Chapter 22

Hakuin

Juhn Y. Ahn

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 cred-
ited 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 home-
town 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 rea-
sons Hakuin is often touted as the reviver of Rinzai Zen.
There is no doubt that Hakuin’s impact on the intellectual history of early mod-
ern, and perhaps even modern, Zen in Japan was profound, but the praise that he
receives for “reviving” Rinzai Zen should be accompanied by a few caveats. Behind
this praise, for instance, what is often at work is the misleading assumption, voiced
by scholars such as TSUJI Zennnosuke 辻善之助 (1877–1955), that Buddhism had
become degenerate and moribund during the Tokugawa. Although it is true that
Hakuin himself frequently characterized the Zen teachings of his contemporaries as

J. Y. Ahn (*)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
e-mail: jahn@umich.edu

© Springer Nature B.V. 2019 511

G. Kopf (ed.), The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy,
Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 8,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2924-9_22
512 J. Y. Ahn

a Zen that had lost much of its authenticity and vitality and, thus, in need of reform,
it must be borne in mind that such criticism was a reaction not so much to a tradition
on the verge of certain death as to the serious challenge posed by, among other
things, the arrival of émigré Chinese monks (hereafter “the Ōbaku” 黄檗), growing
accessibility of new texts imported from China, changes in patronage patterns, and
new social policies implemented by the Tokugawa bakufu 幕府 (Ahn 2008).
Indeed, the winds of reform, stirred by the arrival of the Ōbaku—with whom
Rinzai monks like Hakuin shared the same spiritual ancestry—and the printing of
imported Chinese Buddhist texts, had begun to blow well before Hakuin’s time
(Baroni 2000; Jaffe 1991; Mohr 1994, 1999: 313–314). While some like UNGO
Kiyō 雲居希膺 (1582–1659), EGOKU Dōmyō 慧極道明 (1632–1721), and
KENGAN Zenetsu 賢巖禪悦 (1618–1697) enthusiastically embraced the teachings
of the Ōbaku and their emphasis on keeping the precepts, others like GUDŌ
Tōshoku 愚堂東寔 (1577–1661) and DAIGU Sōchiku 大愚宗築 (1584–1669)
sternly opposed the uncritical acceptance of this new style of Zen from Ming
dynasty China and hoped to restore the teachings of Japanese Zen master KANZAN
Egen 關山慧玄 (1277–1361), the founder of their home monastery in Kyoto
Myōshinji 妙心寺. This, however, does not mean that one side of this dispute sought
reform while the other did not. Their differing opinions about the newly imported
teachings from Ming China notwithstanding, both pro- and anti-Chinese factions of
Rinzai Zen witnessed the rigorous form of communal monastic training carried out
by their Chinese counterparts and felt it necessary to question the way this was
being done, or not done, in Japan. They accordingly launched an ambitious cam-
paign to revive the practice of “formal retreats” (J. kessei 結制), going on pilgrim-
age to “consult various Zen masters” (J. hensan 遍參), and participating in
communal training in the “monks’ hall” (J. sōdō 僧堂) (Takenuki 1989: 197–204).
Most monks’ halls in Japan, however, had fallen into disrepair during the Warring
States period, and financial constraints made it less than feasible for most Zen tem-
ples to build and operate such a facility. Ambitious abbots like Hakuin thus chose to
appropriate the new monastic layout from Ming China, which used a smaller “Zen
hall” (J. zendō 禪堂) for training monks in seated meditation (Mohr 1999: 314;
Foulk 2008: 47–53).
Hakuin’s “revival” of Rinzai Zen was indebted to the late Ming in other ways as
well. The newly invigorated Buddhist scholasticism of the late Ming, for instance,
also acted as an important catalyst for reforming kōan practice in Japan, where the
custom of collecting or purchasing notebooks full of “old cases” (J. kōans) and
“capping phrases” (J. jakugo 著語) and carrying them around in special pouches or
boxes known as ankenbukuro 行券袋 or missanbako 密参箱 was commonplace
(Yanagida 1967: 253; Yanagida 1987: 252–253; Tamamura 1981: 981–1040). The
growing accessibility of new Chinese Buddhist primers and commentaries in print
and the arrival of the Ōbaku, who brought with them a form of kōan practice that
more closely and uncannily resembled the practices recorded in the Song dynasty
classics, generated great excitement in the Japanese Zen community. It even inspired
some to abandon the old custom of collecting notebooks and participating in secret
Zen initiation rituals, which had become the norm in gozan 五山 and ringe 林下
22 Hakuin 513

monasteries after the locus of monastic training shifted from the communal monks’
hall to the more private “memorial temple” (J. tatchū 塔頭) (Tamamura 1981: 981–
1040; Takenuki 1989: 158–159). EGOKU Dōmyō, BANKEI Yōtaku 盤珪永琢
(1622–1693), and many others who studied under the émigré Chinese monks, for
instance, began to seriously reengage the various Zen classics and encouraged their
own students to rely less on their notebooks and figure out the kōans for themselves.
In addition, some like Hakuin and Bankei also opened the closed doors of Zen
learning to an even more diverse community of readers and practitioners (for exam-
ple, daimyo, samurai, merchants, artisans, physicians etc.) through the medium of
print and through the well-attended “sermons” (J. teishō 提唱) delivered during
formal retreats, which later contributed to the rise of popular religious movements
such as the Sekimon Shingaku 石門心学 (Sawada 1993).
Most notable in this respect is, perhaps, KOGETSU Zenzai 古月禪材 (1667–
1751) whom Hakuin had at one point in his career considered a potential teacher
(Takenuki 1989: 265–266; Mohr 1999: 314; 2000: 254–256). With his firm grasp of
the Zen classics, especially the work of Song dynasty Chan master DAHUI Zonggao
大慧宗杲 (1089–1163), and his ability to produce original and insightful com-
ments, verses, and capping phrases in classical Chinese, Kogetsu firmly emerged as
a formidable force in the world of Tokugawa Zen. Although Hakuin did not neces-
sarily agree with Kogetsu’s understanding of the Zen classics and eventually gave
up on the idea of becoming his student, both men dedicated their careers in remark-
ably similar ways to restoring communal monastic retreats, mastering the Zen clas-
sics, and gaining a personal and direct insight into the ancient kōans. Their efforts
paid off: having established themselves as masters of authentic kōan Zen, both
Kogetsu and Hakuin, like the émigré Chinese Chan masters, were able to attract a
large following with their ability to offer formal recognition or “certification of
awakening” (J. inka 印可) to those who were able to successfully complete their
kōan training. So similar were these two Zen masters that a large number of talented
students who had first trained under Kogetsu later turned to Hakuin for further guid-
ance and formal recognition of their awakening (Akiyama 1983: 146–153; Mohr
1999: 314; Waddell 2009: xxiv–xxxiii).
Lastly, Hakuin’s efforts to reform Zen must be set against the larger backdrop of
the rise to prominence of the ringe monasteries Daitokuji 大徳寺 and Myōshinji
after the Ōnin War (1467–1477). As many of his contemporaries sought formal
transmission from an émigré Chinese master, Hakuin took great care to emphasize
his own Myōshinji line of Zen, whose own roots traced back to Daitokuji and its
founding abbot SHŪHŌ Myōchō 宗峰妙超 (National Master Daitō 大燈國師)
(1282–1337). Speaking to an audience that had been exposed to the new style of
Zen from Ming China, Hakuin argued that authentic Zen was actually introduced to
Japan by Daitō and his teacher NANPO Jōmyō 南浦紹明 (National Master Daiō 大
應國師) (1235–1309) in the thirteenth century; Hakuin, concomitantly, strove to
restore Daiō, Daitō, and Kanzan’s Zen, otherwise known as Ōtōkan 應燈關 Zen
(Yampolsky 1971: 6; Mohr 1999: 308; Waddell 1994: xiv–xv). One of Hakuin’s
greatest accomplishments as a scholar of Zen was, in fact, the completion of a
lengthy commentary on the recorded sayings of Daitō entitled Sayings of the
514 J. Y. Ahn

Country of Huaian (J. Kaiankokugo 槐安國語) in 1749. Perhaps even more impor-
tant, at least for understanding Hakuin’s growth as a Zen thinker, is his earlier work,
the General Sermons Delivered to Introduce the Record of Sokkō (J. Sokkōroku
kaien fusetu 息耕録開莚普説), published in 1743, which is a record of the general
sermons (J. fusetsu 普説) that he delivered three years earlier. As the title suggests,
the general sermons were meant to serve as an introduction to his lectures on the
recorded sayings of Daiō’s Chinese teacher XUTANG Zhiyu 虚堂智愚 (1185–
1269) or Old Man Sokkō, but they also happen to conveniently offer an overview of
Hakuin’s vision of Zen. I therefore believe any attempt to capture the contours of
Hakuin’s philosophy—the aim of this essay—must begin with these sermons, and
so that is where we turn next.

