Japanese Death Poems

Part 1: zen monks

Although the consciousness of death is in most cultures very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or “death poems.” Such poems are often written in the very last moments of the poet’s life.

Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death, are translated into English here, the great majority of them for the first time.

The following poems and accompanying notes are selected from the first section of the book which features poems written by zen monks. Enjoy.

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DAIDO ICHI'I
(大道一以)
Died on the 26th day of the 2nd month, 1370 at the age of 79

A tune of non-being
Filling the void:
Spring sun
Snow whiteness
Bright clouds
Clear wind.

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DAIRIN SOTO
大林宗套
Died on the 27th day of the 1st month, 1568 at the age of 89

My whole life long
I’ve sharpened my sword
And now, face to face with death
I unsheathe it, and lo—
The blade is broken—
Alas!

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GESSHU SOKO
月舟宗胡
Died on the 10th day of the 1st month, 1696 at the age of 79

Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
Arrows, let flown each to each
Meet midway and slice
The void in aimless flight—
Thus I return to the source.

In the writings of the Taoist philosopher Lieh-tzu (fourth cent. B.C.), we find mention of two master archers whose arrows hit each other in midair. In the poem by Gesshu, the arrows do not fall back to the ground, but continue in a directionless flight through empty space. This image indicates a state of consciousness in which the concepts of the ordinary mind forming one’s outlook on the world have vanished, and polarities (good-bad, life-death, etc.) are embraced in enlightened being.

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GIUN
義雲
Died on the 12th day of the 10th month, 1333 at the age of 81

All doctrines split asunder
Zen teaching cast away—
Fourscore years and one.
The sky now cracks and falls
The earth cleaves open—
In the heart of the fire
Lies a hidden spring.

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DOYU
道祐
Died on the 5th day of the 2nd month, 1256 at the age of 56

In all my six and fifty years
No miracles occurred.
For the Buddhas and the Great Ones of the Faith,
I have questions in my heart.
And if I say,
“Today, this hour
I leave the world,”
There’s nothing in it. Day after day,
Does not the sun rise in the east?

GOKU KYONEN
悟空敬念
Died on the 8th day of the 10th month, 1272 at the age of 56

The truth embodied in the Buddhas
Of the future, present, past;
The teaching we received from the
Fathers of our faith
Can all be found at the tip of my stick.

When Goku felt his death was near, he ordered all his monk-disciples to gather around him. He sat at the pulpit, raised his stick, gave the floor a single tap with it, and said the poem above. When he finished he raised the stick again, tapped the floor once more and cried, “See! See!” Then, sitting upright, he died.

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HOSSHIN
法心
13th century

Coming, all is clear, no doubt about it.
Going, all is clear, without a doubt.
What, then, is it all?

Hosshin, also called Hosshimbo and Shosai, was a Japanese monk who sailed to China in the thirteenth century to study Zen. Since he could neither read nor write, his Chinese teacher drew a circle around the symbol T and ordered the monk to meditate on that. Hosshin sat and reflected until “his rear became rotten and maggots bred there.” This did not deter him from meditating, and he would see in everything the symbol. Only when the sign disappeared from his consciousness did he gain enlightenment.

A week before his death he declared, “I will die in seven days.” No one heeded him, but on the seventh day following he spoke his last words as given above. When one of the monks requested that he add another phrase, Hosshin rebuked him with a sharp cry of “Katsu!” (a word signifying the attainment of enlightenment) and died.

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INGO
院豪
Died on the 21st day of the 8th month, 1281 at the age of 72

Three and seventy years
I’ve drawn pure water from the fire—
Now I become a tiny bug.
With a touch of my body
I shatter all worlds.

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KAISEN JOKI
快川紹喜
Died on the 3rd day of the 4th month, 1582

In 1582 the samurai leader Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) captured a company of over one hundred Buddhist monks who were allies of his enemy. He ordered his men to pile dry branches around the prisoners and set fire to them all. Among the monks thus burned alive was Kaisen Joki. According to one of the versions relating the last moments of this Zen master, one of his students asked him, “We cannot escape the passing away of all things in this world. Where now shall we turn in our search for the everlasting?” Kaisen replied, “Here it is before your eyes, in this very place.” The monk pressed further, “What place is this before my eyes?” With flames licking upward at his body, Kaisen responded, “If you have vanquished your selfhood, coolness will rise even from the fire.”

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KOGETSU SOGAN
江月宗玩
Died on the 1st day of the 10th month, 1643 at the age of 70

Katsu!
Katsu!
Katsu!
Katsu!

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KOHO KENNICHI
高峰顯日
Died on the 20th day of the 10th month, 1316 at the age of 76

To depart while seated or standing is all one.
All I shall leave behind me
Is a heap of bones.
In empty space I twist and soar
And come down with the roar of thunder
To the sea.

Death in a Zen sitting position or death standing up was considered worthy of an enlightened person.

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NAMPO JOMYO
南浦紹明
Died on the 29th day of the 12th month, 1308 at the age of 74

In 1307, exactly a year before his death, Nampo wrote:

This year, the twenty-ninth of the twelfth
No longer has a place to come to.
The twenty-ninth of the twelfth next year
Already has no place to go.

These words were taken, after his death, as proof that Nampo knew he would die in a year. And so it was: on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth month, 1308, Nampo took up his brush, wrote the following poem, and died.

To hell with the wind!
Confound the rain!
I recognize no Buddha.
A blow like the stroke of lightning—
A world turns on its hinge.

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RANKEI DORYU
蘭溪道隆
Died in 1278 at the age of 66

Thirty years and more
I worked to nullify myself.
Now I leap the leap of death.
The ground churns up
The skies spin round.

