founded by Shinran (1173–1262). It is particularly identified withworship of the Buddha Amitabha, one of the “eternal buddhas,”and Amitabha’s vow that all who call his name will be reborn in
the Pure Land, a kind of Buddhist paradise in the western
heavens. Associated with Pure Land belief is the nenbutsu, theincantation “Namu Amida Butsu!” (Praise to the Buddha
Amitabha!). Nenbutsu recitation was practiced widely in both
China and Japan, as forms of prayer and meditation. “Naman,
Naman, Naman” is apparently a somewhat crude andabbreviated form of the nenbutsu, contracted to enable constantrepetition.
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59. It would have been customary in premodern Japan to kneel
when addressing an important person, such as a daimyo or Zen
master.
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60. Mugimeshi, or bakuhan. Originally a humble rural staple now
widely popular in Japan, the barley (mugi) is often presteamed orpresoaked so that it can be cooked together with the rice. As
Japanese peasants in Sengai’s day paid taxes in rice, the rice fortheir own consumption often had to be supplemented with barley,
making the concoction slightly chewy. Today, oshi mugi (pressedbarely) is commonly used, and despite its humble origins,
mugimeshi is sometimes touted as something of a health foodand offered at upscale restaurants. In keeping with the formal
tone of his message, O?ta uses the word sai (or toki), referring
to a vegetarian meal for Buddhist priests, often offered by lay
donors as an act of merit.
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61. Inokake. Probably referring here to a dish made with peeled andgrated Japanese yam (imo). On grating, the yam becomes athick, white mucous-like substance that is then poured overcooked rice and mixed in with chopsticks before consuming.
Yams, it will be recalled, were a favorite of Sengai’s.
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62. Takuan. Various kinds of pickled radish (daikon) are a common
accompaniment to Japanese rice. The dish is sometimes said tohave been invented by the eponymous Zen master Takuan So?
ho? (1573–1645), and it is a fixture of Japanese Zen temple
cuisine.
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63. The umbrella (kasa) here would be a traditional parasol of oiled
paper stretched over split bamboo ribs.
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64. As mentioned earlier, Sengai, because of his small size, wasoften mistaken for a novice.
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65. Intoku. Literally, “hidden or private virtue.” The expression isused in both ordinary Japanese and in Buddhism, particularly
Zen, where anonymous acts of kindness (injigyo?) areconsidered part of the training of the Zen monk. Nishimura
Eishin and Sato? Giei, Unsui (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1973), 67.
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66. Firearms, including mortars and matchlocks, were introduced toJapan from Europe in the mid-sixteenth century and quickly
came to play an important role in warfare, replacing arrows as
the leading cause of battlefield casualties until the unification ofJapan under Tokugawa rule. By Sengai’s day, however, aftersome two centuries of peace and isolation, firearms had become
far less common, with handguns used more for sport thandefense. For the early history of firearms in Japanese warfare,see Karl F. Friday, “Off the Warpath: Military Science and Budo?
in the Evolution of Ryu?ha Bugei,” in Budo? Perspectives, ed.
Alexander Bennet (Auckland: Kendo World Publications, 2005),
253–54; and Suzuki Masaya, Katana to kubitori: Sengoku
kassen issetsu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2000), 151.
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67. Tea gatherings in premodern Japan were rather formal
occasions, with the guests admiring the tea ware andappreciatively sipping the powdered green tea whisked to a frothby the host in his tearoom or tea hut. Needless to say, gunshots
would not normally be in keeping with the overall refinement ofsuch an occasion, nor a Zen master breaking wind.
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68. Ju?yu? fujin. Reference is to case 3 of Gateless Gate, “Juzhi’s
Finger.” Juzhi (n.d.) is said to have raised one finger in responseto any question about Zen. Before dying, he reputedly told his
followers, “All my life I used this one-finger Zen, but I never could
use it up (ju?yu? fujin).” T 48:193b. The implication here is that
Sengai’s all-purpose mixing bowl is the culinary equivalent ofJuzhi’s finger.
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69. Tenjo? tenge yuiga dokuson. Referring to what were reputedly
the Buddha’s words at birth. The newborn Buddha is said tohave taken seven steps, looked in the four directions, pointed
with one hand to heaven and the other to earth, and declared,“In all the world, I alone am to be revered!” See, for example,
Sarvastivada Vinaya, T 24:298a. The phrase also appears
frequently in Chinese Chan texts, including the Blue Cliff Record,case 6, “Yunmen’s ‘Every Day Is a Good Day,’ ” T 48:193b.
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70. Donburibachi. A deep, thick ceramic bowl, often used to serve
rice topped with special items such as grilled eel (unagi donburi).
In Japanese restaurants, the term donburi still lends suchdishes, and the use of this sort of bowl, a “homestyle”
resonance.
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71. Hiyashiru (reading uncertain). A local specialty in which cold
broth was added to the boiled barley and rice.
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72. [Marui] tamago mo kiriyo? de shikaku. A Japanese proverb
implying that the result of any situation depends on the way youapproach it.
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73. A similar story involving the Zen master Takuan So?ho? appears
in Mansho?soroku, TOZ 6:192. It is translated in Peter Haskel,
Sword of Zen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013), 119.
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74. Hitorizumo. Literally, “by oneself sumo.” Like Western
shadowboxing, but here referring to sumo, the popular Japanese
wrestling form has its roots in Shinto practice. Essentially, thewrestler summons all his strength, physical and spiritual, todisplay his skill without a visible opponent present. Hitorizumo is
still practiced at certain Shinto shrines, such as the Oyamazumi
jinja (shrine) in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, where the solitarywrestler’s invisible opponent is the rice deity. An official, dressedin sumptuous shrine priest regalia, referees, with the winnerdeclared in the best of three successive bouts. Generally, in suchentertainments, the deity is allowed to win two out of the threebouts in order to gain his or her cooperation in ensuring sufficient
rainfall and an abundant rice harvest.
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75. Typically a Zen temple garden would be placed below a wooden
veranda on which monks would circulate and at times meditateby night.
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76. The smallest of Japan’s Zen sects, the O?baku school was
founded in the seventeenth century by immigrant Ming Linji(Rinzai) monks from mainland China.
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77. That is, Manpukuji, headquarters temple of the O?baku sect,
founded by the Ming Zen master Ingen Ryu?ki (Yinyuan Longqi,
1592–1673). The temple is located at Uji, in Kyoto. Chinese
abbots remained the rule at Manpukuji till the mid-eighteenth
century. After 1740, Japanese O?baku priests were permitted toserve as abbots, and since 1786 the temple’s abbots have all
been Japanese. Hakugan’s dates are 1767–1836. He became
Manpukuji abbot in 1831.
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78. Shiko o fumu. Before a sumo match, each wrestler squats withlegs apart and places his hands on his knees. He then raises
each leg in turn, keeping it as straight as possible, and forcefully
stomps on the ground. Originally, when the matches were
performed as offerings to the gods, this was said to have been ameans to dispel malevolent forces.
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79. My emendation here is suggested by the nine ellipses in the text,
where the child’s answer should be (167, line 3).
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80. I have been unable to locate this question by Hakuin or thesource of the phrase upon which it is based.
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81. Apparently a descendant of the Kuroda daimyo family of the
Fukushima domain, referred to earlier. His dates, like those of
Hakuho?-in, are apparently unknown. The in (literally, “temple” or“retreat”) portion of the name could indicate that the individual isliving in retirement or serving as priest or abbot of a temple, or it
could be a posthumous religious name.

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82. Toasted rice cakes (mochi) remain a traditional treat on New
Year’s Day in Japan. Premodern Japan followed a lunar
calendar, and New Year’s Day was equivalent to approximately
February 4 or 5 in the modern Western calendar. It was a day on
which, among other things, outstanding debts were paid, old
grudges forgiven, and disputes resolved.
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83. Ichimai azukari sho?mon. A written receipt, an agreement inwriting. A similar Japanese poem, titled “Receipt Proof of[Resolution] to a Husband and Wife Quarrel” (Fufu kenka no
azukari sho?mon) is included in Miyake, Sengai goroku, 314.
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84. This samurai official (machibugyo?) was a kind of combination
mayor, chief constable, and magistrate, appointed in all
likelihood by the daimyo of the province from among his samurai
retainers. It was traditional for Japanese to visit the graves(hakamairi, literally, “grave visit”) of relatives or deceased
superiors such as clan leaders or daimyo on regular occasions.
Invariably such graves were located in Buddhist temples withclose and important ties to the samurai families interred there,ties both political and economic. Kaizando?—a hall dedicated tothe temple’s founders. Sho?fukuji’s founder, Eisai, as noted
previously, was particularly celebrated, having been theprogenitor of what is now the Rinzai sect of Japanese Zen.
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85. Roof tiles on Japanese temple buildings—heavy and elaborate
ceramic tubes sometimes bearing the crest (mon) of the donor atboth ends—may be costly items.

