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Zen Rebel Ikkyu

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BuddhaNetBBS
 · 31 Mar 2023

Ikkyu was a Zen monk of Muromachi Japan. He was a dramatic, enigmatic figure, who was not afraid to criticize the social and religious institutions of his day. He was an outstanding calligrapher and poet. While attacking the hypocrisy of the monastic orders, he frequented brothels and bars. Ikkyu's wit, wisdom, artistry, and forthright attitude caught the imagination of the Japanese people, and he has become a folk hero. Many myths about him have circulated. Today, there is even a Japanese children's cartoon about Ikkyu's adventures. Although the myths about Ikkyu have led to a somewhat inaccurate public impression of him, there is also quite a lot of reliable historical evidence about his life. More is known about Ikkyu's life than about the life of any other monk of medieval Japan.

Ikkyu was born in 1394 CE, in a time of delicate political balance and fragile peace. For over two hundred years, the government had been nominally ruled by the emperor, but the imperial court had only limited powers. The shogun, ruler of the samurai, actually did most of the governing of the country. Further complicating the government, in 1272 the imperial line had been split into two branches. The emperorship alternated between the two lines, with most emperors only reigning a few years before abdicating.

In 1318, Godaigo, an emperor of the Southern imperial branch, attempted to regain control of the government. He tried to take all power away from the Northern branch of the imperial family, and to regain some powers from the shogunate. He did not meekly follow the dictates of the shogunate, as had been the custom for emperors. The shogunate become displeased and attempted to displace Godaigo and the Southern imperial branch. Instead, the shogunate supported emperors of the Northern branch, who were still willing to be guided the shogun. However, the Southern branch was not easily put down and continued to oppose the shogunate and the Northern imperial branch for more than half a century.

In 1392, a truce was finally agreed upon. According to the agreement, succession to the emperorship would once again alternate between the two imperial lines. The first emperor recognized by both parties was Gokomatsu, of the Northern branch. However, despite the agreement, neither the Northern branch nor the shogunate had any intention of allowing the emperorship to return to the Southern branch. However, they had to make gestures of good will towards the Southern branch in order to cement the peace. One of these gestures was the establishment of various members of the Southern branch in the imperial court.

Among the Southerners admitted to the court was the daughter of a Southern nobleman. She won the heart of the seventeen-year-old Northern emperor. Soon, she was pregnant with his first child. The Northern branch was not pleased with this development. Traditionally, any son of the emperor, by any woman, was eligible for the emperorship. Children were traditionally brought up by the mother in the mother's house. In other words, the first child of the emperor would be brought up by a Southerner in the house of a family of Southerners. Appalled by the thought that despite their mechinations, they might end up having an emperor with Southern loyalties, the Northern faction forced the woman to leave the court, and her child was never acknowledged to be the Emperor's. (This was an unusual move in the Japanese courts, where children were nearly always acknowledged by their fathers.)

Thus, in 1394, Ikkyu1 was born, the unacknowledged son of the emperor. Although this seems like the sort of story which could easily have been invented about a famous religious figure, there are many contemporaneous sources which agree on Ikkyu's heritage.

Ikkyu spent his early years with his mother in Saga, an area near Kyoto where aristocrats often retired. When the boy was five, his mother put him in a Zen monastery. This was her best means of assuring her son's safety. While he remained in the secular world, there was always the danger that someone from the Northern imperial branch or from the shogunate would come and kill him, so as to be absolutely certain he never sought the emperorship. As a monk, he was almost certainly safe.

What was the situation in Zen monasteries at this time? Buddhism in Japan was the established religion, and was largely controlled and sponsored by the government and the nobility. There were a number of sects which were active in Japan at the time, with different classes of people tending to belong to different sects. Zen had been imported from China two hundred years earlier, just as the shogunate came into power. Rinzai Zen quickly became popular with the samurai and the shogunate. Zen's harsh discipline, light attitude towards death, and intuitive approach appealed to the warrior classes.

When monks brought Zen to Japan from China, there had been little communication between Japan and China for over two centuries. The monks brought with them Chinese calligraphy, poetry, painting, and tea. Chinese culture had long been considered by the Japanese to be the epitome of good breeding, and the elite were delighted to have a fresh influx of Chinese culture. Zen came to be valued not just for its religious and philosophical teachings and practices, but also for its contributions to high culture.

