Artworks

The character mu

Artwork · Hakuin Ekaku · mid 18th century · calligraphy

A zenga by Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768), the most influential Zen master of the Edo period: the character mu, “nothingness”, of the kōan in which the Chinese master Jōshū answered whether a dog has Buddha nature. Where the standard strokes suggest counting four items and cancelling them, Hakuin’s mu is a jumble of strokes — vitality rather than negation. 1 Mason 2005, p. 325, fig. 378. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.