1 M
 ing Buddhist Scholasticism

In the spring of 1740, Hakuin delivered some lectures on the Recorded Sayings
of Venerable Xutang (C. Xutang heshang yulu 虚堂和尚語録) ostensibly to a
crowd of over 400 people at his temple Shōinji. According to the Annalistic
Biography of Old Venerable Hakuin, Imperially Recognized as Zen Master
Shinki Dokumyō (J. Chokushi Shinki Dokumyō zenji Hakuin rōoshō nenpu 勅諡
神機独妙禅師白隠老和尚年譜; hereafter annalistic biography), this momen-
tous event established Hakuin’s reputation as a great Zen master and put him
firmly on the map of Tokugawa Zen (Katō 1985: 200–201; Waddell 2009: 205).
At the time Hakuin was 54.
Before he delivered these formal lectures, Hakuin, as noted earlier, offered the
assembly at Shōinji some general sermons wherein he addressed his deep concerns
about the way monastic decorum and Buddhist practice had declined in Japan. As
the Zen historian YANAGIDA Seizan points out, Hakuin’s choice to deliver this
critical message in the form of a general sermon is quite noteworthy in that this
sermon form, which had fewer restrictions than other forms of Zen pedagogy, was
traditionally used as a convenient way of getting straight to the point or truth and
seldom, if ever, as a way of formally announcing oneself as a Zen master or abbot
in Japan (Yanagida 1987: 237). Hakuin, in other words, used a rather unconven-
tional way of formally carving out a new space for himself and his teachings in the
world of Tokugawa Zen.
Making good use of the general sermons, Hakuin did get straight to the point. He
alerted his audience to the crisis that Zen was facing at the time and urged them to
meet this crisis with renewed faith in their ability to “see their own nature” (J.
kenshō 見性) and attain “awakening” (J. satori 悟り). Lest the urgency of his mes-
sage be lost, Hakuin immediately invoked the words of his teacher SHŌJU Rōnin
正受老人 (Dōkyō Etan 道鏡慧端; 1642–1721) who, if we are to trust Hakuin, fre-
quently exclaimed before his students that the Zen school had begun to decline as
early as the end of the Southern Song (1127–1279) and reached its nadir by the
22 Hakuin 515

Ming (1368–1644) (Gotō 1967: 2, 379; Waddell 1994: 15). However, Shōju also
claimed that what little was left of the Zen school’s real poison unfortunately sur-
vived in his native Japan. Later in his sermon, Hakuin locates this poison in the
lineage of transmission that Daiō received from Xutang and brought to Japan, more
recently reaching Gudō, SHIDO Munan (1603–1676), Shōju, and, by implication,
Hakuin himself. Shōju’s harsh assessment of the fate of the Zen school did more
than just provide Hakuin with the convenient opportunity to speak of the teachings
of his own lineage as the poison of authentic Zen. It also set the perfect stage for a
fullscale assault on Ming Buddhist scholasticism, which was another major agenda
of the general sermons (Yanagida 1987: 221 and 236).
The first to bear the brunt of Hakuin’s assault was Chan master YONGJUE
Yuanxuan 永覺元賢 (1578–1657) and his work, the Internal Collection of Chan
and Other Matters (C. Chanyu neiji 禪餘内集). Hakuin seems to have chosen to
start with Yongjue for several reasons. As one of the more popular Chan texts
imported from China, Yongjue’s work easily stood out from the rest. Yongjue also
happened to comment on a kōan—Qianfeng’s three kinds of illness (XZJ
138.490b16-491a2)—that Hakuin considered particularly important. What both-
ered Hakuin was not that Yongjue had chosen to comment on the kōan. Rather, what
was troubling about Yongjue’s comment was the fact that his reading was inconsis-
tent with what Hakuin saw in Xutang’s verse comment on the same kōan (T
47.2000.1021b7-9). Simply put, whereas Xutang’s verse dexterously addressed
both Qianfeng’s query (“What are the three illnesses and two lights of the dharma
body?”) and his disciple Yunmen’s response (“Why doesn’t the fellow inside the
hermitage know what’s going on outside?”), Yongjue’s comment, in Hakuin’s opin-
ion, not only failed to do justice to the subtlety of the query but also made no
attempt to address the response. To make matters worse, students of Zen in Japan
tended to accept Yongjue’s overly straightforward interpretation as the final word on
the kōan, copy it on a small slips of paper, and paste the whole thing into the mar-
gins of printed Zen classics such as the recorded sayings of Xutang. This practice
seems to have disturbed Hakuin a great deal as it discouraged students from attempt-
ing to tackle the kōan directly and, consequently, from seeing their own nature.
Indeed, Hakuin seems to have been particularly worried about the tendency
among Zen students to regard what Ming Buddhist scholasticism had to offer as a
simpler, clearer, and thus attractive alternative to directly engaging the perplexing
kōans of old. Repeatedly throughout his general sermons Hakuin lambasted the
unnamed Zen teachers in Japan who either indiscriminately borrowed words from
imported texts such as Yongjue’s Internal Collection of Chan and Other Matters in
their own sermons or encouraged their students to put aside the tricky kōans and
focus instead on simplified teachings about the inherent tranquility and emptiness of
the mind or original nature. However, he was even more vehement in his critique of
other alternatives to kōan meditation such as quiet sitting and the immensely popu-
lar practice of chanting the name of the buddha Amitābha, also referred to as the
“nenbutsu” 念佛.
516 J. Y. Ahn

For Hakuin, what made both quiet sitting and nenbutsu problematic was their
inability to lead the practitioner to kenshō and awakening. It should, however, be
made clear that Hakuin did not simply rule out the possibility of experiencing
kenshō with the help of these practices. According to his general sermons, practitio-
ners of nenbutsu fail to see their own nature because they misunderstand the true
meaning of nenbutsu. Relying on a passage from the Scripture on Contemplating
the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (C. Guan wuliangshou fo jing 觀無量壽佛經)—
“the height of the buddha’s body is six hundred trillion nayutas of yojanas as innu-
merable as the sands of the Ganges river” (T 12.365.343b17-18)— Hakuin identified
one meaning of the term nenbutsu, namely, “being mindful of the buddha,” as its
true aim and purpose and made sure his audience knew that being mindful of the
buddha Amitābha and attaining rebirth in his pure land is no different from seeing
one’s own nature (Gotō 1967, 2: 396–397; Waddell 1994: 41). If, as he explains, the
size of the buddha’s body that one must contemplate is so unimaginably big, then
this body must be the dharma body and, if so, the true purpose of nenbutsu and seek-
ing rebirth in Amitābha’s pure land must be awakening. This, he concludes, must
mean that the true aim and purpose of nenbutsu and Zen are identical.
Well after he gave his lectures on the recorded sayings of Xutang, Hakuin con-
tinued to exert a considerable amount of effort to more “accurately” define the rela-
tion between nenbutsu and Zen. Similar arguments were made, for instance, in his
letters to the governor of Settsu 摂津 NABESHIMA Naotsune 鍋島直恒 (1701–
1749) and the lord of Okayama 岡山 castle IKEDA Tsugumasa 池田継政 (1702–
1776), and also in a relatively short didactic narrative that Hakuin wrote entitled An
Account of the Precious Mirror Cave (J. Hōkyōkutsu no ki 寳鏡窟の記) (Yampolsky
1971: 125–179; Waddell 2009: 127–141). One reasonable explanation for Hakuin’s
sustained concerns about nenbutsu may, again, be the arrival of the Ōbaku who not
only studied kōans and practiced communal forms of seated meditation but also
regularly chanted the name of the buddha Amitābha as part of their daily monastic
practice (Yanagida 1987: 259; Baroni 2000: 106–121). Unlike Japan where Pure
Land and Zen had developed into separate institutions with distinctive characteris-
tics, Chinese Buddhism had not developed such institutions, and for centuries
monks in China felt no conflict between their aspiration to attain rebirth in
Amitābha’s pure land and their efforts to reach awakening with the help of kōans
and seated meditation. In Japan, however, it had become important to clarify sectar-
ian boundaries and identify the orthodox roots of one’s own sect under the new
Tokugawa bakufu policies towards temples and shrines such as the head and branch
temple system (J. honmatsu seido 本末制度), which may be one reason why Hakuin
felt so uneasy about the combined practice of nenbutsu and seated meditation.
There is, in fact, some evidence to suggest that the Ōbaku was, indeed, what
Hakuin had in mind when he criticized the trend to combine Pure Land and Zen
(Yampolsky 1971: 171). However, he was more often inclined to explicitly single
out the eminent Chinese monk YUNQI Zhuhong 雲棲株宏 (1535–1615) and the
aforementioned Yongjue as the primary culprits behind this trend. Above all else,
Hakuin seems to have taken issue with their belief that Pure Land and Zen are sepa-
rate but equal paths that one can tread simultaneously. Hakuin was particularly
22 Hakuin 517

