Taigen Sofu

"I raise the mirror of my life Up to my face: sixty years. With a swing I smash the reflection - The world as usual All in its place."

"In a key discussion of the black of the pupil of the eye, in which he cites Plato's Alcibiades, Al-Ghazzali, Meister Eckhart and the Zen priest Taigen Sofu, Viola argues for the pupil as the first and ideal mirror, one in which not only a reflection of the self may be found, but also the act of ‘seeing seeing’, and in the blackness of the pupil, the void upon which perception, in mystical systems of belief, is founded."

"TAIGEN Sofu (or Sufu) Sessai was a priest and a minister of IMAGAWA Yoshimoto. He was born as a son of IHARA Masamori, senior vassal of the Imagawas and is thought to be related to YAMAMOTO Kansuke, strategist of TAKEDA Harunobu (Shingen). He is one of the ministers in clerical robe in Japanese history."