Hakuin

Abstract

HAKUIN Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 (1686–1769), born NAGASAWA Iwajirō 長沢岩次郎, also known as Kokurin 鵠林, Old Man Sendai 闡提老人, Zen Master SHINKI Dokumyō 神機独妙禪師, and National Teacher Shōjū 正宗國師, is a Japanese Zen master from a small village named Hara 原, a post station near Mount Fuji on the main eastern seaboard road or Tōkaidō 東海道, in Suruga 駿河 province (present-day Shizuoka prefecture). He played an active role in the broad reformation of Zen monastic training and kōan practice that took place during the early half of the Tokugawa period. Hakuin is, perhaps, best known for his popular writings and songs about Zen and other related themes composed in vernacular Japanese, as well as his distinctively bold brush-stroke paintings and calligraphy, but he is also credited with the creation of an equally, if not more, important kōan-system that has been in use for centuries (Miura and Sasaki 1966: xiv; Mohr 1999: 315, 2000; Hori 2003). Moreover, while serving as abbot of the temple Shōinji 松蔭寺 in his hometown Hara for over 50 years, Hakuin was able to attract and offer guidance on kōan practice to a large number of talented students whose spiritual descendants became so successful during the Meiji period (1868–1912) that virtually all Zen masters of the Rinzai Zen sect today trace their lineages back to him. For these and other reasons Hakuin is often touted as the reviver of Rinzai Zen. This essay examines his life and thought.