c­ ritical of Zhuhong’s tendency to regard the pure land of Amitābha as a literal des-
tination in the West that exists separate from the mind. Hakuin adamantly refused to
believe that, in the age of the “final dharma” (J. mappō 末法), devotion to Amitābha
and his pure land was an easier and more effective means of securing salvation than
seated meditation and kenshō. If both paths led to salvation, then they could not,
Hakuin contended, have separate goals.
Hakuin, as I noted earlier, never wavered in his belief that the key to salvation lay
in the experience of kenshō. Rather than reject the devotion to Amitābha and his
pure land outright, Hakuin applied an old exegetical spin to it and often claimed that
visualizing the dharma body of the buddha and attaining rebirth in his pure land was
none other than kenshō (Waddell 1994: 41; 2009: 137; Yampolsky 1971: 127, 136,
and 161). He also made use of the same old exegetical move to defend the Platform
Sutra against Zhuhong’s criticism of its reference to the distance between the prac-
titioners in China and pure land as 18,000 li 里 (Waddell 1994: 47–60; see T
48.2008.352a15-17). Hakuin insisted that this distance was used in the Platform
Sutra figuratively to refer to the mind’s distance from its original nature. This was,
indeed, an old exegetical move. The strategy of reading Amitābha and his pure land
as mind only (C. weixin jingtu 唯心浄土), as Robert Sharf has shown, was already
used in Chan sources from medieval China and may well be as old as Mahāyāna
itself (Sharf 2002: 313). So commonplace was this strategy that when the Ōbaku
masters were pressed for an explanation, they too preferred to explain nenbutsu in
these terms (Baskind 2008).

2 P
 ost-Satori Training

The general sermons that Hakuin delivered before his lectures on the recorded say-
ings of Xutang, as we have seen, serve as a broad commentary on Ming Buddhist
scholasticism with a clear emphasis on its main representatives, namely YONGJUE
Yuanxuan and YUNQI Zhuhong. However, an equally large portion of the sermons
were also devoted to the writings of famous Chan masters from the Song dynasty
such as YUANWU Keqin 圓悟克勤 (1063–1135), DAHUI Zonggao, and JUEFAN
Huihong 覺範慧洪 (1071–1128). Hakuin was fond of consulting the writings of
these masters because they, too, had to deal with the problem of “silent illumina-
tion” (J. mokushō 黙照), that is, with the perceived tendency among Zen practitio-
ners to ignore awakening and kenshō. What Hakuin wanted the audience of his
sermons to know, in other words, was that his stance toward Ming scholasticism was
based on the firm foundation of authentic Song Chan. The general sermons thus
functioned as a kind of manifesto. That is to say, the sermons, which he will tell-
ingly revisit at the opening of his new temple Ryūtakuji 龍澤寺 in 1760, offered
Hakuin an opportunity to publicly declare where he stood on the issue of awakening
and kenshō. They also offered him an opportunity to lay out a basic blueprint of his
own curriculum for Zen learning. To articulate this curriculum more efficiently,
518 J. Y. Ahn

Hakuin turned to a reliable authority on this subject and that authority was
GAOFENG Yuanmiao 高峰原妙 (1238–1295).
Using Gaofeng’s three essentials—“great root of faith” (C. daxingen 大信根),
“great determination” (C. dafenzhi 大憤志), and “great sensation of doubt” (C. day-
iqing 大疑情)—as an outline, Hakuin put together a curriculum that seems to have
consisted largely of two, or perhaps three, basic stages. First, the practitioner had to
develop deep faith in her own ability to experience kenshō. With this conviction the
practitioner must then, of course, see her own nature and undergo what Hakuin calls
a “great death” (J. daishi 大死). However, to die the great death, the practitioner had
to have great doubt, and to have great doubt, she could not settle with her initial
satori or kenshō. She had to cultivate this doubt with the help of a rigorous regimen
of “difficult-to-pass” (J. nantō 難透) kōan barriers, which requires great determina-
tion. Lastly, having successfully generated and resolved great doubt, she must not,
Hakuin adds, rest content with this achievement or, worse still, become attached to
it and become sick—more on this later—but rather come back to “life” from this
“death” and teach Zen to others. This, too, requires great determination.
What is, perhaps, most striking about Hakuin’s curriculum is its understanding
of great doubt. The arousal of great doubt was seen not as something that takes place
in a moment but as part of a longer and, perhaps, indefinite process. According to
Hakuin, awakening was not a singular event but something that had to be experi-
enced again and again. The need for such “post-satori training” (J. gogo no shugyō
悟後の修行) is an important theme that Hakuin will revisit and underscore repeat-
edly at various points in his lengthy career, but the term post-satori training itself,
as Norman Waddell points out, does not appear in Hakuin’s writings until his mid-­
seventies (Waddell 2009: 5). The use of difficult-to-pass kōans to deepen one’s ini-
tial awakening is, however, a point that Hakuin clearly raised as early as his
mid-fifties, as we saw in the case of his General Sermons Delivered to Introduce the
Record of Sokkō. Although Hakuin never really goes into the details of the mechan-
ics of post-satori training in any of his writings, he does steadily continue to offer
more elaborate pleas for such training in his Orade Tea Kettle (J. Oradegama 遠羅
天釜) (1749), Horse Thistle (J. Oniazami 於仁安佐美) (1751), Old Granny’s Tea
Grinding Song (J. Obaba-dono no kohiki uta お婆々どの粉引歌) (1760), The Tale
of How I Spurred My Young Self (J. Sakushin osana monogatari 策進幼稚物語)
(1761), The Tale of Yūkichi of Takayama (J. Takayama Yūkichi monogatari 高山勇
吉物語) (1761), and Wild Ivy (J. Itsumadegusa 壁生草) (1765–1766).
Again, these sources divulge close to nothing about the mechanics of post-satori
training, but what we do find is a recurring list of difficult-to-pass kōans, which
changes slightly from one source to the next. The kōans that appear more or less in
virtually all of the above sources are: SUSHAN Kuangren’s 疎山匡人 (837–909)
long-life stūpa (XZJ 138.484a10-b2); NANQUAN Puyuan’s 南泉普願 (748–835)
death (XZJ 138.136a17-b7); Qianfeng’s three kinds of illness; and WUZU Fayan’s
五祖法演 (1024–1104) water buffalo (T 48.2005.297c12-20). There is no way of
knowing for certain rationale for this list of kōans, but, if we are to trust Hakuin’s
autobiography (that is, Wild Ivy and The Tale of How I Spurred My Young Self) and
also his annalistic biography, these kōans had been assigned to him by Shōju
22 Hakuin 519

