Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool

心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool

心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) is told as the last words of Kaisen Jōki 快川紹喜, burned at Erin-ji in 1582. This study follows the line from a Tang summer poem to that gate, and through the tellings that put it in his mouth.

X Facebook
Japanese Scroll of Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼しshintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

All Fonts ›

Abstract

心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し, empty the mind of thought, and even fire is cool, is used in Japanese today of any hardship that is nothing to one who has risen above it, and the three dictionaries at kotobank that enter the saying tell, with it is said, that the Zen abbot Kaisen Jōki 快川紹喜 spoke it when the soldiers of Oda Nobunaga burned him and his monks in the gate of Erin-ji 恵林寺 in 1582 [1][2][3]. The line is older than the fire: it is the close of a Tang poem by Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴 about a monk's cell in the dog days, the 碧巌録 of 1125 gives it, with 心頭 for the poem's 心中, as a master's answer to a question about escaping heat and cold, and its earliest Japanese example in the 日本国語大辞典 is a monk's diary of 1486, on a hot night [1][4][5][6]. Among the tellings of the burning read for this history, the chronicles give Kaisen no words; a print of 1646 gives the line to another monk, answering Kaisen; lives of monks of 1678 and 1702 give it to Kaisen; and a stele of 1881 cut that form in stone [7][8][9][10][11]. I read it as a line about heat long before it was a line about death, which Kaisen may have recited but which the oldest witnesses read here do not put in his mouth.

Overview

The sense. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 enters the saying as 心頭を滅却すれば火もまた涼し, with 水, water, as a variant for 涼し, and defines it: 無念無想の境地にいたれば、火さえも涼しく感じられるの意で、どのような困難、苦難も、それを超越した境地にはいれば、何でもないことにいう, that if one reaches a state free of all thought, even fire feels cool; said of how any difficulty or suffering is nothing once one has entered a state beyond it [1]. The ことわざを知る辞典 gives the same sense in two sentences, adds the variant 心頭を滅却すれば火もまた水, and quotes a novel, 中里介山's 『大菩薩峠』 (1913–41), in which Kaisen said, wrapped in fire, 心頭を滅却すれば火も自ら涼し, and went to his death composed [2]. The デジタル大辞泉 enters it as 心頭を滅却すれば火も亦涼し, writing 亦 for また, and gives the sense as 無念無想の境地に至れば、火も熱くは感じなくなる。どんな苦難にあっても、それを超越した境地に至れば、苦しいとは感じなくなるものである, once one reaches a state free of all thought, fire is no longer felt as hot; whatever the suffering, once one has reached a state beyond it, one no longer feels it as pain [3]. All three carry the story of Erin-ji, the 日本国語大辞典 and the デジタル大辞泉 with という, it is said, and the ことわざを知る辞典 with といわれます, it is said, and the ことわざを知る辞典 adds that the 『甲乱記』 gives the words to the monk, written 高川 there, with whom Kaisen exchanged questions [1][2][3].

The words. 心頭 is the heart, the mind: the デジタル大辞泉 gives 心。心の中, the heart; the inside of the heart, with the example 怒り心頭に発する, and the 日本国語大辞典 gives 胸のあたり。こころ。念頭。心中, around the chest; the heart; the mind; inside the heart, its earliest example from the 『正法眼蔵』 [12]. 滅却 is to destroy, to do away with entirely: the デジタル大辞泉 gives, for the transitive use, ほろぼすこと。すっかりなくすこと, to destroy; to do away with entirely, and its first example is this saying [13]. 心頭を滅却すれば is if one puts out the heart, the heart that is hot and that minds the heat; 火もまた涼し is fire, too, is cool. In the Chinese the line reads 滅却心頭火自涼, put out the heart and fire is cool of itself: the Japanese reading has turned 自, of itself, into また, too, and both forms are in Japanese use, 火も自ら涼し and 火もまた涼し [1][2][14]. The form on this scroll, 心頭滅却すれば, without を, is the four-character compound 心頭滅却 used as a verb; JMdict enters it both ways [15].

