Ryokan

 

Ryokan Taigu was an unconventional monk in the Soto Zen sect. Born Eizō Yamamoto in Izumozaki in 1758. I've become much less enamoured with the chaos rule breakers but it's an interesting antidote to the asceticism and vastness of the amazingness of the Dharma.

Ryokan's poems

My Cracked Wooden Bowl

This treasure was discovered in a bamboo thicket --

I washed the bowl in a spring and then mended it.

After morning meditation, I take my gruel in it;

At night, it serves me soup or rice.

Cracked, worn, weather-beaten, and misshapen

But still of noble stock!