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SHUMPO SOKI
春浦宗熙
Died on the 14th day of the 1st month, 1496 at the age of 88

My sword leans against the sky.
With its polished blade I'll behead
The Buddha and all of his saints.
Let the lightning strike where it will.

It is said that after reciting this poem, Shumpo gave a single “laugh of derision”
and died. To “behead the Buddha” suggests spiritual independence and an awareness freed from the manner of thought dictated by religious tradition. According to Buddhist belief, a man who sins against religion and morality is liable to die by a stroke of lightning.

Several years before his death, as the disease which caused it worsened, Shumpo took leave of his disciples and followers with the following words:

At times I supported the sky, at times the earth; at times I turned into a dragon, at times to a snake. I wandered at will through the cycles of life and of death. All the fathers of our faith I took into my mouth. I give as I will and I take as I will. I slash the leopard with my teeth; my spirit smashes mountains.

After saying these words he let out a sharp cry of “Katsu!” and directed his disciples to burn his corpse and bury the ashes in the ground, forbidding them to erect a burial stone in his memory. He ended his will with the following poem:

No single bone in my body is holy—
It is but an ash heap of stinking bones.
Dig a deep hole and there bury these remains
Thus, not a grain of dust will stain
The green mountains.

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TAIGEN SOFU
太原崇竽
Died on the 10th day of the intercalary month, 1555 at the age of 60

I raise the mirror of my life
Up to my face: sixty years.
With a swing I smash the reflection—
The world as usual
All in its place.

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TAKUAN SOHO
沢庵宗彭
Died on the 11th day of the twelfth month, 1645 at the age of 73

夢

Takuan’s personality was extraordinary. He was a scholar, a painter, and a poet, close to the court, and admired by rulers and common people alike, although he refused to regard anyone as his disciple, for he did not consider himself a teacher.

At the age of thirty-seven he was appointed head monk of Daitokuji temple in Kyoto. Takuan, who hated having power and authority, abandoned the temple after three days. He turned down honorary titles, and when he was invited by the shogun to serve under him, he refused. He once disobeyed the shogun and was exiled to the distant hills. When his banishment was lifted and he was ordered to return to the city, Takuan replied that he preferred the mountains and had no desire to return to the “filthy and crowded” Edo.

Lying on his deathbed, Takuan at first refused to write a death poem. At last he gave in to the entreaties of those surrounding him, took up his brush, and drew the character for “dream” shown above. When he finished, he threw the brush down and died. Takuan had requested beforehand that his body be burned on a mountain, that no burial service be held, and that no tombstone be put up for him.

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TOSUI UNKEI
桃水雲溪
Died on the 19th day of the 9th month, 1683 past the age of 70

Seventy years and more
I have tasted life to its utmost.
The stench of urine sticks to my bones.
What matter all these?
Ho! Where is the place I return to?
Above the peak the moonlight whitens
A clear wind blows.

Tosui, who was called by all “the holy beggar,” entered a monastery at the age of seven. As an adolescent he often fasted and secluded himself. He refused to join any one sect and never stayed long in one place. In one of the monasteries where he spent several years, he found himself—against his will—teaching Zen. At the height of the teaching season he wrote the following words on the monastery gate before abandoning the place:

Today is the end of religion's work—
Go back, all of you, to your homes.
I leave before you, Eastward or westward,
Wherever the wind might carry me.

After wandering throughout Japan, Tosui joined the beggars of Kyoto and lived among them. One day one of his former pupils found him there. Tosui was dressed in rags, his hair growing wildly, and he carried a straw mat on his back.

The pupil asked to join him, but Tosui rebuked him and tried to send him away. In spite of this the young monk put on begging clothes and followed his master. Tosui spoke not a word to him. In the town of Katata near Lake Biwa the two of them found the corpse of a beggar and buried it. When the pupil exclaimed, “Poor man,” Tosui turned to him and scolded him: “Why pity the man? The most honored of men and the most wretched of beggars share a single fate—death.” Tosui then sat to eat the rice porridge that the beggar had left, murmuring as he ate it, “Mm, good.” Suddenly he turned to his pupil and ordered him, “Eat this!” As he had no choice but to obey, the pupil placed a small portion of the porridge in his mouth, but he was unable to swallow it and gagged it up again. “I warned you not to follow me,” Tosui reproached him, and sent him away.

Thus it was that Tosui wandered from place to place, supporting himself by weaving straw boots to cover the legs of horses in winter and by carrying people on his back. For a while he lived in the city of Otsu (Shiga Prefecture) under a straw roof stretched over the space between two storehouses.

At the same time, a certain stable hand, who considered Tosui a holy man, brought him a portrait of the Buddha Amida. On the picture Tosui wrote the following verse:

Though my dwelling be small
I take you in, Lord Amida—
But don’t think for a minute
I need you for life after death.

Tosui spent the last years of his life in Kyoto, living at first under a bridge and later in a half-demolished shack in the outskirts of the city. He died sitting upright in a Zen position, his death poem lying beside his body.

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YAKUO TOKUKEN
約翁徳儉
Died on the 19th day of the 5th month, 1320 at the age of 76

My six and seventy years are through.
I was not born, I am not dead.
Clouds floating on the high wide skies
The moon curves through its million-mile course.

Two days before his death, Yakuo called his fellow monks together and said, “The words of a man before he dies are no small matter. This is a barrier that all must pass through. Tell me each of you what you think about that.” The monks answered in various ways, and Yakuo neither approved nor disapproved. The next day he ordered his pupils to burn his body and forbade them to hold an elaborate burial ceremony. “Tomorrow morning,” he said, “I shall eat the rice porridge with you for breakfast, and at noon I shall go.” The following day at noon he wrote his final words, threw the brush from his hand, and died sitting upright.

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