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Essays in
Idleness
YOSHIDA KENKO

Essays in Idleness:
Background
?TSUREZUREGUSA- “Essays of Idleness” or “The
Harvest of Leisure”
?It is a collection of essays written by Japanese
monk YOSHIDA KENKO between 1330 and
1332. The work is widely considered a gem of
medieval Japanese literature and one of the
three representative works of the zuihitsu genre,
along with Makura no Soshi and Hojoki.

Content and Structure
?Essays of Idleness comprises a preface and
243 passages, varying in length from a single
line to a few pages.
?Kenko, being a monk, writes about Buddhist
truths, and themes such as death and
impermanence prevail in the work, also it
also contains passages devoted to the
beauty of nature as well as some accounts
of humorous incidents.

TITLE
?Prefatory message:
“ What a strange, demented feeling it
gives me when I realize I have spent
whole days before this inkstone, with
nothing better to do, jotting down at
random whatever nonsensical
thoughts that have entered my mind.”

?(2) The man who forgets the wise principles of the
reigns of the ancient emperor; who gives no thought
to the grievances of the people of the harm done
the country; who strives for the utmost luxury in
everything, imagining this is the sign of
magnificence; who acts if the world were too small
for him seems deplorably wanting in intelligence.
You will find in Lord Kujo’s Testament the instruction,
“Make do with whatever you have, from your court
costume down to your horses and carriages. Do not
strive for elegance.” Again, you will find among the
writing of the Retired Emperor Juntoku court
ceremonial, “The clothes worn by the emperor
should be simple and unassuming.”

?(21)Looking at the moon is always diverting, no matter what
the circumstances. A certain man once said,”Surely nothing is
so delightful as the moon,” but another rejoined, “The dew
moves me even more.” How amusing that they should have
argued the point! What could fail to be affecting in its proper
season? This obviously true of the moon and cherry blossoms.
The wind seems to have a special power to move men’s
hearts.
Regardless of the season, however, a clear-flowing stream
breaking against rocks makes a splendid sight. I remember how
touched I was when I read the Chinese poem, “The Yuan and
Hsiang flow ever east, night and day alike, they never stop an
instant to soothe the grieving man.” Chi K’ang also has the lines,
“The heart rejoices so much pleasure as to wonder to some spot
far the world, where the water and vegetation are unsullied.

?(29)When I sit down in quiet meditation, the one emotion
hardest to fight against is a longing in all things for the past.
After the others have gone to bed, I pass the time on a
long autumn’s night by putting in order whatever
belonging are at hands. As I tear scraps of old
correspondence I should prefer not to leave behind, I
sometime find among them samples of the calligraphy of
a friend who has died, or pictures he drew for his own
amusement, and I feel exactly what I deed at the time.
Even with letters written by the friends who are still alive I
try, when it has been long since we met, to remember the
circumstances, the year. What a moving experience that
is! It is sad to think that a man’s familiar possessions,
indifferent to his death, should remain unaltered long after
he is gone.

? (56)How boring it is when you meet a man after a long separation
and he insists on relating at interminable length everything that has
happened to him in the meantime. Even if the man is an intimate,
somebody you know extremely well, how can you but feel a certain
reserve on meeting him again after a time? The vulgar sort of person,
even if he goes on brief excursion somewhere, is breathless with
excitement as he relates as matters of great interest everything that
has happened to him. When the well-bred man tells a story he
addresses himself to one person, even if many people are present,
though the others too listen, naturally. But the ill-bred man fling out his
words into crowd, addressing himself to one in particular, and
describes what happened so graphically that everyone bursts into
boisterous laughter. You can judge a person’s breeding by whether
he is quite impassive even when he tells an amusing story, or laughs a
great deal even when relating of no interest.
It is most distressing, when the good and the bad of somebody’s
appearance or the quality of a certain person’s scholarship is being
evaluated, for the speaker to refer to himself by way of comparison.

?(79)A man should avoid displaying deep familiarity
with any subject. Can one imagine a well-bred
man talking with the air of a know-it-all, even
about a matter with which he is in fact familiar?
The boor who pops up on the scene from
somewhere in the hinterland answers question with
an air of utter authority in every field. As results,
though the man may also possess qualities that
compel our admiration, the manner in which he
displays his high opinion of himself is contemptible.
It is impressive when a man is always slow to speak,
even on subjects he knows thoroughly, and does
not speak at all unless questioned.

?(92)A certain man who was learning to shoot a bow aimed at
the target with two arrows in his hand. His teachers said, “A
beginner should not hold two arrows. It will make him rely on
the second arrow and be careless with the first. Each time you
shoot you think not of hitting or missing the target but of
making this one the decisive arrow.” I wonder if anyone with
only two arrows would be careless with one of them in the
presence of his teacher. But though the pupil is himself
unaware of any carelessness, the teacher will notice it. This
caution applies to all things.
A man studying some branch of learning thinks at night
that he has next day before him, and in the morning, that he will
have time that night; he plans in this way always to study more
diligently at some future time. How much harder it is to perceive
the laziness of mind that arises in an instant! Why should it be so
difficult to do something now, in the present moment?

?(168)When an old man has acquired surpassing ability in some
art and people ask about him, “Once he has gone, who will
answer our question?” it means that the is not living in vain, for
he serves as a justification for all old people. However, the
very fact that his art has not deteriorated in the least makes
him seem rather contemptible, for it means he has spent his
whole life doing only one thing. I prefer it when an old man
says, “I’ve been forgotten it now.” As a rule, even if a man
knows his art, people will suspect that he is not really so
talented if he keeps chattering on about it. Besides, mistakes
will naturally occur. A man is more likely to seem a true master
of his art if he says, “I cannot tell for certain.”
It is worse still to listen to a man of eminence expatiating
on some subject he knows nothing about with a look of self-
satisfaction on his face; one cannot very well criticize him, but
one is thinking all the while, “What nonsense!”

?(235)A man with no business will never intrude into an
occupied house simply because he is so pleased. If the
house is vacant, on the other hand, travelers journeying
along the road will enter with impurity, and even creatures
like foxes and owls, undisturbed by any human presence, will
take up their abodes, acting as if the place belonged to
them. Tree spirits and other apparitions will also manifest
themselves.
It is the same with mirrors: being without color or shape of
their own, they reflect all manner of forms. If mirrors had color
and shape of their own, they probably not reflect other things.
Emptiness accommodates everything. I wonder if
thought of all kinds intrude themselves at will on our minds
because what we call our minds vacant? If our mind were
occupied, surely so many things would not enter them.

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