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86. Nomura Hayato (n.d.) was a cause of difficulties for both Sengai
and his heir Tangen (d. 1855), who succeeded Sengai as abbotof Sho?fukuji on Sengai’s retirement in 1811. Tangen tended to
be of a principled, uncompromising, and outspoken nature, andan 1837 dispute with Hayato over what he viewed as the latter’s
meager donations for temple repairs led Hayato to order all the
Nomura family gravestones removed from the temple. The end
result was Tangen’s forfeiture of his abbacy, house arrest, andexile to the island of O?shima for violating his arrest in order totravel on pilgrimage. Tangen was not pardoned till 1852, when
he withdrew into retirement. Sengai, meanwhile, had to resume
abbacy of Sho?fukuji at age eighty-seven. O?shima is a small
island in what is now Fukuoka Prefecture. SOI, 12–13.
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87. The character read butsu or hotoke in Japanese can beunderstood as Buddha or buddhas or, more broadly, thedeceased—here, the clan or family members buried in thetemple graveyard.
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88. Shinran Sho?nin’s True Pure Land school, referred to earlier, aprominent feature of which was devout repetition of the
nenbutsu, the invocation “Hail to the Buddha Amitabha!”
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89. Apparently yet another contraction of the nenbutsu, to allow for
faster repetition.
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90. Sanzen, literally, “studying Zen.” In the Rinzai school today, theterm refers specifically to the regular private interviews in which
Zen students study koan under a Zen master.
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91. Hanko. Traditionally, calligraphers, painters, and collectors inEast Asia authenticate works by placing on them their uniquepersonal carved hand seal. The seal often bears an abstract
arrangement of the creator’s or owner’s name within acartouche, which is sometimes stamped in red ink on a carefully
chosen spot on the work. Sengai’s seal, as seen on his manysurviving paintings, bears the Master’s name in blockish “sealcharacters,” often just beneath his brushed abstract signature,
consisting of the second character of his Buddhist name,[Sen]Gai. Often referred to in the West by the Hindi-derived term
chop, such seals were also employed by individuals for use incontracts and other such transactions. Possession of a parent’s
or employer’s seal could be equivalent to granting a person
power of attorney.
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92. Miyamoto Tоsai (d. 1874) was a Hakata doctor, follower, friend,and go partner of Sengai’s, living not far from Kyohaku-in.
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93. Sumi, the black “india ink” made from charcoal that is used for
calligraphy and painting in East Asia. It is traditionally preparedby rubbing down an ink stick on an ink stone containing water—
an arduous task if, as here, a vast amount of ink is required.
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TALES OF HAKUIN AND HIS FOLLOWERS
1. Besides his key role in formulating Japanese Rinzai Zen as weknow it today, Hakuin (1686–1769) stands out among premodern
Zen masters not only for the sheer volume of his writings—over
three dozen published works—but also for the large amounts ofautobiographical material he provides. The master’s two key
autobiographical works deal with the first part of his long life,
including his quest for enlightenment before establishing himself
as a teacher. Both works are in Japanese: Wild Ivy(Itsumadegusa, 1766), an extended, colorful account that freely
alternates between preaching, sarcasm, and humor; and thesimilar Tales of My Childhood to Spur on Students (Sakushin
osana monogatari, 1762). The other key contemporary sourcefor Hakuin’s life, Chronology of the Zen Master Jinki Dokumyo?
[i.e., Hakuin] (Jinki Dokumyo? zenji nenpu, 1820), wascomposed in Sino-Japanese (kanbun) by Hakuin’s heir To?rei
Enji (1721–1792) during Hakuin’s lifetime, probably carried out
under the master’s supervision as a kind of collaborative effort.
(See Kato? Sho?sun’s comments in his introduction to HON,
“Hakuin to sono sho?gai: Hito to shiso?,” 3–36.) All three havebeen translated by Norman Waddell, the latter two in Waddell’scollection Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave and the first as a single
volume, Wild Ivy. The original texts are to be found, respectively,in volumes 3 and 7 of Hakuin zenji ho?go zenshu? (Kyoto: Zen
Bunka Kenkyu?jo, 1999–2003), Yoshizawa Katsuhiro’s
multivolume annotated edition covering most of Hakuin’s
Japanese works; and in Hakuin osho? nenpu (Kyoto:
Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1985, edited by Kato? Sho?shun.
While consulting the original texts as needed for this brief
biography, I have benefited greatly from Waddell’s many Hakuin
translations and their supporting materials, together with Philip
B. Yampolsky’s pioneering The Zen Master Hakuin; Seo andAddiss’s The Sound of One Hand; and Yoshizawa Katsuhiro’s
The Religious Art of the Zen Master Hakuin (Berkeley:Counterpoint, 2009), a compilation of material from Yoshizawa’s
articles focusing on Hakuin’s art and Edo folk culture, selected,
translated, and edited by Norman Waddell. (The articles
appeared originally in the periodical Zen bunka, a publication ofHanazono University’s Zen bunka kenkyu?jo, where Yoshizawa
serves as director of the Hakuin Studies Center.)
Hakuin, as noted in the introduction, regarded all his written
works as primarily a means of spreading his Zen teaching and inmany instances did not hesitate to embroider, exaggerate, oreven invent the facts of his early life to provide his readers alivelier and more dramatic account. This would not have seemedat all suspect in Hakuin’s day, and a certain amount of such
literary license was probably assumed by Hakuin’s audience.
To?rei, in turn, relied exclusively on Hakuin’s own versions of themaster’s early life. The story of Hakuin’s training andenlightenment experiences till about age forty-one, which makeup the first part of To?rei’s biography, are designated “formative
experiences” (ingyo? kaku); while the second half of Hakuin’s
career, from about age forty-three till the master’s death—a
portion of the master’s life to which To?rei was himself witness—
was largely composed under Hakuin’s oversight.
Because Hakuin was born on December 25 of the old, or
lunar, calendar, employed in premodern Japan, some confusion
has attended his dates, which are occasionally given as 1686–
1769. See Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History (NewYork: World Wisdom, 1990), 2:394n1.
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2. Interestingly, Hakuin’s “grandfather” in Zen, Shido? Mu’nan, thecelebrated teacher of Sho?ju Rojin and an important earlier
popularizer of Zen, was also born into a family that managed apost station (juku, or shuku) on the To?kaido?. See Pedersen,“Jisho?ki,” 96.
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3. Hokkeshu?. A sect of Japanese Buddhism basing itself on the
Lotus Sutra and founded by the priest Nichiren (1222–1282).
Known for its militancy and its intolerance of other Buddhist
teachings, the school stresses the unique efficacy of therecitation of the title (daimoku) of the Lotus Sutra and forbids its
adherents to recite any other sutra. In the Tokugawa period, allfamilies were required to maintain connections with a parish
temple as proof that they were not secret Christians. Althoughgenerally families had to affiliate with the father’s sect of
Buddhism, objections were voiced by Confucians and others that
this gave inordinate power to the Buddhist sects, and cases offamilies, such as Hakuin’s, including different sect affiliations
were not unknown. See Nakamura Hajime et al., Ajia bukkyo?
shi: Nihon ben (Tokyo: To?kyo? Shoseki, 1972), 7:37, 47.
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4. T 48:1098a–1109c.
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5. Itsumadegusa, HZHZ 3:162. In addition to his enthusiasm for
Dahui-style koan study, Zhuhong was also an advocate of the
Zen–Pure Land syncretism that came to dominate Ming Zen, atendency for which Hakuin excoriated Zhuhong and his ilk inseveral vicious and long-winded diatribes. See, for example,
Orategama zokushu?, HOZ 1:5 (translated in Yampolsky, Zen
Master Hakuin, 147–49).
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6. An early use of the term kensho? (Ch. jianxing), for example,
appears in the Tang priest Zongmi’s (780–841) Prolegomenon, inthe context of a description of the existing schools of Zen. T
48:402b.
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7. Itsumadegusa, HZHZ 3:172.
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8. Itsumadegusa, HZHZ 3:233–34. Elsewhere, Hakuin speaks ofexperiencing eighteen great and countless small satori, astatement sometimes attributed to Dahui. See, for example,
Yukichi monogatari, HZHZ 7:222.
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9. In Oradegama, for example, Hakuin paraphrases Dahui on thesignal importance of practice in the midst of daily activity:“Practice in the midst of activity is worth ten thousand million
times more than practice in quiet.” HZHZ 9:198. The statement
also appears in Hakuin’s calligraphy (Hanazono Daigaku,
Hakuin, no. 51, pp. 38 and 159). In Oradegama, Hakuin also
notes that continual, uninterrupted practice was a feature of
Sho?ju’s instruction. HZHZ 9:243–44.
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10. Combining with Hakuin’s ordination name Ekaku, “Wisdom
Crane,” the two names together are possibly an allusion to averse in Zenrin kushu?: “When a heron stands in the snow, it’scolors are not the same” (Roji yuki ni tatsu do?shoku ni arazu).
Translation by Victor Hori in ZS, 311:7, 495. At Myo?shinji andother Edo-period Zen temples, priests generally received second

names when they became Zen masters. As a rule, such asecond name would precede the ordination name.
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11. Ungo Kiyo? and Isshi Bunshu (1607–1645) are additional
examples. Kimura Seiyu?, “Tokugawa shoki ni okeru Rinzai zen
no teimei to sono dakai,” in Zengaku ronko?, Yanagida Seizaned., (Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1977), 437–47. Kimurasuggests that belief in the need for self-reliance in the quest forenlightenment in the absence of enlightened teachers may be
one reason for the emergence of so many individual teachingstyles in the early Tokugawa period. For an overview of themushi dokugo and jigo jisho? phenomena in early Tokugawa
Zen, see LG 19–21, 131–32nn67–70.
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12. Shi guzeigan (also read seigan); in the So?to? school read shi
kuseigan. The four vows are recited in all the principal East
Asian Mahayana schools, some of which have their own
formulations. The vows’ earliest appearance in a Zen text is in
the Dunhuang text of the Platform Sutra (T 48:338b), a versionof the vows that itself may derive from earlier Chinese sources
and is closest to that recited in Japanese Zen temples. ZD 227–28.
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13. Kaien fusetsu, HOZ 2:74.
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14. Waddell, Zen Master Hakuin, 30; Kaien fusetsu, HOZ 2:389. For
more on the nanto? koan, see also ZS, 22–24.
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15. Although he appears prominently in most Rinzai lineage charts
as among Hakuin’s foremost Dharma heirs, Suio?—to whom,
To?rei tells us, Hakuin entrusted his affairs at death (Nenpu,
HOZ 122)—is unaccountably dropped from the lineage chart in
the original edition of ZD (508–9). Whether this is due toembarrassment at Suio?’s reportedly unconstrained behavior,some revisionary reading of Hakuin’s life, or merely an error ofomission seems unclear.
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16. At times, Hakuin also refers to the koan as katate no koe. See,for example, Obaba dono kohiki no uta, HZHZ 13:22, 34.
Hakuin’s koan may allude to Xuedou’s comment on case 18 of
the Blue Cliff Record, “The National Teacher’s Monument”: “Asingle hand by itself produces no sound” (Du zhang bu langming). T 48:157c. Xuedou Chongxian’s dates are 980–1052.
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17. “Ball of doubt,” gidan (Ch. yituan). Sometimes given as “greatball of doubt” (daigidan; Ch. dayituan), it has also beentranslated “great doubt block” in Jeff Shore’s unpublished 2010
article “Great Doubt.” Shore’s article offers an overview of theterm in Chinese and Japanese Zen, and a translation of andcomments on the Ming Zen master Bohan’s (1575–1630)
Exhortations for Those Unable to Arouse the Doubt(Shiyiqingfapuqi jing lu). “The one-hand koan…is none otherthan the true Dharma, which has been dead in Japan for five
hundred years.” Osana monogatari, HZHZ 7:218.
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18. HZHZ 2:45–46. Sekishu? no onjo?, composed in 1753, is also
known under the title Yabuko?ji.

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19. “Sekishu? no koe o kiki, onjo? o todomaru.” Yukichi monogatari,
HZHZ 7:216.
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20. Sekishu? onjo? ryo?ju? to?kan. Osana monogatari, HZHZ 7:96–
97. For a more detailed discussion of Hakuin’s dual “Sound of
One Hand” koan, see Yoshizawa’s remarks in Osana
monogatari, HZHZ 7:13, and 34 n 5.
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21. T 48:192b–193a. The koan, case 60 of the collection, is read inJapanese Unmon shujo?. The Zen master Yunmen Wenyan diedin 949.
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22. See those cards illustrated in Hanazono Daigaku, Hakuin, 30(no. 30), 34 (no. 45), and 72 (no. 135).
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23. See, for example, the undated card given to Hakuin’s Dharma
heir Daiju? Zen’nyo (1720–1778), certifying that Zen’nyo has
passed (sho?ko) Linji’s Three Mysteries together with the “secret
So?to? school transmission (hiketsu) of the Five Ranks”—
Hakuin having received the last from his own teacher, Sho?ju.
Hakuin’s painting on the card depicts Linji giving a shout (Ho!; J.
Katsu!) with a dragon staff rising behind him. Hanazono Daigaku,
Hakuin, 91 (no. 144), 156. Michel Mohr suggests that the inka
cards were distributed by Hakuin to lay disciples in recognition of
their initial breakthrough, or kensho?, but given to monks only
after completion of koan training. Mohr, “Hakuin,” 321.

