Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Each Moment Only Once

一期一会 ichigo ichie Each Moment Only Once

一期一会 (ichigo ichie), one lifetime, one meeting, is a word of the tea gathering for a meeting that will not come again. The earliest witness found for this study is the preface to Ii Naosuke 井伊直弼's tea manual, finished in 1858. This study follows it from an idiom of the medieval war tales through the tea masters to the English one time, one meeting.

Japanese Scroll of Each Moment Only Once (ichigoichie) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Each Moment Only Once一期一会ichigo ichie

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

All Fonts ›

Abstract

一期一会, one lifetime, one meeting, is a four-character word first known from the preface to Ii Naosuke 井伊直弼's tea manual Chanoyu ichie shū 茶湯一会集, drafted by 1848 and finished in 1858, which says the gathering of host and guests at tea is called by that name; the thought behind it is a sixteenth-century sentence in the tea record of Sen no Rikyū 千利休's disciple, Yamanoue no Sōji ki 山上宗二記; the four-character frame, 一座一會, one sitting, one meeting, is in the Nanbōroku 南方録 of 1690, a book Ii, a tea man of the Sekishū school, cites by name; and the underlying idiom, once in a lifetime, is older still, ordinary Japanese in the war tales of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The word is first known in print in 1916; the teachers' guides to the school readers of the late 1920s gloss it in three readings, and the twentieth century widened it past tea to any meeting that happens once. The tradition that credits the idea to Sen no Rikyū rests on his disciple's book, in a section headed as another master's teaching, not on a sentence of Rikyū's own. English has carried the word since the 1960s, most often as one time, one meeting; the opening of Ii's preface was translated in 1971 and 1989, and the whole preface in 1995.

Overview

The sense. Three layers, three ages. The medieval phrase means once in a lifetime and nothing more. Yamanoue Sōji 山上宗二's sentence makes it a discipline of attention for the length of one tea. Ii's word makes the discipline mutual, host and guest each knowing the day will not return, and adds the host alone at the hearth afterward. The twentieth century widened it past tea to any meeting that happens once, and the dictionaries now carry both.

The words. 一期, ichigo, is one lifetime, from birth to death, a Buddhist term: Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 has ICHI-GO 一期 n. Whole life [1], and a Buddhist dictionary of 1933 quotes Rennyo 蓮如's まぼろしの如くなる一期なり, a lifetime like an illusion [2]. It does not mean once in a lifetime; that is the sense of the whole idiom, or of the older phrase 一期に一度. 一会, ichie, is one meeting, one gathering, and in tea one 茶会. The reading was not always settled: school glosses of the late 1920s give イチゴイチヱ, イチゴイックワイ and イチゴイツクワイ, because 会 has two readings [3]; the 1936 edition of Ii's own book prints いちごいちゑ beside the characters [4], and every dictionary since reads ichie. Every witness before 1946 writes 會.

The proverb in English. Okakura's Book of Tea (1906) does not have the word; its nearest thought is Rikyū's last tea [5]. No bilingual dictionary read for this study from Hepburn 1872 to 1948 has it [1][6], and no English proverb collection from Buchanan 1965 to Galef 2012 does. The earliest known English is a magazine profile of 1966, ichigo ichie. Literally meaning "one meeting in a lifetime" [7]; the tea and budō books followed from the 1970s: Katō's translation of the preface's opening, which renders the word once in a lifetime and does not romanize it (1971) [8], Tanaka Sen'ō's one chance in one's lifetime (1973) [9], Draeger's one period, one encounter (1973) [10], Sen Sōshitsu's one time, one meeting (1979) [11], which Varley and Kumakura's Tea in Japan (1989) uses throughout, with a translation of the opening of Ii's preface [12], and the whole preface in Hirota's Wind in the Pines (1995), as a single encounter in a lifetime [13]; the calligraphy books give One Meeting, One Life (Reed 1989) [14] and One Lifetime One Meeting (Sato 2013) [15]. JMdict: once-in-a-lifetime encounter; uniquely precious experience; one lifetime, one meeting [16]. The English Wikipedia lists for this time only, once in a lifetime, one time, one meeting [17].

