reblog: January 02, 2020. THE ZEN REBELS: OBSCURE HERMITS AND EXISTENTIAL REFORMERS (PART 23). ZEN MYTHS: "THE HELL COURTESAN” (PART 2)

 

"As legend would express in its various descriptions of the iconoclastic and rebellious Zen monk Ikkyū Sōjun, the fable remains in tact of the infamous “Hell Courtesan” which originated as a evolving story within the final years of the Japanese Endo period (1868), reflected in Japanese literature and art.  To which there holds an enthralling description of an encounter with a beautiful, yet dammed, prostitute named Jigoku Dayū, who instilled the persona as the Hell Courtesan.  It becomes more evident, particularly over the many manifestations of the parable that occurred between an apparent meeting with Ikkyū and Jigoku, which was well known through the Japanese Zen lore over the years, that Ikkyū visited brothels during his wanderings, ensuring his anti-establishment and paradoxical Zen characteristics were portrayed, which included eating fish, drinking alcohol and of course sex.  Yet, it also was Ikkyū's unorthodox detachment through the practice of Zen Buddhism, aware that there is only an impermanence to existence in which human beings maintain a dependence in their perpetual suffering, relying on the delusions for guidance – which leads further into, as studied by the Zen schools, the hell state that is of the mind.  And for all Ikkyu's contradictions, he was considered a definitive Zen Master..."

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Full articile:  https://chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-zen-rebels-obscure-hermits-and.html (A.Glass 2020)