Kogaku Soko

Kogaku Soko (古岳宗亘) (1464 – June 24, 1548) was a Japanese Zen priest and poet. He is known for founding the Daisen-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, a temple of the Rinzai school of Zen in Buddhism, one of the five most important Zen temples of Kyoto. He was posthumously named Daisho Kokushi.

Quotes

• My final words are these:
  As I fall I throw all on a high mountain peak -
  Lo! All creation shatters; thus it is
  That I destroy Zen doctrine.
  • Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

Quotes about Kogaku Soko

• Sōen played a major role in the tea world as an active tea participant and as a powerful abbot of several Zen temples around the Kansai, though he is primarily associated with Daitokuji. Like the Daitokuji priest Kogaku Sōkō (1465–1548) before him, Soen was particularly active as a bridge between Kyoto, and its large community of tea practitioners, and Sakai, the merchant city south of present-day Osaka that gave birth to the new breed of sixteenth-century tea masters.
  • Morgan Pitelka. Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History and Practice. 2013. p.

• Kogaku Soko was granted the title Busshin Seito Zenji in 1522 (Daiei 2) by Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and was also granted the title Shobo Daisho Kokushi in 1536 (Tenmon 5) by Emperor Go-Nara.
  • "Daisen-In Zen Temple," at b-model.net/daisen-in/syokai.htm, 2018. (pnline here)