Seven-character Quatrain, "Sea of Plentiful Fields"

Jifei Ruyi (1616-1671) was a Zen monk of the Ōbaku sect of Zen in the early Edo period (1603-1868). He came to Japan in Meireki 3 (1657) at the invitation of his teacher Yinyuan Longqi, who had already arrived in Japan, and became a resident priest of Sōfukuji Temple in Nagasaki. In Kanbun 3 (1663), he visited his teacher at Obakusan Manpukuji Temple (which shares the same Chinese character as Huangbo-shan, Wanfu-si) in Uji, Kyoto, and was ordained Shuso (a head trainee in a Zen monastery). On his way back to Nagasaki the following year, he founded Fukujuji Temple at Mt. Kōju in Kokura of Buzen Province at the request of Ogasawara Tadazane, Daimyō (Japanese military lord) of Kokura Domain. He excelled in calligraphy and was one of the “Three Brushes of Ōbaku (Ōbaku no sanpitsu)” along with Yinyuan Longqi and Muan Xingtao.

This is a poem about the scenery of Fukujuji Temple. It is one of the “Kōjusan Jūrokkei” in Jifei’s poetry anthology “Sokuhi zenji Hōshūsō” and is titled “Sea of Plentiful Fields”.