Takuan Sōhō
1573–1645 5 entries
Biography
Takuan Sōhō was a Japanese Zen monk of the Rinzai school, a calligrapher, poet and painter. Born in 1573 in Izushi, in the province of Tajima, into a samurai family, he entered a temple as a boy and in 1609, at only thirty-six, became abbot of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, one of the great Zen temples of Japan, though he left it after a few days, preferring a simple life. In 1629, in the so-called Purple Robe Incident, he protested against the shogunate’s control over the appointment of abbots and was exiled to Kaminoyama in the north.
Pardoned in 1632, he won the respect of the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, who founded the Tōkai-ji temple in Edo for him. His letter The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom, written to the sword master Yagyū Munenori, teaches that the mind must not stop on anything, neither the opponent’s sword nor one’s own thoughts, and became a classic of the unity of Zen and the sword. Tradition also credits him with the pickled radish that bears his name, takuan. He died in Edo in 1645.
- Quotes 5