Heart of Suibokuga
Traces of a Cultural Spirit Born from the Cross-Sea Exchange Between Southern Song and Kamakura
When Japanese Suibokuga (ink wash painting) achieved its remarkable artistic development, what lay at the source of the history that had been transmitted through the generations?
It was not a single thing. It was born from many tributaries flowing into one. In this piece I want to look at the great current that formed the source itself. The figure who must be spoken of here is not a Japanese painter but a Chinese one. His name is Muqi.
Muqi was a Rinzai Zen monk who lived from the late Southern Song dynasty into the early Yuan period in the thirteenth century. He came from the mountainous province of Sichuan and later moved to Shaoxing, where he is said to have entered the school of the eminent Zen master Wuzhun Shifan (1177–1249). Wuzhun Shifan had deep ties to Japan. He was the master who produced a number of outstanding Japanese monks who went on to spread Rinzai Zen within Japan, foremost among them Enni Ben’en. Enni took the Rinzai teaching transmitted directly from Wuzhun Shifan as his foundation, but rather than adhering exclusively to Zen he blended it with Japanese esoteric Buddhism and spread Zen in Japan from his own distinctive vantage point. His contributions, however, were not limited to religion. After studying in Song China and returning to Japan, Enni founded temples in Hakata on Kyushu and in Kyoto and became one of the leading figures in the propagation of Zen. In his later years he returned to his hometown, and this gave rise to a culture that continues to this day. That culture is Shizuoka tea.
Enni’s hometown was in what was once called the province of Suruga, present-day Shizuoka City in Shizuoka Prefecture. Shizuoka Prefecture still possesses some of Japan’s most renowned tea fields and ranks among the top producers in the country. Shizuoka tea is traditionally said to have begun with Enni. When he returned to his hometown of Shizuoka in his later years, he had the tea he had brought back from Song planted and promoted tea cultivation. Enni himself drank tea daily and followed the belief of the time that tea possessed the power to extend life. Through Zen, Enni exerted a major influence on the cultural development of his homeland. Unlike those driven by self-serving ambition, Enni genuinely wished for the future of the place he came from and lived seriously for that purpose. This was a culture born through Zen, and I feel this perspective is critically important. Zen is the entrance, not the destination. I have long believed that Zen is something that envelops life, not an answer in itself. The spirit of Zen resides in each individual act of living daily life. It is something anyone can practice without undergoing special training at a temple. Historically, outstanding Zen monks have shared this perspective. But behind them, I cannot help sensing the influence of Wuzhun Shifan in China.
What I want to draw attention to here is that among Muqi’s fellow students under Wuzhun Shifan were Mugaku Sogen (Wuxue Zuyuan , 1226–1286), who would later travel to Japan, and Gottan Funei (Wuan Puning, 1197–1276). Both were Rinzai monks and both had a major impact on Rinzai Zen in Japan. Gottan Funei also studied under Wuzhun Shifan and is believed to have interacted with Enni during his period of study. In fact it was Enni who invited Gottan Funei from Southern Song to Japan in 1260. Gottan Funei was appointed as the second head of Kencho-ji in Kamakura at the request of Hojo Tokiyori, the supreme leader of the Kamakura shogunate. Hojo Tokiyori was a leader deeply committed to the spread of Rinzai Zen. Since Kamakura and Shizuoka are neighboring provinces, the influence of Rinzai intensified in this corridor. What matters is that the Zen monk Wuzhun Shifan stood as the spiritual pillar behind this entire religious and cultural milieu. He was most likely a generous-minded leader with a deep understanding of culture, one who did not cling to any single teaching. It is Japan’s good fortune that this Rinzai lineage flowed into the country, and it is no exaggeration to call it the lineage of Wuzhun Shifan. This lineage would go on to connect directly to the history of Suibokuga.
Muqi too is thought to have absorbed Wuzhun Shifan’s generosity of spirit through his interactions with fellow monks. And what is important is that although Muqi himself never visited Japan, the Chinese monks who had studied alongside him were later invited to Japan. Through these connections Muqi’s name became known within Japan. The enormous popularity of Muqi’s Suibokuga in Japan was made possible because the network of Chinese and Japanese monks centered on Wuzhun Shifan had built a direct tributary flowing into Japan. Behind the transmission of Muqi’s paintings to Japan lay not a simple commercial transaction but the existence of the Rinzai Zen religious network itself. In the course of Rinzai Zen’s spread within Japan, Muqi’s Suibokuga achieved such popularity that by the mid-fourteenth century countless forgeries were being produced. And above all, Muqi’s Suibokuga were not valued in China.
To understand Muqi’s Suibokuga, it is essential to grasp the Zen thought that lies behind it. As I have already written, Suibokuga is not simply a product of artistic talent. It is the reflection of Zen as a way of living daily life itself. Without Zen there would be no Suibokuga, and yet Suibokuga is not a tool for propagating Zen either. This sensibility may be difficult for peoples and nations with a strong religious consciousness to grasp, but the essence of Zen resides precisely here. Zen is not something that is taught, nor something that is learned. In the presence of a good master, the true worth of Zen manifests in the smallest gesture of daily life. There is no need for sermons. The history of Zen in Japan is rich with anecdotes of this kind.
One of the fundamental principles upheld by the Rinzai school is [不立文字]. This is the conviction that enlightenment cannot be transmitted through written characters or spoken words but only through the direct encounter between master and disciple. It is fundamentally different from the older Buddhist position that sought to learn the Dharma by reading scriptures and interpreting texts, and it was a reaction against the monopolization of Buddhist teaching by a limited few. Stripped of complexity, the idea is that the truth of the Dharma is already present in the ordinary daily contact of master and disciple, face to face. And this is not confined to the Zen relationship of master and disciple. It is open to everything. I suspect that Wuzhun Shifan understood and practiced this truth more deeply than anyone, and that this is why his disciples emerged and left a mark not only on China but on the history of Japan. In Zen it has long been held that rationalized systems of language and formalized rules are precisely what obstruct the attainment of enlightenment. In the present day this is something difficult to realize. It is not limited to Zen. It is simply a matter of looking seriously at the one person in front of you. But nothing is more difficult in the modern world than this simple act.
The thought of [不立文字] is naturally reflected in Muqi’s Suibokuga. His paintings contain none of the three-distance compositional methods that the orthodox Chinese ink painting of the time prescribed, none of the precise texture-stroke techniques, none of the strict bone-method brushwork. According to orthodox technique, mountains were to be rendered with texture strokes that expressed material quality. Muqi grasped the mountain together with the atmosphere surrounding it using nothing but the bleeding and tonal gradation of ink. To call this simply “a rebellion against form” is insufficient. It can be understood as the result of pursuing a direct apprehension that does not pass through form at all. The very idea of “rebellion against form” may function within the Western art-historical context, but it is an evaluation that does not reach Muqi’s lineage. If Muqi had thought about “form” and intentionally deviated from it, he would not have moved the hearts of Japanese painters. Nor would he have captured the hearts of the Rinzai monks who transmitted his works. The absurdity of thinking about Suibokuga through the lens of form is concentrated precisely in this point. There was no form in Wuzhun Shifan’s Zen.