A monk of the Soto school and a poet of the Edo period. Born the eldest son of the village head of Izumozaki in Echigo Province (now Izumozaki, Niigata Prefecture). He took orders at eighteen, taking the name Ryokan and the style Taigu. He then studied under the priest Kokusen at Entsu-ji in Tamashima, Bitchu (now Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture) and travelled the provinces. At about thirty-eight he returned to Echigo, but did not go to Izumozaki where he was born, living instead in empty hermitages here and there: the Gogo-an on Mount Kugami at about forty, a hut in the grounds of Otsugo Shrine at about fifty-nine, and from about seventy a place within the house of Gen’emon Kimura at Shimazaki village. He never had a temple of his own. Perhaps because of his freedom from wanting, he was loved by people of every age and station. Besides waka he was skilled in kyoka, haiku, popular song and Chinese verse, and was a fine calligrapher. He lies at Ryusen-ji in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture.