“Yoshida is no better than a fly’s head!”¹

 

With this painting, Hakuin satirizes the work of the medieval Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350), whose popular writings Hakuin looked down upon as rambling and unenlightened. In other paintings, Hakuin associates the writings of Kenkō with the silliness of primates. In this painting, however, Hakuin also references the tradition in East Asian painting of using monkeys, primarily gibbons, to illustrate the ignorance of the unenlightened. They are frequently shown hanging from branches as they grasp at the reflection of the moon in a body of water, mistaking reflection for reality. In this charming painting, Hakuin also satirizes this canonical depiction, extending his monkey’s arm to an impossibly long length, which allows the primate to touch solid ground, in emulation of the Buddha’s “earth-touching gesture” (bhumisparsha mudra), which famously signaled the achievement of his enlightenment and his triumph over the demon Mara, who attempted to break Buddha’s concentration with various temptations.

 

With this composition and accompanying inscription, Hakuin therefore implies that even this playful monkey is more enlightened than the monk Kenkō. Another possible reading of this simian is that the animal’s supposed wisdom may be itself illusory, and, while perhaps regarded as enlightened by his monkey brethren, this gibbon just has extremely long arms and, perhaps like Yoshida, appears to be wise only when compared with other, shorter-limbed monkeys.

 

—Bradley Bailey