Doyu

Myoken Doyu (1201 - February 5, 1256) was a thirteenth century Japanese poet, who went from Japan to Sung-China.

Quotes

• Fifty-six years, above Buddhas, Patriarchs,
  I've stood mid-air.
  Now I announce my final journey-
  Daily sun breaks from the eastern ridge.
  • Lucien Stryk. Encounter with Zen: writings on poetry and Zen, 1981. p. 95.

• In all my six and fifty years
  No miracles occurred.
  For the Buddhas and the Great Ones of the Faith
  I have questions in my heart.
  And if I say,
  "Today, this hour
  I leave the world,"
  There's nothing in it. Day after day,
  Does not the sun rise in the east?
  • Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

Quotes about Doyu

• Myoken Doyu, (1201-1256)... also came to Sung-China from Japan.
  • Yiqiao Gu. History of Zen. 1979. p. 81

• And here is the 13th-century master Doyu's death poem:... The Japanese masters composed not only enlightenment and death poems in Chinese verse forms, they often wrote of important Zen Poetry.
  • Susan Porterfield, ‎Lucien Stryk. Zen, poetry, the art of Lucien Stryk. 1993. p. 123

• Doyu's poem is pure metaphor, giving with remarkable precision a sense of the gravity of his emotion: like the sun which daily comes and goes, the poet has come, will go—after a life of standing “mid-air,” contemplative withdrawal.
  • Lucien Stryk, ‎Takashi Ikemoto. Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane's Bill. 2007. p. 89.

External links

• Yoel Hoffmann (1986) (in en). Japanese Death Poems. Rutland: Tuttle Publishing. Wikidata Q116482757. ISBN 0-8048-1505-4. OCLC 1335736500.