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"Profound Sincerity"

Jiun Onkō Japanese
ca.1780–90
Not on view
Born and raised in Osaka, Jiun Sonja was a scholar with wide-ranging spiritual interests who was ordained as a Shingon Buddhist monk but later turned to the study of Zen and Shinto. A reformist concerned about the moral laxity of the Buddhist clergy of his day, he drew in his calligraphy upon the energetic, spontaneously brushed works of Zen monks of the past. In this hanging scroll, the words “profound sincerity” were taken from the Sutra of Meditation on Amida Buddha (Kanmuryōju-kyō), a Pure Land Buddhist text, but Jiun’s vigorous, brusquely inscribed characters clearly reflect the strength and austerity of traditional Zen monastic training.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 慈雲飲光筆　「至誠心」
  • Title: "Profound Sincerity"
  • Artist: Jiun Onkō (Japanese, 1718–1804)
  • Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
  • Date: ca.1780–90
  • Culture: Japan
  • Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Image: 44 × 17 7/8 in. (111.8 × 45.4 cm)
    Overall with mounting: 72 1/2 × 23 1/2 in. (184.2 × 59.7 cm)
    Overall with knobs: 26 1/2 in. (67.3 cm)
  • Classification: Calligraphy
  • Credit Line: Gift of Joan B. Mirviss, in memory of T. Richard Fishbein, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.601
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

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Passage from an Inscription on Trust in the Mind (Xinxinming), Jiun Onkō Japanese, Hanging scroll: ink on paper, Japan
Passage from an Inscription on Trust in the Mind (Xinxinming)
Jiun Onkō
late 18th century
For a hundred years [I have been] a person with no attachments, Jiun Onkō Japanese, Hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan
For a hundred years [I have been] a person with no attachments
Jiun Onkō
late 18th century
Zen Koan on Cypress Trees, Jiun Onkō Japanese, Hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan
Zen Koan on Cypress Trees
Jiun Onkō
late 18th century
Three Poems from the Later Collection of Japanese Poems (Gosen wakashū), Monk Saigyō Japanese, Page from a booklet, mounted as hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan
Three Poems from the Later Collection of Japanese Poems (Gosen wakashū)
Monk Saigyō
late 12th century
”Abiding nowhere, the awakened mind arises”, Musō Soseki Japanese, Hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan
”Abiding nowhere, the awakened mind arises”
Musō Soseki
early to mid-14th century

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