His parents ran a geisha house when he was a child, prompting Kawabata to develop puritanical and reclusive tendencies.

[1][2][3] When his family home was destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Kawabata took up residence in the Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto, where he studied Zen Buddhism for four years.

In 1915, he was first published in Hototogisu ("Cuckoo"), the magazine of the haiku school centered on Kyoshi Takahama, a conservative movement focused on the natural world.

While many adherents later broke with Kyoshi, Kawabata's devotion to the Hototogisu school's principles was such that one critic labeled him a "martyr" to "flowers and birds."

His second collection, Kegon, featured an introduction by Kyoshi, where he praised Kawabata as the leading figure "in the mysteries of nature poetry.