Shinkei
Shinkei
Native name	心敬
Born	1406 Kii Province (now Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture), Japan
Died	April 14, 1475(1475-04-14) (aged 68–69) Ōyama, Sagami Province, Japan
Occupation	poet and priest
Language	Japanese
Nationality	Japanese
Genre	Tanka and renga poetry

Shinkei (心敬, 1406 – 14 May 1475) ^[1] was a Japanese Buddhist priest and poet ( tanka and renga poetry).

Shinkei was born in Taisha, Kii Province (now Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture) in 1406. He was a Buddhist priest at an early age and quickly rose to the rank of Daisōzu (大僧都, Senior Director). ^{[2] [1]}

He regarded poetry as the result of a religious way of life (shugyō). ^[3] For more than thirty years he remained a student with the poet Shōtetsu. His poems are based on the Japanese aesthetic ideal called yūgen (幽玄). ^{[4] [2]} He also wrote the poetic treatises Sasamegoto (ささめごと) in 1463 and Oi no kurigoto (老のくりごと) in 1471. ^{[1] [3]}

Shinkei died on 14 May 1475 in Ōyama, Sagami Province (now part of Kanagawa Prefecture).

Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen translated and annotated Shinkei's Sasamegoto under the title Murmured Conversations: A Treatise on Poetry and Buddhism by the Poet-Monk Shinkei ( Stanford University Press, 2008), which received the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2009. Ramirez-Christensen also published a book-length study on Shinkei's life and poetry titled Heart's Flower: The Life and Poetry of Shinkei (Stanford University Press, 1994). ^[5]