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60 Chapter 2
Chapter 2 Beneath the Ice: Musō Soseki and the Waka Tradition
115 なくかものかづくこほりのしたまでもげにはかはらぬ冬の夜の月
naku kamo no there— kazuku kōri no beneath the ice, shita made mo where crying ducks dive ge ni wa kawaranu it has not changed: fuyu no yo no tsuki the moon on a winter’s night
In this poem from his personal waka anthology, Musō Soseki uses the moon to allude to the unchanging nature of enlightenment that shines brightly, no matter if hidden. The same might well be said of that anthology, Shōgaku Kokushishū 正覚国師集 (also known as Shōgaku Kokushi goei 正覚国師御詠; hereafter, SKS), an important collection that has yet to receive extended con- sideration in the context of the waka tradition. Despite its relatively small size at just 122 verses, SKS is nonetheless the larg- est collection of early waka written by a prominent Zen monk. Although Edo- period monks like Takuan Sōhō 沢庵宗彭 (1573-1645) and Hakuin Ekaku 白隠 慧鶴 (1685-1768) are known for having composed waka and many examples date from late Muromachi and Edo-period texts on Zen, considerably fewer verses are attributed to medieval Zen monks. This is unsurprising, considering that most poet-monks in the Zen tradition tended to compose mainly in Sino- Japanese in the generations after Musō for social, political, and diplomatic rea- sons. There were, of course, poets by trade who were also Zen monks, the most famous and prolific of whom was undoubtedly Shōtetsu 正徹 (1381-1459), whose personal anthology, Sōkonshū 草根集, numbers more than 11,000 verses. Shōtetsu, however, was an exception, for although tonsured in a Rinzai lineage, he made his living primarily as a poet; he thus composed waka under very dif- ferent circumstances from figures like Musō, who made a living primarily as temple administrators and/or ritualists.1 Apart from Musō, other medieval Zen
* Several paragraphs of the chapter and two translations are reprinted from Molly Vallor, “Waka and Zen in Medieval Japan,” Religion Compass 10 (2016): 101-117
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Beneath The Ice 61
monks believed to have composed waka in addition to poetry in Sino-Japanese (kanshi 漢詩) include: Musō’s master Kōhō Kennichi, whose personal waka an- thology contains around thirty verses; and the well-known examples of Japa- nese Sōtō school founder Dōgen and Ikkyū Sōjun 一休宗純 (1394-1481).2 As is evident in the poems of SKS, Musō, like his master Kōhō, used the me- dium of waka variously to affirm ties to prominent supporters, as a form of social communication, and, perhaps most notably, to instruct students. In that sense, Musō’s collection is representative of a trend toward pedagogy evident to a lesser extent in contemporary poets like Kōhō and Taa Shinkyō 他阿真教 (1237-1319), regarded as the second patriarch of the Ji lineage 時衆.3 At the same time, the instructional function so apparent in Musō’s waka is noticeably ab- sent from his Sino-Japanese poems, although the two display clear similarities in the styles and themes of many verses.4 SKS thus offers ample evidence of Musō’s instructional use of waka in a va- riety of contexts, shedding new light on his pedagogical modes, which have long eluded scholars who have tended to focus on instructional modes more commonly associated with Zen, such as kōan, interviews (sanzen 参禅), or in- struction in meditation.5 Accordingly, the waka of SKS offer unparalleled in- sight into how waka and its aesthetics were pressed into service for the teaching and dissemination of Zen, while offering many representative examples of how Zen influenced the medieval waka tradition in the generations before and after Musō.
Carter, Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), xvii-xix. 2 For a full-length study of Dōgen’s waka and a complete English translation, see Steven Heine, Blade of Grass: Japanese poetry and aesthetics in Dōgen Zen (New York: Peter Lang, 1989). For an overview of waka and Zen in this period, see Vallor, “Waka and Zen in Medieval Japan.” 3 Inoue Muneo 井上宗雄, “Koka shōyō 4: dōka, kyōka to chūsei waka to 古歌逍遥-4-道歌・狂 歌と中世和歌と,” Tanka 短歌 28, no. 12 (1981): 40-41. 4 While Musō wrote both waka and kanshi celebrating his patrons, the Ashikaga, extolling reclu- sion, and praising the natural scenery at his various hermitages, Musō’s kanshi nevertheless tend to lack a clear pedagogical dimension. Unsurprisingly, Musō also tended to use kanshi in social exchanges with other Zen monks. 5 On the important role played by collections attributed to Musō—particularly the hundred- verse sequence discussed below—among waka collections disseminating Zen teachings, see Nishiyama, Buke seiken, 287. On Musō’s pedagogical methods, see for example Tamamura, Musō Kokushi, 143-154 and Hirata Takashi 平田高士, “Musō 夢窓,” in Zen no rekishi: Nihon 禅の歴史—日本—, vol. 4 of Kōza Zen 講座禅 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1967), 233-248.