In the Muromachi era, the shogunate became very interested in art and high culture, and lavishly funded many artistic pursuits. Because many Zen monasteries were controlled by the shogunate and filled with retired aristocracy and high ranking officials, many came to resemble centers for the study of Chinese culture as closely as they resembled religious institutions. Knowledge of the Chinese language was often considered more important than meditation. This secularization of the Rinzai Zen temples was not stopped by the Zen monastic leaders because the government controlled the appointments to all of the high religious offices. Although no one could be appointed to a high religious post without having his enlightenment certified by a certified Zen master, this certification (inka) was often bought or won with political influence. High religious posts were even more often won by political influence. Diplomacy was more important than true religious insight, with many monks holding important posts in the government. Some Zen monasteries lent money at high interest rates. This corruption of Zen was by no means universal, but was certainly quite common.

Thus when young Ikkyu entered a Zen monastery, the main thing he was taught was Chinese culture. He learned Chinese language and writing, he learned Chinese history and and literature, and he learned how to write Chinese poetry. He also learned at least a little meditation and Zen philosophy, although these were probably not emphasized. It soon became clear that Ikkyu was a gifted student. He learned quickly and well. He soon began writing poetry in the Chinese style. Few of his early poems survive, but from those it is clear that he was a precocious author, writing with an insight unusual for his age. He is said to have vowed to write at least one poem a day for the rest of his life. Poetry became a constant thread throughout his life. Over a thousand of Ikkyu's poems still survive.

Also clear from the little that is known of Ikkyu's youth is that he took Zen seriously and was willing to criticize monks who only put on a facade of religiosity. A poem he wrote at fifteen criticizes "fame hungry" priests whose Zen is merely "mouth Zen"2. Ikkyu's disgust for insincere and hypocritical monks and his willingness to criticize them were another thread which stretched throughout his life.

A third thread which stretches from Ikkyu's youth through the rest of his life is his sympathy for the plight of women. This seems to have been engendered by his relationship with his mother. Many of Ikkyu's early poems contain thinly veiled references to his mother's situation as an ex-courtesan, cast off by the emperor. Ikkyu seems to have had a close relationship with his mother. He clearly had great respect for her and sorrowed with her for the blows life had dealt her. He saw her as often as his rigid monastic schedule would permit.

When Ikkyu was sixteen, he left the respected temples in which he had been studying, and became the disciple of Keno, a little-known monk. Keno was not part of the established, court-patronized, Zen hierarchy. Although his spiritual master had offered him inka, Keno had refused it, thus guaranteeing that he would always have a marginal position in religious society. He could not hold an official religious post nor give inka to his students. He probably lived in a small hut in the outskirts of Kyoto, and had no disciples other than Ikkyu. Young monks would not be likely to study under a monk who could not certify the progress they made. Ikkyu clearly became Keno's disciple in the pure desire for spiritual growth. There was nothing else to be won from living and studying with an impoverished and marginalized monk such as Keno.

Keno had ties to the Zen school of Daitoku-ji and Myoshin-ji. This school was one of the more serious Zen schools. It had not yet become secularized. Its main focus was still Zen discipline, not literature, art, or politics. Keno was an admirable representative of the school. Unfortunately, there is very little recorded of Ikkyu's time with Keno. Apparently, Ikkyu progressed quickly in Zen training. When he was nineteen, Keno said, "He understands all that I know. I can teach him no more."3 Just before Ikkyu turned twenty, Keno died.

Ikkyu was devastated by Keno's death. He did not have the resources to have an elaborate funeral as was the custom. Instead, he spent several weeks praying, meditating, fasting, and so on. He walked the long way back to see his mother, and then walked off again. Apparently he went to Lake Biwa and tried to drown himself. He was stopped by a servant his mother had sent after him. She had been fearing that he would do something rash, and had sent the servant with a letter urging Ikkyu to continue to live for her sake, if for no other reason.

Ikkyu became aware that his life needed direction. He began to search for another teacher. The teacher he chose was Kaso, a master of the Daitoku-ji tradition. Kaso was completely non-secularized. His only concern was pure Zen discipline. Wishing to escape the corruption of the temples around the capital, he lived in an out of the way branch temple on the edge of Lake Biwa.

In escaping the corruption of the well-patronized temples, Kaso had also escaped their wealth. His temple was never well patronized, and this period was a poor time for Japan's economy. Kaso's temple was truly impoverished. Already hard-pressed to feed the resident monks, he did not welcome an additional student. When Ikkyu applied to the temple, he was not admitted. He stayed persistently outside the gatehouse, begging for admission, even as disciples threw waste water on him. After five days of begging, his persistence was so great that Kaso finally allowed him entrance.

Life within the temple was extremely grim. Disciples had even fewer amenities than are generally allowed in Zen temples. They were emaciated and often not healthy. Kaso drove his disciples hard, both in meditation and in prosaic work. Students worked making herbal sachets and paper dolls' clothing to sell to the wealthy. This work was repetitive, allowing simultaneous meditation. It also helped to support the temple.

Students meditated on koans. There were few enough students that each received a lot of individual attention. Ikkyu made a habit of going out and spending all night in a rowboat on the lake, meditating. Ikkyu had begun life with a strong education in matters of the intellect. He now received an even more intense education in going beyond the intellect.

When he was twenty-four he had an awakening and Kaso gave him the Buddhist name "Ikkyu". This was a first step. Ikkyu continued to meditate, and when he was twenty-six he had a deep experience of satori. This experience was catalyzed by the sound of a crow cawing. Ikkyu went and reported to Kaso. Kaso told Ikkyu, "You have reached the stage of an arhat (Jap., rakan), but not that of a Zen master." Ikkyu replied, "I am content to be an arhat; I should hate to be a Zen master." This reply showed that Ikkyu had gone beyond worrying about categories, and satisfied Kaso, who said, "Then you really are a Zen master."

Ikkyu wrote the following satori verse:

For ten years my mind was cluttered with passion and anger;
Even at this moment, I still possess rage and violent emotions;
Yet in the instant that crow laughed, a rakan rose up out of ordinary dust.
In this morning's sunshine, an illumined face sings.4

His poem shows that the world was still the same, even he himself was still the same, but he had a new way of seeing. The last line holds a veiled reference to his mother's situation which is not emphasized by this translation. It seems likely that Ikkyu had gained a new sense of proportion when thinking of the emperor's abandonment of Ikkyu's mother.

Immediately after Ikkyu's satori experience, Kaso gave Ikkyu inka certification. Ikkyu did not have a high opinion of inka certificates, and refused to take the piece of paper, leaving it on the ground. Kaso saved the certificate for Ikkyu. No doubt Ikkyu's distaste for inka certificates came partly from Keno, his former master. It is possible that he felt that since rich men could buy inka certification from some priests, such a certificate was no longer worth anything.

Ikkyu stayed with Kaso several more years, nursing him through illnesses. When Ikkyu was twenty-nine, Kaso recovered to some degree. Feeling he was no longer needed by Kaso, Ikkyu left to begin a period of wandering. It was traditional for monks, after attaining satori, to travel for a while so as to gain maturity and to deepen their enlightenment. Ikkyu's period of wandering, however, was much longer than most. He did not settle down again for nearly thirty years.

When Ikkyu began his wanderings, his life really began to take on character and become fascinating. He soon became known as an eccentric. Ikkyu continually challenged people's preconceived notions of appropriate behavior. He refused to be bound by traditional categories and boundaries. Instead of basing his behavior on societally accepted norms, he followed his own inner convictions. He absolutely refused to act hypocritically.

Ikkyu's eccentricities were due in large part to his adherence to the heart of Rinzai's teachings. Rinzai had warned that people would never become enlightened if they continued to "love the sacred and hate the secular". Instead, he told people, "You have only to be ordinary with nothing to do. . . defecating, urinating, putting on clothes, eating food and lying down when tired. . . just make yourself master of every situation and wherever you stand is the true place."5 Rinzai had preached against rituals, statues, incense, and so forth. He saw no use in self-conscious pietistic display. Instead, he valued ordinary activities, conjoining the secular and the sacred. Ikkyu did not just learn this teaching, he acted it out, often with dramatic results.