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24. The term gogo, as such, appears only in Hakuin’s writings after
1757—that is, roughly during the last decade of the master’s life.
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25. Yoshizawa, Religious Art, 63–76.
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26. HZHZ 13:17–41. The pairing of a wrinkled crone and a younger
woman who embodies good fortune, at least in its broad outline,
is reminiscent of a parable in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. In theparable, two women present themselves at the door of ahouseholder, the first woman lovely and bestowing fortune, theother ugly and grotesque and bringing poverty and disaster. The
two, however, are sisters and declare themselves to be
inseparable, so that much to the householder’s dismay, he isforced to dismiss them both. T 12:677a–b. My thanks to Ian
Chandler for calling this to my attention.
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27. Bankei composed a work song in a similar format, presenting his
views on Zen and Buddhism. Reportedly intended for local
villagers, the extended poem, dated approximately 1663, isgenerally known as Song of Original Mind (Honshin no uta), as
well as Milling Song (Usuhiki uta), a type of song chanted while
grinding flour. BZZ, 519–11. Translated in BZ, 125–32.
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28. Yoshizawa, Religious Art, 77; Yampolsky, Zen Master Hakuin,
231.
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29. Nenpu. Translated in Waddell, Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave,232; HON, 122. By modern Western reckoning, of course,
Hakuin’s age would have been eighty-three.
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30. Osana monogatari, HZHZ 7:113.
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31. Bankei dismissed such fixtures of Song Zen as the koan and thegreat doubt as nothing more than misleading and artficial
devices. See Seppo? (zenpen), BZZ, 135. Takuan, too, argued
that enlightenment was in no way dependent on koan. “The Zenschool has its own special transmission,” he wrote in his 1628
letter of protest to the Tokugawa bakufu, or military government.
“It doesn’t necessarily depend on koan. Precisely because ofthis, there have been many in the past who, even after masteringkoan, failed to obtain inka.” Ko?bensho [Refutation], TOZ 6:70.
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32. Jisho? hon’nu (also read hon’u). Sekishu? onjo?, HZHZ 12:39.
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33. A still picturesque waterfall, now located in Shimizu City,
Shizuoka Prefecture.
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34. A biwa is a traditional, generally four-stringed lute-like
instrument. It is pear-shaped and curves back at the neck.
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35. From the Takusui kana ho?go, by the celebrated Rinzai Zen
master Takusui Cho?mo (d. 1740). No?nin Ko?do? points outthat this particular passage does not appear in the Takusui kana
ho?go as it survives today. Nevertheless, Takusui’s popularteachings in the kana ho?go lay great stress on the original,
intrinsic nature of enlightenment. A woodblock edition appearedin Edo in 1740 and is in the collection of the Waseda University
library (01-01586). (The text is available atwww.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/index_en.html.)
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36. A mountain near the town of Okitsu (modern Shizuoka
Prefecture). It was said to be one of the more hazardous spots
along the To?kaido?.
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37. The Chan master Shigong Huizang (n.d.), an heir of thecelebrated Mazu. Originally a hunter, Shigong is said to havecontinued to use his bow and arrow to test students, confronting
them with a drawn bow and an arrow aimed at their hearts.
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38. Rohatsu is the intensive period of practice traditionally observed
at Zen temples from December 1 to dawn of December 8, in
commemoration of the Buddha’s enlightenment. It is someseventy-five miles from Zuio?ji to Hakuin’s temple, Sho?inji.
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39. Referring to a Zen phrase appearing in Zenrinkushu?: “Whenchickens are cold they go up into trees / When ducks are cold,
they go down to water.” See ZS, 351.
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40. In premodern Japan, a town south of Kyoto, now part of the cityof Kyoto.
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41. Segaki. The ceremony is a standard part of the liturgy inJapanese Zen temples.
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42. Approximately seventy-three miles.
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43. A “new” Buddhist name was assigned when one formallybecame a Myo?shinji-line Zen master, and this new name wasthen placed before one’s earlier Buddhist name.
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44. July 1764 by Western reckoning.
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45. Missho?-an, the pagoda of Myo?shinji’s founder, Kanzan.
Genro? is alluding here to the ceremony in which he received
the advanced rank of dai ichizo (also read dai ichiza) at Myo?
shinji and paid his respects at Kanzan’s pagoda.
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46. Gasan Jito? (1727–1797), another of Hakuin’s important Dharma
heirs.
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47. It is unclear what sixteen years refers to here. Suio? formallybecame a Zen master in 1764, and at Hakuin’s death in 1768, heassumed abbacy of Sho?inji, reluctantly delivering a sermon at

Hakuin’s seven-year memorial service in 1778, but none of thesedates seem to make sense of the “sixteen years” figure.
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48. Ch. Ho! The shout frequently employed by Zen masters andassociated with Rinzai Zen’s Chinese founder, Linji Yixuan.
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49. Case 3 of the Blue Cliff Record, “Master Ma Is Unwell”:“Master Ma was unwell. The temple’s treasurer asked, ‘Your
Reverence, how are you feeling lately?’“The master replied, ‘Sun-faced buddha, moon-faced
buddha.’ ” T48:142c. Ma is the Tang dynasty master Mazu.
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50. Shibata (n.d.) was a well-known children’s doctor of theeighteenth century, the author of several early works onpediatrics.
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51. A keisaku is the “warning stick” used by the head monk tocorrect students in the Zen meditation hall.
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52. Ichizuhi no zen. Referring to a phrase from case 98 of the Blue
Cliff Record, mocking the false attainment of students. “What a
joke! Intellectually, they’ve mastered a whole bellyful of Zen, butthey can’t actually use it!” T 48:222a.
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53. Ryo?sai (1706–1786) was born into an Owari samurai
household. He entered the temple at age nine and in 1729 wentto study with Hakuin and experienced a spiritual breakthrough.
Also that year he went to study under the Myo?shinji-line master
Kogetsu Zenzai, another renowned Zen teacher of the period.
One evening during a talk delivered by Kogetsu, in which themaster took up the third verse of the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures,“Seeing the Ox,” Ryo?sai is said to have suddenly experienced
enlightenment. (The sequence of Ryo?sai’s studies given in the
text seems to reverse the sequence.)
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54. A bodhisattva symbolizing intuitive wisdom, Manjusri, depicted
riding a lion and carrying a sword, is often the central image ofJapanese Zen meditation halls.
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55. Referring to case 40 of the Blue Cliff Record, a dialogue
between the Zen master Nanquan Puyuan (784–835) and his
Dharma heir the government minister Lu Xuan (764–834). Lu
remarked, “Dharma Master Chao said, ‘Heaven, earth, and I areof the same root; the ten thousand things and I are one
substance.’ How wonderful!” Nanquan called Lu’s attention to aflower in the garden and said, “Men of today see that flower as if
in a dream.” T 48:178a. Chao is the celebrated early Chinese
Buddhist scholar and philosopher Sengzhao (384–414).
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56. The Rinzai master Unzan Sotai (1685–1747), a close colleagueof Hakuin’s.
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57. Zengosaidan. An expression common in Zen texts, often used
as a metaphor for enlightenment. The past and future beingmere mental constructs, cutting off both leaves only the present
moment. See BGD 2:844b; BJ, 639a.
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58. Sho?’netsu jigoku. Literally, the “hell of scorching heat,” one of
the eight great Buddhist hells. It is reserved for, among others,
those who have indulged in drunkenness, lecherousness,slander, lying, and killing.
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59. Case 140 of the medieval Japanese koan collection Katto?shu?.
The somewhat lengthy case is translated in Thomas Y. Kirchner,
Entangling Vines: Zen Koans of the Shu?mon Katto?shu?
(Kyoto: Tenryu-Ji Institute for Philosophy and Religion, 2004),
69–70. Shushan Guangren (837–909) was an heir of the famous
Zen master Dongshan Liangjie (807–869).
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60. Case 11 of the Blue Cliff Record. Zen Master Huangbo Xiyun (d.
850?) addressed the assembly, saying, “All of you are nothing
but drinkers of wine dregs. If you go on wandering on pilgrimage
like this, when will today ever come! What’s more, did you knowthat in all the great land of China there are no Zen teachers?” Amonk stepped forward and said, “Then what about those all over
who are guiding students and directing assemblies of monks?”
Huangbo replied, “I didn’t say there was no Zen; only that there
were no teachers.” T 48:151b.
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61. Kami are the native Japanese gods, frequently associated withparticular geographic areas or features such as rocks, waterfalls,
and so forth.

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62. Included among the basic Confucian classics, the Yi jing, a workof ancient but uncertain origin, has been an important source for
Chinese theories of cosmology and prognostication.
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63. A volume of Hakuin’s works, published in 1758. It is included invol. 5 of HOZ. (Translation of the title follows Yampolsky, Zen
Master Hakuin, 227.)
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64. Now O?ita Prefecture on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu.
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65. A shorthand reference to “Doushuai’s ‘Three Barriers,’ ”
described above.
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66. “I” here is presumably Myo?ki Seiteki, compiler of Keikyokuso?
dan.
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67. Nehando?ri no zen. The Nehando? (literally, “nirvana hall”) was
the monastery infirmary as well as a kind of hospice for monks indeclining health who, faced with the imminence of death, would
presumably be driven even more urgently to resolve the questionof “birth and death” and realize enlightenment.
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68. Shittsu?. A common metaphor in Zen for ignorance anddelusion.

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69. The Hakuin nenpu gives the date of the poem as Ho?ei 4 (1707),
when Hakuin was twenty-two. In HON, the poem’s third line isslightly different: “If Zen mind is like this…” HON, 85–86.
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70. As noted previously, throughout the Tokugawa period there wasantipathy toward Buddhism on the part of many Confucians, whoviewed the Buddhist teaching, and Zen in particular, as amoral
and worse. The behavior of Zeigan’s son toward Suio? seems toreflect this sort of attitude.
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71. Grandma Satsu, or Osatsu, as she was commonly known, was amember of Hakuin’s father’s family, the Nagazawa, daughter ofthe village head, Yu?-sai (d. 1750). She married a certain
Watabe Ken’eimon (n.d.) and was widowed in her midforties,
thereafter devoting herself to Buddhist practice. She is buried at
Hakuin’s temple Sho?inji and is discussed in an article on
Hakuin’s female followers by Machida Zuiho?, “Hakuin monka
jo?sei zenja no sho?soku,” ZB, no. 103 (January 1982): 78–84.
A humorous hand-carved portrait sculpture of Osatsu by Hakuin
is preserved at Sho?inji (photo in Machida, “Hakuin monka jo?
sei zenga,” ZB 103:82).
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72. Akeno is in Numazu City (modern Shizuoka Prefecture).
Miraculous powers were associated with the shrine in Hakuin’s
period. The Tennо Kannon Sutra is a short scripture extolling themerits of the bodhisattva Kannon. Its formal name is Ko?o?
Kannon kyo?. T 85:1425b–1426a.

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73. The Nagazawa were members of the Lotus sect, which pays
special reverence to the Lotus Sutra, hence, perhaps, thefather’s severe alarm at his daughter’s sacrilegious behavior.
See Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism, 2:368.
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74. Waka is a traditional thirty-one-syllable Japanese poem.
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75. Harajuku is present-day Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Hara
has been referred to earlier as Hakuin’s birthplace. Juku is asuffix meaning “post station.”
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76. It is unclear from what source Hakuin appears to be quoting
here, although all the expressions he invokes—one’s own bodyis Amida, and so forth—are standard elements of the Zen–Pure
Land syncretism widespread in Japanese popular belief andJapanese Zen of the early Tokugawa period. The same
syncretism characterized Chan in the Ming and Qing dynasties
and remains influential in overseas Chinese Buddhism eventoday. Elsewhere, by contrast, Hakuin is critical of such Pure
Land–Zen teaching. While he thought it unsuitable for Zen
monks, it is possible he accepted such practices and beliefs forlaypersons. For Hakuin’s critical views of Pure Land–Zen
syncretism, see Yampolsky, Zen Master Hakuin, 25–26, andpassages from Hakuin’s Orategama, translated in Yampolsky,
136–37. For a more benign attitude to such practices, employing
expressions similar to those in the present sermon by Hakuin,
see the passage in the master’s Yabuko?ji, translated in
Yampolsky, 161.

