Takashima & the Yilin · A short read
A poem in his robe for a visit to the abbot
Takashima was in Kamakura and wanted to visit Imakita Kōsen, the abbot of Engaku-ji. He had a question before they met: could his study of the Changes and the abbot’s Zen find something to say to each other? He cast a hexagram, wrote a poem and took it along.
A hawk on a high wall
He received Xie, hexagram 40, with the top line changing to Wei Ji. The line describes a duke shooting a hawk on a high wall and catching it. In a casebook full of business questions, it is a curious image to take to a religious conversation.
Takashima began with the name Xie, Release, and connected it to Buddhist liberation from troubles. He read the hawk as an outer disturbance. Then he brought in the three foxes from the second line and made them inner disturbances. His six-line figure gave him both an inside and an outside to talk about.
He brings something he has made
Before setting off, he wrote a poem from the meaning he had found in the cast. The abbot invited him into the meditation hall. They drank tea and talked as the shadows moved. Takashima then showed him the poem.
The account closes with 一笑而別: a smile, and they parted. It gives us neither the poem’s words nor a transcript of the conversation. We have Takashima’s account of a visit he enjoyed.
Read the preparation beside the visit
Before meeting the abbot, Takashima had already decided that the hawk and foxes offered a way to connect their interests. We can watch him choose the subject he wanted to bring. When the tea arrives in the story, he has something of his own ready to share.
Read Xie’s second and top lines in turn. The foxes and hawk belong to different scenes in the I Ching. Takashima places them together for this particular visit, then carries a poem into the hall. The book lets us follow him as far as the parting smile.
Sources & translation
Takashima Ekidan, expanded edition (1901), 下經利, p. 93, Xie, top line. Takashima narrates his own visit; this account does not reproduce his poem. English introduction: DaYan.