For live models, he needed to go no further than the river that still runs to the east of Kumamoto Castle. During his time, the natural scene along this river was far more extensive than it is today; ducks, geese, and other birds must have flourished there in great numbers. This work—like many other paintings by Musashi—is still greatly admired by the Hosokawa family, and is housed today in the Eisei Bunko, the building that has served as the repository of the Hosokawa family treasures from the fourteenth century to the present. First opened to the public in 1972, this collection is housed on the grounds of the Hosokawa family estate in Tokyo. In this way, the relationship between Musashi and the Hosokawa that formally began in 1640 has continued on to this day.
A painting that may indicate Musashi’s peace of mind in this last part of his life is that of a dove in a red plum tree. The plum blooms in late winter, and is a symbol of purity and of the ability to endure hardships. Although the dove is a symbol of peace in the West, it is dedicated in Japan to Hachiman, the god of war. It is also a symbol of filial piety in the Far East, and the saying Hato ni sanshi no rei ari concludes that young doves will perch three branches below their parents out of respect for their elders. Musashi, who had been parentless for years, certainly held this same kind of respect for the Hosokawa.
The tranquility of this scene, with the dove basking in the sunshine of the late winter/early spring, expresses a calm that the old warrior must have felt about the final home provided him by his patrons in Kumamoto. And after so many years of conflicts, wounds, and living on his own, Musashi must have felt a serenity from time to time that he would not have known as a young man. The observer, however, will not miss the swordlike stroke of the top plum branch, nor forget that Musashi continued to teach and write until his dying day. The dove in this painting is clearly at ease, but it seems also to be intently observing the long vertical branch directly before it.
Although he painted other animals—squirrels, horses, even dragons—Musashi seems to have had a special affinity for birds. He did not, however, collect and cage rare or colorful ones as did a number of the daimyo of his age. Musashi was interested in the wild ones, admiring them for their intensity, play, economy of movement, and, above all, freedom.
During this period, Musashi was committed to a regular practice of zazen. Now in his late fifties, one can imagine him pulling his legs up into a painful lotus position, approaching this practice with the same intensity and concentration he applied to everything.
As was mentioned earlier, the older, more scholarly priest Obuchi likely discussed the Buddhist dharma with Musashi in the brisk, energetic manner typical of priests of the Rinzai sect, while Musashi’s training in seated meditation fell to the guidance of the much younger Shunzan. Although he had always studied Zen and other forms of Buddhism, Musashi was now making it an integral part of his life. It was only natural, then, that one of his favorite subjects for the suibokuga that he was painting at this time would be the founder of the Zen sect, Daruma.
Daruma (in Sanskrit, Bodhidharma) was born in either southern India or Persia, reportedly to a royal family, and went to China to teach Buddhism as the twenty-eighth patriarch of the religion around the year 520 C.E. One of his most famous dialogs was with Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, a devout Buddhist, who asked how much merit he would acquire for his good works in promoting the faith. “None whatsoever,” was Daruma’s reply. Somewhat daunted, the emperor then asked about the sacred doctrine’s first principle. Daruma responded, “It’s just a vast emptiness, and there’s nothing sacred.” Finally, the emperor asked, “Then who are you to stand in front of me?” Daruma’s answer was, “I don’t know.” After this unsuccessful, elliptical interview, Daruma left the court and eventually arrived at the Shaolin Temple, where he spent nine years meditating in front of a rock wall in a cave. Legend has it that at one point he fell asleep during meditation. When he woke, he was so angry with himself that he cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Later, the first tea plants grew from them.
Daruma’s abruptness and eccentricity appealed to the Zen sect, which adopted him as their first patriarch, and paintings of his image are hung reverently in places of honor during ceremonies of that sect.
Daruma also held great appeal for Musashi. His answer to the emperor, “A vast emptiness and nothing sacred,” could stand as a summation of the philosophy of swordsmanship Musashi gives in The Book of Five Rings, and Musashi would surely have appreciated Daruma’s subtle humor as well. And there was more. In Daruma’s lectures, Musashi would have found confirmation of his thoughts on swordsmanship and concepts that led him to a deeper understanding of those thoughts. In his essay “The Bloodstream Sermon,” Daruma wrote:
Once you hold on to something, you’ll be unaware. If you truly want to encounter the Way, don’t hold on to anything. All practices, all actions, are impermanent.