(Waddell 1999: 32; cf. 2009: 11, 31–33, 169–171; Rikugawa 1963: 49–50). If, how-
ever, we are to trust the introductory sermon to his lectures on the Blue Cliff Record,
which he delivered in the spring of 1758 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of
Gudō’s death, the four kōans cited above were Gudō’s “cipher and secret com-
mand” (J. angō mitsurei 暗號密令) (Gotō 1967, 2: 348–349). Be it Gudō or Shōju,
Hakuin wanted his readers to know that the tradition of using these difficult-to-pass
kōans was something that he inherited rather than invented. What Hakuin does not
ever tell us, however, is why these and other kōans were deemed so special or
“difficult-­to-pass.” It does, however, appear to be the case that some of the kōans
were used in post-satori training because there was a good precedent for doing so.
Sushan’s long-life stūpa, for instance, was used by none other than Xutang who
mulled over this kōan for 4 years after his initial awakening (T 47.2000.1052b12
and 1063b16).
As we can see in Xutang’s example, the idea of devoting oneself to post-satori
training was not unknown before Hakuin. Similar examples of men who engaged in
protracted, and often painful, attempts to wrestle with kōans after their initial awak-
ening are also documented meticulously in Hakuin’s writings on this subject
(Waddell 1994: 72–73 and 101; 2009: 73–76; Yampolsky 1971: 65–66). Hakuin
may have found the inspiration for his thoughts on post-satori training from these
and other examples that often date back to the Song dynasty or to key figures of his
own Ōtōkan lineage, but Hakuin’s own work on post-satori training is unique in that
no one had ever gone quite to the extent that he did to construct a systematic account
of this important phase in the study of kōan Zen. Given the amount of time and
energy that Hakuin dedicated to explicating this subject, it hardly seems an exag-
geration to say that post-satori training was the hallmark of his philosophy.
Hakuin’s thoughts on post-satori training, as we shall see, are extremely complex
and closely intertwined with his interests in medicine and Mahāyāna or bodhisattva
ethics. Before we move on to these topics, however, we need to take a brief look at
the current “kōan-system” (J. kōan taikei 公案体系) used by the Rinzai sect, which
was presumably built on the foundation laid by Hakuin (Akizuki 1987; Hori 2003;
Kajitani 1968; Miura and Sasaki 1966; Mohr 1999: 315–319; and Shibayama 1943).
More often than not, the first kōan that most students receive in this system is
Zhaozhou’s “no” (J. mu 無). This also happens to be the first kōan that Shōju used
to test Hakuin, and Hakuin himself seems to have preferred to assign this kōan to his
beginning students as well. However, later in his career Hakuin began to assign
beginners a new kōan that he had devised himself. This is the famous “sound of one
hand” (J. sekishu no onjō 隻手の音聲) kōan, which is also often assigned to begin-
ners in the Rinzai kōan- system. As Hakuin tells us in his letter to the lord of
Okayama castle, he had begun to assign the sound of one hand kōan to his students
only five or six years earlier, that is, around 1747 and 1748. He did so because, he
tells us, his students had a much easier time raising the great doubt with this kōan
(Yampolsky 1971: 163). There may be some truth to this claim. During Hakuin’s
time, the sound of one hand kōan may have seemed easier or at least more familiar
because of its relationship to the following line from the famous nō play The
Mountain Crone (J. Yamanba 山姥), “[crone] Calls from the valley, wholly empty,
520 J. Y. Ahn

scatter echoes from each twig, [chorus] till through sound the ear hears silence”
(Tyler 1992: 325; cf. Yampolsky 1971: 164; Yoshizawa 2009: 77–81). But, accord-
ing to Old Granny’s Tea Grinding Song, once the practitioner is done with this kōan,
she had to undergo further post-satori training (Waddell 2009: 125). This is also
true in the current kōan-system.
Not surprisingly, one step in the post-satori training section of the current kōan-­
system is called the eight difficult-to-pass kōans. There is some disagreement as to
what these eight kōans are, but the four difficult-to-pass kōans cited earlier seem to
be part of this list (Hori 2003: 22–23). There is also some disagreement about how
many other categories there are in this kōan-system, but the general consensus is
that there are five main categories and the eight difficult-to-pass kōans constitute the
fourth (Hori 2003: 19–27). As discussed earlier, however, Hakuin’s curriculum
seems to have consisted largely of two, or perhaps even three, stages and not five. In
Hakuin’s annalistic biography, his chief disciple TŌREI Enji 東嶺円慈 (1721–
1792), who compiled the biography, wrote the following comment, which seems to
evince the tripartite classification of Hakuin’s curriculum:
In general, there are three periods in the master’s attainments. First, (from age 15 to 23) he
gave rise to doubt in his mind for the first time and saw straight through to the root; second,
(from age 23 to 27) he had a personal audience with Shōju and investigated the profound
Principle; third, (from age 27 to this year [i.e., 41]) he further refined [his handling of] the
contradiction between activity and quietude and the disparity between phenomena and
Principle. (Rikugawa 1963: 498–499; Katō 1985: 175–177; cf. Waddell 2009: 198–199)

To be sure, the division of Hakuin’s career into these three stages may have little to
do with an existing curriculum or even with the facts of Hakuin’s career, but what is
certain is that there is no evidence to suggest that Hakuin had ever devised a rigid
and elaborate kōan-system with “main cases” (J. honsoku 本則) accompanied by a
set of “peripheral cases” (J. sassho 拶所), as in the case of the current system.
This, however, is not to say that the current kōan-system was made out of whole
cloth (Mohr 2000: 264). It is not unreasonable to think that the current system may
be an outcome of the development of Hakuin’s relatively simple curriculum or per-
haps even an older custom of classifying kōans (Mohr 1999: 315). Some of the
other technical terms used in the current system to classify kōans such as difficult-­
to-­pass, “going beyond” (kōjō 向上), “five positions and ten major precepts” (J. goi
jūjūkin 五位十重禁), and “last barrier” (J. matsugo no rōkan 末後の牢關), for
instance, also received special attention in the writings of Hakuin and his disciples
(Mohr 2000: 262–266; Gotō 1967: 2, 362–363 and 81–88; Waddell 2009: 171–
172). However, it should be borne in mind that their interest in these terms had less,
if anything, to do with a kōan-system than with the prominent place of these terms
in Song dynasty Chan. As I have shown elsewhere, the practice of using the term
“last barrier,” also known as the “last word” (J. matsugo no ku 末後句), to refer to
secret words and formulas (e.g. the five positions) that are exchanged or transmitted
at the final stage of one’s training is attested, at least, as early as the Song, but the
use of last words as shibboleths came under heavy criticism, and the attempt was
thus made to restore the “last word” and “going beyond” to what was presumed to
be their original meaning during this period (Ahn 2013). As a great fan of this
22 Hakuin 521

revisionist literature from the Song, Hakuin’s understanding of the “last word” as a
way of “going beyond” awakening or the great death by “forgetting its ruts and
footprints” (J. sono tesseki o wasureru 忘其轍跡) was, as one might expect, largely
in keeping with the way these terms were reinterpreted in this literature (Gotō 1967,
2: 438; Waddell 1994: 97; 2009: 175).
As for the “five positions” (J. goi), Hakuin considered this old Zen formula to be
the essence of the “Buddha’s teachings in condensed form” (J. butsudō taikō 佛道
大綱). He was, therefore, extremely critical of those who regarded the five positions
as curios that old Zen masters hide in their sleeves and took their ignorance instead
as “going beyond and pointing directly Zen” (J. kōjō chokushi zen 向上直指禪)
(Gotō 1967, 2: 82; cf. Miura and Sasaki 1966: 63). On the contrary, it was, in
Hakuin’s opinion, the five positions that perfectly captured the Zen teaching of
“going beyond.”
According to Hakuin, the first position, “the provisional within the real” (J.
shōchūhen 正中偏), stands for dying the great death and seeing the truth or Principle.
This position, however, could become compromised (that is, “provisional”) if the
practitioner becomes stuck in this state of quiet, unconditioned emptiness and con-
sequently ends up practicing “cesspool Zen” (J. shisuiri zen 死水裡禪) (Gotō 1967,
2: 85; cf. Miura and Sasaki 1966: 68).
To overcome the shortcomings of this position the bodhisattva must, Hakuin
claims, move to the next position, “the real within the provisional” (J. henchūshō 偏
中正), which stands for “regarding all things [literally, ten thousand dharmas] as
one’s own true and pure original face” (Gotō 1967, 2: 86; cf. Miura and Sasaki
1966: 69). The practitioner, however, could similarly become content with this state
(J. denchi 田地) and turn into an inferior bodhisattva. This, Hakuin continues, is a
consequence of not knowing the “proper deportment of a bodhisattva” (J. bosatsu
igi 菩薩威儀). What Hakuin probably had in mind here is the radical antinomian
position of certain varieties of subitism; for example, “the ordinary mind is the way”
(C. pinchingxin shi dao 平常心是道) that tended to put the cart before the horse, if
you will, and emphasizes the futility of seeking a truth outside of ordinary things
and experiences with rituals and arduous practices of self-cultivation (seated medi-
tation). However, what such a position conveniently overlooks is the fact that one
can only come to such a realization after he or she performs the necessary rituals or
practices self-cultivation.
The next position, “returning from the real” (J. shōchūrai 正中來), stands for the
position of the superior bodhisattva who does not dwell on the fruits of what he or
she has realized. Instead, with great compassion the bodhisattva carries out the four
great vows (J. shiguseigan 四弘誓願) and “seeks bodhi above and saves living
beings below” (Gotō 1967, 2: 87; cf. Miura and Sasaki 1966: 70 and 35–36). But to
do so, he or she, we are told, must know how to distinguish “light from darkness.”
What we seem to have here is the traditional argument for bodhisattva ethics and for
the ability to skillfully make use of expedient means. In other words, distinctions
and dualities such as light and darkness can be made for the sake of saving living
beings, but this does not necessarily mean that the bodhisattva is therefore attached
to these distinctions and dualities.
522 J. Y. Ahn

