Poem (Eight Lines of Five Characters Each)

Yinyuan Longqi (1592-1673) was the founder of the Ōbaku sect of Zen. He was born in Fuzhou (Fujian Province), China. Avoiding the turmoil at the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty, he came to Japan in Jouō 3 (1654) with his disciples at the suggestion of Yiran Xingrong of Kōfukuji Temple in Nagasaki, who had arrived earlier. After arriving in Japan, Yinyuan lived at Kōfukuji Temple in Nagasaki and Fumonji Temple in Settsu. In Manji 1 (1658), he had an audience with shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna in Edo. He was granted land of Uji in Kanbun 1 (1661) and founded Ōbakusan Manpukuji Temple.

Yinyuan brought with him the new Ōbaku Zen and introduced the rituals and Zen style of the Ming dynasty, which greatly influenced the Japanese Zen community of the time. He also left behind many excellent calligraphic works, and together with his disciples Muan Xingtao and Jifei Ruyi, he is known as one of the ‘Three Brushes of Ōbaku (Ōbaku no sanpitsu).’

This Bokuseki (calligraphy) is a verse of five-character ottava rima presented by Yinyuan to Makino Sadonokami Chikashige, the Kyoto shoshidai (shogun’s senior representative monitoring the Imperial Court in Kyoto). It is believed to have been given to Makino Chikashige in Meireki 2 (1656), when he visited Yinyuan at Fumonji Temple, accompanied by six officials. It was sent again later the same year (included in Yinyuan’s selection “Ingen Zenji Fumon Goroku”). Makino proposed Uji as a possible site for the construction of Manpukuji Temple to the shōgunate, and Yinyuan, in return for his favor, favored Makino as a parishioner of the temple, leading to a deep relationship between them.