Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation

For that reason Kennin ji was once placed below the management of Hiei zan and supplied with cloisters for the examine of either Tendai and tantra. Its later prestige as an self sufficient Zen establishment is usually proposal to have started within the moment 1/2 the 13th century, lower than the influential abbots Enni (Ben'en) (1202-80) and Lan-ch'i Taolung (Rankei DoryS, 1213-78). Saiho ji (later often called Kokoku ji) used to be equipped via a monk named Gansho (d. 1275), previously Katsurayama Kagetomo, a follower of the 3rd Kamakura shogun, Minamoto no Sanetomo (1192-1219). Sanetomo was once an ardent and romantic Buddhist, with a deep fascination for issues chinese language. towards the tip of his short lifestyles, he made plans to sail to the continent, there to event at once the religious tradition of Sung Buddhism. while those plans failed, he dispatched in his stead his dependable retainer Kagetomo. The latter proceeded to Yura, the place he started arrangements for the crossing; earlier than they can be accomplished, Sanetomo used to be assassinated. In his grief Kagetomo climbed Mt. Koya and took Buddhist vows from Taiko Gyoyu, of the Cloister of the Vajra-samadhi (Kongo Zanmai in). Thereafter, he lower back to his fief Ln Kii and started the development of Saiho ji as a memorial (bodaiji) to his departed lord. Gansh5's grasp, Gyoyu (1163-1241), was once the main profitable of Yosai's disciples. initially a Shingon monk from Kamakura, he switched over to Yosai whilst the latter first visited the bakufu capital to stumbled on the Jufuku monastery there. He quickly rose to a place of prominence and, following in his master's footsteps, served because the abbot of Jufuku ji, Kennin ji, and the Kongo Zanmai in on Mt. Koya. In those very important posts he taught such remarkable early Zen figures as Daikatsu Ryoshin (dates unknown), later abbot of either Kennin ji and Jufuku ji; Enni (Ben'en) (1212—80), founding abbot of T5fuku ji and restorer of Kennin ji; and Shinchi Kakushin, who served as head monk (daiichi za) at Kongo Zanmai in and later turned founding abbot of Gansho's K5koku ji. Gansho's collection of Gyoyu as his preceptor isn't a surprise, seeing that this monk had lengthy been the non-public instructor of Sanetomo's mom, the politically strong Hqjo Masako (1156—1225), to whom he had additionally given the tonsure a long time prior to. It was once this Masako who had subsidized the development of either Jufuku ji and Kongo Zanmai in. 28 The short become aware of in Kakushin's chronology tells us little or no approximately Dogen's courting to this circle, yet his participation within the ceremonies at Saiho ji types a suggestive hyperlink with sure different proof in his biography. for instance, whereas in China, Dogen was once with reference to a disciple of Yosai named Ryuzen, who used to be additionally learning on Mt. T'ien-t'ung. After his go back to Japan, this monk turns out to have succeeded Gyoyu as abbot of Kongo Zanmai in and to have appointed Kakushin as head monk. 29 We additionally recognize that Kakushin himself, after the loss of life of Gyoyu, sought out DSgen and acquired from him the Bodhisattva precepts. 30 it's been urged, furthermore, that one in every of Dogen's early supporters, a nun named Shokaku, could have been Sanetomo's spouse, Nobuko, who additionally took Buddhist vows from Gyoyu after her husband's loss of life and confirmed a memorial monastery for Sanetomo in Heian.