“Take a good look and discover that one’s true nature is an inexhaustible treasure, transmitted from generation to generation.”¹

Jiun Onkō’s spare but confidently brushed treatment of Daruma’s iconic silhouette is instantly recognizable, and the absence of facial features indicates that the patriarch of Zen is turned away from the viewer. The inscription references a famous analogy from the esoteric Buddhist text The Sublime Continuum (Uttaratantra Śāstra, in Sanskrit), in which the universal Buddha nature is compared to “an inexhaustible treasure” buried underneath the home of a beggar; unbeknownst to him, salvation and enlightenment are near at hand, if only he would look within. Though an esoteric monk of the Shingon sect tradition, Jiun is now celebrated as a masterful Zen painter.

 

—Bradley Bailey