Tessai’s Portrait of Rengetsu

Welcome to the Rengetsu Circle

The Venerable Nun Rengetsu in her Hermitage in Shogon-in Village
by Tomioka Tessai

Rengetsu is depicted here in her hermitage, brushing a poem on a tanzaku, with her potter’s wheel to her right and her ceramic ware stacked on shelves in the hut next door. Shogon-in village is on the outskirts of Kyoto, home to Shogon-in temple, one of the main centers for yamabushi (mountain wizard) practice. The mountain village district surrounding the temple is considered sacred.

One Response to "Welcome to the Rengetsu Circle"

Barbara Haskett Battelle says:

March 14, 2013 at 9:10 am

I am so very grateful for and happy to become a member of the Rengetsu Circle. I am an aging woman artist myself (69), a meditator, living alone in poverty and sumi-e, ink brush painting is my greatest joy in life. Before my life was so constrained, in the early 90′s I discovered Rengetsu in an article in the earlier pulp paper publication of the Shambala Sun. I read it over and over again, sought further information without much result. Tiny fragments and threads of a little something else over long years of none. Now she is not only my role model for living with dignity in my current circumstances; but since I have found the Circle, I feel upheld by a very special dharma sangha of likeminded friends. Thank you very much. Sincerely in peace, Barbara Haskett Battelle (Jigme Lhatron, Vishwashyamananda)

Reply

Tessai’s Portrait of Rengetsu