TOYO EICHO

Died on the twenty-fourth day of the eighth month, 1504 at the age of seventy-seven

All four pillars of enlightenment

Crumble at once

See! See!

Moonlight wreathing coral branches-

What does it mean?

Now all grows as dark

As the palace of hell in

The grasp of Satan

Katsu!

Toyo wrote these words while sitting upright; he then put down his brush and died.

The "four pillars of enlightenment" are four qualities ascribed to nirvana by Buddhist scriptures: everlastingness, contentment, truth [liberation from the illusions of self], and purity. Nirvana is described as a state beyond life and death, but while dying Toyo looks straight at death and sees in it the naked truth of absolute destruction.

For a moment he considers the image of perfection and harmony (the moon lighting the corals in the water), but this vision gives way to a darker one of death. The final "Katsu!" wipes out the several images and brings the poem back to the here and now at the moment of death.