The historical record

Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 一期に一度 in the war tales. Before there was a tea room the phrase once in a lifetime was ordinary Japanese: in the 曽我物語, whose kana texts the dictionaries date from the late fourteenth century on, a warrior pleads その上一期に一度の大事をこそと存じ候うて, knowing this to be the one great matter of a lifetime; in the 義経記, which they date to the early or middle Muromachi period, a crowd calls a spectacle 一期に一度の大事 [18][19]. The wording quoted is that of the modern printings of the popular texts.

1588 to 1590. 山上宗二記, the tea record of Rikyū's disciple, the section on the guest's conduct. The book's dated copies run from the first month of 1588 to 1590; the manuscript read here is undated [20][21]. 常の茶湯なりとも路地へはゐるから立迄一期に一度の参会の様に亭主をしつして …, even at an ordinary tea, from entering the roji until you leave, as if it were the one gathering of a lifetime, the host … The manuscript's closing characters are cursive this reading has not resolved, and the typesets differ: 可敬畏也, should be revered and held in awe, in 1902; 可威也 in the 1912 続群書類従, which heads the passage 客人振之事 [21][22][23]. The medieval phrase applied to the walk from the garden gate to the tea room. In the 1902 typeset the passage is headed as what Takeno Jōō 紹鷗 taught, with Rikyū's dislikes noted beside it; it is not Rikyū's sentence at any known address [22].

1686 to 1690. 南方録, 一座一會. The 南方録, brought to light in those years by 立花実山 as Rikyū's teaching taken down by his disciple Nanbō Sōkei, and held by some to be 実山's own work [24], has the four-character frame of the later word: 炭ノ次第ヨリ初テ一座一會ノ心、只此火相湯相ノミ也, from the order of the charcoal on, the heart of one sitting, one meeting, lies only in the fire and the water [25]. A tea historian places the line in its last book, 滅後 [26]. It is 一座, one sitting, where Ii would write 一期, a lifetime. Ii read the book: his manual cites it by name, 南坊錄に云, and his preface tells its story of Nanbō asking Rikyū for a colophon, 南坊宗啓が利休の懐石日記を書抜き、利休へ見せ、奥書を乞ひし時 [4][13]; Varley and Kumakura note that it is quoted often in the manual [12].

Before 1848 to 1858. Ii Naosuke, 茶湯一会集, the preface. Ii, a tea man of the Sekishū school, drafted the manual before 1848 and kept revising it after he became lord of Hikone in 1850, finishing it in 1858, as a tea historian has it; the 日本国語大辞典 dates it about 1845 [27]. He would be killed at the Sakurada Gate in 1860. The preface names the word and glosses it in one sentence: 抑茶湯の交會は、一期一會といひて、たとへば幾度おなじ主客交會するとも、今日の會にふたゝびかへらざる事を思へば、實に我一世一度の會なり, the meeting of host and guests at tea is called one lifetime, one meeting: however many times the same host and guests may meet, today's gathering will not come again, and it is truly the one meeting of my life. So the host spares nothing, and the guest, knowing the same, slights nothing the host devised. 是を一期一會といふ, this is what is called ichigo ichie. Later in the book comes 獨座觀念: after the guests leave, the host does not clear up but returns to the hearth, sits alone, and considers that today's one meeting is over and will not return [4].

1889. Ōtsuki Fumihiko 大槻文彦, 言海. The dictionary of Meiji enters the everyday phrase as 一世一代 and takes it for a corruption of the 一世一度 the lord glossed his word with: 一世一代〔一世一度ノ訛カ〕生涯ノ中ニテ此度ヲ限リトスルコト, once in a lifetime [28]. 一世一度 itself is Edo; the 日本国語大辞典's first citation is a puppet play of about 1711, 一世一度の分別袋 [29].

1910. Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. The word is not there. The イチゴ run has 一期末代 and no 一期一會; nor is the word in the machine-read text of any of twenty-five other dictionaries and proverb books of 1872 to 1948, sixteen of them bilingual [30][6].

1914 to 1916. The manual in print. A book of 1909 names 茶湯一會集 among the writings in Ii's own hand [31]. 中村勝麻呂's 『井伊大老茶道談』 (1914) prints the manual in its first volume, its contents listing 茶湯一會集 at page 9 [32]; its text has not been read for this study, and if it prints the preface it carries the word two years before anything below. The earliest known printing of the four characters is the October 1916 issue of a magazine, 『眞人』, announcing a lecture on 一期一會; the November issue reports it: 前號豫告の如く、一期一會に就て述べらる。卽ち井伊直弼が茶を立つるに、その度每に一生に一度と云ふ心懸を以て立てしと云ふ例を; its December issue carries the preface's own sentence, 今日の會にふたゝびかへらざる [33].

