Reigen Eto (1721-1785) was a student of the renowned Zen Master Hakuin. At one point, Reigen left Hakuin’s temple to pursue the solitude of the mountains as a hermit. He remained in mountain solitude for ten years, pursuing the teaching and practice of his master. One day, he learned that Hakuin was giving a lecture at a nearby retreat. Reigen Eto left the mountains to attend, and was so inspired by the talk that he resumed his studies with Hakuin. Eventually, Hakuin declared Reigen’s enlightenment. Reigen eventually became head of a Kyoto temple, where he introduced Hakuin’s teaching, the popularity of which spread.
Hakuin was also a painter, and Reigen Eto became one, too. Painting was a precise art suited to Zen single-mindedness of expression. Reigen pursued standard themes, depicting Bodhidharma, Hotei, Mount Fuji, and natural objects like crows and pine trees. A lesser known work and its object, however, may be his most persuasive.
In 1543, the Western world intruded upon Japan. A Portuguese warship landed on the island of Tanegashima, and two sailors armed with guns alighted. Eventually, the island became the chief stopoff for Portuguese trade — the Westerners concept of trade being extortion, violence, and force then visited on hapless Japan. The Japanese remembered the metal objcect that was the source of the intruders’ power: the gun. Having no knowledge or experience with this weapon, the name of the island — the word “tanegashima” — became synonymous with “gun.” And this is the topic of Reigen Eto’s painting titled “The Gun,” a work strangely obscure among his own works and among historical Zen paintings.
The work, which is not reprinted on the Web at this writing — was painted in stylized form, with a haiku at the top and an object (in this case a gun) at the bottom. The gun is painted in swift brushstrokes, quick enough to represent the streaks of faded black ink callled “flying white.” The haiku reads: “The sound of the gun / is the entrance / to hell.”
The late John Daido Loori, co-editor of The Zen Art Book, remarks in that text on Reigen Eto’s painting: “Here we stand over two and a half centuries later and the only difference is that our instruments of destruction have become more sophisticated and efficient while our way of perceiving the universe and ourselves has remained virtually static.”