Ikkyū Sōjun’s stance toward the social and political order of his age was fundamentally critical, shaped by a deep distrust of institutional power and its entanglement with religious life. He harshly attacked corruption within Zen monasteries and temples, especially where they were closely allied with political elites. Monks who pursued rank, wealth, and luxurious living while preaching poverty became frequent targets of his scorn. In his view, the commercialization of Buddhism, the selling of religious status, and the use of temples for political purposes betrayed the spirit of authentic practice. Rather than offering a systematic political program, he adopted the posture of an outsider who refused to be co‑opted by court or shogunate, despite his own connections to high lineage. His critique thus operated less as formal theory and more as a moral and spiritual protest against the misuse of religious authority.

Socially, Ikkyū turned prevailing hierarchies on their head. He openly associated with commoners, entertainers, outcasts, and prostitutes, treating them as fully capable of genuine spiritual realization. In his poems and conduct, he mocked the pretensions of aristocrats, warriors, and “respectable” clergy, exposing the gap between their public morality and private behavior. By praising those on the margins and scorning the self‑satisfied elite, he challenged the rigid class distinctions of his time. His solidarity with the marginalized did not merely romanticize poverty or defilement; rather, it affirmed that awakening could arise in the midst of ordinary, even stigmatized, life. In this way, he implicitly questioned the assumption that spiritual authority belonged only to the educated or socially elevated.

Ikkyū’s personal lifestyle and literary voice formed a kind of lived critique of both social norms and political‑religious structures. He rejected institutional careerism, repeatedly distancing himself from formal positions and ceremonial expectations within the Zen hierarchy. Frequenting pleasure quarters, drinking establishments, and other spaces shunned by conventional monks, he used his presence there as a statement against rigid monastic ideals and the sharp divide between “pure” and “impure” life. His poetry, often laced with erotic imagery and sharp satire, exposed hypocrisy, greed, and spiritual pretension wherever he found them. By insisting on direct, unmediated spiritual experience over institutional authority, he offered a radical reorientation: the measure of the Dharma was not status or ritual correctness, but honesty, compassion, and clarity amid the full complexity of human existence.