Ryōkan Taigu’s life unfolded primarily in Echigo Province, in what is now Niigata Prefecture in northern Japan. This snowy, rural region formed the landscape of his mature years as a Zen hermit and poet, and it is there that his way of life took on its most characteristic shape. Rather than seeking prominence in great monasteries or cities, he allowed his practice to be shaped by mountains, villages, and the changing seasons of this remote area.

The place most closely associated with his dwelling is a small hermitage called Gogo-an, situated on Mount Kugami in Echigo. This modest hut, set in the mountains, became the emblem of his chosen simplicity, a physical expression of the Zen ideal of “just enough.” From such a dwelling, his poetry and practice emerged not as abstractions, but as responses to the immediate environment—snow on the eaves, children at play, villagers passing by.

Ryōkan did not confine himself to a single hut, however, but spent time in other simple dwellings within the same region, including another hut known as Otogo-an. These various hermitages, scattered in the mountainous countryside, were less separate residences than different facets of a single way of being. Moving among them, he remained rooted in Echigo’s landscape and in quiet contact with local villagers, who supported him and, in turn, became part of the living context of his Zen.

Thus, to speak of where Ryōkan lived is to point not only to Echigo and Mount Kugami, but also to a mode of dwelling that embraced poverty, transience, and intimacy with nature. His “address” was the hermitage, the mountain path, and the small community of rural people among whom he moved with unobtrusive kindness. In that setting, his life and poetry became inseparable from the land itself, as if the snows of Echigo and the rough huts of Gogo-an and Otogo-an were themselves pages on which his Zen was quietly written.