Download Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan AudioBook Free
Ryokan (1758-1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned fellow workers, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living typically as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He previously no dharma heir. However, people accepted the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all strolls of life for the coaching to be experienced in only being around him. His poetry and art were wildly popular even in his lifetime. He is now regarded as one of the biggest poets of the Edo Period, along with Basho, Buson, and Issa. He was also a professional artist-calligrapher with a very distinctive style, due typically to his unique and irrepressible heart, but also because he was so poor he didn't will often have materials: His distinctive slender line was because of the fact that he often used twigs as opposed to the brushes he couldn't afford. He was thought to practice his brushwork along with his fingertips in the air when he didn't have any paper. There are hilarious stories about how precisely people tried out to trick him into doing art on their behalf, and about how precisely he frustrated their endeavors. As an old man, he fell in love with a young Zen nun who also became his scholar. His affection for her colors the adult poems of his late period. This collection contains more than 140 of Ryokan's poems, with options of his art, and of the extremely funny anecdotes about him.
