Hakuin

Japanese religious leader, writer, and artist

• Born: 1685/1686
• Birthplace: Hara, Suruga Province (now Shizuoka Prefecture), Japan
• Died: 1768 or 1769
• Place of death: Hara, Suruga Province (now Shizuoka Prefecture), Japan

Revered as the father of modern Rinzai Zen Buddhism, Hakuin revived the Rinzai sect through his teaching and writings and his emphasis on the need to practice meditation, or the art of zazen, with the aid of koans, or Zen riddles. His system of koan arrangement transformed Zen teaching, and his lectures drew huge crowds. Hakuin was also a brilliant painter, poet, and calligrapher.

Early Life

Hakuin (hah-koo-een) was born Nagasawa Iwajiro in a small village at the foot of Mt. Fuji in Japan. This village, Hara, was a post station on the Tokaido road linking Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo), and Hakuin’s parents owned an inn used as a stopover for travelers. Hakuin was the youngest of five children in the Nagasawa family. His father was from the Sugiyama samurai family, but he had adopted the Nagasawa surname of his wife’s family.

As a young child, Hakuin regularly accompanied his devout mother to the local Zen Buddhist temple. Hakuin was highly intelligent, and at the age of four he had already memorized hundreds of songs and could recall temple sermons. At the age of seven, a temple priest recited a sutra (scripture attributed to Buddha), which graphically described the punishment of sinners in the horrifying Eight Hot Hells. Hakuin was so frightened that he began daily religious exercises, such as reciting sutras, praying, and performing prostrations. He hoped that such a strict regimen would help him escape hell. However, after a few years, he realized that the only way to avoid hell was to become a monk and devote all of his time to religion.

On March 16, 1699, Hakuin received his preliminary ordination at Shoin-ji, the local temple. Soon he went to another temple, where he studied classical Chinese—the language of the Buddhist texts—for the next few years.

Life’s Work

By Hakuin’s time, Zen Buddhism had already existed in Japan for centuries. Originally developed in China, where it took its name (Ch’an or Qan) from the Sanskrit word dhyana (seated meditation), Zen emphasized the value of meditation, rather than adherence to doctrine and verbal concepts, as a means to enlightenment (satori). These teachings, which blended South Asian and East Asian meditative traditions, had been influential in Japan, but by the early eighteenth century, Zen Buddhism in Japan was in a serious decline. All three major Zen traditions—Soto, Obaku, and Rinzai—saw fewer and fewer students and temples.

During his early pilgrimages, Hakuin studied Buddhist scriptures and traveled from temple to temple to hear discourses by priests. He was disappointed with the state of Zen Buddhism, particularly his Rinzai sect, whose priests seemed too worldly, passive, and quietist. They appeared unwilling to help students strive for satori, and their practice of zazen and koan lacked energy.

At the age eighteen Hakuin read about the great Chinese Zen master Yantou, who could not escape being brutally murdered by bandits. This story convinced Hakuin that Buddhist enlightenment could not save him from hell’s torments. Disillusioned, Hakuin rejected religion and decided to study literature, painting, and calligraphy.

That year, Hakuin studied poetry and calligraphy with the celebrated scholar-priest Bao. While at Bao’s temple, the news came that Hakuin’s beloved mother had died suddenly. Deeply grieving, Hakuin thought about hell and thus was led to prayer. When he saw a group of books piled up in the temple courtyard, he picked up Changuan cejin (c. 1600; Meditating with Koans, 1992), a work by Zhuhong (1535-1615), and then found and read the story of the famous Chinese monk Ciming, who prevented the extinction of the Linji school of Zen Buddhism during the Sung Dynasty.

Hakuin’s Rinzai sect was the Japanese branch of the Chinese Linji tradition, established by the Zen patriarch Linji in ninth century China. During the twelfth century, the Linji line had spread to Japan, where it became the Rinzai sect (or Rinzai school) of Buddhism. Hakuin was inspired and encouraged by the Ciming story to resume his own search for religious awakening, leading him to reform and revive the Rinzai tradition, just as Ciming had saved the Linji line.

He continued his travels from temple to temple. In 1708, at the age of twenty-three, Hakuin visited the Eigan-ji temple in Takada, a coastal city. While meditating, he heard the sound of a distant bell and finally experienced his first satori, the deep and sudden awareness of one’s true nature that is the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism.

