Four-Line Poem

Four-Line Poem

Feiyin Tongrong

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This work of dynamic, rapidly and fluidly brushed, faintly angled Chinese characters in cursive script comprises a four-line poem, inscribed in dark ink on paper and mounted as a hanging scroll. The writer of this vibrantly inscribed calligraphic work, Feiyin Tongrong, or Hiin Tsūyō, as he is known in Japan, was a Chinese Buddhist monk who studied under several renowned Chan (Japanese: Zen) masters, served as abbot at several Chan monasteries, and inspired disciples to bring a new form of Chan Buddhism to Japan, where it took root and flourished. A gifted calligrapher, Feiyin was historically important as the teacher of Ingen (Chinese: Yinyuan Longqi, 1592–1673), who founded the Ōbaku school of Zen Buddhism in Japan and established the Ōbaku head temple of Manpukuji at Uji, Kyoto. The poem on Zen meditation reads: I’ve practiced Zen up to the point where in myself I get it; Now understood in clarity, to whom might I pass it on? All I see is this autumn moon, filling the whole of heaven, A single wheel effulgently illuminating the stream out front. Written by Old Monk Rong, the thirty-first abbot of the Linji [lineage] at Jingshan. Translation by Jonathan Chaves

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.