Probably the most shocking arena in which Ikkyu demonstrated his disregard for societal norms was sex. At the time, it was expected that monks would be celibate. Lust towards women was considered a passion which must be eliminated in order to reach enlightenment. Ikkyu took lovers, frequented brothels and bars, wrote erotic love poetry. He probably had a son while in his thirties, and it is possible that he was briefly married. Ikkyu made no attempt to hide his sexual activities. It was actually not unusual for monks to frequent brothels, but most monks were very private about it, publicly proclaiming the harmfulness of sexual passion. Ikkyu, on the other hand, saw no contradiction between satori and romantic love.

Ikkyu wrote a poem in answer to a koan on this issue:

In olden times, there was an old woman who had been supporting the head of hermitage for twenty years, sending him food by her young serving girls (and giving him shelter).

On day she instructed her then sixteen year old serving girl to embrace the priest and ask him, "How do you feel this very instant?"

The girl did so, and reported that his reply was: "I feel like an old (withered) tree during the winters three coldest months, leaning against rocks with no warmth."

The old woman then said, "For twenty years I have been feeding and housing this priest, who does not tell the truth." She put him out and burned down the hermitage.

The old woman intended to make a "ladder" for that rascal, So to the "celibate" she gave the girl as a partner. This evening, if a beautiful young girl were to offer love to me, My old willow tree would surely put forth fresh sprouts.6

Ikkyu clearly agreed with the old woman that the priest was a fake. His poem indicates that the woman had provided the priest with an opportunity for spiritual advancement (a ladder) which the priest had refused. The priest ends up appearing to be life-denying and deceptive. He is not willing to see his true feelings of attraction towards the girl, or if he does see his feelings, he represses them. Ikkyu, on the other hand, recognizes and honors his feelings of attraction, and this brings him spiritual growth and vitality. Ikkyu is not attached to feeling a particular way, but accepts his own feelings and actions as they come.

Ikkyu's attitude towards sex can be justified with traditional Zen doctrine. A belief which is typical of Zen is that everything has Buddha-nature. Buddha is in everything. Therefore, there is nothing which is pure or impure. Everything is equally sacred and equally profane, in a state of non-duality. This makes discrimination and categorization useless. There is no basis upon which one can claim that some actions are "good" and others are "bad". Even passion is filled with Buddha-nature. Seen in this light, Ikkyu's sexual exploits are an example of going beyond duality and seeing Buddha-nature in everything. Living fully in the moment without attachment or fear, he could appreciate any circumstance in which he found himself and any emotion which he found in himself.

Just as Ikkyu was not bound by preconceptions as to which actions were sacred or profane, he was also free from preconceptions about which people were worthy of respect. He often showed great respect for people who traditionally had been reviled. Prostitutes, for example, were a common target of moralistic criticism. Most monks automatically disapproved of prostitutes. Ikkyu, on the other hand, wrote in one of his poems, "The prostitute is mindless, but the man (her customer) has a mind." In Zen, being mindless, or without rational dialectical thought, is an important move towards enlightenment. Thus, Ikkyu was implying that the prostitute is closer to a true state of Zen enlightenment than her customer. It is not made clear in the poem, but the man may actually be Ikkyu, himself. Ikkyu, a certified Zen master, may be implying that he is less enlightened than a prostitute. This is a truly radical implication, completely reversing traditional societal judgement. Even if this was not the meaning Ikkyu intended, just acknowledging that a prostitute can possess attributes of enlightenment was a radically egalitarian move.

Ikkyu lived his whole life from an egalitarian standpoint. He did not judge people by external appearances or the judgements of society. This can first be seen by his decision to study with Keno, a monk with no social standing. Later, when he was wandering the countryside, he would associate with anyone. He stayed with people of all classes--prostitutes, farmers, fishermen, artists, merchants, warriors, and nobles, among others. We have already seen how he appreciated the traditionally denounced prostitutes. Ikkyu also left poems showing respect for other people who were traditionally not valued. One of the most lovely of these is a poem entitled, "Fishermen":

I almost lost my mind7 between the studying and severe training;
But life's most valuable thing is really the fishermen's songs.
Along the Hsiao river, there's sunset and rain, clouds and moon,
Excellence beyond words, singing night after night.8

Ikkyu contrasts the harsh and often unproductive training he received in Zen temples with the calm, quiet beauty of the lives of fishermen.