The text in English. The earliest English telling of the story read for this history, in The Young East of 1927, has Kaisen say Fire is cool too, now that I have stopped all my bodily senses [16]. Blyth in 1952 gave the line as When the mind is extinguished, fire feels cool of itself, and Suzuki in 1959 as When thoughts are quieted down, fire itself is cool and refreshing [17][18]. The renderings since, and JMdict's today, are taken in order below.

The historical record

The Tang poem. Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴, a poet of the end of the Tang, wrote 「夏日題悟空上人院」, On a summer day, written at the cell of the monk Wukong, and the 全唐詩 gives it as [4]:

三伏閉門披一衲，兼無松竹䕃房廊。安禪不必須山水，滅得心中火自涼。

Through the dog days he keeps his door shut in one patched robe, and there is no pine or bamboo to shade his eaves. Calm meditation does not need mountains and streams: put out the fire in the heart, and it is cool of itself. The fire of the poem is the heat of high summer in a cell with no shade, and the word is 心中, in the heart. The 日本国語大辞典 gives the same four lines in its note to the saying [1]. The ブリタニカ dates Du's death to 904, with a question mark [19].

1125. 『碧巌録』, case 43. The 碧巌録 is the koan collection of the Song master Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤, completed in 1125 by the デジタル大辞泉 and the ブリタニカ [20]. Its forty-third case is a question about heat and cold: 僧問洞山。寒暑到來如何迴避。山云。何不向無寒暑處去, a monk asked Dongshan, "When cold and heat come, how can one avoid them?" Dongshan said, "Why not go where there is no cold and no heat?"; and asked where that is, he answers 寒時寒殺闍黎。熱時熱殺闍黎, when it is cold, the cold kills you; when it is hot, the heat kills you [5]. In his commentary on the case, Yuanwu quotes 黃龍新和尚, Master Xin of Huanglong, who imagines a monk coming forward to ask how this is to be dealt with, and answers, after a long silence, 安禪不必須山水。滅却心頭火自涼, calm meditation does not need mountains and streams: put out the heart, and fire is cool of itself [5]. Here the poem's 心中 is 心頭, and the line is an answer about heat. 心頭 and 火自涼 are the form Japan has used since, and the 日本人名大辞典 calls the words Kaisen is said to have chanted 「碧巌録」の一句, a line from the 碧巌録 [14].

A Song anthology of poetry talk. The 詩話總龜, an anthology of remarks on poetry compiled by Ruan Yue 阮閲 of the Song, read in a Chinese print of 1544, has Du's couplet as a line given to a monk, and its own form differs again [21]:

杜荀鶴苦於詩有贈僧句云安禪不必須山水滅得心頭火自消

Du Xunhe labored at his poems. He has a line given to a monk: "Calm meditation does not need mountains and streams; put out the heart and the fire goes out of itself." Here the word is 心頭, as in the 碧巌録, and the fire does not turn cool: it goes out, 消.

A Ming collection. The 指月錄, a Ming-dynasty collection of the sayings of the masters, gives the line again as Master Xin of Huanglong's, inside Yuanwu's comment on the same case, 安禪不必須山水，滅却心頭火自凉 [22].

1486. A hot night in Sakai. The earliest Japanese example the 日本国語大辞典 gives is from 『蔗軒日録』, the diary of the Zen monk Kikō Daishuku 季弘大叔 (1421–87), a former abbot of Tōfuku-ji who spent his last years at a temple in Sakai, for the fifteenth day of the sixth month of 1486, as the dictionary quotes it: 古人云、滅却心頭火亦水, an ancient said: put out the heart, and fire is water too [1][23]. In the National Diet Library's snippet view of the diary's printed edition, the words around it are about the weather: 不可云大熱, it cannot be called great heat, then the line, then 夜間熱, at night it was hot [6]. In its first Japanese use read here, the saying is about a summer night.

1582. The burning, in the chronicles. In the fourth month of 1582, as Oda Nobunaga's armies destroyed the Takeda, his men burned Erin-ji in Kai with its monks in the gate. The 世界大百科事典 gives the cause as Kaisen's sheltering of Sasaki Jōtei 佐々木承禎 and his men [14]. 『信長公記』, the chronicle of Nobunaga by his retainer Ōta Gyūichi 太田牛一, read here in its typeset of 1881, tells the burning and gives Kaisen no words: 快川長老ハちともさハかす座ニ直りたる儘不動, the elder Kaisen, not in the least disturbed, sat as he was and did not move (the kana before す read か; ら is possible at the page image's resolution) [7]. 『當代記』, a chronicle whose date the 世界大百科事典 says is not known, names among the dead 懌川國師長禪寺の高山和尙を始, beginning with the national master Kaisen and the monk 高山 of 長禪寺, the typeset printing 懌川 for 快川, and gives no words [24][25].

1622. 甫庵's 『信長記』. Oze Hoan 小瀬甫庵's life of Nobunaga, printed in 1622 by the デジタル大辞泉 and the 日本国語大辞典, which both call it a reworking of Ōta Gyūichi's chronicle [26][27], gives Kaisen no words either, but it gives him coolness. He puts on his robe, takes his fan, and walks into the smoke:

法衣ヲ纒扇子ヲ持向火烟裏行清凉郭然トシテ座シ給フ

He wrapped himself in his robe, took his fan, went into the smoke of the fire, and sat, cool and open. The senior monks with him, the book goes on, held in mind 昔時誤向途中求、今日看來火裏氷, once I sought it, wrongly, on the road; today I see it: ice in the fire [26]. That couplet is not our line. It is the close of the awakening verse of the Tang monk Changqing Huileng 長慶慧稜 in the 祖堂集, 昔日謬向途中學，今日看來火裏冰 [28]. So the oldest printed telling read for this history has coolness in the fire, and a classical verse of ice in the fire, and not the words of the 碧巌録.

1646. 『甲乱記』: the line in another monk's mouth. 『甲乱記』, an account of the fall of the Takeda printed in Edo in 1646 (its colophon reads 正保三丙戌臘月下旬 於武州江戸開板, printed at Edo in Musashi, last decade of the twelfth month of Shōhō 3), tells the burning in a section headed 惠林寺炎滅并織田信長之事 [8]. The monks are sent up the gate, the ladder is taken away, and the grass houses are heaped beneath it and set alight. Then [8]:

國師ハ少モ騒給ハズシテ。長禪寺之長老。高山和尚ニ問曰。三界無安。猶如火宅向何処廻避。答曰覿面露堂々。又問作麼生是堂々底。答曰滅却心頭火自凉。其後國師ハ。結跏趺坐。叉手當胸シテ

The national master, not at all disturbed, asked 高山, the elder of 長禪寺: "The three worlds have no peace; they are like a burning house. Where shall we turn to escape?" He answered: "Face to face, it stands out plain." Again he asked: "What is it, standing out plain?" He answered: "Put out the heart, and fire is cool of itself." After that, the national master sat in full lotus, hands folded at his breast. Kaisen asks, and the other monk answers with the line. The question, where shall we escape? (向何処廻避), echoes the 碧巌録's case 43 (如何迴避), where the line was first an answer [5]. The 国書データベース records the author as Kasuga Sōjirō 春日摠二郎 [8]. The text of the 『甲乱記』 printed in the 『續群書類從』, which its closing note says was copied from the copy in the 圖書寮, the library of the Imperial Household Ministry (以宮内省圖書寮本謄寫按合畢), has the same exchange, with 高山 answering 滅却心頭火自涼, as the National Diet Library's snippet view shows it [29].

