If you are an older chubby man with a receding hairline and facing nothing but a decline into old age and death, there¡¯s always the work of Zen monk Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) to fall back on.

Entering the monastic life at the age of 10, according to scholar of Zen art Stephen Addiss, Sengai became the abbot of Shofukuji Temple, Japan¡¯s oldest Zen monastery, in 1790. During the following 20-plus years of his appointment, as well as being a devoted servant of the temple, Sengai was prolific in creating sketches combined with pithy observations and poems. Of these works, he wrote, ¡°this play of mine with brush and ink is neither calligraphy nor painting,¡± and, speaking from a strictly illustrative point of view, the charm of Sengai¡¯s work does not come from refined techniques or careful composition, but more from an informality closer in spirit to doodling.

As a key symbol in Zen, the ±ð²Ô²õ¨­ circle crops up a few times in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts¡¯ latest exhibition of its extensive Sengai collection. Charged with significance, the ±ð²Ô²õ¨­ is a single brushstroke that exemplifies the idea that the profound and universal can be found in simplicity. One depiction of a lopsided circle painted with one brush stroke has the caption ¡°What is this? I ate it with one bite,¡± suggesting that the drawing is not an existential exploration into nothingness, but of a ³¾²¹²ÔÂᨱ cake.