Author: Álvaro Gomis Messa
Introduction
The aesthetic pleasure generated by a walk in the forest or listening to the waves of the sea has been a topic that has interested and amazed numerous philosophers and thinkers. Some have linked it to spirituality and solitude, focusing on contemplation as a method to capture such beauty. This is the case of the poet and monk Kamo No Chōmei known for building a thatched hut in his later life and living there as a hermit until the end of his life.
There he wrote one of his most important works, Hōjōki, an invitation to reflect on the transitory nature of existence and the importance of finding inner peace amidst chaos. This book will be the pilar of this paper, which aims to explain the interrelationship between beauty, Buddhist spirituality, and nature in Chōmei’s thought and answer the question of how he articulates the relationship between natural beauty and the sacred in Hōjōki.
This study will follow the following structure. First, there will be a biography section to better understand the author. It will be followed by an explanation of the religious influence Chōmei received in his context, which shaped his way of life. In addition, this paper will develop the author’s sense of impermanence and the intersection of the sacred and the profane in his life. Moreover, it will analyse his vision of the natural world and its beauty. Finally, the paper’s conclusions will be presented.
Biography
Kamo No was born in 1155 to a family of priests who ran a Shinto shrine1. He studied poetry with the master Minamoto No Shun’e and became a virtuoso of the zither and lute. He was a great poet, becoming renowned when one of his poems was included in an imperial anthology. This led to his appointment as a member of the Imperial Poetry Bureau (Caro, 2025).
But his life up to that point was far from perfect; it was filled with misfortune. He tried to start a family, got married and had a son, who soon died. Chōmei also inherited his paternal grandmother’s house, but when he cut ties with his family due to a conflict, he found himself ostracized by society (Chōmei, 1212) and at the age of 30 he had to build a small house after leaving his wife.
Furthermore, despite serving as a judge of contests at the imperial court, because of his low birth he could not attend most of the important gatherings and his participation was eventually restricted. He was a talented man, but his circumstances prevented him from achieving the economic success and recognition that he wanted as a poet and musician (Yamaori, 2004).
After witnessing the “sad spectacle of the transience and extreme decay of the world,” Chōmei decided to take the vows; he was initiated into Pure Land Buddhism, without renouncing Shintoism, a common practice in Japan, where both doctrines coexist in harmony (Caro, 2025).
He had experienced failures on a number of occasions, but he also made an effort to preserve and develop his own skills. One can see the strength of his effort and commitment in his decision to live a reclusive life (Yamaori, 2004).
As a result of the above-described experiences, Chōmei developed a Buddhist understanding of impermanence, which eventually influenced his writings and thoughts. The sorrow of human life steadily develops in a life filled with disaster and defeat, and one can see how unstable and unreliable life is. (Yamaori, 2004).
Some say that Chōmei redirected himself towards a life of reclusion because of these disappointments, which means that instead of withdrawing from the world out of resignation and weariness, he did it because after all his misfortune he felt he had no alternative (Yamaori, 2004). According to his remark, in his mid-fifties he retired to the outskirt of the capital; Ohara, and later, Hino where he built his ten-foot-square hut and wrote Hōjōki (Kyo, 2009).
Chōmei and the Pure Land Buddhism
Chōmei’s existence in his ten-foot-square hut was greatly influenced by the Tendai Pure Land Buddhist faith, which spread widely thanks to Genshin and his pupil Yasutane. It was a significant and unique aspect of Buddhism on Mount Hiei. The way he managed the creative and religious space in his hermitage is a strong indication of this. Nevertheless, Tendai Pure Land Buddhism was not the same as Chōmei’s own idea of “the path”. It is important to bear in mind this divergence between the character of the nembutsu2 movement advanced cooperatively by Genshin and Yasutane and the world of faith as conceived by Chōmei (Yamaori, 2004).
Furthermore, Chōmei’s hut’s sacred space mirrored the ambiance of the modern Buddhist temple on Mount Hiei. To put it another way, Chōmei’s hut at Hino was impacted by the faith that was practiced on Mount Hiei in his day. In essence, Mt. Hiei’s Buddhism is founded on the Lotus Sutra and is a branch of the Tendai school and of Mahayana Buddhism. Nonetheless, the study of the Pure Land teachings was also accorded equal weight, and Genshin’s Essentials for Birth, one of the foundational texts of the Tendai Pure Land tradition, was placed on the shelves in the southern section of Chōmei’s hut (Yamaori, 2004).