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RYО KAN TALES
1. Perhaps the best single source of primary materials for Ryo?kan
is To?go? Toyoharu’s two-volume Ryo?kan zenshu? (Tokyo:
Tokyo So?gensha, 1959; 9th ed. 1989). To?go?’s zenshu?
(henceforth abbreviated RZ) includes not only Ryo?kan’s
Chinese and Japanese poems, his kanshi and waka, annotatedby To?go?, but also important biographical and other materials
related to Ryo?kan, materials composed during his lifetime andin the decades immediately following his death, the most recent
from the close of the nineteenth century (see RZ 2:569–600).
Among these is the previously mentioned Curious Accounts of
the Zen Master Ryo?kan (Ryo?kan zenji kiwa) composed around
1845–1846 by Kera Yoshishige (1810–1859), whose father,
Shukumon (1765–1819), was Ryo?kan’s close friend andheadman (nanushi) of the village of Makigahana. Yoshishige,
who was nine at Ryo?kan’s death, was one of the local children
who played with the master on his begging rounds, and in
adulthood he succeeded his father as village headman. He wasthus well placed to compile this intimate memoir of Ryo?kan,
having been closely acquainted with many of the people andplaces involved. Also helpful are To?go?’s Shinshu? Ryo?kan(Tokyo: Tokyo Sōgen Shinsha, 1970) and Ryo?kan: Uta to sho?
gai (Tokyo: Chikumashobo?, 1975) by Yoshino Hideo, a leading
scholar of Ryo?kan’s Japanese poems. A survey of key sources
for Ryo?kan’s poems and biography, beginning in his lifetime,
can be found in Ryuichi Abe’s “Commemorating Ryo?kan: The
Origin and Growth of Ryo?kan Biographies,” GF, 76–87. For adetailed bibliography of Japanese secondary sources for Ryo?
kan, Abe recommends Watanabe Shu?ei’s “Ryo?kan kenkyu?
shi,” in Ryo?kan kenkyu? ronshu?, Miya Eiji, ed., (Tokyo: Sho?

zansha, 1985), 31–72. The material for this abbreviatedbiography is based on a combination of these and other sources.
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2. Ryo?kan’s contemporary the merchant-literatus Suzuki Bokushi(1770–1842) still cites Izumozaki as a prosperous port in
Hokku’etsu seppu, a popular account of Echigo life at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, translated by Jeffrey Hunter
et al. as Snow Country Tales (New York: Weatherhill, 1986), 160.
Most goods in Edo Japan were transported by water, hence theimportance of port towns such as Izumozaki and Amaze.
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3. Kitagawa Sei?ichi, Teihon Ryоkan yugi (Tokyo: Shirakawa Shoin,1983), 28.
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4. Quoted in the 1818 biography Ryo?kan zenji den by O?zeki
Bunchu? (d. 1834), a local Confucian scholar and doctor. RZ
1:593. For this period, see also Ishida Yoshisada, Ryo?kan:
Sono zenbo to genzo (Tokyo: Hanawa Shobo?, 1975), 21–114.
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5. There is some difference among scholars, and even among thebiographies of Ryo?kan’s contemporaries, over the exact age at
which Ryo?kan entered the Buddhist priesthood. Some maintainit was when Ryo?kan entered Kosho?ji at age seventeen; others
claim it was at age twenty-one during Kokusen’s visit to thetemple. Both may in a sense be correct, Ryo?kan entering
Kosho?ji as a novice at seventeen and taking the tonsure andBuddhist vows at twenty-one during Kokusen’s visit. Yoshino,
Ryo?kan, 4.

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6. Miya Fuyuji, ed., Ryo?kan no sekai (Tokyo: Bunka shobo?
hakubunsha, 1985), 165–67; Watanabe Shu?ei, ed., Ryo?kan
shugyo? to Tamashima (Niigata: Ko?kodo? Shoten, 1975), 118,190.
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7. The name Great Fool may have been conferred by Kokusen
along with Ryo?kan’s inka or perhaps simply assumed at somepoint by Ryo?kan. The master always referred to himself as
Ryo?kan, and the name Taigu (also read Daigu) is first recorded
in autumn 1831 on a mortuary inscription for Ryo?kan. RZ 1:596.
Tanigawa Toshiro?, Ryo?kan no sho?gai to itsuwa (Tokyo: Ko?
bunsha, 1984), 57–60 and Ishida, Zengo, 21. The name itself is
not unusual in Zen. It is identical with that of Taigu So?chiku andperhaps most often recognized as the name of the Tang master
Dayu (n.d.), who appears in the Linji lu as the Zen teacher
instrumental in Linji’s sudden enlightenment. T 47:504c.
Kokusen’s poem confirming Ryo?kan’s inka refers to him as anju
(master of the hermitage), probably referring to the subtemple(an, or tatchu?) Kakuju-an on the grounds of Entsu?ji. The dated
poem is included at the end of the Kiwa. RZ 2:534.
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8. Circumstances described in Ryo?kan’s extensive Chinese poem
“On Reading the Eihei Record” (Eihei roku o yomu), RZ 1:84–86.
As Abe notes, Do?gen’s writings were only made widely
available with the 1815 woodblock edition of his lengthy
masterwork Sho?bo?genzo? and till that time as a rule wererestricted to qualified members of the So?to? priesthood. GF,
267n111. Eihei roku may refer to Do?gen’s short work Eihei
koroku (see Abe, GF, 280n67) or, in the opinion of To?go?, maybe merely a figurative shorthand for Do?gen’s Sho?bo?genzo?.
RZ 1:87n1. Ishida Yoshisada observes that there exist manydifferent manuscript copies of the poem, proof Ryo?kan revisited
it frequently and that it was important to him. Ishida alsosuggests various possibilities for Eihei roku’s identity. Ryo?kan
no ayumi (Tokyo: Bunkashobо hakubusha, 1984), 17–23. Eihei
koroku is included in So?to?shu? zensho (Tokyo: Sōtōshū
Zensho Kankokai, 1926–1936), 5:102–3, and was first publishedin 1673.
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9. RZ 2:508–9. Banjo?’s account is translated in GF, 9–11.
Scholars have debated the account’s accuracy (see, forexample, To?go?, Shinshu?, 82–87), but aside from somemistaken homophonic Chinese characters (ateji) in Ryo?kan’s
name, it is generally accepted. Yoshino, for example, remarksthat “it provides a two-day keyhole through which to view thisobscure portion of Ryo?kan’s life.” Ryo?kan, 14. See also Abe,“Commemorating Ryo?kan,” GF, 82–83, and Ishida, Zengo, 134.
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10. See the account by Tachibana Mochiyo in Hoku’etsu kidan[Curious tales of Echigo, 1811], RZ, 2:507–8. Tachibana’s
account is translated in GF, 12–13.
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11. In 1810 the merchant house of Tachibana was defeated in a
lawsuit that accused it of embezzling public funds. The family
property was confiscated by the authorities and Yoshiyuki
banished to the nearby ancestral village of Yoita. There heshaved his head and devoted himself to literary pursuits, retiring
the following year and leaving family headship to his son. Kurita

Isamu, “Ryоkan michi: Tоgо senshin ni makase,” in Geijutsu
shinchо 40, no. 2 (February 1989): 36. Ryo?kan remained inclose contact with Yoshikyuki, whom he clearly numbered among
his friends. Ryo?kan’s brother was a scholar of Japanese
literature and an amateur poet, and Yoshino cites a poem
exchange between Yoshiyuki and Ryo?kan, in which the latterdescribes a game of playing stones (hajiki) with some
prostitutes. Ryo?kan, 21–23; To?go?, Shinshu?, 18.
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12. The present hut is a 1914 reconstruction, the mountain road now
paved to accommodate busloads of arriving tourists.
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13. Following the account in Kitsu’en shiwa (Stories of poems andpoets told while smoking, 1816) by Ryo?kan’s friend Suzuki
Bundai. RZ 2:489. See also Abe’s remarks in GF, 265n72. The
current structure, in the village of Wakemi, is a Meiji-era
reconstruction.
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14. Perhaps the best known of Chan poetry collections, the Cold
Mountain poems (Hanshan shi) is actually an assembly of worksof three semilegendary eccentrics, Hanshan, Shide, andFenggan, who reputedly lived at or in the vicinity of the Guoqing
temple on Mount Tiantai at some point during the Tang dynasty.
The earliest dated edition of the work is from the twelfth century.
Hanshan and Shide, in particular, have remained popular as
quintessential “Zen lunatics.” Burton Watson notes the Hanshan
poems’ complaints of poverty, despair, and old age, themes
shared by Ryo?kan in his own Chinese poems, which also makefrequent use of Hanshan’s five-character-line format. Cold

Mountain Hanshan (London: Columbia University Press, 1970),
9–12. For a translation of the Cold Mountain poems
accompanied by their Chinese characters, see Red Pine (BillPorter), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Port Townsend,
WA: Copper Canyon, 2000), and Robert G. Henricks, The Poetryof Han-shan: A Complete Annotated Translation (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1999).
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15. There was renewed interest in the Manyoshu? during the Edo
period, one aspect of a revival of interest in classical Japanese
literature by Kokugaku (National Studies) scholars like Kamo
Mabuchi (1697–1769). Under Mabuchi’s influence, there
developed a group of so-called neo-Manyo poets, among whom
Ryo?kan is sometimes numbered. Nippon gakujutsu shinko?kai,
The Manyoshu?: One Thousand Poems (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1965), xxiii–xxiv.
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16. See Abe’s remarks in “Commemorating Ryo?kan,” GF, 85–86.
Ryo?kan’s notes are included in RZ, 2:410–37, 441–45.
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17. Saitо Shūhei, Niigata ken shi (Niigata: Nojima Shuppan, 1986–88), 4:240ff.
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18. Shinshu?, 90–91.
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19. The traditional Japanese children’s ball, or mari, consists oftightly wound colored threads. Usually the object of the game isto see how many times the mari can be bounced, and special
children’s songs often accompany the count. Onigokko, a sort ofcombination tag and blindman’s bluff, still popular with Japanesechildren.
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20. A Japanese children’s game in which players loop two blades ofgrass and pull to see which will snap the other.
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21. Kitsu’en shiwa, RZ 2:489.
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22. Ryo?kan zenji mokubatsu roku [Zen Master Ryo?kan’s wooden
bowl record, 1895], RZ 1:591.
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23. Kiwa, RZ 2:522 and 534n1. Such a list has been preserved in
the Suzuki family, descendants of Ryo?kan’s friend Bundai. Said
to have been kept as a family heirloom after it fell from Ryo?
kan’s wallet, the memo contains a list of the master’s
possessions, plus a reminder (bibo?) to read the list so as not toleave anything behind. Among the items are foot and hand
guards (ko?gake)—part of a traveling outfit—playing stones(ohajiki) and balls for children’s games, and a kara, a small,informal, square-shaped stole worn by Zen monks. Nakata Yu?
jiro, ed., Ryo?kan. Shodo? geijutsu 20 (Tokyo: Chuokoronshinsha, 1982), 153, 224. According to local tradition, Ryo?kan
lost his pipe and tobacco box so often that someone attached it
to the belt of his robe by a six-foot cord. A portrait of the aging
Ryo?kan by the doctor and painter Sugimoto Shunryo? (n.d.)shows Ryo?kan’s pipe hanging by a string from his monk’s staff,

lending some credence to the story. Kojima Masaka, “Ningen
Ryo?kan o saguru roku no wa,” Geijutsu shincho? 40, no. 2(February 1989): 66.
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24. O? zeki Bunchu?, Ryo?kan zenji den [Biography of the Zen
Master Ryo?kan], RZ 1:594.
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25. Ryo?kan’s letters are included in RZ 2:321–92. A selection istranslated in GF, 223–29.
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26. For a contemporaneous description of the market in Ryo?kan
fakes, see the 1830 letter of the master’s friend and patron
Kimura Motouemon in Matsumoto Ichiju?, No no Ryo?kan(Tokyo: Miraisha, 1988), 255n6. See also Abe’s comments in “A
Poetics of Mendicancy,” GF, 24. Most surviving fakes aretwentieth century. An exhibition of Ryo?kan forgeries from
Echigo was even mounted in 1951, with nine different “Ryo?
kans”—Ryo?kan forgers—identified in the province. Komatsu
Shigemi, “Ryo?kan nisemane shi,” Geijutsu shincho? 40, no. 2(February 1989): 60–62. Ryo?kan, as he himself attests in theKiwa, was indifferent when it came to technical lapses in his
brushwork. He frequently employs wrong or miswritten Chinesecharacters in his poems, along with omitting or even repeating
characters, so that a sure sign of a Ryo?kan fake is said to be a
total absence of such errors—perhaps the only example of acelebrated calligrapher known for the quantity of his mistakes.
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27. RZ 2:490–99. For further background on Teishin, see Yoshino,
Ryo?kan, 29–32.
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28. Undated memo from Teishin to the priest Zo?un (1813–1869), an
early anthologist of Ryo?kan’s poetry. RZ 1:502. Ryo?kan’s
remains are interred at the Kimura family temple, Ryu?senji,
affiliated with the True Pure Land (Jo?do shinshu?) school of
Buddhism and located in Shimazaki. Kitagawa, Yugi, 62.
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29. Saitō Shūhei, Niigata kenshi, Shiryo? hen, 24:459; To?go?,Shinshu?, 20–25.
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30. Often as not, the imperial title was issued posthumously. Hakuin,
for example, received the title Jinki Dokumyo? zenji after his
death; although Taigu So?chiku was awarded the name Shoso?
Hiso? zenji in 1664, during his lifetime.
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31. To?go?, Shinshu?, 181.
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32. See, for example, the official So?to? lineage chart included involume 3 of Zengaku daijiten, 28, where Ryo?kan is the only
Dharma heir shown for Kokusen. Nakamura Shu?ichi attributes
this to Ryo?kan’s posthumous popularity and argues that while
Ryo?kan had received Kokusen’s inka, or sanction ofenlightenment, he did not necessarily receive Kokusen’s formal
Dharma transmission in his So?to? lineage. Ryo?kan no ge to
Sho?bo?genzo? (Tokyo: Seishin Shobo, 1984), 7–8. Iriya,

