"One-Stroke" Daruma (after Shokai Reiken)

This painting is most likely a copy of an original now preserved in the Umezawa Kinenkan, Tokyo. Popularly called Ippitsubyo no Daruma or "One Brushstroke Bodhidharma" the painting is originally thought to have been brushed by Reiken, the 43rd abbot of Tofukuji. The painting is based on the legend that during nine years of meditating in front of a rock face at Shaolinsi on Mt. Song in China, Daruma subjected himself to a several ascetic exercise of meditation much like the historical Buddha. The inscription at the top relates to a poem by Reiken:

My bed is cold when I’m sleeping at night.

Mulberry-paper cassock, paper mosquito curtain

Following the Dharma, acting as circumstance demands

With my hemp-palm chowry, and goosefoot staff.