Andrew Whitehead

The Zen monk IKKYŪ Sōjun 一休宗純 (1394–1481) is one of the most controversial, and one of the least discussed, Japanese thinkers of the Muromachi period 室町時代 (1337–1573). Although his writings have been translated by a select number of Japanologists in the latter part of the last century, the underlying philosophy of his thought remains largely unexplored outside of Japan. Considered one of Zen’s “crazy-monks,” Ikkyū’s ongoing legacy and popularity is owed, to a large extent, to the wealth of hagiographic literature written about him during the Tokugawa period 徳川時代 (1602–1868). In this literature, Ikkyū is represented in such a way as to highlight his superior wit, and the character and tone of his own writings is transfigured and censored. This same transfiguration is later adopted by popular culture in the twentieth century, with the development of cartoons, television shows, and advertising, all of which depict Ikkyū as a young child – as the clever “rascal” Ikkyū-san 一休さん. The unfortunate outcome of this transfiguration is the loss of Ikkyū’s poetry and his unique expression of Buddhist philosophical ideas. Today, there are few Japanese – and even fewer people outside of Japan – who have read Ikkyū’s poetry. In this paper, I present a selection of key philosophical elements from Ikkyū’s writings in order to draw attention to the valuable insights to be found in his poetry.