1917. 釈悟庵, 禅林清話. One of the first two books known to print the four characters: 茶の湯の極致は一期一會に獨座觀念とにあるのぢや, the height of tea lies in ichigo ichie and in sitting alone in contemplation, grounded in the Buddhist instant that arises and perishes [34]. The other, a miscellany of the same year, takes the everyday 一生一度 for a corruption of 一期一會 [35].

1920 to 1923. The word spreads. A tea writer sets it beside the Lotus Sutra's 難値難遇, hard to meet, hard to encounter (奥田正造, 茶味, 1920) [36]; a moral lecturer says 井伊大老が一期一會と云つたのは、そこのことである (Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, 1920) [37]; a playwright gives it to a Zen priest bidding Ii farewell before the Sakurada Gate: 茶の湯も一期一會なら、お互さまも一期一會、逢へば別れる、別れゝば逢ふ (Nakamura Kichizō 中村吉蔵, 1920) [38]; and Sōma Gyofū 相馬御風 sets it beside Bashō's saying that yesterday's hokku is today's death poem (1923) [39].

1927 to 1934. The school readers. The word stands in the school readers, and the teachers' guides gloss it: 一生に一たび相會ふこと (1927), 一生涯にたつた一度の會といふ意。一期は人間の一生涯 (1928) [3]. The books carrying it in the National Diet Library's public-domain full text, by five-year span: one in 1915 to 1919, seven in 1920 to 1924, nine, nine, thirty-three in 1935 to 1939, forty-one in 1940 to 1944, ten in 1945 to 1949 [40]. It is a count of books in one corpus, not a rate.

What is not a source. Sen no Rikyū. The tradition holds that the concept dates to him; the earliest attestation is his disciple's book, in a section headed as another master's teaching, and the four characters are first known from a lord's manual, written two and a half centuries after Rikyū's death. Rikyū's name may stand as the tradition; it is not a fact of the sources. The 南方録 (1686 to 1690, above) gives Rikyū's teaching as a disciple took it down, and the reference books report the view that its finder wrote it himself; a sentence resting on it is a sentence about the tradition of 1690, not of Rikyū [24]. 一世一度 and 一世一代 are the everyday kin; 難値難遇 is the sutra phrase a tea writer paired with it in 1920 [36].

The dictionaries today. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 一生に一度会うこと。また、一生に一度限りであること, with Ii's preface as first citation. デジタル大辞泉: the tea sense first, then 転じて一生に一度しかない出会い. 共同通信's entry says the idea 千利休の考えといわれている, is said to be Rikyū's, which is the tradition, not a source [41].

The proverb in English

1966. Shiraishi Bon, "Men of Achievement: Nomura Yōzō", Japan Quarterly 13, no. 4. The earliest known English witness, in a profile of an art dealer, not in a tea book: Nomura looked on meeting people as, in the Japanese phrase, ichigo ichie. Literally meaning "one meeting in a lifetime," it originally indicated the frame of mind in which the host at a tea ceremony … [7].

1971. Katō Shūichi, Form, Style, Tradition, translated by John Bester, University of California Press. The opening of Ii's preface in English, without the romanized word: As Ii Naosuke expressed it so admirably in the Chanoyu Ichie-shu, "The gathering for the tea ceremony is essentially once in a lifetime. Even should the same host and guests assemble again, it is impossible …" [8].

1973. Tanaka Sen'ō, The Tea Ceremony, Kodansha International. A sentiment that is expressed in the saying "ichi go ichi e," or "one chance in one's lifetime"; the sentence stands in the 1998 revision with Tanaka Sendō, page 170 [9].

1973. Draeger, Classical Budo, Weatherhill. The earliest known in a budō book: Each session with his master is precious. It is ichi-go ichi-e, "one period, one encounter," each session an opportunity to share a training experience with his master that comes only once [10].

1979. Sen Sōshitsu, Tea Life, Tea Mind, Weatherhill, page 41. The grand master of Urasenke, writing in English: In Tea the expression ichigo ichie is frequently heard. It means "one time, one meeting." Each tea gathering is an opportunity for an experience that will never occur again in one's life; and Rikyū's last scroll for the priest Kokei as the spirit of ichigo ichie [11]. One time, one meeting recurs in the tea books after it (Varley and Kumakura 1989, Plutschow 2001), not in all of them (Hirota 1995).

