Sesson Yūbai

Sesson Yūbai (雪村 友梅, 1290 - 14th day of the 1st month, 1348) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk of the Rinzai sect. This priest and poet who is considered "the first important poet of the Five Mountains.

Quotes

• I do not like praises and honours
  Nor did I fear disdain
  I just stayed away.
  My mind, clear water,
  My body bound and tied
  For three years in Chang'an.
  I sing what I feel in songs
  In straight words, undecorated.
  • From: Bingatshū, as cited in: Katō, Shūichi. A History of Japanese Literature: From the Man'yōshū to Modern Times, 1997. p. 105.

Quotes about Sesson Yūbai

• When the Japanese Zen priest Mugaku Sogen (1226-1286) was in China and threatened by invading Mongol troops, he composed a fourline poem. Years later another Zen priest, Sesson Yūbai (1290-1347), when he was in prison and threatened with death, took Mugaku's poem and, using each line as the opening verse of a new poem,
  • Donald Keene. Anthology of Japanese Literature, from the Earliest Era to the Mid. p. 347