Nature & Culture of Japan

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Temples & Buddhism Religion

An unconventional Zen Priest named Sojun Ikkyu(型破りな禅僧、一休宗純)

Sojun Ikkyu was a Zen priest who lived mainly in the 15th century. He is a very famous person among modern Japanese people, because, in the 1980s, there was an anime program on TV. This wise boy at a temple, one after another, disciplined the adults who did wrong.

However, it seems that this person who became an adult was a really unconventional person. He broke down the enlightenment license given by a full-fledged Zen priest, pooped on the sutra, and brought a woman to the temple.

He worked at Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto as the manager. On his dying, he handed monks an item there and said, “If you have a problem, open this.”

After he died, the temple had a problem. Then one opened it. There was only a paper that had written that “Don’t worry, it must go well”

We all always have experience to have worries. But there is really no way to get away from worries. I think it was a intelligent Zen monk-like word.

Sojun Ikkyu (1394~1481)

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