Mumon Gensen

Mumon Gensen (Japanese: 無文元選, March 22, 1323 - May 7, 1390) was a Japanese Zen priest, believed as an illegitimate son of Emperor Go-Daigo. In 1340, the next year of Go-Daigo death, Gensen became a priest at Kennin-ji, Kyoto, a major Rinzai-zen affliated temple. He went to China ruled by Yuan dynasty to study Zen much further, and after his return to Japan, founded Hōkō-ji in Tōtōmi Province, now Shizuoka Prefecture.

Quotes

• Life is an ever-rolling wheel
  And every day is the right one.
  He who recites poems at his death
  Adds frost to snow.
  • Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

• Life is like a cloud of mist
  Emerging from a mountain cave,
  And death
  A floating moon
  In its celestial course.
  If you think too much
  About the meaning they may have,
  You'll be bound forever
  Like an ass to a stake.
  • Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

References

• Mumon Gensen (1323 - 1390) [was] a Japanese Rinzai monk of the Ashikaga period, Mumon Gensen was born in Kyoto, the son of Emperor Go-daigo. He entered Buddhist orders at age seven, and at eighteen entered the Zen monastery Kennin-ji. In 1384, Gensen founded a Rinzai Zen monastery in Totomi.
  • Mumon Gensen, Lapham's Quarterly, Accessed June 24, 2018.

• Hökö-ji was founded in 1383, the first year of Genchū era under the reign of Gokameyama Tennö, by Mumon Gensen (1323–1390). Mumon Gensen was a prince and became a monk at the age of eighteen. He served under Ka'o Sonen (d. 1345) and Sesson Yubai (1290–1346) at Kennin-ji. He went to China and received the Inka from Kobai Shöyü (1285–1352).
  • Yu-hsiu Ku. History of Zen. 2016. p. 103