1983. Katō, A History of Japanese Literature, volume two, Macmillan, page 129. For the tea man, the ideal of performing each ceremony as if it were the only and most important one in his life (ichigo ichie), set beside Sei Shōnagon and the Genroku hedonists as three forms of one aesthetic [42].

1989. Paul Varley and Kumakura Isao, editors, Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu, University of Hawaii Press, pages 28 and 187. The preface translated from its opening to 是を一期一會といふ, stopping before its closing sentences: Great attention should be given to a tea gathering, which we can speak of as "one time, one meeting" (ichigo, ichie). Even though the host and guests may see each other often socially, one day's gathering can never be repeated exactly. Viewed this way, the meeting is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime occasion … This is what is meant by "one time, one meeting." The chapter then says the term appeared first in Yamanoue Sōji Ki. But it was given its classical definition by Ii Naosuke, and its note 73 quotes the sentence it means, as though it were a meeting that could occur only once (ichigo ni ichido no e no yo ni): the phrase, not the four characters, as the leaf has it. Page 28 heads a section One Time, One Meeting (Ichigo, Ichie) [12].

1989. Reed, Shodo, Japan Publications, page 183. Number 25 of the book's model phrases: Ichi-go Ichi-e. One Meeting, One Life. Samurai warriors readied themselves for battle by shedding their swords and partaking of the Tea Ceremony [14].

1995. Hirota, Wind in the Pines, Asian Humanities Press, pages 179 and 291–292. The whole preface, under the heading Preface by Ii Naosuke: The gathering in chanoyu is spoken of as "a single encounter in a lifetime" (ichigo ichie). Thus, although the same host and guests may come together a number of times, when one considers that one cannot return again to the gathering of this very day, one realizes it indeed occurs but once in one's life; and, on renga, the attitude of host and guest, "In this lifetime, this single encounter" (ichigo ichie) [13].

1996 to 2005. The tea and Zen books. Tanahashi, on calligraphy for the tea alcove: "ichigo ichie," which means "an unprecedented, unrepeatable encounter" (1996) [43]; Sen Sōshitsu XV reads the phrase as Jōō's, a means for Jōō to suggest that one could never exactly duplicate the particular gathering of host and guest, citing the 宗二記 section (1998) [44]; Plutschow, on Hōunsai: Ichigo ichie (one time, one meeting) is one of the tea teachings inspired by Zen. It was the daimyo Ii Naosuke (1815–60) who, in his work entitled Chanoyu Ichie Shū, stressed this principle in tea for the first time, with Hōunsai's own gloss, does not simply refer to a chance or good opportunity (2001) [45]; Garrison's idiom dictionary: "in one lifetime, one meeting," a once-in-a-lifetime meeting (2002) [46]; Sasaki's almanac opens with Ichigo ichie: every encounter is once in a lifetime (2005) [47].

2011 to 2024. The word as a commonplace. The 2011 foreword to Sadler's Cha-no-yu notes that Sadler's story of Ii makes no mention that it was he who popularized the phrase "ichigo ichie" in the world of tea [48]; Sato's calligraphy manual sets it among the four-character zengo, Ichi Go Ichi E ("One Lifetime One Meeting") … one of the most popular sayings for display in the tokonoma (2013) [15]; Mogi's Ikigai carries the legend, Rikyū is the most likely originator of this important idea (2017) [49]; an aesthetics essay has literally a once-in-a-lifetime event (2018) [50]; Fitzsimons's Bashō, in a note, The phrase ichigo ichie (literally, "one time, one meeting") is still a commonplace in Japan (2022) [51]; Waddell's Hakuin, the well-known phrase ichigo ichie—"one time, one meeting"—that is, treasure each meeting; it will never come again (2024) [52].

Today. JMdict: once-in-a-lifetime encounter; uniquely precious experience; one lifetime, one meeting [16]. Word for word the text says one lifetime, one meeting, and the tea books' one time, one meeting keeps both nouns. What a rendering must keep is that 一期 is a lifetime and 一会 a meeting, and that the word was made for two people in a small room, not for a moment in general.

