8. A discussion of the contribution of Zen to Japanese civilization may
be found in Hoover, Zen Culture. An older survey is D. T. Suzuki, Zen
and Japanese Culture (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press,
1959).
9. Yampolsky, Zen Master Hakuin, p. 8.
10. Philip Yampolsky, "Muromachi Zen and the Gozan System," in John W.
Hall and Toyoda Takeshi, eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977), p. 319.
11. One of the best political histories of this era is Sansom, History
of Japan. For the history of Zen, the best work appears to be Martin
Collcutt, The Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, in press), a revised version of the
dissertation cited above.
12. English sources on Ikkyu are less common than might at first be
supposed. The most exhaustive study and translation of original Ikkyu
writings to date is certainly that of James Sanford, "Zen-Man Ikkyu"
(Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1972). There is also a lively
and characteristically insightful essay by Donald Keene, "The Portrait
of Ikkyu," in Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 20 (1966-67), pp. 54-65. This
essay has been collected in Donald Keene, Landscapes and Portraits
(Palo Alto: Kodansha International, 1971). Another work of Ikkyu
scholarship is Sonja Arntzen, "A Presentation of the Poet Ikkyu with
Translations from the Kyounshu 'Mad Cloud Anthology'" (Unpublished
thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1966).
13. See Thomas Cleary, The Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen
(New York: Grove Press, 1978), p. 13. An example of a Nasrudin-esque
parable told about Ikkyu is the story of his approaching the house of a
rich man one day to beg for food wearing his torn robes and straw
sandals. The man drove him away, but when he returned the following day
in the luxurious robe of a Buddhist prelate, he was invited in for a
banquet. But when the food arrived Ikkyu removed his robe and offered
the food to it.
14. Sanford, "Zen-Man Ikkyu," p. 48.
15. Ibid., p. 68.
16. Ibid. pp. 80-81.
17. Translated by Keene, Landscapes and Portraits, p. 235. Professor
Keene (personal communication) has provided a revised and, he believes,
more fully accurate translation of this verse as follows:
After ten days of living in this temple my mind's in turmoil;
Red strings, very long, tug at my feet.
If one day you get around to looking for me,
Try the restaurants, the drinking places or the brothels.
He notes that the "red strings" of the second line refer to the ties of
physical attachment to women that drew Ikkyu from the temple to the
pleasure quarters.
18. Jon Covell and Yamada Sobin, Zen at Daitoku-ji (New York: Kodansha
International, 1974), p. 36.
19. Sanford, "Zen-Man Ikkyu," p. 221.
20. Ibid., p. 226.
21. Ibid., p. 235.
22. Ibid., p. 225.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account