Ikkyu was not only willing to see and acknowledge the value in that which society disesteemed, he was also willing to point out the problems in that which society respected. Most noticeable was his willingness to criticize the corruptions of institutionalized Zen. In one famous incident, Ikkyu paraded around town carrying a large sword. As monks were not supposed to carry swords, the townspeople asked him what he was doing. Ikkyu pulled the sword out of the scabbard, showing that it was merely a wooden imitation. He told the people that modern Zen priests were like this sword--as long as it was in its scabbard, it looked like the real thing, but if you drew it out and tried to use it, you would find that it was just a piece of wood, and could not accomplish anything. Ikkyu wanted people to realize that external appearances did not necessarily imply anything about inward reality.

Another situation which dramatized Ikkyu's concern for inward worth rather than outward display occurred at a memorial service for Kaso's master, Gongai. Ikkyu came to the service in his travelling costume, which was poor, ragged, and dirty. All of the other monks were decked out in fancy formal robes, as was customary at memorial services. When Kaso questioned Ikkyu's sloppy attire, Ikkyu told him, "My sincerity is the garment I wear. I do not ape the costumes of hypocritical priests."9 Ikkyu felt that respect was an internal feeling, not something which could be shown by fancy robes.

Ikkyu consistently rejected hypocrisy. While other monks patronized bars and brothels anonymously, wearing lay garments, Ikkyu publicly acknowledged his actions, and wore monk's clothes at all times. He was always honest. His poetry is strongly emotional, eschewing the refined subtlety which was typical of poetry of his time. Both his strengths and weaknesses are presented without artifice.

One of Ikkyu's characteristics which seems at first glance to be a weakness is his fierce rivalry with Yoso, a man who was a fellow student of Kaso. Yoso was about twenty years older than Ikkyu, and took much, much longer to receive inka certification. However, eventually Yoso did receive inka. When Kaso died, Yoso became the next abbot of Daitoku-ji. Although Ikkyu had no interest in being abbot himself, he apparently felt that Yoso was incompetent. Ikkyu published a book of vitriolic verses reviling Yoso. Ikkyu accused Yoso of being a leper, a pervert, an obvious counterfeit. These verses drip with venom. This sort of passionate attack does not fit my ideas as to how someone who has achieved satori would behave. However, Ikkyu delighted in not doing as was expected of a Zen master. His behavior shocked his contemporaries, and now it shocks me. But Ikkyu never claimed to have rid himself of anger. Even in his satori poem, he said "I still have rage and violent emotions." His later actions proved the words of his satori poem. He lived from the stand that buddha-nature was in everything. Everything includes both sexual desire and vitriolic anger. Looking at the world thus, an enlightened person could do anything at all, and still be enlightened.

Ikkyu's wanderings brought Zen to the common people of Japan. He was a primary force in the beginning of the popularization of Zen. Prior to this time, Zen had usually stayed in the temples and had been appreciated only by the elite. But after Ikkyu, the common people began to have an increased appreciation of Zen.

When Ikkyu was fifty-seven, he finally settled down in one place. He was simply too old to travel around any more. Quite a lot happened in his life after he settled down. He became the center of a group of artists. There was a school of painting which centered around him to such a degree that it has occasionally been called the Ikkyu school. In addition, he is credited with having been influential in the formation of the tea ceremony, Zen rock gardens, and noh theater--three art forms which are now thought of as being quintessentially Japanese. There is evidence which suggests that the present form of the tea ceremony may have been originally invented by Ikkyu. It is possible he conceived of the ceremony as a way of sneaking appropriate Zen practice into the lives of the elite. Zen rock gardens were first created by one of Ikkyu's students, but there is no way of knowing how closely Ikkyu was involved in the creation. Noh theater has a somewhat looser connection to Ikkyu. He is credited with writing two early noh plays, and he taught one of the early leaders of noh theater, but the form did not begin under his tutelage.

Ikkyu's own primary forms of artistic expression were poetry and calligraphy, which were, of course, combined every time he wrote a poem. He was a master of the Chinese poetic form. His poetry is not as well known as its excellence deserves because most modern Japanese have difficulty reading Chinese. His calligraphy, on the other hand, is very highly valued in Japan. He is considered to have been Japan's finest calligrapher, and his few surviving works command correspondingly high prices. During his life, he did not worry about artistic prestige. He dashed out thousands of poems, giving them to whoever was nearby who wanted them. The only times he made money with his brush was occasionally when he desperately needed income he would earn a little bit of money painting pictures. His poetry was simply an expression of the moment.

