Asian Topics on Asia for Educators || Essays in Idleness, by Yoshida Kenko

ESSAYS IN IDLENESS (TSUREZUREGUSA)
by Yoshida Kenkô (c. 1283-c. 1350)
Development of a Buddhist Aesthetic
and Influence on Japanese Culture

Essays in Idleness was written around 1330 by Yoshida Kenkô. Buddhist beliefs were spreading in Japan at this time and are reflected in the literature—such as this work by Kenkô—written during this period of Medieval Japanese history.

Robert Oxnam :: Kenkô, another author writing a century later [than Kamo no Chômei], took a different perspective. A former court poet who became a priest, Kenkô agreed that one had to renounce the world to seek salvation. But instead of finding only sorrow in life's impermanence, he found beauty as expressed in his Essays in Idleness.

[Excerpt from Essays in Idleness]

Were we to live on forever — were the dews of Adashino never to vanish, the smoke on Toribeyama never to fade away — then indeed would men not feel the pity of things. ... Truly the beauty of life is its uncertainty ...

Donald Keene :: He really still believes in the eternal truths of Buddhism. He is a devout man, but at the same time he is living in this world, and he wants to make the life in this world as agreeable, as aesthetically pleasing, as possible.

And it has worked, in a curious sense, because since the seventeenth century when his book became widely known to all classes of society, the prevailing Japanese aesthetics derive a great deal from this book. You can talk about Japanese aesthetics in terms of this one particular book, what he preferred.

Excerpt from Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Donald Keene, ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1960), p. 232.

Note: In most cases, Japanese writers are referenced by their family names, but Yoshida (family name) Kenkô (personal name) is commonly referred to by personal name only.