The Pure Land Buddhists may aspire to be reborn in the Pure Land in the next life, others conceive of the Pure Land as a symbol for nirvana that is in some sense present within this world. Others may hold both positions at the same time. As the Contemplation Sutra says, “the mind that creates the Buddha is the Buddha” (Proffitt, 2024).
The issue of how to obtain birth in the Pure Land was a significant concern throughout Chōmei’s time. To put it another way, the issue of how one should die—the circumstances surrounding one’s demise—was of utmost importance. The medieval Japanese were as concerned about this as their European counterparts. In Japan, however, the foundation of the medieval concept of death was laid in the preceding era. There had been, for example, the wandering Amidist holy man Kūya (903-972), who travelled from village to village and town to town spreading the Pure Land teaching among the common people. Additionally, the teaching was spread among intellectuals and nobility by the Tendai monk Genshin, who was previously described. By the eleventh century, Buddhism paintings depicting the Pure Land and the many hells began to emerge as a result of the spread of the Pure Land doctrine. Amida’s arrival to welcome the dying individual into the Pure Land was one of these. Many of these representations are still in existence today. There were also a lot of paintings depicting hell. These paintings significantly contributed to the medieval era’s development of the idea of death. Naturally, Chōmei was impacted by the medieval perspective on death. The subject of how one should die in order to be accepted into the Pure Land was something he attempted to address in his own way and offered his own solution. His answer, however, was unique, and it may be argued that his view of the phenomena of birth in the Pure Land holds a special place in Japanese medieval thought (Yamaori, 2004).
When Chōmei thought about the issue of how a person should pass away, he had Yoshishige Yasutane in mind as a role model, whom he held in high regard. He was first active as a royal scholar and, like Chōmei, had been a member of the Kamo clan. But because he came from a lesser social class, he had little political opportunities and was unsuccessful. As a result of this, as well as the fact that he was greatly impacted by Buddhist ideas, he gave up his secular life and became a disciple of Genshin after ascending Mount Hiei (Yamaori, 2004).
Many types of practitioners existed, including those who, at the end, magnificently attained birth in the Pure Land and those whose last moments were marked by material attachments. Chōmei’s Tales of Aspiration is a compilation of these biographies. One can understand Chōmei’s ideal way of achieving birth in the Pure Land by looking at the characters he portrays in his stories. Moreover, the attitude that represents the way of life of the ideal practitioner—one who has consciously determined and selected his course in reclusion—is being rigorous in their spiritual cultivation and having discipline, and maintaining an austerely critical attitude toward secular society, renouncing all entanglements in the world (Yamaori, 2004).
Following this, there is a story of Genshin, who, as we have seen, propagated the Pure Land message and lived a life dedicated to nembutsu practice. He is credited with saying, “Poetry is misleading language.” In other words, it is merely faulty wordplay. According
to this perspective, poetry obstructs Buddhist practice, and Genshin warns against giving in to its allure (Yamaori, 2004).
The idea that literature had no inherent value but might occasionally be employed as a practical tool was thus best exemplified by the Jodo sect of Tendai Buddhism. Those who were most impacted by Jodo may have coined the term “kyogen kigo” in Japan for this reason (Pandey R. G., 1989).
Chōmei, on the other hand, constructed a thatched hut and continued to live as a hermit in isolation. He spent his free time practicing the nembutsu alone and immersing himself in poetry and music. To put it another way, he aimed to implement a nembutsu lifestyle that included the path of aesthetic cultivation and artistic refinement. Herein lies his originality and his importance in Japanese cultural history (Yamaori, 2004).
Chōmei’s sense of impermanence
Chōmei’s sense of impermanence is clearly expressed in the opening of Hōjōki: “The river flows ceaselessly, but the water is not the same. Bubbles Coating in the still pools vanish and form, never remaining long. Human beings and their dwellings in the world are like this. All things change and move, never remaining as they are. The lives of people are like the flow of a river, which is never still even a moment. They are like spindrift forming and vanishing” (Chōmei, 1212).
Then Chōmei makes a long exposition on the natural and man-made disasters which have ravaged the capital over the years. The opening section is intended to serve as unquestionable proof of the basic impermanence of worldly life. It also it provides the context for understanding Chōmei’s choice to reject the material world in favour of a life spent as a recluse on top of Mount Hino (Pandey R. G., 1989).
