Not Seeing Snow: Muso¯ Soseki and Medieval Japanese Zen

Not Seeing Snow: Muso¯ Soseki and Medieval Japanese Zen offers a detailed look at a crucial yet sorely neglected figure in medieval Japan. It clarifies Muso¯’s far-reaching significance as a Buddhist leader, waka poet, landscape designer, and political figure. In doing so, it sheds light on how elite Zen culture was formed through a complex interplay of politics, religious pedagogy and praxis, poetry, landscape design, and the concerns of institution building. The appendix contains the first complete English translation of Muso¯’s personal waka anthology, Sho¯gaku Kokushishu.