Poets From Japan

"To depart while seated or standing is all one. All I shall leave behind me Is a heap of bones. In empty space I twist and soar And come down with the roar of thunder To the sea."

"Kogaku Soko was granted the title Busshin Seito Zenji in 1522 (Daiei 2) by Emperor , and was also granted the title Shobo Daisho Kokushi in 1536 (Tenmon 5) by ."

"Sōen played a major role in the tea world as an active tea participant and as a powerful abbot of several Zen temples around the Kansai, though he is primarily associated with Daitokuji. Like the Daitokuji priest Kogaku Sōkō (1465–1548) before him, Soen was particularly active as a bridge between Kyoto, and its large community of tea practitioners, and Sakai, the merchant city south of present-day Osaka that gave birth to the new breed of sixteenth-century tea masters."

"My final words are these: As I fall I throw all on a high mountain peak - Lo! All creation shatters; thus it is That I destroy Zen doctrine."

"[E]ven while the Daitokuji was in ashes, the basis for its recovery and expansion was being laid by the monks Yoso Soi (1376- 1458) and Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481). Both Yoso and Ikkyu began their Zen training in gozan monasteries. But like growing numbers of monks in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they quickly became dissatisfied with what they perceived as the formalism, and aestheticism of the official monasteries and so turned to masters of the Daio school like Kaso Sodon (1352-1428) for training in a more rugged Zen."

"As a spiritual successor to the 19th-century Zen poet Gizan Zenrai (and anyone who has ever felt wistful thinking that everything we’ve ever known will one day vanish), [Harold Whit] Williams writes: “A child once again, / Gazing out to where forever ends. / Everything orbiting, gently orbiting.”"

"Koho Kenichi (1241-1316) was one of the most renowned Zen prelates of his era, his era, not least because of his Japanese origin. As son of , he began his religious career in the esoteric Buddhist school. In 1256 he was admitted into the Tofukuji by Enni Ben'en. Four years later he met Gottan Funei, who had just moved there from China. As instructed by his teacher Enni Ben'en, Koho followed Gottan Funei to Kamakura. On Ichio Ingo's recommendation he came under the care of Koho Kennichi. He was calm and self-willed and preferred to live in seclusion. For this reason he spent many years in a remote area until his appointment as leading priest of the Jomyoji in 1300 and later of the Manjuji in Kamakura. In 1314 Mugaku Sogen entrusted him with the leadership of the great Kenchoji."

"Hogo acquired importance as a calligraphic art expressing the personality and the cultural attainments of the zen priest writer... Typical of such is the hogo written by Mugaku Sogen (1226-1286) and presented to Ichio Ingo, ( -1281)."

"Three and seventy years I've drawn pure water from the fire - Now I become a tiny bug. With a touch of my body I shatter all worlds."

"Togan Ean (1225 - December 29, 1277) was a priest of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism in the mid .... After he first received religious precepts as a priest and learnt doctrine at Mt. Shosha, he studied the same at Sennyu-ji Temple, too and went to Hakata to visit the Sung dynasty in China in 1257, but he met Goku kyonen and was inspired by him, and he converted to the Rinzai Sect."

"The truth embodied in the Buddhas Of the future, present, past; The teaching we received from the Fathers of our faith Can all be found at the tip of my stick."

"I was born into this world I leave it at my death. Into a thousand towns My legs have carried me, And countless homes - What are all these? A moon reflected in the water A flower floating in the sky Ho!"

"You're a self-centered rascal, aren't you!"

"Doyu's poem is pure metaphor, giving with remarkable precision a sense of the gravity of his emotion: like the sun which daily comes and goes, the poet has come, will go—after a life of standing “mid-air,” contemplative withdrawal."

"And here is the 13th-century master Doyu's death poem:... The Japanese masters composed not only enlightenment and death poems in Chinese verse forms, they often wrote of important Zen Poetry."

"Myoken Doyu, (1201-1256)... also came to Sung-China from Japan."