1678. 『延寶傳燈錄』: the line in Kaisen's mouth. The 延宝伝灯録, lives of Zen monks written by Mangen Shiban 卍元師蛮 in 1678 and first printed in 1706 by the 世界大百科事典 [30], tells it differently. Kaisen, in a chair, puts a question to all the monks seated in the flames: 諸人卽今坐火焰裏。如何轉法輪。各著一轉語爲末後句, all of you are now sitting in the flames: how will you turn the wheel of the Dharma? Each of you, say a turning word as your last line. The monks answer, and then [9]:

師卽唱曰。安禪不必須山水。滅卻心頭火自涼。旣而猛火著衣。恬然不動。端坐而化。

The master then chanted: "Calm meditation does not need mountains and streams; put out the heart, and fire is cool of itself." Soon the raging fire caught his robe; he did not move, and passed away sitting upright. The entry names 長禪寺高山壽 among those seated in the flames [9].

1702. 『本朝高僧傳』. Mangen Shiban's larger collection of lives of Japanese monks, completed in 1702 and printed in 1707 by the 日本国語大辞典 [31], read here in a printing of 1900, has the same scene, and has Kaisen speak for the monks [10]:

喜代曰安禪不必須山水滅卻心頭火自凉猛火著衣恬然不動與衆定化

Jōki said, on their behalf: "Calm meditation does not need mountains and streams; put out the heart, and fire is cool of itself." The raging fire caught his robe; he did not move, and with the assembly he passed away in meditation.

1706. Ogyū Sorai at the gate. In 1706 the Confucian scholar Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 and a companion visited Erin-ji on a journey through Kai, and his travel journal 『峡中紀行』, read here in a typeset of 1935, records that at the gate the two 憶快川和尙率大衆入定大火聚事, recalled how the monk Kaisen led his assembly into meditation in the great mass of fire, and made verses on the spot. Sorai's [32]:

從容衣鉢上樓時樓下狂風捲燄吹欲識樓頭凉似水我今猶拜快川師

Calmly, robe and bowl, he climbed the tower; below, a mad wind swept the flames. Would you know how cool it was up there, like water? I bow to the master Kaisen still. He does not quote the line. His poem answers it: 凉似水, cool as water, is close to the 1486 diary's 火亦水, and the coolness is the abbot's.

1851. The first correction. 『甲斐叢記』, a topography of Kai by Ōmori Kaian 大森快庵, completed in 1848 and its first part printed in 1851 by the 日本歴史地名大系 [33], after the author's death in 1849 as the National Diet Library's record dates him [34], tells the story as hearsay, 傳へいふ, it is handed down, and then corrects it [34]:

按に此二句ハ黄龍新禅師の語也快川境ニ遇てこれを誦しならん快川火定の偈とするハ誤なり

On reflection, these two lines are the words of the Zen master Xin of Huanglong; Kaisen, meeting the occasion, must have recited them. To take them as Kaisen's verse on entering the fire is a mistake.

1881. The stele. For the three hundredth anniversary of Kaisen's death, on the third day of the fourth month of 1881, a memorial was held at Erin-ji and an inscription composed to be cut in stone. Its text, as the temple's history of 1912 prints it, tells the 1678 form: 師即唱曰安禪不必須山水滅却心頭火自涼, the master then chanted: "Calm meditation does not need mountains and streams; put out the heart, and fire is cool of itself", and then 恬然不動與衆入火定而化, he did not move, and with the assembly entered the samādhi of fire and passed away [11]. It is signed 圓覺興聖禪寺權大敎正洪川宗温謹撰, respectfully composed by Kōsen Sōon of Engaku-ji, with the seal heading by the chancellor Sanjō Sanetomi 三條實美 and the writing by Ōuchi Seiran 大内靑巒 [11]. Kōsen Sōon is Imakita Kōsen 今北洪川 (1816–1892), abbot of Engaku-ji at Kamakura, whose ordination name the ニッポニカ gives as 宗温 [35]; D. T. Suzuki studied Zen under him at Engaku-ji [36].

The saying in Meiji print. By the 1890s the saying is in print in its kana forms. 『慈善之友』, of 1893, writes 嗚呼心頭を滅却すれば。火もまた涼しと。宜なるかな, ah, put out the heart, and fire too is cool: how true, and a book of Buddhist talks for soldiers of 1895, 『軍人法話集』, gives the line as 心頭滅却すれば, without を, in a telling of the burning, each in the National Diet Library's snippet view [37][38].