A reading

A phrase from the war tales, Rikyū's school applying it to the walk from the garden gate to the tea room, and Ii Naosuke, who would die at the Sakurada Gate, setting the four characters at the head of his tea manual and describing what the host does after the guests leave, alone at the hearth with one kettle. He writes that the gathering is called 一期一會, as if the name were already in use among tea people; his is the earliest witness known. The two halves of the word stand in two books he read for Rikyū's tea: 一期, a lifetime, in the 宗二記's 一期に一度の参会, and the frame 一座一會, one sitting, one meeting, in the 南方録, which his manual cites by name. I read the word as his joining of the two, the line the 日本大百科全書 draws from Sōji's sentence through the 南方録's 一座一会 to Ii. Print did not take it up until 1916, and the school glosses of the late 1920s still differed on its reading.

References

  1. J. C. Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872, ICHI-GO 一期. National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/94
  2. 東方仏教協会 編『仏教文化辞典』, 1933. National Diet Library pid 1092539, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1092539/1/22
  3. The school apparatus: 垣内松三編『国文鑒 教授参考書』, 文学社, 1927; 『新定国文読本参考書』巻五, 1928; 『現代国語読本 教授参考書』, 東京開成館, 1929; 『国文鑒』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1266817, scan 151. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1266817/1/151
  4. 井伊宗観『茶湯一會集』, 奥田正造編, 法母庵, 1936, pp. 1, 2 and 6. National Diet Library pid 1185983, scans 6, 7 and 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1185983/1/6
  5. Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea, 1906, at archive.org. https://archive.org/download/bookoftea00okakrich/bookoftea00okakrich_djvu.txt
  6. The dictionaries and proverb books searched in their machine-read text at the National Diet Library: Hepburn 1872 (pid 993689); Eastlake 1902 (870192); Eastlake and 越山 1904 (870143); 佐久間 1904 (870208); 実用和英新辞典 1906 (903029); 和英新辞典 1907 (903157) and 1908 (903158); 神田 and 南日 1909 (990169); 佐久間 and 広瀬 1909 (870204); 井上 1909 (1869465) and 1911 (870153); 渡部 1910 (870190); 新渡戸 1911 (902975); Saito 1918, 1924 and 1928 (1681530, 1681529, 1700907); 岡倉 1929 (1904907); 三省堂 1948 (2134829); 上田萬年's romaji Japanese dictionaries 1915 and 1925 (1900620, 1900619); 菫花園主人 1890 (758478); 衣笠 1900 (757592); 高田 1903 (863096); 熊代 1906 (900343); 池田 1925 (969163); 藤井 1929 and 1938 (1452761, 1453442); 中野 1933 (1766149). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689
  7. Shiraishi Bon, "Men of Achievement: Nomura Yōzō", Japan Quarterly 13, no. 4, Asahi Shimbun, October–December 1966, at the Internet Archive (lending only; read in the full-text search's highlights). https://archive.org/details/sim_japan-quarterly_october-december-1966_13_4
  8. Katō Shūichi, Form, Style, Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society, translated by John Bester, University of California Press, 1971, at the Internet Archive (lending only; read in the full-text search's highlights). https://archive.org/details/formstyletraditi0000kato
  9. Tanaka Sen'ō, The Tea Ceremony, Kodansha International, 1973, index ichi go ichi e, 138, at the Internet Archive (lending only). https://archive.org/details/teaceremony0000tana · revised edition with Tanaka Sendō, 1998 (copyright 1973 and 1998), p. 170.
  10. Draeger, Classical Budo, Weatherhill, 1973.
  11. Sen Sōshitsu, Tea Life, Tea Mind, Weatherhill, 1979, p. 41.
  12. Paul Varley and Kumakura Isao, editors, Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1989, pp. 28 and 187, notes 71 and 73.
  13. Hirota, Wind in the Pines, Asian Humanities Press, 1995, pp. 179 and 291–292.
  14. Reed, Shodo, Japan Publications, 1989, p. 183, no. 25.
  15. Sato, Shodo: The Quiet Art of Japanese Zen Calligraphy, Tuttle, 2013, p. 84.
  16. JMdict, 「一期一会」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/一期一会
  17. 「Ichi-go ichi-e」, English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichi-go_ichi-e
  18. 大町桂月校『曽我物語』, 1911; 『有朋堂文庫』義経記, 1913. National Diet Library pid 877589, scan 60. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/877589/1/60
  19. 「曽我物語」 and 「義経記」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/曽我物語-553670 · https://kotobank.jp/word/義経記-50226
  20. 「山上宗二記」, 日本大百科全書 and 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/山上宗二記-1602819
  21. 『宗二之記』(山上宗二), manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 2538367, canvas 46. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2538367
