Buji kore kinin (Inactivity)

The calligraphy is relatively dark and weighty; the lines are spirited and powerful, the tail of the stroke often revealing dry brush ends. Jiun is a highly idiosyncratic practitioner of Chinese-style calligraphy in the unorthodox expressionist style favored by Zen masters. He was a scholar of Sanskrit, Confucianism and Buddhism. At age 58, in 1776, he took over the Kokiji, a temple in Kawachi, Osaka Prefecture, which he established as the headquarters of his own Shoboritsu (True Doctrine Discipline) sect of Shingon Buddhism. There he wrote most of the calligraphies that survive today. For five examples of his calligraphy in the Powers Collection see John Rosenfield, Extraordinary Persons (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Art Museums, 1999), vol. 1, nos. 72-76.