But this mind isn’t somewhere outside the material body of the four elements. Without this mind, we can’t move. The body has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It is the mind that moves.
Apart from motion there’s no mind, and apart from the mind there’s no motion. But motion isn’t the mind. And the mind isn’t motion. Motion is basically No-Mind. And the mind is basically No-Motion. But motion doesn’t exist apart from the mind, and the mind doesn’t exist apart from motion.
Musashi would have read this passage and inwardly nodded in vigorous assent, and it is interesting in this connection that Musashi painted more suibokuga of Daruma than of any other subject except Hotei, another Zen saint. Two of his most famous renditions of the first Zen patriarch are quite arresting. One shows Daruma in full Zen concentration, his eyes intensely focused toward his nose, and his mouth pulled downward in unflinching determination (Figure 3);13 the other is a three-quarter view of the Zen master, with enigmatic lines that could suggest anything from anger to self-reproach.14 In both paintings, the heavy, grounded lines of the robe, the lighter and more sensitives lines of the face, and the “vast emptiness” extending above the figure of Daruma reflect Musashi’s own intensity, reverence, and, once again, little-noted sense of humor.
FIGURE 3. Daruma by Miyamoto Musashi, signed Niten. Scroll. Ink on paper. 15 x 36 inches (38 x 91 cm). Eisei Bunko.
After the less-than-satisfying interview with Emperor Wu, Daruma is said to have left the area, crossing the Yangtze River on a reed leaf or branch of reeds. Wet-blanket scholars have pointed out that during the Sung Dynasty, when this story began to circulate, the Chinese character for reed (芦) also meant “reed boat,” but the anecdote had a life of its own. Zen-sect artists picked it up quickly, and it has been a popular subject for them ever since. Apparently Musashi was unable to resist it either, and painted a number of suibokuga on this subject. In one of his renderings of the Reed Leaf Daruma,15 a triptych, he made Daruma the central figure and added paintings of single ducks on either side, floating lightly among the reeds, as if to give Daruma some cheerful companions along his Way.
There are a great many other stories about Daruma, but one worth mentioning here concerns doing zazen for nine years—sitting facing a wall the entire time—at the end of which time his legs are said to have fallen off from disuse. It is indicative of how thoroughly Zen Buddhism and such stories have pervaded Japanese life that a popular round, legless doll of the patriarch is seen almost everywhere and is accompanied by the saying,
Life is falling down seven times, getting up eight
Jinsei nanakorobi, ya’oki
Musashi continued to practice zazen through the physical pain and the psychological disappointments known to every Zen adept who has continued to practice for any length of time. Again, it must be remembered that Musashi was ill even before coming to Kumamoto, which must have added an extra dimension of difficulty to this discipline. He persevered, however, deepening his understanding of Zen doctrine and leaving a spiritual statement in his paintings and other arts.
Fearlessness, detachment, and humor are all considered to be attributes of the enlightened human being, one engendering the other in an endless cycle. Musashi’s life story, writings, and paintings all indicate that he lived well inside this circle. Of his paintings, there are more of Hotei, the humorously rendered Buddhist priest, than any other subject, and this fact may hint at a side of Musashi that is often overlooked—that he was not the ever-serious swordsman we may imagine from reading The Book of Five Rings, but a man who could laugh good-naturedly and out loud. Indeed, had Musashi left only his paintings to posterity, we would have a very different view of him today, as many of them exhibit the humor for which Zen Buddhism is well known and which is fundamental to its worldview. Certainly Musashi found in Hotei an image to express a part of himself that would have been difficult to do with a sword.
