Zen monk and haito farming Yamagonho is located in the former residence of "Ichikusa-an" in Matsuyama City, Japan. Courtesy of the author
In mid-to-late September 2023, Dr. Tan Weidong and I traveled all over Shikoku. All over the road, following the path of Kukai Daishi's practice in Shikoku when he was young, the trail runs through the four prefectures of Shikoku, connecting 88 temples and spiritual fields. With a history of more than 1,400 kilometers and more than 1,400 kilometers, it is one of the most famous hiking trails in the world.
Dr. Tan and I didn't go all the way this time, but chose some routes in the four counties and jumped to walk. For this part of our trip in Ehime Prefecture, we are based in Matsuyama City. The "Ichokana" where Zen monks and haiku farm the mountain is located in Matsuyama City, so of course we went to visit it. This poet, who was in great trouble during his lifetime, became famous after his death was interpreted and interpreted in various ways. Although Ichiku-an is not a spiritual field in Shikoku, it is actually quite in line with our theme. Farming Shantouhuo itself is a traveler all over the road, has traveled all over the road twice, and also wrote down the verse "life is all over the road", on the way all over the road, from time to time will encounter the sentence tablet of this verse.
In December 1939, Taneda Yamatouho moved to Matsuyama and, with the help of friends, settled in the precincts of Goyukiji Temple at the foot of Mt. Miyuki, and named it "Ichochusa-an". This building was originally the warehouse of Goyukiji. Since he became a monk in 1926, this is the third time that Yamatoho has established an anthem, first in his hometown of Ogun-cho, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and later in Yuda Onsen. Regarding "Ichikusa-an", Yamatouhuo wrote in his "Diary of Ichi-hersoan", "Ichi-her-an, facing northeast, is built on a high platform, very quiet, the atmosphere around the house is clear, and the view of the market and the mountains is also very good. ...... The house has two rooms, six stacks of one room, four and a half rooms, and the kitchen and toilet are good. There is a pumping station not far from the front, the water quality is not bad, and the firewood can be taken from the back. ...... It is adjacent to the newly built Gokoku Shrine to the east, the ancient temple Ryutaiji Temple to the west, and not far from Matsuyama Ginza, Dogo Hot Springs, and Acorn Temple. The friends are very kind, and the monks are very nice. ...... "The current Goyukiji Temple is right next door to Ichokusa-an, and we also went in and walked around, a very small but very clean temple. There was no one around, and no monk was seen.
He did not enjoy this favorite place for 10 months, in October 1940, he died at the age of 59. The current Ichikusoan is a renovated wooden bungalow building that opened in April 2009.
The location of Ichikusa-an is not remote in Matsuyama City, but the surroundings are still very clean. There is no gate, only a wooden lattice fence is set up shallowly at the entrance door, at the opening of the fence, leaning on a wooden board on one side, there are several handwritten black characters on it, "a grass hermitage on the top of the mountain", and an iron sign is erected on the other side, and the printed text reads "a grass hermitage in the place where the fire ends on the hill of farming". In the grass of the precincts, there are several stone sentence tablets engraved with the haiku of the fire at the head of the mountain farming, and there is also a sentence tablet from the "Ichokusa-an Diary": "My hermitage squats at the foot of Mt. Miyuki, surrounded by temples. People get tired easily when they get old, and the simplicity of a grass is enough. Anyway, my way is only through my stupidity. Die calmly. ”
Miyukiji Temple at the foot of Mount Miyuki in Matsuyama. One of the authors
I've read "Ichichoka Diary". This is a record of Tanedayama's daily life after he settled in Matsuyama, and it contains a lot of thoughts on haiku creation. In this diary, the farmer is still depressed, and there is a feeling of self-loathing between the lines, especially his own alcoholism. He wrote, "My consciousness is to drink in moderation, to strictly prohibit borrowing money, to eat twice a day. And said, "Turn around all the way" is here. The phrase turning around all the way can be understood as a desperate situation. But in fact, farming Shantouhuo is still unable to extricate himself from the habit of drinking and eating too much, and because of poverty, he can only borrow money from everywhere. Throughout "Diary of a Grass An", his emotions are up and down, he hopes to be able to live a self-disciplined life and gain peace for a while, and then he feels that he has lived too long and feels ashamed, and then he cheers himself up and writes a series of self-motivation that he must live.
In the August 12 episode of "Ichika Hermitage Diary", Shantouhuo said, "To borrow the tone of the monk Liangkuan, it is very hot in summer." It seems that he also reads Liangkuan a lot.
It was also during this trip that in early September, we visited the former site of Ryokuan in Izumozaki Town, Niigata Prefecture. Both monks and haiku, Liangkuan and Taneda Yamatouhuo can be talked about together.
The two of them have similar backgrounds, they are both the eldest sons of a wealthy landlord, if according to the arrangement of fate, they will inherit the family business, but both of them slipped out of the prescribed life track, and the reasons and consequences are different.
Liangkuan is a celestial man, he has been close to Buddhism since he was a child, and has a natural connection with Zen Buddhism. Liangkuan became a monk at the age of 18, which seemed very surprising to others, but for himself and his destiny, it was a natural thing. Judging from Liangkuan's life, his poverty and happiness fell off physically and mentally, all of which were natural, so he was also happy.
