Asian Literature; Religious Education; Comparative Literature; Japan; Edo Period Buddhism; Poetry
摘要
The conjunction of painting and poetry has long been an important element in Zen brushwork in the Far East. In Japanese art through the Muromachi period (1333-1573), however, the poetic inscriptions added on Zen paintings were almost always written by monks other than the artist of the painting. In the Edo period (1600-1868), beginning with the work of monk-artists such as Fugal Ekun (DYDD 1568-1654), the practice of inscribing one's own paintings increased, reaching its culmination with the man who was central to new directions taken in both Zen teaching and Zen art, Hakuin Ekaku (OXXX 1685-1768).
Hakuin not only sparked a major revival of the Rinzai Zen tradition in Japan, but in his brushwork he led the development of much stronger calligraphy-text-painting relationships than had occurred in earlier Zen art. In Hakuin's art, calligraphy is the point at which text becomes visual, and the visual becomes a text.
Hakuin's approach to Zen teaching was rather complex, involving different levels of methodology suitable for different levels of audience: monks, daimyo, peasants, townsmen, and courtesans. His combination of training methods including Zen talks, monastic training, written commentaries on Buddhist texts, letters, folk songs, calligraphies and paintings was unique in Zen of this period. And by considering how all these approaches intertwined and intermixed to reach people, we can better understand the unique position Hakuin held as a Zen teacher and Zen artist. His breadth of teaching, compassion, and understanding has never been matched, and while the role of his Zen texts and training has been widely acknowledged as having revolutionized Japanese Zen, the role of his art within the greater scope of his work is often neglected.
For Hakuin, painting and calligraphy were also Zen texts, simply in a different format for a different audience. But they were still teaching tools--some directly relaying Zen or Buddhist messages, others depicting folk figures. They all reveal his ability to relate to people on different levels. Hakuin took advantage of the opportunity to reach the public with important figures, literary and religious, with a Zen implication. If he could make himself approachable through art that reached the general population on their own level--folk figures, famous poets, Shinto deities etc., he could then more easily get them to accept his own Zen teachings (which he also adapted to this lay audience).