This last point then takes us to the next position, “arriving at mutual integration”
(J. kenchūshi 兼中至), which stands for “turning the wheel of the truth of the non-
duality of light and darkness” (Gotō 1967, 2: 87). The bodhisattva must embrace
duality without being engulfed by it like a lotus flower that blooms in the midst of
flames (T 51.2076.461a; Ahn 2008: 179 n. 4) and a person who goes on the road
without leaving home (T 47.1985.497a12-14) etc. But, as Hakuin reminds us, the
bodhisattva must be cautious not to become complacent in this state of nonduality.
This is why the bodhisattva must advance into the next position, namely “mutual
integration attained” (J. kenchūtō 兼中到) (Gotō 1967, 2: 88). No further explana-
tion is provided by Hakuin on this last position, but he does cite a verse composed
by XUEDOU Chongxian 雪竇重顯 (980–1052) that, again, seems to extol the vir-
tues of saving living beings with expedient means (Gotō 1967, 2: 88; Miura and
Sasaki 1966: 72). It seems worth pointing out here, however, that YANAGIDA Seizan
believes this verse may reflect an attempt—made not necessarily by Hakuin but his
disciple Tōrei–to promote Xuedou’s word-savvy brand of Zen without abandoning
the form of Dongshan Liangjie’s 洞山良价 (807–869) five positions, which Yanagida
characterizes as a very passive style of Zen (Yanagida and Katō 1979: 96–98).
Again, what we do not find in Hakuin’s comments on the five positions formula
are traces of a kōan-system, but that may not ultimately matter, at least, not from the
perspective of Hakuin’s philosophy. Viewed from this perspective, both the kōan-­
system and Hakuin’s ever-elusive curriculum are consistent in that they are both
concerned primarily with the task of guiding the practitioner to an initial experience
of kenshō and then to an arduous path of post-satori training and ethical engage-
ment in everyday life. If there is, in fact, a historical connection between the system
and the curriculum, then the kōan-system seems to have managed to faithfully
address and expand upon Hakuin’s concerns about post-satori training. Similar con-
cerns, as I noted earlier, had also received much attention during the Song, and
Hakuin was eager to acknowledge this fact, but the innovations that he introduced
to the notion of carrying out “meditative work in the midst of activity” (J. dōchū no
kufū 動中の工夫), as he preferred to call it, pushed this notion into new directions
that the Song Chan masters may have never imagined possible. It is to these new
directions that we turn next.

3 I dle Talk on a Night Boat

Hakuin was a prolific writer who left a large body of written material behind, but
nothing he wrote has received more attention than his Idle Talk on a Night Boat (J.
Yasen kanna 夜船閑話) (1757) (for example, Ahn 2008; Aoki 1943; Arai 1964,
2002; Izuyama 1983; Kamata 2001; Kasai 2003; Muraki 1985 and 2003; Naoki
2003; Rikugawa 1962; Shaw and Schiffer 1956). This complicated but entertaining
text is essentially a story about Hakuin’s encounter with the hermit Hakuyū 白幽
and the cure that the hermit provided for Hakuin’s Zen illness or malady of medita-
tion (J. zenbyō 禪病). It may be tempting to ask whether this encounter actually
22 Hakuin 523

took place or not, but the story does seem to provide a few allusions to its fictional
nature. One could consider, for instance, the title’s allusion to the famous idiom,
“the nightboat of Shiraka” (J. Shirakawa yōbune 白川夜船), which refers to the
pretense of knowing something that does not actually exist (Izuyama 1983: 114;
Mohr 1999: 311; and Waddell 2009: 87); or one could consider Hakuin’s claim that
Hakuyū’s age at the time of their encounter was somewhere between 180 (three
sexagesimal cycles) and 240 old (four sexagesimal cycles). These hints notwith-
standing, speculations about the identity of Hakuyū and his historicity have contin-
ued unabated since the eighteenth century (Waddell 2009: 85–87).
Few, I suspect, would deny that the aim of the story was not so much to document
an encounter as to impart a lesson and, needless to say, this lesson has something to
do with post-satori training. Hakuin is said to have offered the teachings contained
in this story to students who began to appear at the doorsteps of his temple Shōinji
shortly after he assumed the abbacy in his thirties, but it will take another decade or
two for the story to get published (Rikugawa 1962: 184). After its first publication
as part of Sendai’s Comments on Hanshan’s Poems (J. Kanzanshi sendai kimon 寒
山詩闡提記聞; Gotō 1967, 4: 108–197) in 1746, however, the story continued to
appear regularly in Hakuin’s writings. Why did Hakuin decide to include this story
in a commentary on Hanshan’s poems? The story was used in this astonishing work
of exegesis as an extended commentary on a poem that encouraged its reader to
nurture her essence (C. jing 精), change her physical form, and thereby cheat death
and become an immortal (Gotō 1967, 4: 107; cf. Iritani and Matsumura 1970: 115–
116). As Hakuin clarifies in his comment on the poem, its true message is not to
encourage the reader to ingest an elixir and become an immortal as the Daoist alche-
mists would do but to nourish life (J. yōjō 養生). Making good use of the teachings
he received from the hermit Hakuyū, Hakuin tried to explain what he thought was
the true meaning of the poem and the art of nourishing life with the help of the fol-
lowing passage in the Chinese medical classic, Plain Questions (C. Suwen) of the
Internal Classic of the Yellow Emperor (C. Huangdi neijing): “Tranquilly content in
vacuous nothingness, [the sages] were accompanied by true vital energy; their
essence and spirit being guarded from within, whence would illness come forth?”
(Gotō 1967, 4: 108 and 116).
This idea that one can nourish life by guarding vital energy (J. ki 氣) and thus
essence from within was the fundamental premise of Hakuin’s Idle Talk on a Night
Boat. To bolster this premise, Hakuin cites, in addition to the above passage from
Plain Questions, an impressive array of sources that include Buddhist texts, medical
treatises, and Chinese classics such as Mencius and Zhuangzi. Drawing snippets of
relevant information from these various sources, Hakuyū, or shall I say Hakuin,
weaves together a complex but coherent account of the etiology, diagnosis, and
remedy for the malady of meditation. The Idle Talk on a Night Boat inevitably reads
a bit like a dry theory-laden classical Chinese medical treatise, but Hakuin framed
the hermit’s teaching in a way that made it approachable even to the casual reader.
Hakuin set Hakuyū’s rather turgid and technical teaching about nourishing life,
which takes up more than two-thirds of the entire story, against the background of
his own personal experiences of self-cultivation, focusing particularly on days and
524 J. Y. Ahn

months that followed his initial awakening experience. This gave a palpable down-­
to-­earth quality to the hermit’s teachings, which other manuals of meditation and
medicine generally lack.
The story begins with Hakuin’s account of his initial awakening experience,
which his annalistic biography records as having occurred in 1708. That same year,
shortly after his awakening, Hakuin made his way to Shinano 信濃 province where
he met Shōju and learned about post-satori training. Before he left Shōju’s side,
Hakuin had not been able to receive the true secrets (J. shinketsu 真訣) of the five
positions in their entirety, but he was able to acquire the rest of these secrets from
Sōkaku 宗覺 (1679–1730), a fellow disciple of Shōju, two years later in 1710.
Curiously, there is a discrepancy in the way the two extant versions of Hakuin’s
annalistic biography—Tōrei’s manuscript compiled in 1789 and his disciple
TAIKAN Bunshu’s 大觀文珠 (1766–1842) official version printed in 1821—
remember the events that transpired after Hakuin left Shōju and before he began to
devote himself to self-cultivation on Mount Iwataki 岩滝 in 1715. Whereas Tōrei’s
manuscript places Hakuin’s encounter with the hermit Hakuyū and the end to the
former’s illness in 1715, Taikan’s version relocates this event to the year 1710
(Rikugawa 1963: 474–477 and 485–488). Naturally, Takain’s version also relocates
the onset of Hakuin’s illness, which Tōrei remembers as having occurred in 1712,
to the year 1709 (Rikugawa 1963: 471–473 and 478–480; cf. Katō 1985:
120–131).
Why Taikan felt it necessary to move the onset of Hakuin’s illness and his
encounter with the hermit Hakuyū closer to his year with Shōju and the completion
of the transmission of the secrets of the five positions is difficult to say, but Taikan
may have shifted the events around in this manner to address what appear to be
inconsistencies in the biography. Tōrei, for instance, seems to have placed the
encounter with Hakuyū in the entry for 1715 because it made more sense to associ-
ate the encounter with Hakuyū to Hakuin’s post-satori training on Mount Iwataki.
However, this seems to have made little sense to Taikan. If Hakuin had already
cured his illness with the help of Hakuyū, then it seems fair to ask why it was neces-
sary for Hakuin to engage in more rigorous post-satori training on Mount Iwataki.
Even more perplexing, perhaps, is Hakuin’s visit to EGOKU Dōmyō, a Zen master
with strong ties to the Ōbaku, in 1713. Both Tōrei and Taikan concur that the visit
took place in 1713, but Taikan altered Tōrei’s text in a barely noticeable but signifi-
cant way that is quite revealing. In Tōrei’s manuscript Hakuin is said to have con-
sulted Egoku because he continued to experience “in his daily functions a
contradiction between activity and quietude and a disparity between phenomena
and Principle,” which prevented him from “reaching the state of true great peaceful
tranquility and great liberation” (Rikugawa 1963: 483). In other words, what Hakuin
experienced was the malady of meditation and he wanted a remedy. Egoku’s advice
was to wither away together with the grass and trees in the mountains. This, in fact,
is why Hakuin headed to Mount Iwataki. Taikan, however, seems to have rightly
regarded the insertion of the encounter with Hakuyū between Egoku and Mount
Iwataki as incongruous and redundant. To do away with this redundancy, Taikan
moved the story of Hakuyū closer to Hakuin’s studies under Shōju and erased the
22 Hakuin 525