In Chōmei’s description of the world of transience presented in the first part of his Hōjōki, he repeatedly writes about the impermanence of human dwellings. People’s homes are destroyed by earthquakes, collapsed by winds, and burned down by flames. Despite the fragility and unreliability of dwellings, humans cannot survive for even a day without them. (Yamaori, 2004). Because of this fragility Chōmei laments the fact that so much time and money is invested in the building of houses that are doomed to destruction (Armour, 1997).
“Whence does he come, whence does he go, man that is born and dies? We know not. For whose benefit does he torment himself in building houses that last but a moment, for what reason is his eye delighted by them? This too we do not know. Which will be first to go, the master or his dwelling? One might just as well ask this of the dew on the morning glory” (Chōmei, 1212).
It is perhaps a reflection of the strong influence of the writings of Po Chu’i in Japan that Chōmei too focuses on the human dwelling and not on illness as the metaphor for impermanence. One remarkable aspect of Chōmei’s work is the predominant focus on the housing. Perhaps this resulted from a characteristic unique to Chōmei’s era: the capital’s severe shortage of space and the easily destroyed nature of wooden homes in the event of earthquakes and fires. For whatever reason, it is significant that the house is chosen as a representation of transience even more than the person who lives there. (Pandey R. G., 1989).
In common with a significant part of the literature of the age, Chōmei’s Hōjōki responds to and expresses the then ubiquitous Buddhist teaching that nothing exists outside the law of impermanence or evanescence (anicca) – mujō in Japanese – through the topos of the hermit’s hut. La Fleur argues that this emphasis on the mujō of dwellings and habitations suggests not only impermanence as a temporal category but also instability as a spatial one (Kato, 2020).
People are born, live for a time, and then die. This basic principle of impermanence is a truth disclosed in Buddhism, though it is typically interpreted in a philosophical and abstract way. A more concrete theme, however, is found in the dwellings that are the environment in which human beings live (Yamaori, 2004).
“If there are people who die in the morning, there are also those who are born in the evening. Human life and death may be seen to be like bubbles drifting on the stream. People being born and dying do not know themselves where they are going. This world is but a temporary shelter that we occupy for a time; why should people afflict themselves with such concern over it? There are things that please the eye, but what do they finally amount to? Ultimately, it is merely a question of which will fall into oblivion first—the living person or his or her home. They are like the morning glory and the dew on the blossom; it matters little which will survive longer in the heat of the day” (Chōmei, 1212).
Chōmei’s sense of impermanence, though Buddhist in its roots, is not identical in nature with the original Buddhist concept taught in India by Säkyamuni. There are different aspects to the ideas of impermanence that Chōmei in Japan and Indians share. Although the phrase “impermanence” may be the same, the emotional realms it communicates and the worlds of feeling into which the concepts are interwoven are distinct. This is a crucial aspect of comprehending Buddhism in Japan (Yamaori, 2004).
The Buddha did, to be sure, teach that all things that have form will certainly perish, employing the term “impermanence” to express this nature. There is nothing in the world that will endure forever. All things without exception change in form and move toward destruction. Observing coolly and impartially the emergence and perishing, the origin and demise, of real things, the Buddha declared that everything will eventually die. Sãkyamuni’s philosophy of impermanence was based on this tangible recognition. However, the notion behind it—the cold, hard observation of things and the realization of their evanescence at their roots—was transformed or redirected into a different sphere of cultural life when it was brought to Japan. Intellectually, it was recognized as a notion, but it changed into a lyrical form when it came to feeling and emotion. The word “impermanence” developed to connote a feeling of grief and sorrow for things that deteriorate and die (Yamaori, 2004).
Religion and art were both essential, and he wanted to live freely in both realms; this was the hermit life he craved. Chōmei examined his own experiences and created his own distinct perspective on human existence. In Hōjōki, after his analysis of the transience of human existence and his description of his three-square-meter hut, he turns his attention to his own life (Yamaori, 2004).
The interaction of the sacred and the profane
In the latter part of the Hōjōki, Chōmei reflects on his life up to that point and speaks of his daily activities in his hut at Hino, a hill in the southeastern part of Kyoto city. A stunning document is created by his recording of his thoughts, which presents a practical perspective of human life. He lived, of course, a reclusive life, one that was peaceful and isolated (Yamaori, 2004).
The interior of the hut was split into two sections: one for the arts on the south and one for religion on the north. In addition, he built shelves for the flowers and water to be offered in front of the Buddha pictures at the bamboo veranda’s western corner (Yamaori, 2004).
