This article explores the everyday life of the Ming dynasty loyalist monk Huishan Jiexian based on information in his collected works (Huishan Xian heshang quanji 晦山顯和尚全集), found in Japan. Setting aside discourses of dynastic renewal and individual reclusion, this article uses concepts from social psychology such as work, leisure, faith, and subjective well-being to explore developments in Huishan's life as a Ming loyalist and his spirituality. Previous scholarship simply remarked that Huishan Jieshan was a loyalist monk about whose life and accomplishments little is known. The large amount of poetry, prose, and recorded sayings in Huishan's collected works provide a sufficient amount of material about his life to make up for the lacunae in previous scholarship. The present article first discusses the standard definition of loyalist monks. Then it discusses Huishan's external identity as a loyalist monk as well as his self-understood identity through the symbolic metaphor of an ideal figure. Next, it uses the relevant material in his poems, prose, and recorded sayings to understand the daily life of a loyalist monk from three perspectives: his duties as a monastic officeholder, his studies in seclusion, and his lineal affiliation. Finally, following the trend of using an individual's subjective well-being as a criterion, this article attempts to look beyond the previous valuation of loyalist monks as upholding traditional values to offer new insights and understandings of Huishan's biography and spirituality.