1916. Kōda Rohan names the poet. In a short essay, 「快川和尚と杜荀鶴」, The monk Kaisen and Du Xunhe, dated 丙辰 (1916) at its end and collected in 1926, the novelist Kōda Rohan 幸田露伴 tells the 1678 form, notes that the gate pillars of Erin-ji carry the two lines, and says [39]:

されど安禪の二句は快川和尙が做し出したるにはあらず。

But the two lines on calm meditation are not something the monk Kaisen made. They are Du Xunhe's, he writes, quoting the poem with 滅得心中火自涼, and 和尙たまたま此の詩の轉結を拈り來つて、其の一二字を換へたるのみ, the monk happened to take up the third and fourth lines of this poem and change only a character or two; a Zen monk's capping word may come from scripture, poetry, old sayings or a shout, and to take it for his own composition is 大なるあやまち, a great mistake [39]. Rohan does not mention the 碧巌録, where 心頭 already stands.

1919. A historian prints both. Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助, in 『日本佛敎史之硏究』 (1919), tells the story twice. On p. 580 he has 高山 ask and Kaisen answer: 長禪寺の高山和尙が快川に向つて、火中にあつた時の悟如何と尋ねた處が、快川が「心頭を滅却すれば火も自から涼し」といつたといふ有名な話がある, there is a famous story that 高山 of 長禪寺 asked Kaisen what awakening was, there in the fire, and Kaisen said "put out the heart and fire is cool of itself", and cites 信長記、當代記、延寶傳燈錄 [40]. Read here, none of those three carries that exchange: the 1622 信長記 and the 當代記 give no words, and the 延宝伝灯録 has Kaisen chant the line to all [26][24][9]. On p. 630 Tsuji gives the 『甲乱記』 exchange, Kaisen asking 高山 and 高山 answering 「滅却心頭火自涼」, and adds that この話は、普通には次のやうに傳へられて居る, this story is ordinarily told as follows, with the 1678 form [40].

1937–1945. The war years. In books and magazines of these years, as the National Diet Library's snippet view shows them, the saying is used of soldiers and of death, and in the same years of heat, of fire and of illness. A firefighting magazine of 1940 says a fireman can direct his water properly only from the standpoint of 甲洲快川和尙の「心頭を滅却すれば火も亦自ら凉し」, Kaisen of Kai's "put out the heart and fire too is cool of itself" [41]; a builders' journal of 1939 reports a summer go meeting held with 「心頭を滅却すれば火又凉し」をモツトーに, as its motto, against the heat [42]. A book of 1940 on the army officer Sugimoto Gorō 杉本五郎 gives the line to another man, 吉田松陰は言ふ、「心頭を滅却すれば、火も又涼し」, Yoshida Shōin says, "put out the heart, and fire too is cool" [43]; a book of 1942 on General Nogi has him say 心頭滅却すれば軍人には暑さ寒さは無い, if he puts out the heart, a soldier has no heat and no cold [44]. A training handbook of 1944 warns against 心頭を滅却すれば火も亦凉しなどと無理を押して病氣を重くして, pushing on with "put out the heart, and fire too is cool" and making an illness worse [45], and a wartime family reader of 1943, written as dialogue, calls it 諺, a proverb [46].

What is not a source. The 1622 couplet 昔時誤向途中求、今日看來火裏氷 is Changqing Huileng's awakening verse, not a form of this line [26][28]. The phrase 安禪不必須山水 stands with the line in the poem and in every telling, and it is not a separate saying [4][5].

The dictionaries today. Of the six dictionaries the 快川紹喜 page at kotobank gathers, the デジタル大辞泉 states the words as Kaisen's in its own voice (唱え, chanted), and the other five report them: the 日本国語大辞典 (という), the マイペディア (と伝える), the 世界大百科事典 (と唱えたという), the 日本人名大辞典 (となえたという) and the ブリタニカ (と唱え…という) [14]; in its own entry for the saying, the デジタル大辞泉 reports them too (この偈を発したという) [3]. Of the articles on 恵林寺, the デジタル大辞泉 and the ニッポニカ state the words as fact, the 世界大百科事典 and the マイペディア report them, and the 日本国語大辞典, the 山川 日本史小辞典, the デジタル大辞泉プラス and the part of the 日本歴史地名大系 article that kotobank shows do not give them [47].

