structural:expansion, linguistic:paraphrasing
Early life

Sesshū Tōyō was born in Akahama (Soja City), a settlement in Bitchū Province, which is now a part of the Okayama Prefecture, during the Muromachi period. As a child, Sesshū entered the Buddhist community at the Hofukuji temple in Okayama, Japan. Little is known about Sesshū's early life, but there is a well-known tale that, whilst at Hofukuji Temple, Sesshū's instructor was forced to discipline him by tying him to a temple post. After a few hours passed, Sesshū used his tears as ink to draw a mouse on the wooden floor. The mouse was so realistic that it sprung to life and gnawed at the tight ropes to set him free.

At the age of twelve or thirteen years old, Sesshū entered the Shōkoku-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan, as an acolyte under the head priest of all zen temples, Shunrin Shuto, and eventually became a zen monk. Shōkoku-ji temple held a close relationship with the Muromachi government as the temple's main supporters were a part of the ruling Ashikaga family. Whilst at Shōkoku-ji temple, Sesshū was a pupil of Tenshō Shūbun, who was often regarded as Japan's first great master of ink landscape painting. Sesshū worked under Shūbun for 20 years before leaving Kyoto for a small provincial zen temple in western Japan. Here, he was left free from monastic and political duties to focus on painting.