Sun at Midnight Poems and Sermons

by Soseki, Muso; Merwin, W.S.; Shigematsu, Soiku

• ISBN13: 9781582438030
• ISBN10: 158243803X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-08-12
• Publisher: Counterpoint

Summary

For this first translation into English of the work of Muso Soseki, the thirteenth-century Zen roshi and father of what we now think of as the rock garden, W.S. Merwin and Soiku Shigematsu have selected 130 poems and 6 sermons and dialogues. Spare, elegant, and subtle, the rock garden is as recognizably Japanese as haiku, the epitome of Japanese cultural refinement. Behind both these traditions lies the imperative of Zen Buddhism. Soseki was a great Zen teacher and poet who taught over 13,000 students. During his lifetime he founded fourteen temples, each one with a garden. His gardens, as well as his poems, effortlessly balanced convention and control with spry spontaneity. Soseki’s resources as a gardener, his way of life, and his dedicated labor are beyond translation, but the heart of his teaching, his insight, and his imagination can be seen with clarity through these sublime, inspiring poems.

Author Biography

W.S. Merwin won the Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems The Carriers of Ladders. He has published over a dozen other collections, including Finding the Islands and The Rain in the Trees. Soiku Shigematsu is a noted Zen scholar who has published two other books in English, A Zen Forest: Sayings of the Masters and A Zen Harvest: Japanese Folk Zen Sayings. He is the head priest of Shogen-ji Zen Temple in Shimizu, Japan.