"In all my six and fifty years No miracles occurred. For the Buddhas and the Great Ones of the Faith I have questions in my heart. And if I say, "Today, this hour I leave the world," There's nothing in it. Day after day, Does not the sun rise in the east?"

"Fifty-six years, above Buddhas, Patriarchs, I've stood mid-air. Now I announce my final journey- Daily sun breaks from the eastern ridge."

"Although Zen teachers—immigrants as well as native born—could now readily be found in Japan, some of the more serious students still felt it necessary to travel to China to get the training they wanted. One of these was Enni Ben’en, also known by the posthumous name, Shoichi Kokushi—Shoichi, the National Teacher."

"Koho Kenichi (1241-1316) was one of the most renowned Zen prelates of his era, his era, not least because of his Japanese origin. As son of , he began his religious career in the esoteric Buddhist school. In 1256 he was admitted into the Tofukuji by Enni Ben'en. Four years later he met Gottan Funei, who had just moved there from China. As instructed by his teacher Enni Ben'en, Koho followed Gottan Funei to Kamakura. On Ichio Ingo's recommendation he came under the care of Koho Kennichi. He was calm and self-willed and preferred to live in seclusion. For this reason he spent many years in a remote area until his appointment as leading priest of the Jomyoji in 1300 and later of the Manjuji in Kamakura. In 1314 Mugaku Sogen entrusted him with the leadership of the great Kenchoji."

"All my life I taught Zen to the people - Nine and seventy years. He who sees not things as they are Will never know Zen."

"Dôkyô Etan (1642–1721) Japanese Rinzai monk from the Myôshin-ji lineage, best known as the master of Hakuin Ekaku (1768–1768), the great Rinzai sect reformer. Etan was the son of a samurai and his concubine. He was raised in the household of Lord Matsudaira Tadatomo, where he was first introduced to Zen. On a trip to Edo in 1660, Etan became the disciple of Shidô Bu'nan (1603–1676), having already attained an experience of enlightenment. He received the master's certificate (J. inka) after only one year of practice. He then returned to his native Iiyama in Shinano, where he lived a simple life in a small hermitage called Shôju-an. From the hermitage Etan received his nickname, Shôju Rôji, “the old man of the Shôju hermitage.” None of Etan's writings were published, although some of his teachings are scattered within Hakuin's work."

"Hurrying to die, It’s difficult to find a last word. If I spoke the wordless word, I wouldn’t speak at all!"

"Here in the shadow of death it is hard To utter the final word. I'll only say, then, "Without saying." Nothing more, Nothing more."

"My whole life long I've sharpened my sword And now, face to face with death I unsheathe it, and lo - The blade is broken - Alas!"

"The use of circle imagery became increasingly significant in formal portraits of various Zen masters, becoming standard beginning in the fifteenth century, and became known as Ensō-zo (circle portraits). In these images,the master is shown as if contained within a painted “halo”or round window frame within the larger format of the composition. One of the earliest examples is a set of portraits contained in an album depicting twenty-eight patriarchs, each one shown as a bust portrait contained within a round “frame.” The series of portraits begins with the first patriarch, Daruma (Bodhidharma), covered in a red robe..."

"Also associated chiefly with Tofukuji was Daido Ichi'i (1292-1370), a native of Awaji Island. He came to the capital, studied under Kokan Shiren (1278-1346) and was eventually appointed to the most prestigious positions in Kyoto's monastic society: twenty- eighth abbot of Tofukuji and thirty-first of Nanzenji. Daido Ichi'i was renowned not only for his eminence in religious matters, but also for his scholarly accomplishments and literary talents as one of the leading Gozan literati of his days."

"A tune of non-being Filling the void: Spring sun Snow whiteness Bright clouds Clear wind."

"Dairin Soto (1480-1568), ninetieth abbot of Daitokuji temple in Kyoto and founder of Nanshuji Temple in Sakai, wrote on a portrait of . Jōō practiced Zen under Dairin and received the layman's title Ikkan ~53 in 1549, at the age of forty-eight."

"Zen master Dairin Soto (1480-1568), founder of Nanshuji temple in Sakai, wrote [a verse] on a portrait of : Formerly, he maintained bonds to the unhindered cause of Amida Buddha's [Vow], Then changed schools and actively endeavored [in Zen]."