Farming Mountain Fire is wider than Liangkuan, and he is a mortal who is struggling and wants to be free.
In 1882, Taneda Yamatoho was born in Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (there is now a statue of Taneda Yamatoho wearing a monk's robe and holding a hat, and there is also a memorial hall called "Yamatoko Fire Hometown Museum"), his real name is Taneda Shoichi. When he was young, his family was superior, and the tragedy began at the age of 11, when his mother committed suicide by throwing himself into a well because of his father's derailment, right in front of him, such a tragic scene gave Shantouhuo a great trauma in his heart, and he failed to heal for the rest of his life. In 1902, he entered the Faculty of Literature at Waseda University in Tokyo, and in 1904 he dropped out of school and returned to his hometown due to alcoholism and severe nervous breakdown. After that, my father became more and more unbearable, and after squandering the family business, he borrowed a lot of foreign debts. As the eldest son in the family, in order to maintain the family business, Shantouhuo opened a brewery, a bookstore, and a mirror frame shop, but all kinds of livelihoods failed, and he may not have good luck or lack of ability. After that, his father fled from debt, and then his father and younger brother committed suicide one after another, and Shantouhuo divorced his wife...... The mountain fire has tried its best in earthly life, but it still can't stop the total collapse of life. In 1924, at the age of 42, after attempting suicide by jumping off the rails, he became a monk at Hoenji Temple Mochizuki-an in Ueki Town, Kamoto-gun, Kumamoto Prefecture, and became a monk of the Shingon sect. His relationship with Zen Buddhism is passive, although he occasionally attains a state of freshness, but "the state of mind is empty, and the waves rush back and forth", and more often, all kinds of pain still weigh on the body and mind.
For ordinary people, Liangkuan is not easy to understand, he is too elegant, it is "the wind in the sky", but the work of Shantouhuo is easier to understand, it is "only the remaining rice is slowly cooked", and there is no way to stay, so you can only escape, and in the end, you find that there is no escape.
Portrait of a farmer mountain head fire. Courtesy of the author
The day we arrived at Ichokusa-an was not the opening day. A haijin memorial hall is still too niche, and it seems that it will only be open on irregular event days. However, it doesn't matter whether the museum is open or not, the exhibition hall is two sheds, an open space without a door, divided into two parts by a partition, the outer room is a rest area, where you can sit and watch the courtyard, and the inner room is displayed with the title of "Traces of the Fire Pine Mountain". On the wall of the outer room hangs the most famous portrait of Taneda Shantouhuo, wearing a hat and monk's robes, with a slightly oblique face, calmly looking at the upper right of the camera. With his glasses as thick as the bottom of a bottle and a white beard on his chin, he looked like a kind but miserable man. This photograph is a standard photo of the mountain fire, and it was taken at the Kobayashi Photo Museum by photographer Kobayashi Ginting.
After the exhibition hall and walk a few steps into the courtyard, there is a hermitage, and through the glass windows, the interior is also clear at a glance. Between the exhibition hall and the hermitage, there is a persimmon tree with low branches, and the fruit is abundant, but unfortunately it is not yet ripe. The shape of the branches of this persimmon tree is quite beautiful, with thick branches that divide and connect the scenes on both sides, and you can get a great composition when taking pictures on both sides. Just this persimmon tree makes this yard quite graceful. It is not clear when the persimmon tree was planted. During the period of the Ichoka Yamatobu Fire in Ichikuan, there was an association "Persimmon no Society". Outside the exhibition hall stands a black "mountain fire haiku box" for submissions. On one side of the exhibition hall, there are many haikus pasted on them, which were selected for the 17th haiku "Kuan-kuan Prize" in the 4th year of Reiwa (2022). Ichokusa-an also has haiku gatherings from time to time, and it is estimated that this is also the afterglow of the "Persimmon Society" of that year. The fire sentence on the mountain says, "The persimmon leaves are exhausted, and the camellia flowers are in full bloom." Persimmon and camellia are still in the courtyard of Ichikuan, and they are still with him well.
Farming Shantouhuo is one of the representatives of "Freedom Haiku", and there are collections such as "Grass and Wood Tower", "Son of Bowl", "Mountain and Water Travel", etc., and there are many famous sentences. "The line is endless, the line is endless, all the way to the green mountains. This is the opening work of the mountain fire bowl, which contains pride. The words of his death were, "The clouds are rising, the white clouds are rising, and I am stepping towards the white clouds." ”
That day, we walked out of the path outside the hermitage, and when we came to the intersection, we met a thin old man, who asked a little angrily, "Where are you going?" I was so frightened that I forgot how to say Ichochusa-an in Japanese (I checked it when I went in at the beginning), so I pointed to the signboard at the intersection. The old man turned his head to look at it, and said angrily, study hard. Just left. I've never met such an unkind Japanese person in Japan, but I found it very interesting.
Once, a friend of Shantouhuo died, and he wrote, "The mountains and fields are free, mourning is fruitless, and many sentences have fallen." "As I walked, I thought about the persimmon trees in the yard. Among the fruit trees, I like persimmons the most. I imagined them shimmering with red fruits. In my imagination, many fruits fell.
Dusting
Editor-in-charge: Xing Renyan