After Ikkyu settled down, his main love interest began. He fell in love with a blind singer named Nori. She returned his love, inspiring him to write some of his best love poetry. It is possible that she bore him a daughter. One of Ikkyu's last poems expresses his sadness that he must leave Nori. Before he met her, in his sixties, Ikkyu had been quite gloomy. The country was embroiled in the Onin War, which was a bloody civil war. There were famines and people were dying in the streets. Ikkyu's love affair with Nori seemed to give him a new lease on life. His poems to her express a renewed sense of wonder and delight in the world.

Ikkyu's later years also saw his unexpected rise in respectability. Yoso, the abbot of Daitoku-ji, had died. Daitoku-ji had been burnt down during the Onin War. The government asked Ikkyu, who was now in his eighties, to become the abbot of Daitoku-ji and to supervise its rebuilding. Ikkyu, with severe reservations, accepted the appointment and the challenge. He refused to change his lifestyle to conform to societal expectations of an abbot's behavior, but the government was not in a position to argue with him. The task set for Ikkyu was nearly impossible. Ikkyu had to raise all the money for the rebuilding and then try to get the large complex of buildings built, all during and immediately after a war which had impoverished the country. Astoundingly, Ikkyu accomplished the task. The only reason he was able to do so was because he had many friends among the merchants and landholders. He finished the temple just before his death, at age eighty-eight.

Ikkyu was one of Japan's most interesting and unusual Zen masters. He had a lasting effect on the society, popularizing Zen and helping to invent artistic fields which were imbued with the spirit of Zen. He fought against institutionalized corruption and taught that the individual experience of enlightenment was more important than societally mandated forms of behavior. He radiated intelligence, self-confidence, and energy, and was willing to accomplish the impossible. In the Tokugawa era, when individual liberties had all but disappeared, Ikkyu became a Japanese folk hero. Innumerable stories were invented about him, emphasizing his wit, independence, and freedom from societal expectations. He is still one of Japan's most widely appreciated Zen leaders. It is interesting to wonder how Japan's history would have been different if Ikkyu had been made emperor, instead of being disowned by his father. I, personally, am glad that Ikkyu was a monk, not an emperor, and that we have the results of Ikkyu's cultural genius.

1 Although he was not given the name Ikkyu until he was twenty-four, for clarity's sake I will refer to him as Ikkyu throughout my paper.

2 Jon Carter Covell, Unraveling Zen's Red Thread: Ikkyu's Controversial Way, (Elizabeth, New Jersey: Hollym International Corp., 1980), p. 25.

3 ibid., p. 30

4 ibid., p. 41

5 ibid., p. 58-59

6 ibid., p. 84.

7 This is meant in a negative fashion. Another translation is "you lose the Original Mind." It does not mean to reach a state of no-mind.

8 ibid., p. 102

9 ibid., p. 46



Bibliography

  • Arntzen, Sonja. Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology: A Zen Poet of Medieval Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1986.
  • Covell, Jon Carter. Unraveling Zen's Red Thread: Ikkyu's Controversial Way. Elizabeth, New Jersey: Hollym International Corp., 1980
  • Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. 2, Japan. Translated by James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990.
  • Hane, Mikiso. Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1991.
  • Matsunaga, Daigan & Matsunaga, Alicia. Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, Vol. 2, The Mass Movement. Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International, 1976.
  • Olson, Carl. "The Zen Clown Ikkyu: A Cross Cultural Study of a Symbol of Disorder." Journal of Dharma: An International Quarterly of World Religions 13 (1988): 147-163.
  • Sanford, James H. Zen-Man Ikkyu. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Scholars Press, 1981.
  • Toshihide, Akamatsu & Yampolsky, Philip. "Muromachi Zen and the Gozan System." In Japan in the Muromachi Age, pp. 313-330. Edited by John W. Hall & Toyoda Takeshi. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
  • Varley, H. Paul. Japanese Culture: A Short History. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1973.

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