Qualla: Kogaku-ji

Kogaku-ji: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sakaori (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Bassui Tokusho had a problem: people kept finding him. The 14th-century Zen monk, trained across three traditions -- Soto, Rinzai, and Chinese Ch'an -- wanted nothing more than solitude for meditation. He retreated deeper and deeper into the countryside of Kai Province, but students and seekers followed every time. In 1380, he built a small hermitage called Kogaku-an in the mountains near what is now Koshu, Yamanashi, and that hermitage became Kogaku-ji -- a temple that today remains so devoted to its founder's love of seclusion that it is closed to the general public.

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Image: Sakaori (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kogaku-ji: The Monk Who Could Not Hide

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown (Inscription by Bassui Tokushō), Public domain. Bassui Tokusho came from Sagami Province and spent his life pursuing a single question: the nature of the self. His teaching method was disarmingly simple -- when students asked how to see their own true nature, he would reply, "Now! Who is asking?" His popularity only grew after...

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Image: Unknown (Inscription by Bassui Tokushō) | Public domain

Kogaku-ji: Daruma in Red Robes

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit inscription by Lanxi Daolong (Rankei Dōryū), Public domain. The temple's greatest possession is a painting most people will never see. A hanging scroll from approximately the 1260s depicts Bodhidharma -- Daruma, the patriarch of Zen Buddhism -- seated in a formal pose, wrapped in vivid red robes. The painting bears an inscription by Lanxi...

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Image: inscription by Lanxi Daolong (Rankei Dōryū) | Public domain

Kogaku-ji: Portraits and Printing Blocks

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit さかおり (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Beyond the Daruma scroll, Kogaku-ji preserves a remarkable collection of Important Cultural Properties. Two Muromachi-period portrait paintings on hanging scrolls depict Sanko Kokushi, a Zen prelate who traveled to Yuan-dynasty China to study at Tianmu Mountain before returning t...

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Image: さかおり (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kogaku-ji: Stone Garden on the Mountainside

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit さかおり, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the north slope of the temple precinct, a stone garden climbs the hillside in arrangements of rock, pond, and waterfall. Believed to date from the early Edo period, the garden was renovated multiple times in the 18th and 19th centuries and partially lost to memory until archae...

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Image: さかおり | CC BY-SA 4.0