Half-length Portrait of Bodhidharma

Hakuin Ekaku · mid 18th century

Hakuin Ekaku, a Zen priest and prolific amateur painter, is credited with reviving the Rinzai sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism after a long period of decline. Hakuin focused on meditation and paradoxical anecdotes or dialogues called kōan, the contemplation of which may lead to spontaneous awakening. Hakuin’s bold, sometimes humorous, and altogether unprecedented paintings were an important vehicle for his teachings, which spread far beyond the monasteries and captured the minds of laypeople. In this work, he painted an imagined portrait of Bodhidharma, the Indian monk credited with transmitting Zen from India to China 1, 500 years ago. The patriarch holds his hands before him underneath his robe and casts his gaze up toward four Chinese characters, 見性成佛, which mean—“look inside to become a buddha.” The four characters are from a poem, attributed to Bodhidharma himself, that gets at the central teaching of Zen—that all individuals already possess a buddha-nature, and by focusing inward through meditation, one may realize this and gain enlightenment.