Hotei, the corpulent priest known to the Chinese as Ch’ang Ting-tze or Pudai, lived in the ninth and early tenth centuries, dying in 912. An eccentric, he would at times utter strange, cryptic words, but at other times he would eloquently preach the Buddhist scriptures. Hotei roamed the marketplaces of China, carrying a huge cloth bag and a cane, and begging for money and food. He would eat anything, including meat and fish—foods that were forbidden to the Buddhist clergy. Among other wonders, Hotei was able to predict the weather, and was seemingly immune to cold and even death: not long after he passed away at a place called Fengchuan, he was seen wandering through a neighboring province. While it is not recorded that he was a member of the Zen sect, he is noted in The Transmission of the Lamp, a thirtyvolume work on the ancient patriarchs compiled in 1004, as one of ten men who had “arrived at the gate of Zen.”
By the twelfth century, Hotei had become a common subject of Zen artists. He is always depicted as a happy, corpulent monk, nearly naked, and often in odd surroundings for a Buddhist priest. The large bag in his possession is said to indicate his magnanimity, and to hold countless treasures. His bald, unshaven, often slovenly visage camouflages the fact that he is considered to be an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future. Zen artists, however, were often happy to use the humor of the unexpected to break us free of our preconceptions. Musashi’s renderings of Hotei do much the same.
It should not be too surprising, then, that Musashi’s most striking painting of Hotei has the old priest intently watching a cockfight (Figure 4). This decidedly un-Buddhist scene was not original with Musashi, having been painted by both the Chinese painter Liang K’ai (c. 1210) and Musashi’s older contemporary Kaiho Yusho (d. 1615), but the swordsman’s version is by far the most striking.16 In this painting, Hotei watches the cockfight with concentration, amusement, and perhaps a bit of irony, his scruffy chin resting on the top of his cane. Much as Musashi must have watched many sword matches with detachment but great interest, so Hotei looks on as the cocks—perhaps representing all of us, the sentient beings of this world—get ready to peck and leap at each other. Musashi brings the perspective of a highly focused swordsman to this scene, portraying a situation of life and death with humor. It is a painting—like the shrike on a withered branch—that only Musashi, the truly Zen-imbued swordsman, could have produced.
Musashi was often tempted, in various paintings he did of Hotei, to insert his favorite subjects—birds. Two sets of triptychs include both a sparrow and a bird Musashi obviously enjoyed observing, the kingfisher. The center scrolls of both sets are of Hotei. One has him—heavy as a sumo wrestler—fanning himself and stepping lightly in a sort of jig; the other has him taking a nap, elbows resting on his huge bag, chin supported by the palms of his hands.17 In the left scroll in both cases, a kingfisher perches above a pond, its gaze raptly held by whatever is in the water beneath it. The inscription over the kingfisher with the napping Hotei reads:
FIGURE 4. Hotei Watching a Cockfight by Miyamoto Musashi, signed Niten. Scroll. Ink on paper. 13 x 28 inches (32 x 71 cm). Matsunaga Collection, Fukuoka Art Museum.
A single lonely form, next to the lotus leaf wilted by the late year chill,
A green light shines over the water in the full evening sun,
Its entire body unmoving in the autumn wind,
Its mind following the golden scales filling the single pond.
This inscription, added by a Zen priest of the Tenryuji who lived about fifty years after Musashi passed away, has caught not only the spirit of the kingfisher but a certain sense of Musashi’s mind during his time in Kumamoto. This pair of scrolls (the one with the sparrow is lost) expresses two seemingly paradoxical characteristics of Zen meditation: a light-hearted relaxation and a highly focused attention. Apparently Musashi did not find these mutually exclusive.
As an interesting aside, the triptych in Buddhist art usually has as its center a major Buddhist figure such as the historical Buddha or one of the main Bodhisattvas. The scrolls at the right and left ordinarily portray the central figure’s attendants: lesser Bodhisattvas, avatars, or the like. In Musashi’s work, the central figure is often the happy and eccentric Hotei, while his attendants are the animals generally considered the freest in nature: birds. This tells us as much about Musashi’s inner life as any book on swordsmanship.
A number of those who were fortunate to own works by Musashi were moved to either write their own inscriptions on the backgrounds of the paintings or to ask others to do so. One work containing such an inscription shows a fat, happy Hotei, his huge bag supported by the stick over his shoulder. High in the void over his head is written a poem:
To find many joys
in not being confused
is likely not so sophisticated.
Be that as it may,
the dancing Hotei.
Although the writer of this poem was Hoshina Masayuki (1609–72), a scholar and administrator in Aizu Wakamatsu, the sentiment—in its essence not very different from that of the poem above the kingfisher—may be a reflection of Musashi’s own feelings at the time. Surely he had obtained some measure of enlightenment from his intense studies of Zen, and his happy portrayals of Hotei indicate a lightness of heart far removed from the ferocious intensity of the young Bennosuke of so many years before.
Other of Musashi’s unique paintings of Hotei include one that is sometimes called The Yawning Hotei,18 although “belly-laughing” could just as well be substituted for “yawning”; another is of the fat priest astride a huge ox,19 with the wary grin of a man uncertain as to where his bottom will land at the next step of his mount. But all of Musashi’s suibokuga are unique and—it bears repeating—provide us with an account of his spiritual life that we cannot find in his life history or his writings.
Musashi’s insistence that he had no teachers in any of the arts he practiced, whether swordsmanship, painting, calligraphy, metallurgy, or sculpture, has been met with thinly veiled skepticism from a number of writers who are often quick to mention Kaiho Yusho, Yano Kichiju, or even Hon’ami Koetsu as possible teachers, and Liang K’ai and Hasegawa Tohaku as definite influences. Yet there is no evidence for such teaching other than one visit that Musashi made to Yano’s school. All of these suggestions are interesting, however, and give the reader a bit more latitude in trying to understand how Musashi’s talent could have developed to the heights it reached. All of the men who are sometimes mentioned as his teachers had some formal training, as did nearly all the famous swordsmen of this period. Thus, some skepticism in the face of Musashi’s claim is probably understandable.
It may be interesting to mention here another artist who was Musashi’s contemporary and who may have been an influence on the artist-swordsman, in spirit if not in technique. Their lifestyles and subject matter were certainly quite similar, and the possibility of their meeting and discussing art and Zen does not stretch the imagination too far at all.
Fugai Ekun (1568–1654) was a Zen priest who demonstrated his own independence by rejecting the tradition of residing in Zen temples. He first studied esoteric Shingon Buddhism, then turned to Zen, in which he trained intensively fo
r ten years. Completing this training, he stepped out on the road and did not look back for the next two decades. In this independent wandering, his life was similar to Musashi’s; and like Musashi, Fugai was strongly antimaterialistic, carrying with him only a few bare essentials, his brush and other tools of his trade, and an unwavering intention to perfect his art. Food was sometimes procured by trading a painting for it, and his lodging was likely to be whatever hut or lean-to he could find. Like Daruma and Musashi, he sometimes lived in caves.
There are no records of Fugai ever having trained under a particular teacher of suibokuga, but he, like Musashi, was influenced by the Chinese Zen artists of the Sung Dynasty and his favorite subjects were also Daruma and Hotei. Again, like Musashi, he not only painted but also practiced calligraphy, was a talented sculptor, and carved the seals that he used to sign his brushwork pieces.
In a striking parallel with Musashi, Fugai was also invited toward the end of his life to live in a castle town under the patronage of a local lord. Unfortunately, the lord of Odawara Castle did not seem to have possessed the same degree of culture and integrity as did the lord of Kumamoto Castle. Fugai soon departed and lived for another three years in a small temple on the Izu Peninsula. He was an original to the end: just as he felt death approaching, Fugai asked some local villagers to dig a large hole. He then stepped into it, stood up and died.
Fugai’s paintings of Hotei bear the mark of a wonderfully light and independent spirit, and while his style is in no way similar to Musashi’s, both men’s paintings seem to emanate directly from their own individual Ways. It is easy to imagine the two of them camping out in an abandoned hut for a few days, sharing tea and talk and their own particular brand of Zen.
The Lone Samurai Page 12