Cluster Twenty-five:
Santoka and Matsuyama -
Isso-an

Wandering Zen monk and free-style haiku poet Santoka (1882-1940) spent the last ten months of his life in a simple hut in Matsuyama, north of Ehime University and close to the Gokoku Shrine and Miyukiji Temple Hill. Isso-an, he called it, or "One Blade of Grass Hermitage." The small house has been rebuilt by local haiku fans, but it is almost impossible to find, as it has been completely hemmed in by ordinary residences. You will find it at the end of a narrow path, luckily sigh-posted, but the grounds of the house are so narrow that it is alomst impossible to make photos. The hermitage is closed, but you can peep inside through one large window, into a tatami-floored room. There are four haiku stones in the garden of Isso-an, which will be introduced below.

This is one of Santoka's most famous haiku. Santoka lived as an itinerant Zen monk. He dressed in a religious gown, and wore a broad straw hat. Every morning he took his iron bowl (teppatsu) and set out for a round of begging. He did this wherever he was, whether traveling (as most of the time) or staying in one of his hermitages. He would make his round of the houses and recite a sutra in the hope of receiving some food or money. He had one principle: every day he begged only until he had enough for that particular day.

The haiku was written when Santoka was begging in Kyushu. It was a cold, snowy day in January. Santoka is out of luck also in another respect: instead of the hoped-for food or money, all he is treated to are hailstones - freely raining out of the sky.

Another begging round, this time in Yamaguchi, where Santoka was wandering in 1933, the year after his tour through Kyushu. With Santoka walking in the balmy spring breeze, it makes quite a contrast with the previous haiku.

Santoka lived from the gifts and donations of his supporters and friends in Matsuyama, such as Takahashi Ichijun, a haiku poet and teacher at Matsuyama Commercial College. That is also how he was able to live in Isso-an. Free-style haiku were already in vogue in Matsuyama thanks to the activities of Nomura Shorindo (1893-1918), so there was a fertile ground here for Santoka's style. Santoka lived quietly in the hermitage and in this haiku - written about a month before his death - compares his life to the river flowing in the neighborhood.

Santoka explained the name of his hermitage, Isso-an, by saying that in old age, he was satisfied with "only the simplicity of one blade of grass." He spent relatively serene days here, writing haiku and a diary, and also holding regular haiku sessions with friends as Ichijun. One night, when his friends came in for one such session, Santoka slept already, apparently after drinking his beloved sake. The friends started composing haiku anyway, thinking he would wake up later on. When they looked again later that night, he had already died - a sudden death in his sleep, as he had always wished for.