Hakurakuten Yama 白楽天山 — Zen Teaching: Simply Profound
Aug 7, 2023
Hakurakuten Yama shows a moment where 7th-8th-century Chinese Zen master Dōrin gives a profound Buddhist teaching to Hakurakuten, a famous Tang-dynasty poet. [The Chinese names for Dōrin, Zen and Hakurakuten are Daolin, Ch’an and Bai Letian, respectively.]
Dōrin featured some of the “crazy wisdom” and eccentricities Zen is known for; for one, he was known to sit in a pine tree, which we can see when this float is in the July 17 procession. Hakurakuten was a prolific poet, famous for his social conscience and accessibility; in classical China, poetic skill implied some facility with philosophy as well.