short but important reference to the “contradiction between activity and quietude
and disparity between phenomena and Principle” in Hakuin’s exchange with Egoku.
Their exchange was, thus, no longer explicitly about the malady of meditation and
its remedy. It had become a more general exchange about how to attain great
liberation.
Taikan may have thus ironed out some of the more obvious inconsistencies in
Hakuin’s biography, but it seems hard to deny that Hakuin’s encounter with Hakuyū
seems to make little sense in the context of the other events that took place between
1710 and 1715. During this period, Hakuin spent most of his time making pilgrim-
ages to consult Zen masters around the country and listening to their lectures. A
closer look at the pilgrimages that he made also reveals a certain pattern. In 1713,
for instance, Hakuin set out to visit the Zen masters JŌZAN Jakuji 定山寂而
(1676–1736), KOGETSU Zenzai, EGOKU Dōmyō, and TESSHIN Dōin 鐵心道印
(1593–1680). Hakuin’s decision to consult these masters is quite significant, for all
of them happen to be closely affiliated with the Ōbaku. Jōzan and Kogetsu were
both disciples of KENGAN Zen’etsu 賢巖禪悦 (1618–1697), who, like Tesshin
and the aforementioned BANKEI Yōtaku, received certification of enlightenment
from the Ōbaku monk DAOZHE Chaoyuan 道者超元 (J. Dosha Chōgen; 1602–
1662). Similarly, Egoku had received certification from the Ōbaku monk YINYUAN
Longqi 隱元隆琦 (J. Ingen Ryūki; 1592–1673). Hakuin was clearly interested in
discovering more about the Ōbaku teachings, but this interest was not stirred over-
night. There is good reason to believe that he may have had this interest as early as
1708 while he was still studying under Shōju. Hakuin is known to have wanted to
receive the “full precepts” (J. kusokukai 倶足戒), which was a practice that the
Ōbaku re-introduced to Japan, at the temple Ekōzenin 慧光禪院, but Shōju deterred
the young Hakuin from doing so and offered him the “formless mind-ground pre-
cepts” (J. musō shinchikai 無相心地戒) instead (Katō 1985: 95–112; cf. Waddell
2009: 171–172).
In short, learning more about Zen and especially Ōbaku Zen seems to have been
Hakuin’s primary agenda during the five years that followed his departure from
Shōju. It is therefore difficult to imagine why Hakuin would suddenly want to con-
sult an obscure hermit in the outskirts of Kyoto about the malady of meditation.
Moreover, if Hakuin wanted to consult someone about his malady, it would have
made more sense to consult Kogetsu and Egoku, who were well versed in Song
dynasty teachings on this subject. This is, no doubt, why Tōrei’s original manuscript
has Hakuin visiting Egoku to seek advice about this malady.

4 Inner Contemplation

If it is indeed the case that Hakuin’s encounter with the hermit Hakuyū was an inter-
polation, then why, we may ask, was this interpolation necessary? What made
Hakuyū and his teachings so special? First, I think we need to understand that the
hermit offered more than just a viable remedy for the malady of meditation. If we
526 J. Y. Ahn

are to trust the Song courses that Hakuin studied with great care, he could have
cured his malady of meditation by consulting renowned teachers, reading and study-
ing the old kōans carefully, “going beyond,” and knowing the truth or Way for him-
self (Ahn 2013). This, as I noted earlier, is exactly what he tried to do between the
years 1710 and 1715. Why, then, was it necessary for Hakuin to claim that he had
paid the hermit Hakuyū a visit? What Hakuin received from the hermit was an
explanation of a technique called “inner contemplation” (J. naikan 内觀). This is an
old term that can refer to a variety of different forms of meditation, but the hermit,
or, shall I say, Hakuin, used this term to refer to the old practice of calming the mind
by having it focus on something called the “cinnabar field” (J. tanden 丹田). As an
expedient way of bringing the mind down to the cinnabar field, which is believed to
be located near the abdomen, Hakuin recommends in his Idle Talk on a Night Boat
and elsewhere something he calls the “soft butter pill” (J. nansogan 輭酥丸)
method. Essentially, what this method entails is the practitioner imagining a ball of
warm butter melting and flowing down from the top of the head into the vital organs
and finally the lower parts of the body.
But how, we may ask, does this help someone battle the malady of meditation?
In theory, the malady is caused by becoming fixed on false views of the uncondi-
tioned and ineffable Way such as silent illumination (which, I might add, is all too
often mistaken for quietistic meditation). The problem, in other words, lies in the
mind’s tendency to look for such views and reified ideas. Inner contemplation pre-
vents the practitioner’s mind from being led astray this way by calming the mind
and developing unwavering concentration. The technique is, therefore, equally
effective in keeping the mind from becoming distracted by other impediments to
awakening such as attachments and emotions. However, if this was all inner con-
templation could do, few would have considered it novel and worthy of note. As a
meditative technique for calming and concentrating the mind, inner contemplation,
as anyone familiar with Buddhist meditation can readily identify, was another
instance of śamatha or calming meditation, which was the basis of virtually all
forms of seated meditation in Buddhism. There is, however, something quite novel
about Hakuin’s own take on the significance and benefit of inner contemplation.
Hakuin believed that inner contemplation not only fostered a sense of calm and
concentration in the practitioner but also enabled her to bridge the gap between
theory and practice, phenomena and Principle, and most importantly the quietude of
meditation and the activity of everyday life.
The issue of how to bridge the gap between quietude and activity is actually a
very old one that DAHUI Zonggao had also once tried to tackle, but the creative
way in which Hakuin approached this issue is what sets him apart as a thinker. In
lieu of relying solely on Buddhist sources to think through this issue, Hakuin turned
to medical treatises from China, Korea, and Japan. These treatises, which had been
the privy of those who belonged to a lineage of physicians for centuries, became far
more accessible during the Tokugawa period thanks to the growth of the print indus-
try and a literate community of readers who actively consumed such technical writ-
ing. Especially important for Hakuin were medical sources that were heavily
influenced by the style of thought pioneered by literati physicians such as ZHU
22 Hakuin 527

Zhenheng 朱震亨 (1281–1358) who successfully combined traditional Chinese

medical discourse and the moral philosophy of daoxue 道學 or Neo-Confucianism.
Relying on these sources, Hakuin made claims such as the following:
An average or mediocre person invariably allows the ki in the heart to rise up unchecked so
that it diffuses throughout the upper body. When the ki is allowed to rise unchecked, Fire
[heart] on the left side damages the Metal [lungs] on the right side. This puts a strain on the
five senses, diminishing their working, and causes harmful disturbances in the six roots.
(Waddell 2009: 101–102)

