Composed after I had met Dharma Eye Teinin,[i] and heard him tell the tale of Ōmine[ii] among other things.
| okuyama no koke no koromo ni oku tsuyu wa namida no ame no shizuku narikeri | Deep within the mountains Upon his robe of moss The falling dewdrops are A rain of tear Droplets. |
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[i] Teinin 定忍 has not been identified, but from the context here, he must have been a yamabushi 山伏, an itinerant Buddhist monk and practitioner of shugendō.
[ii] Ōmine 大峰 was a mountain in Yoshino in Yamato which was a major location for practitioners of the ascetic Buddhist practice of shugendō 修験道, which involved, among other things, ascending the mountain to increase one’s spiritual power.