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Sokuhi Nyoitsu [Jifei Ruyi; Lin]
(b Fuzhou, Fujian Prov., 1616; d Nagasaki, 1671). Chinese monk, poet and calligrapher. He became a major figure in the Obaku Zen lineage in Japan. Along with INGEN RYUKI and MOKUAN SHOTO, he is extolled as one of the ‘Three Brushes of Obaku’ (Jap. Obaku no sanpitsu), master Zen calligraphers (see also JAPAN, §VII, 2(iv)). Jifei was ordained at the age of 17 under Feiyin Tongrong (1593–1661), and at 21 he was accepted as a disciple by Ingen, abbot of the Zen temple Wanfusi at Mt Huangbo (Fujian Prov.), where he became a colleague of Mokuan, another outstanding disciple of Ingen. In 1651, after a brush with death by asphyxiation while fighting a forest fire behind the temple had inspired his sudden ‘enlightenment’, Sokuhi received ‘dharma transmission’ (recognition as an heir in the spiritual lineage) from Ingen and the following year was promoted to high monastic office. About this time he became abbot of Chongshengsi on Mt Xuefeng (Fujian Prov.). In late 1654 he was summoned to Japan by Ingen. Obtaining passage in 1657, he arrived in Nagasaki, where he was soon made abbot of Sofukuji, which had been founded by émigré Chinese in 1629. Once again he was in frequent communication with Mokuan, who had followed Ingen to Nagasaki two years earlier and had become abbot of another Chinese monastery, Fukusaiji. The two became known as nikanromon (‘two gates to the nectar [of liberation]’). In 1663 Sokuhi received permission to go to Uji, south of Kyoto, where Ingen was abbot of Manpukuji, the newly built Obaku monastery; it was their first meeting in 12 years. In 1664 Sokuhi decided to leave for Nagasaki and then return to China but on the way he was pressed to remain by the lord of the Kokura domain (now Fukuoka and Oita prefectures) and become founding abbot of the temple Fukujuji on Mt Koju (now Fukuoka Prefect.). In 1668 he relinquished the abbacy to his Japanese disciple Houn Myodo (1638–1706) and returned to Sofukuji to retire. Periodic bouts of illness began in 1670, and he died the following year, having composed his will and brushed numerous final verses. His cremated remains were deposited at Fukujuji and Sofukuji.
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