"Realize that the taste of tea and the taste of Zen are the same and absorb the wind in the pines. Then will your mind be undefiled."

"暗きより暗き道にぞ入りぬべき遙かに照らせ山の端の月"

"Kuraki yori Kuraki michi ni zo lrinubeki Haruka ni terase Yama no ha no tsuki."

"Lady Izumi Shikibu corresponds charmingly, but her behaviour is improper indeed. She writes with grace and ease and with a flashing wit. There is fragrance even in her smallest words. Her poems are attractive, but they are only improvisations which drop from her mouth spontaneously. Every one of them has some interesting point, and she is acquainted with ancient literature also, but she is not like a true artist who is filled with the genuine spirit of poetry. Yet I think even she cannot presume to pass judgment on the poems of others."

"Cited in Shūi Wakashū (c. 1005)."

"たはむれに母を背負ひて そのあまり軽きに泣きて 三歩あゆまず"

"Ishikawa was a poet of great ability who wanted to develop critical 'realism', but dealt too 'emotively' with human suffering and was isolated from the mainstream of socialist activity. He was passionately in sympathy with the latter, but is marked down as a 'romantic'."

"Kyoshitsu no Mado yori nigete Tada hitori Kano shiro-ato ni Ne ni yukishi ka na"

"With the troubled eyes of a youth I envied Birds flying— Flying they sang."

"Like to a stone That rolls down a hill, I have come to this day."

"In this jumbled world of ten thousand things, there are things that are beautiful, things that are ugly, and things that combine beauty and ugliness. However, if we attend to beauty, we can find almost nothing that completely lacks it. The ugly face of the puffer fish bears a slight trace of beauty within its ugliness. Sea cucumbers possess an unintelligible form, but even in this unintelligible form, we catch a glimpse of beauty. People despise the creepy appearance of hairy caterpillars and snakes, yet an honest look may reveal something appealing about them. But of all these subjects, the most extreme example must be shit. Among countless books on aesthetics, probably not a single one expounds on its beauty. There are voluminous Western and Chinese poems, but in our experience, we have never run into a poem about shit. Probably such a poem does not exist even in books of which we are not aware. If this is the case, then we might regard shit as entirely unsuitable for poetry; but, curiously, there are many poems about shit in haiku."

"... the sparrow’s chirp, the crow’s caw, the willow’s green, the cherry blossom’s pink, are the truth of the Zen master and the essence of Basho's style."

"Tell them I was a persimmon eater who liked haiku"

"柿くへば 鐘が鳴るなり 法隆寺 kaki kueba kane ga naru nari Hōryūji"

"Take your materials from what is around you—if you see a dandelion, write about it; if it’s misty, write about the mist. The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion."

"Until now I had mistaken the "Enlightenment” of Zen: I was wrong to think it meant being able to die serenely under any conditions. It means being able to live serenely under any conditions."

"In his later, bedridden years his observations were limited almost entirely to his sickroom and the small garden that adjoined it, yet he continued until the very end to draw artistic inspiration from the few flowers, plants, and other objects that were within his field of vision. Or he wrote about the foods he enjoyed, particularly such fruits as persimmons, since eating was one of the few physical pleasures that his ailment had not deprived him of."

"Haiku in particular allows poets to depict the insignificant things that other poetic forms cannot, given the natural tendency of a haiku poet’s observations to encompass every inch of the world. Taken to the extreme, the haiku poet cannot dismiss even excrement."

"Things That Lose by Being Painted Pinks, cherry blossoms, yellow roses. Men or women who are praised in romances as being beautiful.Things That Gain by Being Painted Pines. Autumn fields. Mountain villages and paths. Cranes and deer. A very cold winter scene; an unspeakably hot summer scene. (p. 138)"

"Splendid Things Chinese brocade. A sword with a decorated scabbard. The grain of the wood in a Buddhist statue. Long flowering branches of beautifully coloured wistaria entwined about a pine tree. (p. 109)"