Hakuin Ekaku: “Song of Meditation”

Context

Zen Buddhism has exerted a profound impact on the daily lives of the Japanese people, seen in the various aspects of eating, housing, clothing, painting, calligraphy, architecture, gardening, decoration, and so on. Buddhism was first introduced from China into Japan via Korea in the year 522 CE and was securely established by Eisai in 1191. Zen took firm root in Japan during the Kamakura era (1192–1333) and the early Muromachi era (1336–1573), a time of increasing interest in various practices encouraging personal liberation and enlightenment. In Japan there are two main schools of Zen, Rinzai and Soto, similar in teachings yet different slightly in practice. The former depends on the koan as a major way of teaching, while the latter stresses nonreliance on words. The most important restorer and reformer of the Rinzai tradition was Hakuin Ekaku, the greatest master of Rinzai Zen.

Japanese Zen emerged in the context of the country’s social and political history: Yoritomo (1148–1199) conquered the entire country and established the samurai government as the first shogun of the Kamakura era. The samurai warriors of this regime could not absorb the complexities of the Tian Tai sect, with its comprehensive systemizations and embracement of all known Buddhist doctrines and practices, but the direct and intuitive Zen practice agreed with their nature. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the alliance between the Rinzai Zen sect and Japan’s military government would help to secure the former’s social-cultural as well as economic prosperity. At a time when traditional Japanese religions had lost their hold on the people and new ways of spiritual deliverance were in high demand, Hakuin was able to simplify complicated Buddhist teachings and make them accessible to both samurai warriors, who were novices in Buddhist practice, and the common populace. This he accomplished through his innovative and adroit use of the short and paradoxical sayings known as koans. In these troubled times, Buddhist reformers considered it essential to sustain bonds with the government, which dispensed land rights and other means of support for the temples. The so-called Culture of the Five Mountains emerged in this context, representing the high-water mark of Japanese Zen culture, manifested in almost all artistic forms. Many of the Rinzai Zen monasteries were organized into the Gozan, or Five Mountains system, which encompassed hundreds of monasteries. Hakuin is undeniably the most famous reformer of the Rinzai school.

Hakuin lived several centuries later, in the Edo, or Tokugawa, period (1603–1868), considered to be Japan’s premodern or late-medieval era. The Tokugawa shogunate was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. This was a time of frequent commerce with China, introducing not only goods but also spiritual food like Confucianism, Daoism, and further aspects of Chan (Zen). During the Edo period, in the early 1700s, Hakuin employed koans and also painted many simple but impressive pictures for the illiterate townspeople of Edo, who could not otherwise learn the truth of the Buddha. While most other monks were seeking personal comforts and wealth, Hakuin persevered in simplicity and poverty and guided his followers to do the same. He is often referred to as the father of modern Rinzai Zen, since he reanimated a school that had been deteriorating since the fourteenth century. This proved to be an enduring accomplishment. The Meiji Restoration reestablished Japan’s imperial regime in 1868, persecuting Buddhism and establishing Shinto as the state religion. However, Zen was so strongly rooted in the Japanese psyche that it was able to regain its influence and popularity before long. That influence continues to the present day.