Ryōkan Taigu’s life as a hermit and his poetry form a single, continuous practice, each illuminating the other. Choosing to live in small rustic huts with few possessions, he cultivated a radical simplicity that shaped both the themes and the language of his verse. Everyday objects—patched robes, empty bowls, straw sandals, leaky roofs—appear not as literary ornaments but as unvarnished facts of his existence, mirroring a Zen sensibility that values “nothing extra.” This chosen poverty fostered a tone of contentment with little, a quiet celebration of humble joys and the beauty of needing less. His poems thus become records of a life pared down to essentials, where spiritual insight arises from the most ordinary circumstances.

The hermit’s immersion in nature further determined the atmosphere and imagery of his poetry. Living close to mountains, forests, and changing seasons, he observed wind, clouds, rain, birds, insects, and moonlight with a contemplative gaze. These natural scenes are presented as direct expressions of impermanence and suchness, rather than as symbols imposed from outside. The landscape is not a backdrop but a living companion, allowing his verses to speak of oneness with the natural world and of the ceaseless flow of time. Through such images, his poetry quietly points toward the transient, luminous character of all phenomena.

Solitude gave Ryōkan long stretches of silence in which to observe his own mind, and this solitude left a deep imprint on his work. Themes of loneliness, introspection, and the search for awakening recur, yet the mood is rarely bitter; instead, it is tender, self-deprecating, and emotionally transparent. Free from the demands of status and institutional roles, he could write with unusual spontaneity and directness, unburdened by formal rhetoric or doctrinal display. His Zen is not expounded in abstract terms but revealed in how he begs for alms, forgets to close a door, or spends a day in simple, unstructured activity. The poems feel immediate and unforced, as if they arise naturally from the rhythm of contemplative life.

At the same time, his seclusion did not cut him off from human warmth. As a wandering hermit, he mingled with villagers and often played with children, preserving a childlike playfulness that permeates his poetry. This combination of deep spiritual seriousness with gentle humor and informal, unpretentious language gives his work a distinctive voice among Zen writings. Compassion and empathy for ordinary people, born of direct contact rather than distant observation, surface in verses that honor simple lives and small acts of kindness. In this way, his hermit life becomes not a withdrawal from the world, but a vantage point from which the ordinary is seen as fully suffused with the light of practice.