Soen Nakagawa - Education

Education

In 1923 Soen (still Matoi) enters high school and becomes a boarder at the First Academy in Tokyo. Soen's childhood friend, Yamada Koun, enrolled on the same day as him. The two became roommates there and remained lifelong friends. It was expected that Soen would carry on the samurai tradition of his father, but Soen was pondering a more spiritual occupation. On one occasion Koun recalls young Soen talking once about how he was sitting zazen atop a platform on the balancing bars in the playground resulting in a "natural self-realization". Koun found this rather odd. Soen would write later, as a monk, that his highschool years were spent in search of a meaningful occupation. At the school library Soen read a passage on impermanence and deluded approaches towards happiness by Shopenhauer, which provided young Soen with a sense of clarity. Soen next read Orategama by Hakuin, and found again great clarity in the words. He gave a copy to Yamada Koun, who showed great interest in Zen afterward.

In 1927 Soen and Yamada enter Tokyo Imperial University together, where Soen stayed in a dorm at the Pure Land temple Gangyo-ji. He majored in Japanese Literature, and it was here that he continued writing his poetry. While at the university Soen studied classics of both the East and West. He studied Buddhist sutras and even the Holy Bible. Life on campus was fun for him, he frequented the theater to hear renditions of classical masters and had a band of friends immersed within the artistic community of Japan. Soen even started a small group at the university for people to sit zazen together, a tradition that lives on at the university to this day. Soen's final thesis was on the famous haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō.