“The kettle is pulled up to the heavens, boiling tea even above the clouds.”

 

The painting depicts a teakettle of which Hakuin was said to be quite fond. His disciple Shikyō wrote a text describing how Hakuin acquired the kettle in the Yushima Tenjin Shrine in Edo and associated it with the deity Tenjin. According to legend, Tenjin was a Shinto kami (deity) who became a Zen adherent and was thus a favorite of Japanese Zen monks. The kettle thus appears to symbolize Zen transmission.

 

—Yukio Lippit