Zen Buddhism formed the very ground of Ryokan Taigu’s existence, shaping both his inner life and his outward conduct. Ordained in the Sōtō Zen tradition and trained under a recognized master, he received not only a monastic identity but also a spiritual name that embodied the Zen ideal of humble “foolishness” beyond worldly cleverness. Rather than treating Zen as a doctrine to be expounded, he allowed it to permeate his choices: renouncing status, embracing poverty, and stepping away from institutional hierarchies. His decision to live as a hermit in small huts and temples, begging for sustenance and avoiding social ambition, was itself a sustained enactment of nonattachment and simplicity. In this way, his life became a continuous experiment in living the essence of Zen teachings through direct, unadorned experience.

This same spirit animated his daily activities, which he treated as extensions of meditation rather than distractions from it. Playing with children, mending clothes, sharing sake with villagers, or quietly observing nature were not separate from practice; they were the very field in which the Zen insight that “everyday mind is the Way” was realized. His gentle character, marked by compassion, nonjudgment, and a reluctance to take sides, expressed the nondual perspective that sees joy and sorrow, gain and loss, as inseparable aspects of a deeper suchness. The inner discipline of zazen undergirded this apparent lightness and play, giving rise to a freedom that did not depend on external conditions. What might appear as rustic simplicity thus concealed a profound spiritual refinement.

His poetry and calligraphy emerged directly from this integrated practice, rather than from literary ambition. The verses are spare, spontaneous, and unadorned, embodying Zen aesthetics that trust immediate experience over abstract theory. Through images of seasons, children’s games, worn robes, the moon, and dew, his work gives voice to impermanence, emptiness, and present-moment awareness without heavy philosophical language. Themes such as the transient nature of life, the insubstantiality of the self, and the discovery of Buddha-nature in ordinary activities are woven into scenes of everyday life. In this sense, his poems and brushwork function as living dharma—meditative acts that reveal how deeply Zen Buddhism shaped not only what he wrote, but the way he saw and moved through the world.