>DAIGU SOCHIKU
>大愚宗築
>Died on the sixteenth day of the seventh month, 1669 past the age of eighty

Daigu was raised in a Zen monastery. While he was still a young monk, a woman asked him to hold a funeral service for her son. After the burial she asked, “Where has my child gone?” Daigu had no answer for her, and the incident shook him profoundly. He abandoned the monastery and went to be alone in the mountains.

Daigu was fond of drinking; it is said that he was usually half-drunk. He did not restrain his speech and used to insult people while conversing with them. In spite of his eccentricity, or perhaps because of it, people from all ranks of society were drawn to him, and they would come to him on the mountain to hear his words.

Daigu later moved to Edo, where he gave sanctuary in his temple to two women, mistresses of a daimyo from whom they had escaped. This act added to already existing rumors about Daigu’s relationships with women, but Daigu gave them no heed. Because of the bad name such behavior gave him, his rise in the religious hierarchy was delayed, but Daigu himself did not care for power and authority.

When an honorable post was at last offered him, he refused it on the grounds that he would be dismissed anyway because of his peculiar character.