however, disagrees. Shishu?, 35. The rank assigned to Ryo?kan
at his funeral was that of shuso. Though literally meaning“supervisor of the meditation hall,” Kitagawa maintains that So?
to? practice since the Middle Ages was to use the terminterchangeably with zenji for anyone who—unlike Ryo?kan—receives it at either of the two great So?to? headquarters
temples, Eiheiji or Sojiji; similarly, the absence of the formal term
osho?, “teacher,” indicates in the So?to? context that Ryo?kan
never became abbot of either So?to? temple. Kitagawa So?ichi,
Ryo?kan: Sono daigu no sho?gai (Tokyo: Shirakawa Shoin,1980), 21–23.
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33. Kiwa, RZ 2:531.
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34. Hokketen, RZ 1:435–36; and Hokkesan, RZ 1:457–97.
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35. T 9:50b–51c. See the related poems in Ryo?kan’s Hokkesan, RZ
1:452–53, 488. (The bodhisattva’s name is sometimes also read
Jofugyo? in Japanese. Skt. Sadaparibhuta.)
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36. Ryo?kan shishu? [Ryo?kan’s collected Chinese poems] (Tokyo:
Ko?dansha, 1982). Interestingly, as Watson observes, in Japan,
where Ryo?kan’s beloved Hanshan has been revered as theparadigm of a carefree, enlightened Zen layman, modern
scholars have similarly sought to “explain away” as symptoms ofdepression the Cold Mountain poems that deal with distress,
loneliness, and doubt, an approach Watson rejects. Hanshan,
12.

BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 36

37. The Heart Sutra (T 8:848c), couched as instruction from the
Buddha to his disciple Subu?thi, is perhaps the shortest of
Buddhist sutras. It is often regarded as a crystallization of the
Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) teaching of the identity ofabsolute and phenomenal realms of existence. There survives a
handwritten copy of the sutra by Ryo?kan. To?go?, Shinshu?,113. Awakening of Faith [in the Mahayana] (Qixin lun, T
32:575a–583b), a scripture of uncertain origin, is among the key
texts of Chinese Buddhism. Among its principal themes is theperfect interpenetration of samsara and nirvana, the absoluteand phenomenal, in the ultimate reality of thusness, tathata. As
such, it has been regarded by many as the basis of such
Mahayana teachings as Zen, Huayan, and Esoteric Buddhism.
The work is translated by Yoshito S. Hakeda as The Awakeningof Faith, Attributed to Asvagosha (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1967). Ryuichi Abe’s introduction to the 2006
edition notes how the text “boldly posits as the ultimate reality
the minds of sentient beings in their everyday existence. That is,‘Emptiness,’ ‘Buddha’…and all other Buddhist ideals derive fromsentient beings ordinary state of mind” (17–18), a point stressedin Hakeda’s translation and accompanying commentary (see, forexample, 39–41).
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38. The Kiwa is translated in GF, 94–106 (1996). Original text, RZ
2:522–34.
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39. ROI, 65.
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40. Nagaoka is a castle town in Echigo (Niigata Prefecture). It was
ruled from 1618 to 1868 by daimyo of the Makino family. Ryo?
kan was a member of an Echigo merchant family whosebusiness centered on the port town of Izumozaki, of which hisfather was headman.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 40

41. Ryo?kan’s actual family name was Yamamoto, and his childhoodname is given as both Eizo? and Bunko?.
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42. Probably at age seventeen, when Ryo?kan abandoned his
duties as his father’s successor and became a novice at a local
Zen temple. The details of Ryo?kan’s early life are often vague
or, as here, often fanciful, but for a more factual account, see GF,
6–13.
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43. So?sho. A form of cursive calligraphy used to inscribe Chinesecharacters.
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44. Reference is to Analects 6:24: Tsai said, “I take it that a goodman, even if told that another good man were at the bottom of awell, would go to join him.” “Why should you think so?”Confucius asked. “They say, ‘A gentleman can be broken, butcannot be dented, may be deceived, but cannot be led astray.’ ”
Arthur Waley, trans., The Analects of Confucius (New York:
Vintage, 1938), 121. For the Chinese text, see
http//:dsturgeon.net, Analects 6, no. 26.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 44

45. An Edo Confucian and a renowned calligrapher of his day, Bo?
sai (1752–1826) is said to have traveled to Echigo in 1809. For
Ryo?kan’s influence on Bo?sai’s calligraphy, see GF, 77.
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46. In fact, Ryo?kan died in 1831, the era’s second year, at age
seventy-three.
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47. Carrying such funeral money was not unusual for monks in
premodern Japan, but here the unstated humor seems to derivefrom the fact that Ryo?kan was known by his friends to beperpetually broke.
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48. Noto-ya was the shop name of Kimura’s establishment.
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49. An important port in what is now Okayama Prefecture. It was thesite of Entsu?ji, the So?to? Zen temple where Ryo?kan trained
under his teacher Tainin Kokusen from 1789 till on or around
Kokusen’s death.
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50. The remaining accounts concerning Ryo?kan are all oral
traditions (kuden), assembled by No?nin Ko?do?. Some clearly
contradict one another, but taken together they present a colorfulspectrum of local beliefs surrounding the eccentric Zen masterand poet.
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51. Hiru andon. An expression used in China and Japan to signify afool, a simpleton, or something utterly useless, like a lantern inthe daytime.
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52. Festival of the Dead, or Lantern Festival, generally celebrated
from July 13 to July 15 when the spirits of the dead are said toreturn to their former abodes. Bon is traditionally associated withvarious dances and songs.
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53. The Confucian Analects were a staple of childhood education inearly modern Japan, with students generally trained to memorize
and write out portions of the text.
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54. Important shogunal officials, daimyo, and other persons ofdistinction in Edo-period Japan customarily traveled seated in akago, a kind of closed palanquin with a pair of extended handles
at the front and back, which allowed it to be carried by speciallydesignated porters.
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55. Albizzia julibrissin. A deciduous tree with crimson flowers. Its
leaves close and droop in the evening.
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56. Mount Koya is in Wakayama Prefecture. The principal monasteryand temple complex of the Shingon, or Esoteric, school, founded
by Ku?kai (774–835), Koya lies some sixty miles south of Kyoto.
Ise Shrine is an important Shinto shrine complex dedicated tothe sun goddess, Amaterasu. It is located in what is now MiePrefecture. It was a popular pilgrimage site during the Tokugawa
period.
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57. Teradomari is a port city facing the Sea of Japan; it lies inpresent-day Niigata Prefecture. Also in Niigata, Go?moto is acoastal town lying not far from Ryo?kan’s native Izumozaki.
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58. Saigyo? (1118–1190), a former Shingon priest and wandering
poet, was a renowned Japanese poet of the Middle Ages. Kisen
was a ninth-century Japanese poet-recluse.
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59. Ikkyu? So?jun, noted previously. The only medieval Zen masterfamous for his erotic poetry, Ikkyu? is remembered for his
flagrant disregard of convention as well as his literary skill.
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60. That is, the world of rebirth, after death, when a person will
incarnate in one of various realms in accordance with the karma
accrued in their lifetime. Ryo?kan’s waka quoted here areincluded in RZ 2:101, nos. 598–599.
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61. Translation of the final line is tentative. The significance of theadverbial phrase ukara-ukara to is unclear and does not appear
in any of the dictionaries I have consulted. Taking this as apossible transcription error, I have read it as unkare—a stem of
unkareru, “to make merry, or frolic.”
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62. Miso, or soybean paste, a staple of Japanese cooking. Althoughmore commonly produced in factories today, in the countryside in
Ryo?kan’s period, farmers would often prepare their own miso
by soaking and boiling soybeans till they could be processed intoa paste that was then mixed with salt and wheat or rice malt. The
pounding and grinding process can be messy and smelly, andthe humor of the anecdote lies in Ryo?kan’s nonchalant use of
the same bowl to then wash his face and hands.
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63. A town northeast of Ryo?kan’s native Izumozaki, lying inland
near the Seba River.
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64. Apparently a beach hut used to produce salt—a valuablecommodity in premodern Japan—by boiling salt water.
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65. The following story, according to oral tradition, describes theperiod when Ryo?kan was a training monk at Entsu?ji underTainin Kokusen. The story appears in Soma Gyo?fu’s Taigu
Ryo?kan (1918). An accompanying note states, “This story is alegend passed on and still current at Entsu?ji. It was related tome by the temple’s present abbot Ishikawa Kaizen (n.d.).” ROI,
96, 98. In premodern Japan, the local officials, mura yakunin,
were village-level representatives of the shogunal government.
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66. The verse’s humor depends largely on a pun: Rosewood (Cassia
siamea; J. tagayasan) is a rare wood imported from South Asia,
and Ryo?kan contrasts Chu?min’s connoisseurship with thedoctor’s reportedly neglectful attitude toward his medicalpractice. It is to the latter, Ryo?kan says, that Chu?min should
be “applying himself”—in Japanese also read tagayasan, a formof the verb tagayasu, literally “to plow, till, work the soil,” andhere, by extension, keep one’s nose to the grindstone. The verse
is included in RZ 2:106; see also, for comparison, poem 1381 in
RZ 2:276.
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67. Kusha ron, Skt. Abhidharma-kosa-bhyasya [Discourse on therepository of Abidharma discussions], T 29, no. 1558, is acelebrated treatise on Buddhist doctrine. Man’inji is a True Pure
Land temple in Izumozaki.
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68. As indicated in Bundai’s account, Ryo?kan’s calligraphy was
highly valued, and already during the master’s lifetime, fakes had
begun to appear on the market (see GF, 261n6). Ryo?kan
himself tended to resist requests for samples of his distinctive
brushwork but was always anxious to please the local children,
and a common ruse was for a collector to use a child as apretext to obtain pieces of the master’s calligraphy. The episodedescribed here by Bundai may well be such an instance,
according to To?go? Toyoharu. See Shinshu? Ryo?kan, 295. A
close-up photo of the piece of calligraphy, among Ryo?kan’s
most famous, forms the cover art of GF.
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69. N.d. Ryo?kan was actually born in Izumozaki, a neighboring port
town to Amaze.
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70. Kоshоji was the first So?to? school Zen temple, founded by Do?
gen Kigen in 1233 at Uji, a town south of Kyoto but within thepresent-day Kyoto municipal district.
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71. That is, renga, a Japanese form of linked verse based on waka,
in which poets meet to link verses in often long sequences. It
was highly popular in literary society during the Edo period.
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72. Various versions of the story exist. In the Kiwa, for example,
Ryo?kan deliberately allows the thief to slip his quilt out fromunder him (RZ 2:530; GF, 104), while elsewhere, as we haveseen, the master compliantly hands over his robe.
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73. Hachi no ko. The iron bowl carried by Buddhist monks on their
begging rounds. At times Ryo?kan substituted a wooden bowl.
Several waka on the subject by Ryo?kan survive, among them:“I left behind my begging bowl / but no one would take it / My
pitiful begging bowl!” ROI, 108; RZ 2:10. See also GF, 111–17.
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74. Yamada Toko? (1775–1844), Ryo?kan’s friend and cousin. He
was a haiku poet and sake brewer resident in Yoita.
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75. Makiri is unidentified. Niigata is an important city facing theisland of Sado, some thirty miles up the coast from Ryo?kan’s
native town of Izumozaki. It is now the capital of Niigata
Prefecture.
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76. Ugan (d. 1808) was a close friend of Ryo?kan’s who became amonk as a young man and apparently returned later to lay life,
as indicated by Ryo?kan’s Chinese poem (kanshi) “Visiting theLayman Ugan.” RZ 1:383–84; GF, 179, 282n85. Tsubame is now
a city in Ryo?kan’s area of Niigata Prefecture.
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77. The Kano school of painting was one of the leading schools of
painting in early modern Japan. Its roots go back to the fifteenth
century, and it has continued into modern times.
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78. Hizen is an old province in Japan’s south, now Nagasaki
Prefecture, and thus a considerable distance from the snow
country of Ryo?kan’s native Echigo.
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79. See RZ 2, no. 1238, 195. Several similar waka are included in
RZ. See RZ 2, nos. 1238–1240, 195.
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80. Around three hundred yards. A cho? is an old unit ofmeasurement, one cho? equivalent to sixty ken, or “intervals,” aken measuring about six feet.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 80