Therefore, Chōmei’s manner of life was one in which aspects of art and religion, the realms of beauty and faith, coexisted concurrently while retaining their own characteristics. His life as a recluse was based on this blending of several worlds. He wanted to include both art and religion into his everyday activities rather than picking one over the other (Yamaori, 2004).
According to Chōmei, it was sufficient if he played the ko and biwa to satisfy himself and his own poetic desires. This freedom was likely ideal for him as a hermit or recluse (Yamaori, 2004). Moreover, Chōmei’s elaborated description of the pleasures of the solitary life in the midst of nature was, a clever device, to illustrate the profundity of the doctrine of nonduality3 (Pandey R. , 1998).
In Hōjōki, the ideal of suki4 is not specifically mentioned; rather, Chōmei’s portrayal of his life and activities as a recluse closely resembles Hosshinshu’s ideal sukimono. He lives alone in solitude and finds no joy in social interaction; he exalts the simplicity of his home and the independence that his difficult circumstances permit him to have; he lives in intimate proximity to nature and expresses the truth that nature indicates to him—namely, the fleeting nature of the world—through poetry and music (Pandey R. , 1998).
Reflections on the natural world and its beauty
According to Chōmei, one achieves birth into the Pure Land by developing an artistic sensibility—a deep understanding of the natural world and the universe. This can be accomplished by gradually sublimating one’s human emotions and senses. Flowers blossom and scatter. One understands the essence of their own existence while admiring the beauty of the changes in nature. This was the kind of perspective Chōmei had. Experiencing beauty deeply, one plays the biwa or composes poetry, and while doing so one moves toward birth into the Land of Bliss. It is crucial to remember that when one dedicates themselves to the practice and development of art, they become pure in heart and mind and are released from attachments. “This is the source of the difficulty of this path. lt is only when one approaches the world of beauty with a mind free of self- attachment that the way of artistic cultivation can become a path to liberation” (Yamaori, 2004).
Chōmei carefully depicts with artistry the natural scenery around him in all its changes through the four seasons.
“The valley is so thick with vegetation that it is a little dark, but the view to the west is clear and open, making it a good place to meditate on the Pure Land and the Buddha, which is said to be located in the west” (Chōmei, 1212).
“In spring, wisteria flowers bloom all over the valley, and purple clouds are shelving in the west, creating an enchanting view. When summer arrives, the kakko gulls will sing with their sad voices, as if they are promising to guide you on your journey to the land of the dead, as the old people used to say. In autumn, evening cicadas (evening cicadas) begin to sing all over the mountains, and I can hear their mournful voices. I feel as if they are singing to me a dirge about the fleeting fate of this world, and it makes me feel somewhat sad and pensive. In winter, sometimes the entire mountain is covered with snow, and this gives me a deep appreciation of the beauty of snowy mountains. When I watch the snow gradually disappear and accumulate again, I cannot help but remember how human sins, just like the snow, accumulate and are purified and lost by the great will of the Buddha, and how we commit sins and are purified again.” (Chōmei, 1212).
The beauty of the wisteria blossoms is heightened for Chōmei because they resemble the purple clouds on which Amida Buddha is said to appear when he descends to welcome human beings to the pure land. Similarly, in the cicada’s cry Chōmei hears the lamentation of all human beings over the essential frailty of existence. Likewise, the snow falling and melting on the ground also gives Chōmei a chance to consider the sins that result from misconception and prevent people from entering the pure land (Pandey R. , 1998). Through these seasons, he turned his thoughts to the Pure Land in the west, thinking of the afterlife and deeply reflecting on the sadness of this world (Yamaori, 2004)
The solitary evenings on Toyama and the nostalgic beauty of his surroundings are described by Chōmei in another section of Hōjōki that is full of rich allusions (Pandey R. , 1998).
“If the evening is still, in the moonlight that fills the window I long for old friends or wet my sleeve with tears at the cries of the monkeys. Fireflies in the grass thickets might be mistaken for fishing lights off the island of Maki; the dawn rains sound like autumn storms blowing through the leaves. And when I hear the pheasants’ cries, I wonder if they call their father or their mother; when the wild deer of the mountain approach me unafraid, I realize how far I am from the world. And when sometimes, as is the wont of old age, I waken in the middle of the night, I stir up the buried embers and make them companions in solitude. It is not an awesome mountain, but its scenery gives me endless pleasure regardless of the season, even when I listen in wonder to the hooting of the owls. How much more even would the sights mean to someone of deeper thought and knowledge!” (Pandey R. , 1998)
As it is evident, Chōmei makes a conscious effort to find Buddhist imagery in nature. In the passages quoted above, nature and religion are integrally linked, and nature is the visual and symbolic representation of various aspects of the Buddhist truth (Pandey R. , 1998). Concretely, the suikimono’s spiritual guide is nature itself.
