Hullunud pilv

Ikkyu was born in 1394 in a small suburb of Kyoto. It is generally held that he was the son of Emperor Go-Komatsu and a low-ranking court noblewoman. Ikkyu was a poet, calligrapher and musician who viewed the world with a profound insight that brooked no pretense, and favored unvarnished truth above religious and social conventions. Ikkyu Sojun was appointed head priest of the great temple at Kyoto, but he renounced the position after just nine days, denouncing the hypocrisy of the monks around him. His poetry is often frankly erotic, sometimes humorously so. Yet it manages to achieve an immediacy and insight that is the essence of Zen practice.