Mugaku Sogen
13th century Zen Buddhist monk
Mugaku Sogen (無学祖元), also known as Bukko Kokushi (September 3, 1226 – September 22, 1286) was a prominent Zen Buddhist monk of the 13th century in Japan, an emigre from Song dynasty China.
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Quotes edit
- Cutting the Spring Breeze
Throughout heaven and earth there is not a piece of ground where a single stick could be inserted;
I am glad that all things are void, myself and the world:
Honored be the sword, three feet long, wielded by the great Yüan swordsmen;
For it is like cutting a spring breeze in a flash of lightning.- Dumonlin Heinrich, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. Essays in Zen Buddhism, first series. 2000.p. 255
Quotes about Mugaku Sogen edit
- Hogo acquired importance as a calligraphic art expressing the personality and the cultural attainments of the zen priest writer... Typical of such is the hogo written by Mugaku Sogen (1226-1286) and presented to Ichio Ingo, ( -1281).
- Japan Quarterly, Volume 17, 1970. p. 163
- When the Japanese Zen priest Mugaku Sogen (1226-1286) was in China and threatened by invading Mongol troops, he composed a fourline poem. Years later another Zen priest, Sesson Yūbai (1290-1347), when he was in prison and threatened with death, took Mugaku's poem and, using each line as the opening verse of a new poem,
- Donald Keene. Anthology of Japanese Literature, from the Earliest Era to the Mid. p. 347
