Ikkyu sojun biography of martin
Ikkyu sojun biography of martin lewis.
Ikkyu: Zen eccentric
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Perhaps the most celebrated of the iconoclastic throwbacks to authentic Zen—masters who maintained some authenticity in their practice in the midst of the political convolutions of fourteenth-century Japan and the organizational shenanigans of the official Rinzai Zen sect—was the legendary Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481).
Ikkyu, a breath of fresh air in the stifling, hypocritical world of an institutionalized Zen, seems almost a reincarnation of the early Chan masters of the Tang.
Ikkyu sojun biography of martin
Few Zen masters have been as deeply or fondly assimilated into Japanese culture as Ikkyu. During his own lifetime, he endeared himself to his compatriots by his compassionate response to suffering, his blunt rejection of grandiosity and hypocrisy, his zany humor, and his unmonkish delight in the pleasures of the body, notably sex.
After his death, his fame grew as new stories were attached to his name or old ones enlarged. Modern Japanese know him as a