Hōkyō-ji (宝慶寺) is a

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngsh� ...

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple founded about 1278 in Echizen,

Fukui prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Fukui Prefecture has a population of 778,943 (1 June 2017) and has a geographic area of 4,190 km2 (1,617 sq mi). Fukui Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the north, G ...

, Japan.Bodiford, pp. 36, 66.

History and founding

Jakuen Jìyuán (寂円, 1207 – 8 October 1299), better known to Buddhist scholars by his Japanese name Jakuen, was a Chinese Zen Buddhist monk and a disciple of Rujing. Most of his life is known to us only through medieval hagiography, legends, ...

left

Eihei-ji 250px is one of two main temples of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism, the largest single religious denomination in Japan (by number of temples in a single legal entity). Eihei-ji is located about east of Fukui in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. In E ...

in 1261. He meditated in solitary with the wild animals at the base of Mount Ginnanpo, about away. By one account, a leader of the

Fujiwara clan was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until ...

in charge of the Ono District, Ijira Tomotoshi happened to find him during a hunt, and offered his financial support. In 1278, Tomotoshi's son Tomanari built a temple for Jakuen who apparently wished to revere Ju-ching by taking the name from the Hōkyō era in China, a period during which Ju-ching was Dogen's teacher.Bodiford, p. 66. Giun, who was Jakuen's student and eventual

Dharma heir In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretically traced back to the Buddha himse ...

, joined Hōkyō-ji in 1279, where he succeeded Jakuen as the abbot in 1299 for 15 years. Later Giun went to

for 18 years.

Keizan Keizan Jōkin (, 1268–1325), also known as Taiso Jōsai Daishi, is considered to be the second great founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. While Dōgen, as founder of Japanese Sōtō, is known as , Keizan is often referred to as . Keiza ...

joined in 1282, when he became ''ino''. Studying with Jakuen, Keizan experienced enlightenment at Hōkyō-ji in 1285.

From the Hōkyō-ji treasure house

File:宝慶寺の寂円.jpg,

, the founding abbot File:鎌倉名越白衣舎示誡.jpg, A text in Dogen's own hand File:Dogen.jpg, Dogen watching the moon

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hokyo-ji Religious organizations established in the 1270s Soto temples Buddhist temples in Fukui Prefecture