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INDEX

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of thebook. Each link will take you to the beginning of the corresponding
print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to findthe corresponding reference on your e-reader.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W
X Y Z
Abe Ryūichi, 156, 218n8, 222n37
Akeno, 137, 216n72
Amaterasu, 224n56
Amida (Amitabha), 13, 203n58
nenbutsu of, 88, 98–99, 173–74, 203n58, 207nn88–89
as one’s own body, 140, 217n76
Analects of Confucius, 159, 162, 166, 167, 222n44, 224n53
ancestors, 40, 44
Ashihara, 121, 122
Atsuta shrine, 30
Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, 156, 222n37
ball of doubt. See doubt/great doubt
Bankei Yōtaku, 1, 107, 110, 212n27
on koans and Song Zen, 13, 114, 212n31
on women’s spiritual ability, 12
on Zen’s final goal, 115
Bankoku Shōteki, 51
Bashō, 76, 199n30, 199n37
Battle of Sekigahara, 30, 189n4
beggingmonastic practice of, 129, 199n32, 217n1, 226n73
Ryōkan’s, 150–51, 158, 159
Blue Cliff Record (Biyan lu), 7, 29, 50, 187n26, 192n22, 194n33“Bodhidharma’s ‘Empty and Boundless, Nothing Holy,’ ” 43–44,
194n34, 194n36“Drinkers of Wine Dregs,” 131–32, 215n60
on false attainment, 214n52
on heretic and sparrow, 39, 192n21
lectures on, 123, 126, 131“Master Ma Is Unwell,” 123–24, 214n49“Nanquan’s Flower,” 128, 215n55“National Teacher’s Monument,” 211n16“A sesame bun,” 192n23“Yunmen’s Staff,” 112“Zhaozhou’s Wu!,” 8, 15–16, 107, 135, 186n18
Bodhidharma, 2, 3, 196n3“Empty and boundless, nothing holy” koan, 194n34, 194n36
Hakuin’s paintings of, 19, 136
lineage of, 4Sengai’s portrait of, 53
bodhisattva vows. See vows, four
Bon festival, 162, 163, 224n52
book satchel (kyū), 34, 189n5
bowing mat, 31, 190n10
breath-counting meditation, 63–64, 198n20
brush paintings (Hakuin), 14, 19, 110, 113, 136. See also undercalligraphy
brush paintings (Sengai), 54
of children wrestling, 94–95
copies, 99–100“crow flying in darkness,” 100–101, 208n93
for Genyū, 64–65
of Gyokuran, 87, 202n57

See also under calligraphy
buddha nature, 155
Buddha Shakyamuni, 3, 43, 50, 92, 194n31, 196n4, 204n69
buddhahood, instantaneous, 117, 213n35
buddhasmeanings of, 98, 207n87
of three worlds, 33, 190n13
Buddhist canon, 2
Buzen, 68, 133, 198n25
calligraphy
grass script, 159, 223n43
hand seal (hanko), 207n91
ink for, 208n93
Ryōkan’s, 149, 153, 159–60, 167, 172–74, 176, 177, 178,
221n26, 226n68
Sengai’s, 52–53, 54, 60, 61, 70, 76, 77–78, 84
study of, 86–87
Chan, 108
biographies in, 3–5
founding scripture, 2–3
golden age, 6–7, 184n13
story tradition in, 2, 11
syncretism in, 217n76
teaching methods of, 4
See also Linji Chan
Chimon Genso, 28, 30, 190n6
Chinese Buddhism, 4, 203n58, 217n76, 222n37
Chinese classics, study of, 75, 86–87
Chōdō, 124–25
Chōeimon, 69, 82–83, 84–85
chōnin culture, 12, 106
Chōsa Ehō, 118–19

Chronicle of the Three Generations of the Sanada Clan (Takekiyo),
78, 200n42
Chronological Biography of the Zen Teacher Hakuin (Hakuin oshō
nenpu, Tōrei), 15–16
Chronology of the Zen Master Jinki Dokumyō (Jinki Dokumyō zenji
nenpu, Tōrei), 208n1“Cold Mountain poems,” 150, 220n14, 222n36
concentrating mind (J. nen), 40
Confucianism, 10, 216n70
anti-Buddhist critiques by, 10, 12, 137, 186n25, 209n3, 216n70
Chinese, 186n23, 198n18
classics of, 133, 215n62
Meiji era, 200n38
Tenpō era, 201n45
contemplation, inner, 15, 108, 187n30
courtesans and prostitutes, 14, 33–34, 66–67, 113, 119–21, 167–68
Curious Accounts of the Zen Master Ryōkan (Ryōkan zenji kiwa,
Yoshishige), 20, 154, 217n1
Dahui shu, 185n17
Dahui Zonggao, 52, 187n26
on daily activity, 210n9koan method of, 8, 14, 18, 107, 185n15, 185n17
Daianji (temple), 28, 38–39
Daijū Zen’nyo, 131, 133–34, 212n23
Daikyū Ehō, 128, 129
daily activities
manual labor, 39, 173–74
practice and realization in, 6, 109, 156, 192n23, 210n9
Zen masters’ manifestations in, 19
Dainin Rosen, 174
Daiō, 16–17, 111
Daishōji (temple), 106–7
Daitō (Shūhō Myōchō), 16

Daitokuji (temple), 14, 16
Date Masamune, 189n1
Dayu, 218n7
death poems
Ryōkan’s, 178–79
Sokyū’s, 81–82, 202n50
Suiō’s, 123
deities
Amaterasu, 224n56
kami, 132, 215n61
thunder god, 57–58, 197n15
devotion
Minamoto’s, 43–44, 194n32
Shien’s, 76
Shimada’s, 37–38
in Zen, incorporation of, 13
Dew on the Lotus (Hachisu no tsuyu, Teishin), 153
Dharma names, 44, 122, 194nn35–36, 213n43
Diamond Sutra, 3
Dōgen Kigen, 107, 147, 148, 155, 218n8, 226n70
Don’ei, 62
doubt/great doubt, 8, 190n11
critique of, 212n31
koan practice and, 107, 112, 115, 211n17
Sōgai’s, 136
Taigu’s, 32
Dunhuang caves, 183n1, 210n12
Echigo, 146, 147, 150, 154, 160, 177, 178, 223n40
Echizen province, 37, 44, 45, 194n38
Edo (now Tokyo), 10, 12, 106, 199n34, 201n48
Edo period, 9, 11commerce in, 218n2
daimyo (clan chieftains) in, 1, 10, 106

“democratization” of Zen in, 12
literature in, 220n15, 226n71
society, 106
travel of officials during, 224n54
Zen folk tradition in, 14–15
Zen’s loss of autonomy during, 28–29
Eisai, 51, 196n6, 206n84
encounter dialogues, 3, 124, 184n13
Enkyōji (temple), 28
enlightenment
capacity for, 40
cultivation after, need for, 110, 111, 112, 114, 212n24
as cutting off past and future, 128, 215n57
intrinsic nature of, 213n35
sudden, 3, 117, 213n35
enlightenment experiences
Chōsa’s, 119
Gasan’s, 126–27
Hakuin’s, 108, 109–10
Katsugen’s, 175
Masa’s, 115–16
old women from Harajuku, 140–41
Osatsu’s, 137–38
Ryōsai’s, 127, 214n53
Sengai’s, 50–51
of Shibata Genyō’s mother, 124
Taigu’s, 190n6
See also kenshō (“seeing one’s nature”)
Entsūji (temple), 147, 148, 171, 224n49, 225n65
Esoteric Buddhism, 21, 190n7, 199n36, 222n37, 224n56
Extensive Tiensheng Transmission of the Lamp, 4–5, 184n6
faith, 36–37, 192n22
Fenggan, 220n14

firearms, 204n66
Five Dynasties period, 3–4, 5, 6, 7, 184n13
folk traditions, 14, 54, 114
Fuji, Mount, 105, 107–8
Fukui domain, 28, 79, 191n18, 201n45
Fukuoka domain, 52, 75, 77, 199n35
Furugori Kentsu, 116
Fushimi, 119, 213n40
Gankyoku Zenko, 135
Gaofeng Yuanmiao, 107
Gasan Jitō, 123, 125–27, 214n47
Gateless Gate (Wumenguan), 7, 191n16“Juzhi’s Finger,” 204n68“Xiangyan’s ‘Up a Tree,’ ” 50, 196n2“Yunmen’s Piece of Dried Shit,” 185n17
Gedatsu, 115, 116
Genna era, 30, 33
Genroku period, 106
Gessen Zenne, 50–51, 125
Gesshū Sōkō, 147
ghost tales, 59–60, 114, 119–21
goblins (tengu), 76, 199n36
Gōchō, 71–72
Gomizuno’o, 17, 28, 36–37, 192n24
Gōmoto, 166, 169, 224n57
Grandma’s Grinding Songs (Obaba dono kohiki uta, Hakuin), 113–
14
gravesites, visits to, 69, 97–98, 198n26, 206n84
Great Fool Ryōkan (Taigu Ryōkan, Somo Gyōfu), 154, 225n65
Gudō Tōshoku, 17, 188n34
Gomizuno’o and, 36
lineage of, 27
Shimada and, 37–38

