About Zen — Ikkyu Zen
The So-Called Eccentric Devoted Himself to Zazen
I heard a speaker at a spiritual gathering declare that every tradition has its own clown, fool, trickster. That brought to my mind in Zen, Ikkyu Sojun. Ikkyu lived in Japan from 1394 to 1481. He was known, within the tradition, as an eccentric and iconoclast.
Reputedly, Ikkyu was the emperor’s son. When his mother fell out of favor, the Court placed him, at age five, in a Zen monastery. He learned the Chinese language and the Ming’s poetry, art, and literature.
Ikkyu migrated from temple to temple, until he found a teacher with whom he could realize his true self. When a band of blind musicians entertained at his temple, Ikkyu reached understanding while listening to the music. He later realized full awareness meditating on a boat on a lake when he heard a crow call.
Ikkyu continued to wander, finding the temples he visited walled in by bureaucracy and religious formalization and ritualization. He kept close contact with his group of artists, poets, and musicians. He had a love relationship with a blind singer. Ikkyu advocated love and sex as natural to the human experience. He embodied a liberated mind and spirit which stood diametric to the orthodoxy of the time, and he was considered, even in the Zen tradition, to be erratic and crazy.
Ikkyu enhanced the cultural heritage of Japan as one of its greatest masters of tea ceremony, calligraphy, sumi painting, as well as being a renowned flute player and composer. He was recognized as an accomplished poet in the classical Chinese style. He influenced Noh theater and rock gardening.
Later in his life, Ikkyu became abbot of Daitokuji, one of the most prominent Zen temples in Kyoto.
Ikkyu finally found a teacher who taught the supremacy of zazen. He devoted himself throughout his life, no matter the location or circumstance, to the practice of zazen.
