Ryokan

Ryokan was a monk of the Soto Zen sect, which was brought to Japan from China by Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of Eihei-ji monastery in Fukui Prefecture, the largest and most famous monastery in Japan. Dogen's teaching emphasized two main points: (1) shikantaza, themeless sitting in zazen, that is, abandoning all thoughts of good and bad, enlightenment or illusion, and just sitting; and (2) shusho ichiagyo, "practice and enlightenment are one." There is no sudden enlightenment, and enlightenment cannot be separated from one's practice. For these reasons, Soto Zen is usually contrasted with Rinzai Zen, with its use of koans during zazen and its striving for kensho, an instantaneous, profound insight into reality. Generally speaking, Rinzai Zen tends to be somewhat violent and severe, while Soto Zen is usually more restrained and quiet.

As a Soto Zen monk, Ryokan first followed the traditional pattern of communal life in the monastery, then a period as an unsui, a pilgrim monk drifting from place to place like "clouds and water" (unsui) visiting other masters. Ryokan could have become the head of a temple or taken some other position in a large monastery, but he was not interested. His severe training had made not austere or remote but more open and kind. Therefore, he "returned to the marketplace with bliss-bestowing hands," the state depicted in the last of the well-known Zen series of the ten oxherding pictures, and the culmination of all Buddhist practice.