  22. 『日本社会事彙』, 経済雑誌社, 1902, entry 茶の湯. National Diet Library pid 1805636, scan 376. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1805636/1/376
  23. 塙保己一 編『続群書類従』第十九輯, 続群書類従完成会, 1912, 巻第五百六十九, p. 1401. National Diet Library pid 936476, scan 706. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936476/1/706
  24. 「南方録」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 世界大百科事典 and 日本大百科全書 (筒井紘一), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/南方録-108975
  25. 井口海仙 等編『茶道全集』巻の九, 創元社, 1936, appendix 南方錄, scan 406, as returned by the National Diet Library's full-text search (送信; the snippet, not the page). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869389/1/406
  26. 筒井紘一『茶の湯名言集』, 淡交社, 1980, scan 106, as returned by the National Diet Library's full-text search (the snippet, not the page). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439252/1/106
  27. 「茶湯一会集」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 日本大百科全書 (筒井紘一), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/茶湯一会集-326311 · 「井伊直弼」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/井伊直弼-15189
  28. 大槻文彦『言海』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 992954, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992954/1/105
  29. 「一世一度」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/一世一度-434297
  30. 藤井乙男編『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 50. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/50
  31. 中村勝麻呂『井伊大老と開港』, 啓成社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 993947, scan 77. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993947/1/77
  32. 中村勝麻呂 編『井伊大老茶道談』上巻, 箒文社, 1914, contents. National Diet Library pid 1183157 (送信, not opened). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1183157
  33. 『眞人』, 養眞會出版部, October 1916, scan 2, November 1916, scan 39, and December 1916, as returned by the National Diet Library's full-text search (送信; the snippet, not the page). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1510492/1/2 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1510493/1/39 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1510494
  34. 釈悟庵編『禅林清話 力ある修養』, 文瑛書院, 1917. National Diet Library pid 944170, scan 98. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/944170/1/98
  35. 松本幹一『とはずがたり』, 泰山房, 1917, scan 100, as returned by the full-text search (送信; the snippet). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/955956/1/100
  36. 奥田正造『茶味』, 成蹊学園出版部, 1920. National Diet Library pid 937840, scan 51. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937840/1/51
  37. 姉崎正治『光あれ』, 1920. National Diet Library pid 961752, scan 66. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/961752/1/66
  38. 中村吉蔵『井伊大老の死 史劇』, 天佑社, 1920. National Diet Library pid 962957, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/962957/1/36
  39. 相馬御風『愚庵和尚 その他』, 春陽堂, 1923, 生の寂味. National Diet Library pid 977969, scan 43. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/977969/1/43
  40. The National Diet Library's NDL Lab full-text search of its public-domain books, keyword 一期一会, 116 books, counted by publication year. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?keyword=一期一会&searchfield=contentonly
  41. 「一期一会」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版 日本国語大辞典・日本大百科全書 (筒井紘一)・共同通信, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/一期一会
  42. Katō, A History of Japanese Literature, volume two, Macmillan, 1983, p. 129.
  43. Tanahashi, Endless Vow, Shambhala, 1996, p. 25.
  44. Sen Sōshitsu XV, The Japanese Way of Tea: From Its Origins in China to Sen Rikyū, translated by V. Dixon Morris, University of Hawaii Press, 1998, p. 156 and n. 28 (the text layer reads JO6 for Jōō).
  45. Plutschow, The Grand Tea Master, Weatherhill, 2001, the chapter on Hōunsai's tea and Zen, and p. 87.
  46. Garrison, Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, Kodansha International, 2002, p. 122.
  47. Sasaki, Chado, the Way of Tea: Almanac, Tuttle, 2005, foreword.
  48. Sadler, The Japanese Tea Ceremony: Cha-no-yu, Tuttle, 2011 edition, the foreword.
  49. Mogi, The Little Book of Ikigai, Quercus, 2017.
  50. Nguyen, ed., New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics, Lexington Books, 2018.
  51. Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, University of California Press, 2022, p. 275, note to 744.
  52. Waddell, Hakuin's Song of Zazen, Shambhala, 2024.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 一期一会 (ichigo ichie)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ichigo-ichie.