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Sasamegoto is unequivocal in its opinion that one can achieve greatness in an art (nōgei, michi) only by specialization. However, anybody who wants to cultivate other arts in addition to poetry must focus exclusively on those that support it, namely, scholarship (gakumon), Buddhist discipline (butsudō shugyō), and calligraphy (shuseki), which together constitute the art of letters. During the medieval period, many of the poets were also monks, a reflection of the oneness of poetry and Buddhism. Moreover, a poet was also a scholar of poetry as a field of knowledge, with its own history, archives, and traditions of practice. In other words, the teachers and critics of poetry in premodern Japan were also practicing poets themselves.

Sasamegoto and Shinkei's other writings provide unequivocal evidence that the eighth imperial anthology, Shinkokinshū (1205), represents the apogee of waka history. Shinkei's valuation of Shinkokinshū included a third factor: Shinkokinshū-style poetry's unparalleled “success in the world” (yo ni tokimekitamaishi koto). In this chapter, Shinkei considers the work of Shōtetsu, by all accounts the major waka poet of the Muromachi period, as a revival of the superior qualities of Shinkokinshū poetry. However, the age was actually under the dominance of the conservative Nijō Yoshimoto school. Shōtetsu was not included in the Shinzoku Kokinwakashū (1439), the last of the twenty-one imperial anthologies.

This chapter constitutes Shinkei's most important statement in Sasamegoto I on linking (tsukeai) in renga. Here, he argues that the link between verses has priority over the words of each verse. For example, while the single verse might be beautiful and impressive in itself, it is utterly lifeless unless it relates to the meaning (kokoro) of the previous verse (maeku). On the other hand, a plain and seemingly trivial verse will suddenly acquire a new life when viewed from the perspective of its link with the maeku. In other words, the transaction or engagement (toriyori) between the verse units, not in the verse units, is key to the essence and vitality of renga as a poetic genre, and linking is a process of animating words through the act of understanding.

This chapter deals with the proper duration of a renga session and describes the “mind-ground” (known as shinji in Sasamegoto II) upon which the process of poetic composition transpires. In this process, one enters a state of introspection (chinshi) whereby the mind becomes minutely absorbed in and is rendered tranquil by beauty (kokoro o hosoku en ni nodomete or kokoro o torakete). This mental activity clearly seeks to dissolve the mind (the divisive egoistic mind) in the process of becoming minutely permeated by the object of its contemplation. Shinkei's view of the poetic process is similar to Lord Teika's concept of ushintei (Style of Meditation) as representing the essential nature (hon'i) of poetry.

In this chapter, Shinkei argues that external circumstance molds individual talent. Therefore, this talent needs to be exposed to proper teaching, which is available only from the past poets of the tradition and the older living poets who maintain it. Shinkei refers to these poets as “those who have achieved before” (sendatsu). Sasamegoto itself looks at the achievements of the Kamakura-Nambokuchō poets in renga and of those of the Shinkokinshū age in waka. Aside from tradition, another momentous “cause and condition” (innen) for enlightenment in poetry, but much harder to come by, is a great teacher (meishi).

In this chapter, Shinkei flatly rejects the notion that a poem's authenticity is determined by popular appeal, or that a poem is “true” if it is comprehensible and interesting even to the untutored. Such a notion implies that peasants have an innate capacity for understanding poetry. The question that arises then is: What kind of poetry? It is in this sense that arguing with Shinkei becomes difficult. Shinkei speaks of poems of “lofty and ineffably remote mind” (kedakō yōon no kokoro) and dismisses the lesser kinds. The foundation of Shinkei's thinking lies in the ethos of compassion and impartiality with which Sasamegoto closes. He compares the boundless and numinous quality of mind to the Dharmakaya. Thus, the difference between low and high is also the difference between ignorance and awareness.

In rejecting the notion that popular taste is the arbiter of poetic authenticity, Shinkei acknowledges that the common people or the majority, who are incapable of appreciating the greatest minds, must necessarily remain in obscurity. This does not mean that Shinkei himself considers obscurity as necessarily evidence of virtue, or that he welcomes it. His allusion to Bai Juyi's poem on the lonely pine implies that Shinkei is aware of being remote from any worldly fame at this time. As if to prove Sasamegoto right even at its author's expense, Shinkei always chose to stay just beyond the limelight, not only in his lifetime but also afterward.

