http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/i/ikkyuu.htmAn abbreviation of Ikkyuu Zenji 一休禅师, the Zen 禅 priest Ikkyuu (1394-1481) of the *Rinzai 临済
lineage. A poet, essayist, legendary eccentric, critic of the Zen establishment, as well as both
subject of and impetus for artistic creation. His posthumous name was Soujun 宗纯, and he also used
the sobriquet Kyouunshi 狂云子. Ikkyuu was the preeminent Japanese "Zen personality," but also a
pragmatic rebuilder of Daitokuji 大徳寺 in Kyoto after the Ounin 応仁 war (1466-67) and a
significant contributor to medieval aesthetics. Said to have been a son of Emperor Gokomatsu 后小
松 (1377-1433), because of his mother's ambiguous position at court, at the age five Ikkyuu became
an accolyte at Ankokuji 安国寺 where he spent the next ten years immersed in Chinese learning. In
1410, however, he began the strict practice of meditation with the priest Kennou Soui 谦翁宗为
(d. 1405), and then went on to study with Kesou Soudon 华叟宗昙 (1352-1428) at a rustic temple in
Katada 坚田 near Lake Biwa 琵琶. It was here that Ikkyuu upon hearing a crow's caw, had his
enlightment experience in 1420.
In the 1420s Ikkyuu settled in Sakai 堺 where he
practiced his "mad Zen" in brothels and wine shops. His antics, parading through the streets
waving a sword or carrying a human skull, and his numerous affairs with prostitutes celebrated in
his poems, were presented as methods of understanding true Zen. Ikkyuu was a constant
critic of the "wooden (i.e. stylized) Zen" practiced in large monasteries such as Daitokuji,
where he briefly served as abbot in 1474. Even in his old age spent at Shuuon'an 酬恩庵, a small
retreat south of Kyoto, Ikkyuu's attachment to the blind singer Mori 森 again demonstrated his fusion
of Zen and worldly life.