This short but effective description of the workings of vital energy inside the body
explains why the mind/heart (J. kokoro 心) tends to be led astray by the objects of
the senses and thereby cause damage to the lungs. It also probably explains why
Hakuin offered this uncanny description of the symptoms of his malady of
meditation:
Before the month was out, my heart-fire began to rise against the natural course, parching
my lungs of their essential fluid. My feet and legs were ice-cold; they felt as though they
were immersed in tubs of snow. There was a continuous thrumming in my ears, as though I
was walking beside a raging mountain torrent. I became abnormally weak and timid,
shrinking and fearful in whatever I did. I felt totally drained, physically and mentally
exhausted. Strange visions appeared to me during waking and sleeping hours alike. My
armpits were always wet with perspiration. My eyes watered constantly. (Waddell 2009:
96–97)

Although we find lists of similar symptoms mentioned in earlier treatises on

Buddhist meditation such as TIANTAI Zhiyi’s 天台智顗 (538–597) Great Calming
and Contemplation (C. Mohe zhiguan 摩訶止觀) (T46.1911.108a22–b7), there is a
crucial difference between these earlier accounts and Hakuin’s own account of the
malady of meditation. The key to grasping this difference resides in Hakuin’s (or
Hakuyū’s) understanding of the nature of the elements.
First, as Hakuin (or Hakuyū) explains, “is by nature light and unsteady and
always wants to mount upward, while Water is by nature heavy and settled and
wants to flow downward” (Waddell 2009: 100). In other words, there is a natural
tendency for the mind/heart, which corresponds to the element fire, to rise up and
strain the senses. Fire tends to rise, we are also told, when it is depleted of ki and,
needless to say, the proper way to nourish fire and thus the mind/heart is to therefore
replenish its ki (Waddell 2009: 105). This can be done by bringing the mind down
to the lower part of the body (that is, the kidneys and cinnabar field), which is lik-
ened to an “ocean of vital energy” (J. kikai 氣海).
As novel as this application of medical thought to Buddhist meditation may be,
what is truly innovative about Hakuin’s ideas about nourishing ki is the moral
­discourse that supports them. Hakuin, for instance, used the analogy of the relation-
ship between a ruler (the mind/heart), his ministers (kidneys), and the people (cin-
nabar field) to speak of the practical benefits of nourishing ki by bringing “fire”
down to the lower body:
Sustaining life is much like protecting a country. While a wise lord and sage ruler always
thinks of the common people under him, a foolish lord and mediocre ruler concerns himself
exclusively with the pastimes of the upper class. When a ruler becomes engrossed in his
528 J. Y. Ahn

own selfish interests, his nine ministers vaunt their power and authority, the officials under
them seek special favors, and none of them gives a thought to the poverty and suffering of
the people below them . . . On the other hand, when the ruler turns his attention below and
focuses on the common people, his ministers and officials perform their duties simply and
frugally, with the hardships and suffering of the common people always in their thoughts.
As a result, farmers will have an abundance of grain, women will have an abundance of
cloth. The good and the wise gather to the ruler to render him service, the provincial lords
are respectful and submissive, the common people prosper, and the country grows strong.
(Waddell 2009: 101)

The moral and political tone of Hakuin’s (or Hakuyū’s) message is unmistakable.
The lord must focus on the people below; otherwise, the country will collapse.
Similarly, the mind must focus on the cinnabar field below; otherwise, the body will
collapse. The need to keep the mind focused on the cinnabar field was not, there-
fore, just a medical issue but also a moral imperative. It is, I would argue, this cre-
ative blending of meditation, medicine, morality, and politics that makes Hakuin’s
thoughts on the malady of meditation so different from the earlier discourses on the
various illnesses or maladies of meditation.

5 S
 elf-Regulated Labor

Hakuin made frequent use of the analogy of the “mind-as-lord” (J. shushin 主心) in
his writings. He did so because the analogy, it seems, served several purposes. Using
the analogy of the lord who cares for the people below, Hakuin, as we have seen,
could argue that the mind must be made to focus on the lower part of the body. With
the same analogy Hakuin could also argue that bringing the mind down into the
lower part of the body will allow the practitioner to bridge the gap between quietude
and activity. How so? Focusing one’s mind on the cinnabar field will calm the mind
and nourish ki, but the mind-as-lord will not therefore cease to do its duty to care for
the people. In fact, the only way to do one’s duty properly and behave appropriately
in activity is, ironically, to nourish the mind in the tranquility and quietude of inner
contemplation. Hakuin, however, was a meticulous thinker and philosopher who
was clearly aware of the potential problems with this idea. As he asks in his Idle Talk
on a Night Boat: “if I control the mind and [fix] it to a single place, would there not
be stagnation of vital energy and blood? (Yoshizawa 1999–2002, 4: 126–127).
Anxieties about “stagnation” (J. todokoori 滞り), as SHIGEHISA Kuriyama has
shown, transformed the way the body was seen and experienced during the
Tokugawa (Kuriyama 1997). Among other things, the spread of this anxiety,
Kuriyama argues, is related to the ethos of diligence that swept through the
Tokugawa populace and, on a larger scale, to Japan’s “industrious revolution” (J.
kinben kakumei 勤勉革命) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elsewhere,
I have also tried to show that this anxiety must also be understood against the larger
backdrop of the subtle change that took place in the general attitude towards labor
(J. rō 勞) during the Tokugawa (Ahn 2008). Simply put, it became increasingly
22 Hakuin 529

important to faithfully carry out one’s duty or family trade, say, as a farmer, samurai,
or daimyo and, more importantly, to do so in a voluntary manner. Activity and labor,
as Hakuin and others from this period argued, had to be self-regulated. Failure to do
so, they believed, would result in stagnation and eventually illness.
With these larger issues in mind, Hakuin quite perceptively and frankly noted
that fixing the mind on the cinnabar field may lead to stagnation. However, Hakuyū
reassured him that there was no need to be concerned. As an explanation, Hakuyū
simply reminded Hakuin of the fact that fire tends to rise upward and must therefore
be made to descend and intermingle with water (Waddell 2009: 104). He did, how-
ever, also add that fire has not one but two natures, namely the princely and the
ministerial. Princely fire (J. kunka 君火), Hakuyū argued, is located in the mind/
heart and governs quietude; ministerial fire (J. shōka 相火) is located in the kidneys
and liver and governs activity (Yoshizawa 1999–2002, 4: 129; Waddell 2009: 104–
105). Following an earlier argument made by the Chinese physician LI Zhongzi 李
中梓 (1588–1655), Hakuyū also argued that when the mind/heart is depleted of ki,
one can replenish it by making it intermingle with the kidneys, which also happens
to correspond to the element water. Although it was left unexplained, what is being
taken for granted here is the fact that the left kidney corresponds to water and the
right one to ministerial fire (Despeux 2001: 151). When Hakuyū instructs Hakuin to
have his mind/heart intermingle with the kidneys he is, in effect, instructing him to
make fire intermingle with water.
Hakuyū’s description of the workings of fire and water is largely drawn from
earlier medical sources, which he cites by name, but his claim that princely fire
governs quietude is rather novel. I have already argued elsewhere that this claim was
an attempt to underscore the importance of the mind-as-lord’s responsibility to reg-
ulate quietude (Ahn 2008: 199). This idea of the mind regulating quietude, however,
went against the grain of more traditional theories of nourishing life, according to
which life, conversely, could only be nourished if the mind/heart is governed and
regulated with quietude. It is for this reason that I characterize Hakuyū or Hakuin’s
view of princely fire as novel.
For Hakuin, focusing the mind-as-lord on one’s cinnabar field does not, there-
fore, entail the removal of oneself from the hustling and bustling world of everyday
life. On the contrary, Hakuin believed that bringing the mind-as-lord down to the
cinnabar field where it can rid itself of views and attachments in quietude is pre-
cisely how the mind could maintain a sense of mastery and control, that is, carry out
its duty as the lord of the body. And cultivating this sense of self-mastery is how one
can carry out the other necessary daily tasks most efficiently. This is why Hakuin
could claim that one should not use the need to perform daily duties as an excuse to
not practice Zen (Yampolsky 1971: 53). In fact, Hakuin will even argue that
­performing one’s duties is the best way to nourish life. As he writes in his letter to
the ailing Jōshōmei’in no miya 浄照明院宮 (Rishū nyo’ō 理秀女王) (1725–1764),
abbess of the monzeki 門跡 temple Hōkyōji 寳鏡寺, and her younger sibling
Jōmeishin’in no miya 浄明心院宮 (Sonjō nyo’ō 尊乗女王) (1730–1789), abbess
of the monzeki temple Kōshōin 光照院:
530 J. Y. Ahn

Above all else, the practitioner should be weary of the malady of meditation. If even for a
moment there arises the thought that the fascinating sensations [produced by] the clearing
of the mind in quietude are enjoyable on account of this malady, then this is the practitio-
ner’s attachment to the taste of meditation and thus a great obstruction of the demonic realm
and must therefore be abandoned. Everyday, little by little, doing the kind of work that will
gradually release sweat is an exceptional form of nourishing life. It is also an expedient
means of significantly enhancing the power of concentration and thereby making the mind
and body strong and firm. In order to make a living, commoners everyday endure suffering
and pain in their hands and feet. Among these folks there are none who possess illness such
as headaches, intestinal bloating, exhaustion, and costiveness. (Yoshizawa 1999–2002, 2:
166–67)

There is no easy way of reconciling what Hakuin said here with what he said in
other sources such as his Idle Talk on a Night Boat, but I would hazard to guess that
Hakuin could make an argument for both inner contemplation and manual labor at
the same time without contradicting himself because he did not regard the mind’s
mastery of itself and the mind’s mastery of labor as separate tasks. Self-mastery—
the art of nourishing life—can only be accomplished if there is no gap between
activity and quietude and, conversely, the practitioner can only erase this gap if she
attains self-mastery.

6 H
 akuin’s Political Philosophy

In addition to his writings on kōan Zen and the art of nourishing life, Hakuin also
left behind a few writings where he articulated his views on proper governance
(Matsubara 2004). His Mutterings to the Wall (J. Kabezoshō 壁訴訟), Moxa (J.
Sashimogusa さし藻草), and Snake Strawberries (J. Hebiichigo 辺鄙以知吾) are
good examples for such writings. Although they were addressed to different people,
the overall message of these politically charged pieces by Hakuin are very similar.
In fact, certain parts of the texts are virtually identical. Here, I shall focus on Snake
Strawberries for no other reason than the fact that it offers better clues as to how
Hakuin’s political message fits in with the other ideas discussed in this essay.
Snake Strawberries is the title of a relatively lengthy letter that Hakuin presented
to the daimyo IKEDA Tsugumasa, the aforementioned lord of Okayama castle. The
letter was first published in 1754. But, for mentioning the shogun TOKUGAWA
Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543–1616) and a book that was falsely attributed to him, the
government banned the reprinting of the letter almost two decades later in 1771. The
controversial letter, however, begins surprisingly with the benign and harmless
praise of the miraculous benefits of reciting the Ten Phrase Kannon Sutra for
Prolonging Life (J. Ennmei jikku kannon gyō 延命十句觀音經). This may seem a
bit odd and out of place, but Hakuin seems to have believed that faith in compassion,
which is an important theme of the scripture and the miracle stories that testify to its
efficacy, was the key to good governance, self-mastery, and hence nourishing life.
Hakuin rather explicitly claims, for instance, that a good general, “[b]ecause it is
his responsibility to protect the nation and bring ease to the common people, night and
day without relaxing he polishes the martial arts and practices inner contemplation
22 Hakuin 531

and the power of faith” (Yampolsky 1971: 187). If, as he continues, one recites the Ten
Phrase Kannon Sutra for Prolonging Life at the same time, “then by the strength of
the natural overflow of the compassion of the gods and Buddhas, his military destiny
will become strong, his life span long, his magnanimity broad, and his governing of
the province will go as smoothly as if he were rowing a boat with the current”
(Yampolsky 1971: 187). What Hakuin is trying to say here, I think, is that trying to
establish a compassionate mind as master will allow one to more efficiently do one’s
duty and practice inner contemplation. This, I think, is why Hakuin proceeds to
describe the fate of incompetent generals in the following manner: “The clear charac-
ter inherent in all is obscured and destroyed by base personal lusts and desires until the
point is reached where the mind-as-master cannot be determined even for a moment”
(Yampolsky 1971: 188). This also seems to be why he suggests the investigation of the
word “death” (J. shi 死) to warriors. Only by investigating this word, Hakuin claims,
will the warrior determine the mind-as-master (Yampolsky 1971: 219).
Hakuin’s political philosophy, I believe, was rooted firmly in this notion of culti-
vating the mind-as-master and achieving self-mastery (cf. Furuta 1991: 58–67).
Only when self-mastery is achieved can the general and lord govern the people
below in the proper manner. Hakuin also believed that self-mastery had to be accom-
panied by compassion and benevolence. These are the two virtues that he repeatedly
encourages his reader(s) to cultivate in his Snake Strawberries and Mutterings to the
Wall. In more practical terms, as a way of cultivating benevolence and self-mastery,
Hakuin recommends frugality and moderation, above all else. This recommenda-
tion seems to have been an extension of his belief that the suffering of the people
was mainly the result of the greed of tyrannical officials. A lord who keeps the
company of such officials will, Hakuin contends, lose the hearts of the people and
eventually bring the country to ruin. To better illustrate this point, Hakuin uses a
familiar analogy. Citing an unnamed text on nourishing life, Hakuin claims that the
people are like ki. When ki is depleted and exhausted, the body weakens and eventu-
ally the person dies. Similarly, when the people decline, the country falls (Yampolsky
1971: 201–202). The lord must thus be mindful of the people and the mind must be
mindful of ki. For the lord, then, nourishing life and nourishing his country are one
and the same thing.
Hakuin’s concerns about the greed of officials are not historically unfounded. In
his Snake Strawberries, Hakuin poured scorn on the lavish spending of officials in
womens’ quarters and the ostentatious Edo-bound processions of the daimyo, which
were full of countless retainers, entertainers, spikes, horses, and flags (Matsubara
2004: 162). What may be at work here in these words of contempt is an even deeper
contempt for the alternate residence (J. sankin kōtai 参勤交代) system. During the
Tokugawa period, as a measure of control, daimyo were required to spend a signifi-
cant portion of the year attending the shogun at Edo. The daimyo were also required
to leave their wives and children behind at their permanent residences in Edo as de
facto hostages. Their annual trips to Edo thus became a permanent and prominent
fixture of Tokugawa life. An unintended, but perhaps inevitable, side effect of
implementing the alternate residence system, however, was the tendency among
daimyo to engage in a competition to display their wealth and influence in and on
their way to Edo; and herein lies the source of Hakuin’s concern.
532 J. Y. Ahn

Despite Hakuin’s scorn for the lavish expenditures of the daimyo, it is also true
that the expenditures related to their service in Edo helped stimulate the economy
(Vaporis 2008). But the economy was not what primarily motivated Hakuin to criti-
cize daimyo spending habits. I suspect the Kyōhō famine of 1732 and the general
economic conditions of peasant life, which was always at the brink of poverty, were
the more important motivating factors behind his criticism of the lavish lifestyles of
the daimyo. Also important was the parish system (J. danka seido 檀家制度) imple-
mented by the bakufu. As FUNAOKA Makoto rightly points out, the parish system
brought relative financial stability to a larger number of Buddhist temples, which
only a handful of temples in Kyoto had been able to enjoy before the Tokugawa. The
Buddhist temples had thus become quite dependent on their lay parishioners who,
in place of the emperor and the aristocrats, had become their main source of sup-
port. Buddhist intellectuals soon turned their gaze towards the morality of everyday
life that emphasized the importance of faithfully carrying out one’s family trade
(Funaoka 1979: 349–350). The attention that Hakuin pays to the wellbeing of peas-
ants and commoners, as Funaoka cautiously suggests, may very well have some-
thing to do with this new socio-economic reality of Buddhism during the Tokugawa.
Needless to say, Hakuin’s political philosophy, or any aspect of his philosophy
for that matter, cannot be grasped with the brief analysis that I provide above. This
essay, in fact, has barely scratched the surface of the large body of literature related
to Hakuin. I have, for instance, not discussed the intellectual context of the “popu-
lar” tales of cause and effect composed by Hakuin, his life-long interest in and fear
of hell, or his response to new bakufu policies in any detail (Funaoka 1979;
Muneyama 1986; Yoshizawa 2009: 219–252). Nor have I discussed Hakuin’s exten-
sive musings on the Lotus Sutra or the ideas that he expressed in his art (Yanagida
and Katō 1979; Tanahashi 1984; Yoshizawa 2009; Seo 2010). With respect to the
study of Hakuin, there is still much that needs to be done. However, I hope what I
have been able to cover in this essay was enough to encourage some readers to learn
more about Hakuin and his philosophy.

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Juhn Y. Ahn is Associate Professor of Buddhist and Korean Studies at the University of Michigan.
He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on death,
illness, and Buddhism in East Asia. His current research focuses on the relationship between
Buddhist mortuary practices and elite identity formation in fourteenth century Korea. His most
recent publication is Buddhas and Ancestors: Religion and Wealth in Fourteenth-Century Korea
(2018).