This chapter is often cited as evidence that Shinkei identified the Way of Poetry with the Way of Buddhism, but Kidō rejects this notion because the two activities differ in terms of aims. While the aim of Buddhism is to “discover the ultimate source of the mind” (kokoro no minamoto o akiramemu), that of Poetry is to “gain insight into the deeply moving power of things” (aware fukaki koto o satoran). That is to say, Poetry apparently seeks to move human beings to the consciousness of the tragic character of mundane existence, whereas Buddhism wants to uncover the truth that lies beyond the tragedy of mundane existence. The distinction between Buddhism and Poetry that Kidō mentions is largely valid for Sasamegoto I but not for Sasamegoto II. Ultimately, the religious justification for poetry that can be found in the works of Teika, Shunzei, Saigyō, and Shinkei himself is based on nondualism and grounds the medieval Japanese sense of praxis (michi, the Way).

Shinkei argues that unless the poet has a profound understanding of the Way, he is incapable of making a criticism of superior work. In this chapter, he insists that mere competence or skill (jōzu, tassha) is different from a keen perceptivity. This view is related to his statement in Sasamegoto II that understanding and appreciating someone else's verse is more difficult than to compose one's own. The importance of perceptivity over and above execution reflects the central role of kokoro in his poetics. For the poet who possesses the requisite technical competence, the quality of his mind as it relates to the external universe in the act of composition determines the quality of the verse or poem. The poet with a keener and more profound mind will be able to compose a better poem. Shinkei's emphasis on perceptivity is intimately linked to the unique character of poetic composition in renga.

Perceptivity plays a crucial role, not only in evaluating another's work, but also when it comes to master-disciple relationship. While an excellent teacher constitutes “the great cause and condition” that helps individual talent to flourish, not even the greatest master can help a student who is not perceptive, either due to insufficient wit or lack of artistic sensibility. One example of a student's receptivity is Shinkei's emphasis on an inquiring attitude, or the desire to seek out the deepest truths in the Way of Poetry. In Sasamegoto II he illustrates the importance of this attitude by saying that “it is far better to criticize the Dharma and fall into hell than merely to make offerings to numberless Buddhas.” Hence, discipleship is a process of active penetration and “appropriation,” fueled by desire. In the medieval pedagogy of the Way, however, this process is less an appropriation than the mutuality of understanding suggested by the Zen slogan “by mind transmit the mind.”

This chapter considers the tendency of rustic poets to dismiss those verses that differ from their own as obscure or deviant. It discusses the idea of pluralism and the notion that a limited mind is incapable of comprehending superior poetry. The argument is laid as a question of means and ends but is grounded on kokoro. The gifted poet must first experience poetic inspiration before deciding on the style or configuration that will best express it. In contrast, the ungifted poet begins with a predetermined style—the orthodox one—which molds his mind, resulting in poetry that sounds like everyone else's. In Sasamegoto II, Shinkei declares that such poets mistake the means for the end and, owing to their lack of imagination, produce bad imitations. Isolation might cause pain to the gifted poet, but it gives him the wisdom to be true to his own poetic vision.

This book is an annotated translation of Sasamegoto (1463–64), a Japanese poetic treatise from the medieval period noted for its thoroughgoing construction of poetry as a way to attain, as well as signify via language, the aim of Buddhist practice: mental liberation (satori). Written by Shinkei (1406–75), a Tendai cleric best known today as one of the most brilliant poets of renga (linked poetry), Sasamegoto is also a representative work in the larger cultural history and an equally distinctive voice in the classic waka form. Shinkei formulated the principles of renga as a serious art during the Muromachi period (1392–1568). Sasamegoto articulates renga, and poetry in general, as an existential praxis, a Way. The medieval notion of praxis is informed by what used to be called “the wisdom of the East,” mainly Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Sasamegoto is in two parts: the first written in the fifth month of Kanshō 4 (1463) and the second in the fifth month of Kanshō 5 (1464).

Sasamegoto offers an account of renga history. Man'yōshū 1635 was cited as the oldest example of linked poetry, that is, its archaic form as “short renga” (tanrenga) in the Yakumo mishō (Eightfold Cloud Treatise [1221]) by Retired Emperor Juntoku (1197–1242; r. 1210–1221). This is essentially a waka poem featuring the formal elements of the basic renga verse form as an individual link, as well as its pragmatic aspect as dialogical discourse. Nijō Yoshimoto (1320–1388) traced the origins of renga to the examples of katauta mondō (half-poems) in the ancient chronicles Kojiki (712) and Nihongi (720). Another significant milestone in renga history is the rise of so-called chain renga (kusari renga) with multiple links. Shinkei's reference to the Minase River provides evidence that Shinkokinshū poets such as Fujiwara Teika (1162–1241) and Ietaka (1158–1237) played a major role in the formation of the long form and its aesthetics during the early Kamakura period. However, renga flourished thanks to the so-called jige renga, leading to a “broadening of the Way.”

In Sasamegoto, Shinkei expresses the view that yūgen, a major aesthetic ideal of the medieval period, is primarily a state of mind and spirit (kokoro) rather than a matter of graceful or refined poetic configuration (yasabamitaru sugata). He also equates yūgen with his own central ideal of beauty of the mind-heart (kokoro no en). In this interpretation, Shinkei considers yūgen to be immanent in all poetry that reveals a spiritual depth, rather than a specific style. In this sense, yūgen is quite similar to Teika's concept of ushin, the mode of meditation. Shinkei also tends to oppose kokoro to kotoba and sugata as the poem's essential, internal core as against its external form. This distinction is consistent with his corresponding deemphasis on verbal ingenuity and technique.

A quoted passage in Lord Teika's Kindai shūka (Superior Poems of Our Time) holds the clue to the question of whether he actually intended the “pre-Kampyō” period to cover both the age of “the six poet-immortals” (rokkasen) and the more ancient Man'yōshū poetry. In the context of Sasamegoto, Shinkei's interpretation was driven by a desire to promote the study of that ancient classic as against the commonly held view of its difficulty. He refers to the Man'yōshū, which he included in the renga poet's classical education, in Part II of Sasamegoto in the context of a central passage that defines poetic beauty as primarily a quality of mind (kokoro) rather than diction (kotoba) and configuration (sugata). With respect to the case of the study of poetic styles, Shinkei agrees with Teika's argument that the style of simplicity and grace should be mastered once an individual starts training, and that the Demon-Quelling Style can be achieved only at the end of the training.

A symbolic poem, such as the one formulated by Shunzei in the Korai fūteishō, is essentially the very figuration of the poet's mind. The process of composing this kind of poetry is a critical issue, particularly in the ushin (which literally means “having a heart-mind”) style. The ushin may be rendered as “Style of Meditation” in the same way that kokoro is translated as “mind” with respect to the critical vocabulary from the Shinkokinshū period on. The ushin underlies the idea that poetic composition involves the discipline of mental meditation. Teika views pure poetry as the figuration of a state of contemplation similar to Tendai shikan as Shunzei sees it, or to Shinkei's connection of the distant link with Zen meditation. Shinkei cites two poems, one by Teika and another by Shōtetsu, in the course of his discussion of the ushin mode in Sasamegoto.

In Sasamegoto, Shinkei unequivocably identifies poetic practice with Zen meditation, and the poem with the dharani, or True Word. According to Shinkei, “the Way of poetry is the True Word of our country, which when employed as an instrument of vain sophistry, means that your reading of the sutras and commentaries, as well as your practice of Zen meditation, are all equally blind delusions.” In Buddhist practice, the True Word, also called mantra, refers to incantations meant to concentrate the mind in order to make it more supple and acute. During contemplation, or mental application (kufū), the mind expands so that it may encompass and transcend the limited meaning of the maeku's words. In this process, the maeku is reconstituted into the tsukeku.

According to Shinkei, “the mode of ambiguity that is constituted solely of nuance” (omokage bakari o nomi yomu fumyōtei) is the style of the ultimate realm of enlightenment in poetry. Also described as a verse “whose diction and figuration have an ineffable remoteness” (sugata.kotobazukai no yōon no ku), it is further identified with the Dharmakaya, the Buddha-Body in essence, and may be viewed as the home of en as well as symbolic poetry. This style aims to make apparent the very realm of principle and of being from which the inexpressible fragrance of the mind emanates. This ultimate mode is illustrated in a passage from Sasamegoto with two poems by Shōtetsu as well as two illuminating citations from the sutras. The poems are in the mode of the Dharma Body (hosshin no tei) and manifest spontaneous enlightenment without instruction.