Soon after leaving Eigan-ji, Hakuin studied eight months with the elderly monk Shoju Rojin (1642-1721), who lived in a remote hermitage. Shoju was a demanding, uncompromising teacher who emphasized that religious attainment was not as easy as Hakuin thought. Shoju assigned difficult koans, insulted Hakuin, and always pushed him to practice to attain satori. In the winter of 1708, Hakuin left Shoju’s hermitage to continue his journey. He never again saw Shoju, and only years later did he realize the value of Shoju’s teaching. At the age of forty-one, Hakuin acknowledged Shoju as his most significant spiritual influence, and in his late fifties, Hakuin called Shoju the only genuine Zen teacher of the time.

From 1709 to 1716, between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-one, Hakuin engaged in practice subsequent to satori, attempting to integrate the tranquil part of his life with the active or everyday life. Hakuin returned to Shoin-ji temple, the temple where he had been ordained. Shoin-ji was destitute, with no priest and hardly any temple furnishings; Hakuin became its head priest. For the next decade, he lived in poverty at the temple. Ten years later, in 1726, he experienced the final, great enlightenment while reading the Lotus Sutra, Buddha’s supreme preaching. Having achieved total enlightenment, he now dedicated himself to teaching others.

For the next forty-two years, from 1726 to 1768, Hakuin lectured at Shoin-ji, taught throughout Japan, and published his writings. Shoin-ji eventually became a religious center, attracting hundreds of students. Hakuin certified more than eighty disciples. Sometime in 1768 or 1769, he died.

Significance

Hakuin revitalized and reformed Japanese Zen Buddhism after several centuries of decline and deterioration. Two years after he died, an imperial order granted him the title of Zenshi, or Zen master. Patriarch of modern Rinzai Zen Buddhism, Hakuin also was a dynamic teacher, writer, and artist who worked to bring Zen learning to all people.

A commoner himself, Hakuin produced writings and calligraphy to teach his lay followers, and he often wrote in vernacular, popular styles to reach the common people. As one of the most influential and celebrated Zen artists as well, Hakuin produced thousands of beautiful paintings, including humorous self-caricatures. In addition, he was radical in his belief that meditation and religious awakening in the midst of daily living within society was superior to the experience of monks or hermits in solitude or living outside society.

Instead of the intellectual and worldly preoccupation of contemporary monks, Hakuin’s teaching and practice emphasized the rich, spiritual essence of Zen and the tradition of rigorous meditation in conjunction with rigorous koan practice. Hakuin revolutionized koan training by organizing traditional koans by level of difficulty. In this new system, the student had to resolve koans in a specific order. Hakuin also invented new koans, including the most famous: the paradox of hearing the sound of one hand clapping. His systematized koan study became the standard, and it continues into the twenty-first century.

Bibliography

Cleary, Thomas. Secrets of the “Blue Cliff Record”: Zen Comments by Hakuin and Tenkei. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. First published in China in the twelfth century, the Blue Cliff Record is a Zen classic consisting of koans that deeply challenge the mind. Bibliography.

Hakuin. Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin: A Translation of the Sokko-roku Kaien-fusetsu (Lectures on the Records of Old Sokko). Translated by Norman Waddell. Boston: Shambhala, 1994. A significant text that provides insight into Hakuin’s vision and fundamental teachings. Illustrated, with a bibliography and an index.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Hakuin’s Commentary on “The Heart Sutra.” Translated by Norman Waddell. Boston: Shambhala, 1996. The text of The Heart Sutra is included after Hakuin’s commentary. Although very brief, The Heart Sutra is believed to contain the essence of Buddhist teaching on wisdom and is one of the most popular religious texts in East Asia. Includes illustrations, with a self-portrait by Hakuin.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin. Translated by Norman Waddell. Boston: Shambhala, 1999. The translator’s long introduction provides useful background information to supplement the spiritual autobiography, which Hakuin wrote at the age of eighty-one. Illustrations include Hakuin’s calligraphy and ink drawings. Extensive chapter notes, index, and a bibliography of sources in Japanese and English.

Miura, Isshu, and Ruth Fuller Sasaki. The Zen Koan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1993. Originally published in 1965, this is the first scholarly study of the origin and development of traditional koan practice. The second of three chapters is devoted to Hakuin and the Rinzai koan system. Ten ink drawings by Hakuin.

Stevens, John. Zen Masters: A Maverick, a Master of Masters, and a Wandering Poet. New York: Kodansha International, 1999. Very readable biographies of three celebrated—and very different from each other—Zen masters: Hakuin, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481), and Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831). Illustrated.