Suki and Kokorozashi in Hosshinshū

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to consider two concepts important for Japanese Buddhist thought and for teachings about literature: suki (“elegant taste”, devotion to the beautiful) and kokorozashi (“determination”, willingness to focus all one’s forces on something). An important source for understanding these terms is the Hosshinshū collection of setsuwa (early 13^th century). In collections of setsuwa tales, there are often reasonings about the poet and poetry; they accompany the stories about the miracles associated with famous poems changing the fate of the poet and his loved ones. The compilers of the collections, in general, follow the tradition where the word of the poet is valued below the word of the Buddha, but it is all the more important to choose examples from which it would be seen that the path of a poet can simultaneously be one of a Buddhist ascetic.
One of the versions of the Buddhist understanding of poetry can be found in Hosshinshū. Here, poets, with their special way of life and thoughts, belong to a wider category of “connoisseurs of the beautiful,” “people with taste,” sukimono. These people are able to renounce ordinary human worries, glory, and self- interest for the sake of poetry or music, which brings them closer to hermits. In this case, what is important are not so much the properties of poetry as such, but “determination” of the person themselves, their choice in favor of something that absorbs their strength and becomes their support on the way.