The text in English

1927. M. Mita, The Young East. In a series of Anecdotes of Eminent Buddhist Priests, an article signed M. Mita places the burning At the beginning of the Tensho era (1573-1581) and gives as its cause that the priests of the temple had prayed for the victory of Takeda Katsuyori. A retainer of Nobunaga taunts Kaisen, "Now Rev. Kaisen, you must be comfortably warm there." Kaisen smiled pleasantly and said, "Fire is cool too, now that I have stopped all my bodily senses." [16]. The span is wrong for the burning, which the lives of monks and the stele date to Tenshō 10, 1582, and the taunting retainer is in none of the Japanese tellings read here [9][10][11][7][8].

1952. Blyth, Haiku, volume 3. In the chapter on the season's heat, Blyth writes that Kaisen quoted from the Criticism of the 43rd Case of the Hekiganroku: For the tranquillity of Zazen, mountains and streams are not necessary; When the mind is extinguished, fire feels cool of itself, and sets it against the poets, who either complains, or speaks whimsically of the heat [17]. Blyth reads the line beside the poets of the summer heat.

1959. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture. Suzuki tells the 1678 form, without naming a source on these pages: the abbot asks each monk for a word, When all were finished, the abbot gave his view and all entered into the fire-samādhi, and The abbot's words were these: For a peaceful meditation, we need not to go to the mountains and streams; When thoughts are quieted down, fire itself is cool and refreshing [18]. The Buddhist dictionary of 1965 below has cool and refreshing too.

1965. Miura and Sasaki, The Zen Koan. In a Zen phrase anthology, number 158, Anzen wa kanarazu shimo sansui o mochiizu; Shintō mekkyaku sureba, hi mo onozukara suzushi: No need at all of hills and streams / For quiet meditation; / When the mind has been extinguished, / Even fire is refreshing [48].

1965. Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary. Under Erin-ji: The chief priest, Kaisen-zenji, just before his death wrote a short poem: "When you have perfect control over your mind / Even fire can be cool and refreshing." [49]. Wrote a short poem is wrong on two counts: the line is Du Xunhe's and the 碧巌録's, and no Japanese witness read here has Kaisen write it.

1977. Cleary, The Blue Cliff Record. In the commentary to the forty-third case, After a long silence Huang Lung said, "Peaceful meditation does not require mountains and rivers: when you have extinguished the mind, fire itself is cool." [50].

1986. Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems. According to one of the versions … one of his students asked him, "We cannot escape the passing away of all things in this world. Where now shall we turn in our search for the everlasting?" Kaisen replied, "Here it is before your eyes, in this very place." The monk pressed further, "What place is this before my eyes?" With flames licking upward at his body, Kaisen responded, "If you have vanquished your selfhood, coolness will rise even from the fire." [51]. This is the 『甲乱記』 exchange with the roles reversed: in 1646 Kaisen asks, and the other monk gives both answers [8].

Today. JMdict gives if you clear your mind of all worldly thoughts, even fire will feel cool, marked a proverb, and for 心頭滅却 clearing one's mind of all worldly thoughts [15]. A rendering must keep that the coolness comes from the mind and not from the fire, and that the line holds no promise of death: it was said of a hot day before it was said of a burning gate.

A reading

The record first. The line is the close of Du Xunhe's poem about a summer cell, with 心中; the 碧巌録 of 1125 has it, with 心頭, as Master Xin's answer to a question about heat and cold; a Song anthology has it with 心頭 and 火自消 [4][5][21]. In Japan it is in a monk's diary of 1486 on a hot night [1][6]. Of the tellings of 1582 read here, the chronicles give Kaisen no words, the print of 1622 gives him coolness and another verse, the print of 1646 gives the line to the monk he questioned, and from 1678 the line is his [7][24][26][8][9].