“The blossoming and scattering of the cherry blossoms or the waxing and waning of the moon make them keenly aware of the principle that all things are ephemeral” (Pandey R. G., 1989).
According to Chōmei, this enables individuals to live a life that is entirely consistent with Buddhist teachings in the most organic way. After understanding the concept of evanescence, the sukimono no longer care about wealth and fame. This separation from material worries prepares them spiritually for enlightenment (Pandey R. G., 1989).
In fact, mujō had become a major theme in Japanese poetry by Chōmei’s time, particularly in poems on the change of the seasons and nature in general. Chōmei then proceeds to describe how when he feels like to play more music, he performs the “autumn wind melody”, to the accompaniment of the sound of “the autumn breeze rustling through the pines”, or plays the ryūsen, another melody, “to the sound of the flowing water” (Pandey R. G., 1989).
What is interesting here is the interdependence for Chōmei not only of poetry and nature, but of music and nature as well. Just as scenes from nature can be translated into poetic images verbally, the author also sees music as an echo of the sounds emanating from the physical environment. For him, music represents a voice that conveys the Buddhist truth contained in nature. (Pandey R. G., 1989).
Conclusions
In Kamo no Chōmei’s work, nature is an essential element for understanding the world and its transience, maintaining a close connection with the foundations of Buddhism. This writer of the Kamakura era in Japan, especially in his famous work Hōjōki (1212), expresses an intense reflection on the impermanence (mujō) of existence, constructing a worldview in which nature not only manifests the fragility of human existence but also functions as a means of spiritual revelation.
Chōmei perceives nature not only as a mere setting, but as a living and venerated being that engages with the truth of Buddhism. Alterations in the landscape—earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, floods, and seasons—are not simply physical events, but emblems of the world’s constant evolution. In this setting, the use of natural metaphors and symbols takes on crucial significance: for example, purple flowers are linked to the clouds of the same hue that, according to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha uses to welcome people to the Pure Land.
According to Chōmei, the ideal life is serene, simple, distant from the noises of the world and close to natural rhythms. This humble life not only encourages spiritual reflection but also displays an aesthetic deeply rooted in the discreet and the transient. Therefore, beauty is found in the smallest things: the murmur of water, the blossoming of a branch, the sound of the wind through the trees. This aesthetic perception is also manifested in poetry and music, two fundamental artistic manifestations in the writer’s life, which elevate the everyday to a sublime level. Likewise, in Chōmei, nature is indistinguishable from the sacred. Escape from the floating world (Ukiyo) represents an approach to a deeper truth expressed in the silence of the forest and the solitude of the hermit. In this way, contemplation of nature becomes a form of meditation, and harmony with one’s surroundings becomes a path to enlightenment, the goal of every human being.
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- A native religion of Japan that translates as “the way of the gods.” It is an animistic belief, as Shintoists believe that the presence of deities can be felt in all elements of nature: in mountains, rivers, the sea, etc. (Manabu, 2016) ↩︎
- Nembutsu means “taking refuge in the Buddha of Infinite Light and Eternal Life” and is a six- part prayer that charts one’s path according to the Buddha’s teachings and worships the infinite life and light of Gautama. Today, the nembutsu is considered a prayer with a dual meaning: “thinking or remembering Buddha” and “uttering the Name of Buddha,” especially that of Amida, to whom one gives thanks for the grace received (Marino, 2017). ↩︎
- The concept of nonduality means “not two”, that two things we have understood as separate from one another are in fact not separate at all. They are so dependent upon each other that they are, in effect, two different sides of the same coin (Loy, 2018). ↩︎
- Suki comes to be defined as complete dedication and commitment to one artistic discipline. These hermits, whom Mezaki Tokue describes as suki no intonsha, sought to escape the constraints of the court as well as of institutionalized Buddhism and believed that Buddhist doctrine could be intuited through a heightened sensitivity to the natural world and through the serious cultivation of poetry. They were the figures who corresponded most closely to the ideal sukimono envisaged by Chōmei in Hosshinshu (Pandey R. , 1998). ↩︎