Gyokuran, 86–87, 202n54
haiku, 60, 165, 199n30
Hakatacholera epidemic in, 67
governance of, 97
society of, 49, 64, 80, 86–90, 96, 98
Hakeda, Yoshito, 11
Hakone, 62, 197n17
Hakugan Enyo, 94, 205n77
Hakuhō-in, 96, 206n81
Hakuin Ekaku, 20, 137, 222n30
autobiographies of, 208n1
with Chōdō, 124–25
with Daijū, 133
early life, 105–6
formative years, 106–10
with Gasan, 126–27
Hakuyūshi and, 15, 108, 187n31
on inka, giving too soon, 128
inka of, 17–18, 188n37
with Kankei, 132–33
koan revival of, 14, 18, 188n37
lineage of, 50, 187n26
names of, 109, 210n10with Osatsu, 138–39
passing of, 114, 122, 214n47
with Shōuju Rojin, 15–16, 108
social interactions of, 11
with Sōgai, 134–35, 136with Suiō, 121–22
teaching and writing period, 111–14
on women’s spiritual abilities, 12
writings of, 17, 18–19, 110–11, 112, 113–14, 208n1

as Xutang’s reincarnation, 16–17
See also Kaien Fusetsu (Hakuin); Poison Flowers from a Thicketof Thorns (Keisō dokuzui, Hakuin)
Hakuin monka itsuwasen, 115
Hakuyūshi, 15, 108, 187n31
Hanshan, 150, 220n14, 222n36
Hara, 105–6, 109
Hara post stations, 106, 140, 141, 209n2, 216n75
Heart Sutra, 156, 222n37
hell of scorching heat, 130, 215n58
Henchō, 150, 171
Hibara, 32, 33
Hidetada, 191n17, 192n24
Hisa no Geki, 79, 201n45
Hizen, 178, 227n78
Hongren (Fifth Patriarch), 3
Honshū, 107, 197n10
Horie Yamashiro Tadaharu, 33, 190n15
Hōsetsu, 39–41, 46
host and guest, 41, 192n25
Hotei, 19–20
Hōtōji, 44–45
Huangbo Xiyun, 132, 191n20, 215n60
Huayan Buddhism, 222n37
Huike (Second Patriarch), 2
Huineng (Sixth Patriarch), 3, 4, 6, 18, 183n2
hungry ghosts, ceremony for, 121, 213n41
Hun-lun Mountain, symbolism of, 45, 195n41
Ichikawa Danjirō, 82–84, 202n51
Ihara family, 117
Ikkyū Sōjun, 14–15, 167, 187n29, 225n59
Ikkyūbanashi, 15
impermanence, 117inka cards, 112, 212n23
interlinear comments (hsialu), 7–8
Iriya Yoshitaka, 6, 9, 156, 222n32
Isabu falls, 117, 213n33
Ise Shrine, 165, 224n56
Ishin Eryū, 129–30
Isshi Bunshu, 210n11
Itō Jinpachi, 50
Itō Kazuo, 187n31
Iwata, Mount, 132–33
Izumozaki, 146, 147, 148, 149, 161, 163–64, 218n2, 223n40
Jingde Transmission of the Lamp, 4, 184n6
Jishōji (temple), 133, 134
Jizōdo, 169, 225n63
Jofukyō Bosatsu, 155, 222n35
Jōgen Sōkō, 28, 30
Juzhi, 204n68
Kabuki, 82–84, 202nn51–52
Kaga hot springs, 37
Kagakuji (temple), 127
Kaien Fusetsu (Hakuin), 105, 110–11, 188n35
Kaigan, 129
Kaimon, 131
Kamakura, 13, 21–22
Kameda Bōsai, 160, 223n45
Kamei Shōyō, 86, 202n55
Kamo Mabuchi, 220n15
Kankei Sotei, 131–32
Kannon (Avalokitesvara), 13, 14, 137, 216n72
Kano family, 77, 78
Kanzan Egen, 16, 29, 42, 193n30, 214n45
Katakasu, 73, 74, 75, 76–77
Katsugen Taiki, 175, 179

Kawamura family, 50, 51
Keikyokusōdan (Myōki Seiteki), 115
kenshō (“seeing one’s nature”), 108, 111, 112, 136, 210n6, 212n23
Kera Yoshishige, 20, 155, 217n1
Keya no Ooto, 69, 198n27
ki power, 63–64, 198n18
killing, 55–56, 61
Kimura family, 153, 161, 179, 221n28
Kimura Motouemon, 153, 221n26
Kirino Toshiaki, 77, 200n38
Kisen, 166, 225n58
Kitayama, 35, 191n16
koans, 7–9, 184n6, 212n31“Doushuai’s ‘Three Barriers,’ ” 134
Hakuin’s practice of, 107–8, 109
Hakuin’s revival of, 14, 18, 111–12, 113, 114, 188n37
huatou of, 8, 107
nantō (“hard to penetrate”), 111“Shushan’s Pagoda,” 131
Song origins of, 185n15“Sound of One Hand,” 14, 112, 211n16“‘Sound of One Hand’ dual barrier,” 114
Taigu’s practice of, 32
See also Blue Cliff Record (Biyan lu); Gateless Gate (Wumen
guan)
Kōdenji (temple), 178
Koetsu Chūmin, 169–70, 171, 225n66
Kōgenji (temple), 40
Kogetsu Zenzai, 50, 124, 125, 195n2, 214n53
Kokinshū, 150
Kondō Banjō, 148–49, 219n9
Kongoji temple, 128
Korei Soō, 125Kōshōji (temple), 147, 163, 164, 174, 218n5, 226n70
Koya, Mount, 165, 224n56
Kugami, Mount, 149–50, 151, 152, 153, 155
Kuin Enku, 50
Kūkai, 224n56
Kumazawa Banzan, 186n25
Kuroda clan, 197n10, 199n35, 201n45
Gōchō and, 71, 72
Sengai and, 52, 91, 96, 97–98
Shien’s relationship with, 73, 75, 77
Sōhei and, 79
Kuroda Naomi, 96, 206n81
Kuroda Narikiyo, 49, 55–56, 61
Kusha ron (Skt. Abhidharmakosa-bhyasya), 171, 226n67
Kyohaku-in subtemple, 52, 53, 68, 73, 78, 80
Kyoto, 12, 13, 51, 158. See also Myōshinji (temple)
laity, 117–18
in Hakuin’s following, 109, 112, 116
Taigu’s encounters with, 39–41“lamp” histories, 4, 183n4, 184n6, 184n9
Liang dynasty, 194n34
Linji Chan, 5, 7, 187n26
Linji Yixuan, 4, 6–7, 11, 18, 196n6, 214n48. See also Record of Linji(Linji lu)
Lotus Sutra, 109, 138, 155, 198n28, 209n3, 216n73
Lu Xuan, 215n55
Mahaparinirvana Sutra, 212n26
Maitreya, 50, 196n4
Makigahana, 217n1
Mangen Shipan, 27
Man’inji (temple), 171, 225n67
Manjusri, 127, 214n54
Manpukuji, 205n77

Manyoshū, 150, 220n15
Manzan Dōhaku, 147
martial arts, 63–64, 78, 199n36, 200n38
Matsudaira Mitsumichi, 28, 37, 43–44, 191n18, 194n32
Matsushima Hokusho, 157Mazu Daoyi, 4, 6–7, 11, 184n13, 213n37
Meiji, Emperor, 200nn38–39
Meiji Restoration, 199nn34–35
merit, 38, 190n9, 191n17, 194n36, 203n60
Mian Xianjie, 187n26
Minamoto Mitsumichi. See Matsudaira
Mitsumichi
mind alone is Pure Land, 140
mind-to-mind transmission, 3, 13
Ming Zen, 17, 29, 107, 205n76, 209n5
Mino province (now Gifu Prefecture), 50, 107, 108, 132–33
Misshō-an pagoda, 122, 214n45
Miyamoto Tōsai, 100, 208n92
monasticism
begging rounds in, 129, 199n32, 217n1
Dōgen’s, 147
at Entsūji, 148
funeral money in, 160–61, 224n47
Nehandō in, 216n67
Mujaku Dōchu, 36–37
Mu’nan, 17, 188n34
Muromachi period, 21–22, 28
Myōkan, 30–31
Myōshinji lineage, 16–18, 27–28, 50, 106, 109, 110
Myōshinji (temple), 16, 27, 29, 193nn29–30
naming customs at, 210n10, 213n43
Pure Land influences at, 17
Taigu’s relationship with, 12, 28, 34, 52, 196n7

Nagaoka domain, 157, 223n40
Nagasaki, 29, 94
Nagazawa family, 216n71, 216n73
Nakano district, 74, 199n34
Nanpo Jōmyō, 187n26, 193n28
Nanquan Puyuan, 215n55
Nansenji (temple), 28, 30, 33, 35
Natsudō, 169
Neo-Confucianism, 198n18
neo-Manyo poets, 220n15
New Year’s Day, 67–68, 96–97, 114–15, 206n82
Nichiren (Lotus) school, 106, 209n3, 216n73
Niigata, 177, 227n75
Ninkō, Emperor, 53
Nomura Hayato, 97–98, 197n10, 207n86
nonduality, 45, 195n42
nuns, 34
Eshō, 141
Jōkan, 44
Sushi, 41
Teishin, 153
in Tokugawa period, 61, 197n17
Obaba (“Grandma”), 14, 113, 187n28, 212n26
Ōbaku school, 29, 94, 107, 195n2, 205nn76–77
Ofuku, 113, 212n26
Ōmori Shiyō, 147
Osaka, 10, 12, 81, 119, 120, 122, 201n45, 201n48
Osatsu (Grandma Satsu), 137–40, 216n71
Ōshima, 53, 197n10, 207n86
Ōta Tadaemon, 88–90Ōtōkan lineage, 16–17, 18
painting
folk art, 199n36

Kano school, 178, 227n77
Sengai’s, 52–53, 56–58
of Taigu, inscription on, 46
Tosa school, 87, 202n56
See also brush paintings (Hakuin); brush paintings (Sengai)
Patriarchs’ Hall Collection (Zutang ji), 3–4, 183n4
Plane of High Heaven, 68, 198n24
Platform Sutra, 2–3, 6, 210n12
Poceski, Mario, 184n13
poems, 190n14classical Chinese, mood of, 156, 222n36
Furugori’s, 116
Hakuin’s, 136, 138, 216n69
Ryōsai’s, 127
Suiō’s, 122
See also death poems; haiku; waka poetry
poems (Sengai)
death verse, 53“Here in Fukuoka,” 53“I hope you won’t,” 85
for Shien, 76, 199n37
to Sōhei, 78–79“Three thousand years since
Shakyamuni,” 50–51“When Zen first arrived,” 51, 196n6
poems (Taigu)
death verse, 45“Dust and dirt,” 32“For most of the twenty-four lines of Zen,” 42–43“Neither an ill-omened owl,” 35–36“Springtime arrives,” 33
poems and waka (Ryōkan), 153–54
analysis of, 156

death verse, 178–79
on father’s death, 165“Iron Begging Bowl,” 176, 226n73“Left untouched,” 175
linked (renga), 167–68, 174, 226n71“Playing with the Children,” 145“The rare rosewood,” 171, 225n66“The wild geese,” 172
Poison Flowers from a Thicket of Thorns (Keisō dokuzui, Hakuin),
133, 134, 215n63
Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom), 222n37
Puhua, 5–6, 9Pure Land school (Japan), 203n58.
See also True Pure Land (Jōdo shinshū) school; Zen–Pure Landsynthesis
rebirth, 225n60
Record of Linji (Linji lu), 5–6, 134, 135, 184n10, 191n20, 218n7
records of words (yu lu), 5, 184n9
refuge, 124
Reigen Etō, 28, 130–31
Renzong, Emperor, 4–5
retreats
Hakuin’s, 107, 108
intensive (kessei), 134–35, 148intensive (rohatsu), 118, 125, 213n38
Taigu’s, 31–32, 44–45
rice
accompaniments to, 89, 204n62
taxes paid in, 203n60
toasted cakes (mochi), 96, 206n82
Ridatsu, 45
Rinjōin (temple), 123
Rinshō-in (Kasuga no Tsubone), 41, 192n24

Rinzai Zen, 27, 50, 107elite appeal of, 13
Hakuin in, 106, 114–15
inka in, 17
lineages of, 15, 16–17, 18, 211n15
See also Ōbaku school
Ryōkan, 19, 20–21
absentmindedness of, 152, 160–61, 221n23
all-purpose bowl, 168, 225n62
appearance of, 158–59
buried alive, accounts of, 169–71
children and, 145, 151–52, 158, 167
early life, 146–47, 158, 161–64, 223n42, 226n69
father’s suicide, 149, 156, 164–65
in folk traditions, 14
funeral ceremony, 161, 175, 179
generosity of, 159
at Gogō-an hut, 149–50, 166, 219n12
inka received, 148
names of, 147, 148, 157, 158, 161, 218n7, 223n41
ordination of, 147–48, 163, 164, 218n5
at Otogo hut, 150–53, 174–75
passing of, 153, 160, 224n46
personal qualities, 152, 154, 169
popularity of, 154
portrait of, 221n23
remains of, 221n28
and Sengai, commonalities between, 49–50
at Shimazaki hermitage, 153, 175
social engagement of, 10–11
sources for, 157, 217n1
with Teishin, 153
wandering period, 148–49

