Ōtagaki Rengetsu, potter and poet

In The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, there is occasionally a chapter of a fictitious book called Tidy Magic by a female Zen monk. At one point she tells about her master's favorite teacup, "an antique cup, very old and very beautiful, with a poem inscribed on it," which she accidentally drops. His only calm comment is, "Already broken"—though in fact, the cup is fine. When she asks why he said it was already broken, 

he held up his cup and admired it. "It's quite old, you know. Maybe two hundred years. It was made by Rengetsu. Do you know who Rengetsu was? She was a great beauty, but she had a very sad life. She was an illegitimate child and was given away for adoption when she was just an infant. Later, she married twice, but both husbands and all of her five children died, and so she shaved her head and became a Buddhist nun. She was poor but creative, and so she started making pottery and writing poems on her cups and bowls. They became very popular, and she made a lot of money, but she gave it all away to the poor."
     I listened to him impatiently. He often did this. Went off on some tangent and forgot about my question, but this time I was determined to get an answer. He was reading the nun's poem on the side of the cup.
     "The world's dust, swept aside here in my hermitage. I have all I need, the wind in the pines—"
     "But Hojo-san! The teacup isn't broken!"
     He looked up, surprised. "To me, it is," he said. "It is the nature of a teacup to be broken. That is why it is so beautiful now, and why I appreciate it when I can still drink from it." He looked at it fondly, took a last sip, and then placed the empty cup carefully back on the tray. "When it is gone, it is gone."
     That day, my teacher gave me a priceless lesson in the impermanence of form, and the empty nature of all things.

Years later, the cup does break: during the magnitude-9 earthquake that hits Japan on March 11, 2011, causing such destruction and loss. 

The earthquake shook us awake, and the tsunami washed away our delusions. It caused us to question our values and our attachment to material possessions. When everything I think of as mine—my belongings, my family, my life—can be swept away in an instant, I have to ask myself, What is real? The wave reminded us that impermanence is real. This is waking up to our true nature.
     Already broken.
     Knowing this, we can appreciate each thing as it is, and love each other as we are—completely, unconditionally, without expectation or disappointment. Life is even more beautiful this way, don't you think?
     Much later, I found a traditional craftsman who could repair that Rengetsu teacup with gold and lacquer to hold the pieces together. Now, in the cracks, there are delicate seams of gold, which honor the cup's brokenness. To my eyes, it is lovelier now than ever.

I wrote about this sort of repair, known as kintsugi, here. It's a beautiful practice.

And I was, of course, curious as to whether Rengetsu was a real person. Why, yes! Not only was she a waka poet and a potter, specializing in tea and sake vessels, but she was a master of martial arts (her adoptive family were well known as trainers of ninja), dance, sewing, and the tea ceremony. She lived from 1791 to 1875, in Kyoto.

Here are a few of her creations, and you can find more, some with translations of the poems written on them, here and here. (Click on the images to see them larger.)