-INTRODUCTION

Takuan Sōhō was a Zen monk, calligrapher, painter, poet, gardener, tea master and, perhaps,
inventor of

canned vegetables that still bears his name. The extent of his written work is prodigious (the
works

complete six volumes), and to this day it is a source of guidance and inspiration for the
Japanese people,

as it has been for three and a half centuries. Counselor and confidant of nobles and
commoners, he seems to have

freely passed through all layers of society, instructing the shogun and the emperor and,
according to

legend, being friend and master of Miyamoto Musashi, swordsman and artist. Fame and
popularity are not

they seem to have affected him; sensing the near death, he asked his disciples: "Bury my body
in the

mountain behind the temple, cover it with earth and go home. Do not recite sutras, do not
perform rites. No

receive gifts from monks or laypeople. May the monks cover themselves in the same
garments, eat the

same meals and do everything as usual. "At the last moment, he wrote the Chinese character

yume ("dream"), put the brush on the table and expired.

Takuan was born in 1,573 in the village of Izushi, Tajima province, a region of heavy snowfall
and fog in the

mountains. Izushi is old enough to be mentioned in Japan's two primitive stories, Kojiki

(A.D. 712), and the Nihon-gi (A.D. 720) and the countryside around it is dotted with relics from
ages past, old

tombs and pottery deposits from distant antiquity. Although born of a samurai family from the

Miura clan, at the height of a civil war that had lasted 150 years, Takuan entered a monastery
at the age of 10

age to study the Jodo Buddhist school; at the age of 14 he started to practice at the Rinzai
school of Zen Buddhism; and,

with a mere 35 years - an unprecedented fact - he became the abbot of Daitokuji, Kyoto's
great Zen temple.

In 1629, Takuan became involved in what was later called "The Question of the Purple Cloak",
opposing

to the decision of the shogunate to end the imperial power to appoint holders of high posts
religious. Due to this opposition, he was banished to the current Yamagata District, and it was
in that distant

northern province that he wrote the first and the last of the three texts contained in this book.
He benefited

for the general amnesty that followed the death of the shogun, and returned to Kyoto in 1632.
In the following years, he became

friend and Zen instructor of Emperor Go ‐ Mizunoo, who had abdicated but still retained his

influence; and made such a favorable impression on the new shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu - that
it constantly

he was looking for his friendship - which, in 1.638, founded Tokaiji at the request of the
shogun. And although a friend of the shogun and

the emperor, he has always remained decisively removed from the political quarrels that so
often

disputed the shogunate and the throne of the chrysanthemum.

Takuan is said to have followed his own path until the end of his life, independent, eccentric
and sometimes

bitter. His strength and roughness are evident both in his calligraphy and painting and in the
texts here

presented, and - interesting fact - it may be possible to "taste" the character of this man simply

tasting a plate of takuanzuke, preserves made from the Japanese giant radish.

His life can be summed up in this admonition that he himself made: "If you follow the present
world, you will give

your back to the Way; if you don't want to turn your back on the Way, don't follow the world. "

It is said that Takuan sought to infuse the spirit of Zen in all aspects of life that called him to

attention, such as calligraphy, poetry, gardening and the arts in general. The art of the sword
did not escape his

look. Living in the last days of the violent feudal war that culminated in the Battle of
Sekigahara, in 1600,

Takuan was familiar, not only with the peace and elevation that accompanied the artist and
the master

tea, but also with the conflicts - victory and defeat - that mark the lives of warriors and
generals.

These included, at the time, figures as diverse as Ishida Mitsunari, a powerful general who
gave

support for Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Kuroda Nagamasa, Christian daimio who warned Mitsunari's
downfall; is on
special, your friend Yagyu Munenori, head of the Yagyu Shinkage fencing school and master of
two generations

of shoguns. Takuan addressed these men and at that time, no less than others.

Of the three texts included in this translation, two were written in the form of letters:
Fudochishinmyoroku, "The

Mysterious Record of Still Wisdom ", written for Yagyu Munenori; and Taiaki," Anais da Espada
Taia ",

written for Munenori or perhaps for Ano Tadaaki, head of the Itto fencing school and also an
official instructor

of the family and the court of the shogun. The circumstances in which they were written are
not known to us, and the

frank advice and the somewhat Confucian admonition that Takuan addresses to Munenori at
the end of

Fudochishinmyoroku added to this work a new and interesting dimension, albeit an enigmatic
one.

Altogether, the three texts are addressed to the samurai caste, and the three seek to unite

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