Zen attainment of, 155–57
See also calligraphy; poems and waka (Ryōkan)Ryōkan zenji kiwa, 157
Ryōkan zenshū, 217n1
Ryōkei Shōsen, 29
Ryōsai Genmyō, 127–28, 214n53
Ryōtetsu (Yamanashi Heijirō), 117–18, 141
Ryūkokuji (temple), 135
Ryūsenji (temple), 221n28
Ryūtakuji (temple), 111
Sado, 146, 147, 164
Saichō, 198n28
Saigo Takamori, 200nn38–39
academy, 77, 200n38
Saigyō, 166, 225n58
Saishōji (nunnery), 41
Sakai, 13
sake, 52, 81, 84, 85, 152, 163
salt-cooking hut, 169, 225n64
samadhi, Sengai’s power of, 63–64
samurai, 1diet of, 92–93
masterless (ronin), 64
officials (machibugyō), 97, 206n84
patronage of, 10, 13
Sengai’s encounters with, 64–65, 69, 91, 92–93
traditional virtues of, 200n39
women and, 12
as Zen followers, 116
Sanada clan, 200n42
Sansheng Huiran, 196n6
satori, 8
multiple, 108, 210n8

without a teacher, 110, 210n11
Satsuma Rebellion, 200n38
Satta, Mount, 117, 213n36
sayings and proverbs
bellyful of Zen, 127, 214n52
black lacquer bucket, 136, 216n68
ducks huddling in water, 118, 213n39
eggs can be made square, 93, 205n72
lantern in daylight, 162, 224n51
telling a tortoise from terrapin, 33, 190n12
seals, personal (hanko), 100, 207n91
secret virtue, 90, 204n65
Seisetsu Shūcho, 51
Seitaiji (temple), 50, 51, 52
Sekie (“Stone Robe”), 137
Sekigahara, 30, 189n4
Sekishin, 93
Sengai Gibon, 10, 19, 49
all-purpose mixing bowl of, 91–92, 204n68
appearance of, 49, 61–62, 65–66, 204n64
behavior of, 52–53, 69, 71
biographical information, 49–54
with children, 94–95
on death, 71“debates” Gōchō, 71–72
favorite foods, 80, 88–89, 96, 201n46, 203n61 (See also sweet
potatoes)in folk traditions, 14
gratitude, refusal to acknowledge, 54, 89–90
on heaven and hell, 68
illnesses of, 70, 86
inka of, 51
on killing, 55–56, 61

on marital squabbles, 97, 98
on nenbutsu, 87
as “Out Today,” 58–59, 60
passing of, 53
penis of, 62–63
retirement of, 85, 95
and Sakai Sōhei, relationship with, 77–78
samadhi power of, 63–64
seal (hanko) of, 100, 207n91
and Shien, relationship with, 73–74, 76
social engagement of, 10, 11
and Sokyū-san, relationship with, 80–81
on “theater riffraff,” 82–83
See also calligraphy; poems (Sengai)
Sengai oshō itsuwasen, 54
sesame buns, 40–41, 192n23
Shenxiu, 3Shibata Genyō, 214n50
Shide, 220n14
Shidō Mu’nan, 209n2
Shien, 72
great-granddaughter’s story, 74–77
maidservant and, 73–74
Shigong Huizang, 118, 213n37
Shikoku, 107
Shimazaki hermitage, 153, 161, 175, 221n28
Shinano, 16, 136
Shingon school, 149, 224n56
Shinran, 203n58. See also True Pure Land (Jōdo shinshū) school
Shinto, 190n7, 199n36, 205n74
Shiroyama, 77, 200n39
Shirōzu Yōtei, 79, 201n45
Shō of Mikawa, 120–21

Shōbayashi Matashichiro, 63–64
Shōbōzan rokuso den, 193n30
Shōbōzanshi (Mujaku Dōchu), 36–37
Shōfukuji (temple), 49
graveyard at, 97, 206n84
monks at, 66–67
renovations of, 52
Sengai’s arrival at, 51, 65–66
Tangen and, 53, 54, 207n86
Shōinji (temple), 106, 107–8
Hakuin’s curriculum at, 109
numbers of followers at, 110, 111, 124rohatsu at, 118, 213n38
Suiō’s abbacy at, 122
Shōju Rojin (Dōkyō Etan), 15–16, 18, 108, 110, 188n37, 209n2,
210n9
Shōkōji (temple), 131
Shōun-in subtemple, 44, 194nn37–38
Shūgendō cult, 190n7
Shūhō Myōchō, 193n28
Shukumon, 217n1
Six Secrets and Three Essentials, 78, 200n42
Sōgai, 134–35, 136
Sokei-an (Sasaki Shigetsu), 183n2
Sokyū (Fukuda Hisaemon), 80–82, 84
Soma Gyōfu, 154, 225n65
Song Dynasty“imagined” Chan tradition, 6–7, 184n13
influences of, 16, 17
koan practice of, 8, 29, 107, 111, 185n15, 188n37
Linji Chan’s dominance in, 5
text collections from, 3–4, 11, 183n4
Sōten Hōsai, 136

Sōtō Zen, 107, 147–48, 218n5
lineage of, 154, 222n32
temples of, 226n70
Sound of One Hand (Sekishū onjō, Hakuin), 112
story tradition
as folk traditions, 14–16
humor in, 19–20
as teaching method, 2
suicide, 34, 149, 156, 164–65
Suiō Genro, 111, 136–37, 214n47
Hakuin and, 121–22
lineage of, 211n15
Osatsu’s eulogy by, 139–40
passing of, 123
sumo wrestling, 81, 201n48, 206n78
Ryōkan’s, 151
shadow, 93–94, 205n74
supernatural elements, 14, 46, 114
Suzuki Bokushi, 218n2
Suzuki Bundai, 151, 166, 172–73
Suzuki Shōsan, 13–14
Suzuki Tekiken, 151–52
sweet potatoes, 58–59, 70, 78, 197n16, 201n43
swordsmanship, 64–65, 94
Tachibana Kanzaemon, 69
Taigu oshō gyōjitsu, 29–30, 189n3
Taigu Sōchiku, 110, 218n7, 222n30
behavior of, 31, 42, 193n26
biographical information, 27–29
Gomizuno’o, invitation of, 36–37
illness of, 37
passing of, 44–46
personality of, 12

teaching style of, 28–29, 40–41
temple expulsion and pardon of, 34–35, 191n17
See also poems (Taigu)
Tainin Kokusen, 147–48, 154, 218n5, 218n7, 222n32, 224n49,
225n65
Takazu Hakuju, 94
Takuan Sōhō, 27, 114, 115, 191n17, 192n24, 204n62, 212n31
Takusui Chōmo, 117, 213n35
Tales of My Childhood to Spur on Students (Sakushin osana
monogatari, Hakuin), 208n1
Tamashima, 161, 224n49
Tang dynasty, 3, 5, 6–7, 9, 11, 184n13, 185n15, 220n14
Tangen Tōi, 52, 53, 66, 197n10, 207n86
Tanrei Soden, 106, 109
Taoism, 15, 19, 20, 29, 149, 198n18
tea, 52, 63, 83, 91, 202n53, 204n67
Teishin, 153
Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, 214n53
ten realms (jikkai), 87, 202n57
Tendai school, 71, 198n28
Tenganyaku (Sengai), 195n1
Tenkai, 35, 191n17
Tennō Kannon Sutra, 137, 216n72
Tenryūji (temple), 131
Teradomari, 166, 169, 224n57
Tiantai, Mount, 220n14
Tōgō Toyoharu, 151, 156–57, 217n1, 226n68
Tōhokuji (temple), 123
Tōkaidō, 105–6, 129, 209n2, 213n36
Tōki-an (temple), 50
Tokugawa Iemitsu, 41, 192n24
Tokugawa Ieyasu, 34, 189n4
Tokugawa period, 9–10, 105–6, 191n17, 197n17, 204n66

art forms of, 12
Buddhism in, antipathy toward, 216n70
daimyo’s residences during, 190n15
end of, 200n38
establishment of, 189n4
reform in, 147, 201n45
Zen during, 13–14, 147, 209n3, 210n11, 217n76
Tokushōji (temple), 175
Tōrei Enji, 15, 111, 120–21, 123–24, 195n2, 208n1
Tōrin Soshō, 109
Tōrinji (temple), 126
transmission accounts (deng lu), 4–5
True Pure Land (Jōdo shinshū) school, 88, 98–99, 207n88, 221n28,
226n67
Ugan, 178, 227n76
Ungo Kiyō, 27, 189n1, 210n11
Unzan Sotai, 128, 215n56
vegetarianism, 31, 38, 41, 190n9
boiled barley and rice, 88–89, 92–93, 203nn60–61
Sengai’s attitude toward, 66, 198n22
vows, four, 110, 210n12
Waddell, Norman, 105, 208n1
waka poetry, 81, 138, 150, 201n44, 216n74
Welter, Albert, 6–7, 184n13
Whip to Drive [Students] Through the
Barrier of Chan, 107
Wild Ivy (Itsumadegusa, Hakuin), 208n1
womenin Edo-period Zen, 12
as Hakuin’s students, 115–16, 137–41
Shibata Genyō’s mother, 123–24
tea-stall lady, 141–42
in Tokugawa period, 61, 197n17

as Tōrei Enji’s students, 123–24“words and deeds” tales, 6, 146
work songs, 113, 212n27
Wu, Emperor, 193n34, 193n36
Xingyan Zhixin, 196n3
Xuan Huaichang, 51
Xuedou Chongxian, 211n16
Xutang Zhiyu, 14, 16, 17, 18, 110–11, 187n26, 188n37
Yamada Tokō, 176, 226n74
Yamada Zeigan, 136–37
Yamamoto clan (shop name Tachibana), 146, 147, 148, 149, 163,
166, 219n11
Yamamoto Tsunamichi, 146, 147, 149, 161
Yamamoto Yoshiyuki (also Yūshi), 149, 154, 167–68, 219n11
Yampolsky, Philip, 1–2, 208n1
Yi jing (Book of Changes), 133, 215n62
Yinyuan Longqi, 29
Yorozu-ya Sōhei (aka Sakai Sōhei), 77–79, 200n41
Yoshino (Yamato Province), 30, 190n7
Yoshino Hideo, 217n1, 219n9, 219n11
Yoshitsune, 199n36
Yuanwu Kechin, 187n26
Yuanwu Mian branch, 187n26
Yunmen Wenyan, 185n17
zazen (seated meditation)
Hakuin’s view of, 108
koan practice and, 8–9
Ryōkan’s practice of, 155, 160
Sengai’s practice, 59–60
Zen, 107
accessibility of, 13–14, 19
aggression, methods and, 4
beginning study of, 136

comic characters in, 113“democratization” of, 12
development of, 9–10
final goal of, 115
historical records, 2
key texts of, 222–23n37
ordinary activities, focus on, 9and popular culture, integration of, 10–11, 113
private interviews (sanzen), 99, 111, 121, 129–30, 207n90“sick bay,” 134, 216n67
twenty-four lines of, 42–43, 193n27
See also Ming Zen; Rinzai Zen; Sōtō Zen
Zen Master Tales, choice of stories in, 20–21
Zen masters
authentic, difficulty of meeting, 37–38, 191n19
Chinese, in Japan, 29, 107, 205nn76–77
in Edo period, qualities of, 11–12
shout of, 214n48
title of, 154, 222n30, 222n32
Zen pilgrimages (angya), 28
as euphemism for dying, 45, 195n39
Gasan’s, 125
Hakuin’s, 107, 108, 132–33, 136
Ryōkan’s, 165
Sengai’s, 51
Taigu’s, 30, 32
Zen–Pure Land synthesis, 29, 189n1, 209n5, 217n76
Zenrinkushū, 107, 210n10, 213n39
Zenshōji (temple), 131
Zhaozhou Congshen, 186n18
Zhiyi, 198n28
Zhongfeng Mingben, 107
Zhuangzi, 19, 149

Zhuhong, 107, 209n5
Zuiganji (temple), 189n1
Zuiōji (temple), 118, 213n38
Zuiōsan Ryūshōji, 193n28
zuoshan (Chinese). See zazen (seated meditation)A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W
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