The readings next. Ōmori's book, printed in 1851, and Rohan in 1916 each said the words were not Kaisen's own, the first giving them to Master Xin and the second to Du Xunhe [34][39]. Tsuji kept the 1646 exchange in print beside the received form [40]. The dictionaries today tell the story as hearsay, two of them as fact [1][2][14][47].

What I sign is this. Two things are usually said of the line, that Kaisen made it and that he said it as he burned. The first is false, and was shown false in Japanese print in 1851 and in an essay dated 1916. The second rests, among the witnesses read here, on a book written ninety-six years after the fire, and the oldest telling of the fire that has the line at all, printed sixty-four years after it, gives it to another man, answering Kaisen's question with the 碧巌録's line. The oldest witnesses give him no words, and the one that tells how he died has him sit still. A Zen abbot who knew the 碧巌録 may well have recited its line in a fire; but on the evidence read here, the coolness came first, the 碧巌録's words came to the scene in another monk's mouth, and they were given to Kaisen afterward. What the fire at Erin-ji added was not the words but their weight. The line had been about heat for some seven centuries; after 1582 it is about death too, and in the war years it was pressed into that use. I read it as both, and the older sense is still in it: a person sitting still in the heat, whom the heat does not reach. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the line. Point by point, against the witnesses read for this history:

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼しVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼しVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼しVD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Empty the Mind of Thought, and Even Fire Is Cool (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼しVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『蔗軒日録』, 文明18年6月15日条, in 大日本古記録 (岩波書店, 1953). The National Diet Library serves this volume in Japan only; the entry was read here in the dictionary's quotation and the library's snippet view, and the page would show the whole entry around 古人云、滅却心頭火亦水.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「心頭を滅却すれば火もまた涼し」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心頭を滅却すれば火もまた涼し-2052294
  2. 「心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し」, ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し-299559
  3. 「心頭を滅却すれば火も亦涼し」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心頭を滅却すれば火も亦涼し-538544
  4. 杜荀鶴, 「夏日題悟空上人院」, 全唐詩 卷693, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/夏日題悟空上人院
  5. 圜悟克勤, 『佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄』 卷5, 第四十三則, Taishō vol. 48, no. 2003, p. 180a, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/T48n2003_p0180a21
  6. 『大日本古記録』 第3, 1953 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3436208
  7. 太田牛一, 『信長公記』 巻之下, 甫喜山景雄, 1881, scan 44, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/781194/1/44
  8. 春日摠二郎, 『甲亂記』, 正保3 (1646), canvas 54 (the exchange), canvas 52 (the heading), canvas 67 (the colophon), the copy at the 大阪府立中之島図書館 (石崎文庫), at the 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300095293/54 — and its typeset, 『甲斐志料集成』 7, 甲斐志料刊行会, 1935, p. 423, scan 223, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1240918/1/223
  9. 卍元師蛮, 『延寶傳燈錄』 卷31, in 『大日本仏教全書』 108, 仏書刊行会, 1922, p. 412, scan 210, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952812/1/210
  10. 卍元師蛮, 『本朝高僧傳』 巻之43–45, 出雲寺文次郎, 1900, scan 45, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1089668/1/45
  11. 武井明堂 編, 『再建紀念恵林寺略史』, 恵林寺, 1912, scans 20–21, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822877/1/20
  12. 「心頭」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心頭-538543
  13. 「滅却」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/滅却-643983
  14. 「快川紹喜」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 百科事典マイペディア, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (笹本正治), デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/快川紹喜-42607
  15. JMdict (EDRDG), entries 1360900 (心頭滅却), 2850822 (心頭を滅却すれば火もまた涼し) and 2850985 (心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し), at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/心頭滅却
  16. M. Mita, "Anecdotes of Eminent Buddhist Priests", VI, The Young East 3:3, August 1927, p. 92, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/young-east_1927-08_3_3
  17. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido, 1952, p. 8, read on the house's shelf.
  18. Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, Bollingen Series LXIV, Princeton University Press, 1959, pp. 78–79, read on the house's shelf.
  19. 「杜荀鶴」, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/杜荀鶴-105164
  20. 「碧巌録」, デジタル大辞泉 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/碧巌録-129179
  21. 阮閲 輯, 『増修詩話總龜』, 嘉靖23 (1544), the fourth volume of the set, scan 78, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2574016/1/78
  22. 瞿汝稷 集, 『指月錄』 卷16, Xuzangjing vol. 83, no. 1578, p. 573a, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X83n1578_p0573a16
  23. 「蔗軒日録」 and 「季弘大叔」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蔗軒日録-75884 · https://kotobank.jp/word/季弘大叔-1068950
  24. 『當代記』 卷二, in 『史籍雑纂』 第二, 国書刊行会, 1911, scan 28, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1912983/1/28
  25. 「当代記」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/当代記-855181
  26. 太田牛一 輯録, 小瀬甫庵 重撰, 『信長記』 巻15, 元和8 (1622), scan 19, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544605/1/19
  27. 「信長記」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/信長記-112393
  28. 『祖堂集』 卷10, 長慶慧稜, B25, no. 144, p. 502a, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/B25n0144_p0502a07
  29. 「甲亂記」, 『續群書類從』 第21輯上, 卷第605, 續群書類從完成會 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936494
  30. 「延宝伝灯録」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/延宝伝灯録-1150307
  31. 「本朝高僧伝」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/本朝高僧伝-135156
  32. 荻生徂徠, 『峡中紀行』, in 『甲斐志料集成』 1, 甲斐志料刊行会, 1935, p. 414, scan 232, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1240812/1/232
  33. 「甲斐叢記」, 日本歴史地名大系, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/甲斐叢記-3057865
  34. 大森快庵, 『甲斐叢記』 前輯 巻5, 藤屋伝右衛門, leaf 40, scan 42, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2563494/1/42
  35. 「今北洪川」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/今北洪川-15505
  36. 「鈴木大拙」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/鈴木大拙-18577
  37. 『慈善之友』, 1893 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/798765
  38. 『軍人法話集』 第1, 2輯, 1895 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/820430
  39. 幸田露伴, 「快川和尚と杜荀鶴」, in 『洗心廣録』, 至誠堂書店, 1926, scan 25, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/981771/1/25
  40. 辻善之助, 『日本佛敎史之硏究』, 金港堂書籍, 1919, p. 580 (scan 313) and p. 630 (scan 338), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913740/1/313 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913740/1/338
  41. 『帝都消防』, April 1940 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1486390
  42. 『朝鮮と建築』, September 1939 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2235754
  43. 『軍神杉本五郎中佐』, 1940 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1137437
  44. 『敬仰乃木将軍』, 1942 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1057902
  45. 『錬成提要』, 1944 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1277227
  46. 『日の丸にこにこ問答 : 戦争生活読本』, 1943 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027747
  47. 「恵林寺」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 百科事典マイペディア, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 山川 日本史小辞典, デジタル大辞泉プラス and 日本歴史地名大系, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/恵林寺-446935
  48. Isshū Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, The Zen Koan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965, p. 109, read on the house's shelf.
  49. Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary, Daitō Shuppansha, 1965, p. 58, read on the house's shelf.
  50. Thomas Cleary and J. C. Cleary, trans., The Blue Cliff Record, Shambhala, 1977, p. 259, read on the house's shelf.
  51. Yoel Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, Charles E. Tuttle, 1986, p. 104, read on the house's shelf.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-15, citations — the cited web addresses opened and the quoted words looked for at each; every address answered with the words sought; nothing found to differ · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-15, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL, both, on the same wrong fact (the block said the oldest witnesses put the coolness in the abbot's sitting, which only the print of 1622 does); round 2 PASS, both; corrections made · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-21, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: the block read again after a dictionary entry was added to the page: PASS, both; corrections made

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 心頭滅却すれば火もまた涼し (shintō mekkyaku sureba hi mo mata suzushi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shinto-mekkyaku-sureba-hi-mo-mata-suzushi.