Keizan Jōkin (, 1268–1325), also known as Taiso Jōsai Daishi, is considered to be the second great founder of the

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 Dòngshān L ...

school of

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 ...

in Japan. While

Dōgen Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; 26 January 1200 – 22 September 1253), also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), or Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師), was a Ja ...

, as founder of Japanese

, is known as , Keizan is often referred to as . Keizan and his disciples are credited with beginning the spread of Sōtō Zen throughout Japan, away from the cloistered monastic practice characteristic of Dōgen's

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 ...

and towards a more popular religion that appealed to all levels of Japanese society. Keizan founded several temples during his lifetime, most notably Yōkō-ji and Daihonzan

Sōji-ji is one of two of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. The other is Eihei-ji temple in Fukui Prefecture. ''Fodor's'' calls it "one of the largest and busiest Buddhist institutions in Japan". The temple was founded in 740 as a Shingon Buddhist temp ...

(founded on the

Noto Peninsula The Noto Peninsula (能登半島, ''Noto-hantō'') is a peninsula that projects north into the Sea of Japan from the coast of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Honshū, the main island of Japan. The main industries of the peninsula are agricultur ...

and moved to

Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama is one of the 18 ku (Wards of Japan, wards) of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 270,433 and a population density, density of 8,140 persons per km². The total area is 33.23&nb ...

in 1911). Today Sōji-ji and Eihei-ji stand together as the two principal Sōtō Zen training centers in Japan.

Biography

Youth and Zen-training

Keizan spent the first eight years growing up under the care of his grandmother, Myōchi, who was one of Great Master Dōgen's first supporters on his return from China. Keizan always acknowledged a great debt to this grandmother by dedicating the

Kannon Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. She ...

shrine at the temple of Yōkō-ji to her memory. Keizan also praised his mother very highly in his autobiography, and even said that his mother's wishes and her constant prayers to Kannon had enabled him to become a monk, receive the Dharma transmission, and become one of the Sōtō Zen Ancestors. His mother had become abbess of a Sōtō monastery, Jōju-ji and was a teacher in her own right. It seems that his mother had a huge influence on him, both as an example of someone who encouraged the teaching of Buddhism to women and through her emphasis on the power of Kannon, the ''

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

'' of compassion. Keizan first became a novice, at the age of eight, at Eihei-ji, under the tutelage of Gikai, and he was formally ordained at age thirteen by

Koun Ejō (1198-1280) was the second patriarch of the Japanese Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism who lived during the Kamakura period. He was initially a disciple of the short-lived Darumashū sect of Japanese Zen founded by Nōnin, but later studied and recei ...

. He reached the stage of "non-backsliding" while training with

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, ...

, and received

dharma transmission In Chan Buddhism, Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken Lineage (Buddhism), lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretica ...

from

Tettsū Gikai is the third spiritual leader of the Sōtō Zen school of Buddhism in Japan. He began his Buddhist life as a student of the Darumashū's Ekan, but later both became students of Eihei Dōgen's newly established Sōtō school. Gikai received dh ...

at the age of thirty-two. All of this was recorded in his autobiography; he was the first Japanese Zen monk to describe his own life.

Sōji-ji

While Keizan is often spoken of as the fourth-generation Dharma heir of Dōgen, many English sources erroneously assume that Keizan held the abbacy of Eihei-ji—but he never did so: the fourth-generation abbot of Eihei-ji was Giun, who replaced Gikai after the latter was forced out of Eihei-ji in what is known as the ''

sandai sōron The ''sandai sōron'' (三代相論), or third-generation differentiation, was a putative dispute over the orthodoxy and succession of Sōtō Zen Buddhism. The major figures involved were Jakuen, Gikai, Gien, and Giin, all of whom claimed the righ ...

''. Keizan ''did'' succeed Gikai as the second abbot of Daijō-ji, in present-day Kanazawa. However, Keizan's major accomplishment, which gave rise to his status as "second patriarch" of Sōtō Zen, was the founding of

, which soon overshadowed Eihei-ji as the principal Sōtō temple. Sōji-ji eventually became the institutional head of four regional networks with several thousand temples under them. By 1589, the imperial court recognized Sōji-ji as the head temple of the Sōtō school, above Eihei-ji; the two temples remained rivals for imperial support, but by the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1872, they had arrived at a truce, acknowledged in the characterization that the Sōtō school followed “the maxims of the founding Patriarch, Dōgen, and the aspirations of the late teacher, Keizan.”Bodiford 1993: chapter 8

Death

Keizan died at Yōkō-ji on the twenty-ninth day of the ninth month of 1325, at the age of fifty-eight years.

Meihō Sotetsu (1277-1350) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen monk who lived during the late Kamakura period and early Muromachi period. He practiced with Keizan Jōkin, often considered the second most important figure in Sōtō Zen after Eihei Dōgen, for twenty-nine ...

(1277–1350) became abbot of Yōkō-ji, and

Gasan Jōseki Gasan Jōseki (峨山韶碩 1275–23 November 1366) was a Japanese Soto Zen monk. He was a disciple of Keizan Jokin, and his disciples included Bassui Tokushō, Taigen Sōshin Taigen Sōshin (太源宗真, died 1370) was a Sōtō Zen Ze ...

abbot of Sōji-ji; both of those lines of Dharma Transmission remain important in Japanese Sōtō Zen. (Jiyu-Kennett 2002: 97)

Support for training women

Apart from extending the appeal of Sōtō Zen to the rural population, Keizan made efforts to encourage the training of women in Buddhism. Keizan, in his autobiography, gave much credit to his grandmother and mother; he regarded their support as vital to his own training, and this must have influenced him. His mother, Ekan, founded two temples, Hōō-ji and Jōju-ji, the latter as a convent of which she was abbess. Keizan's veneration of the ''bodhisattva'' Guanyin (Kannon, in Japanese)—who is customarily represented as female in East Asian Buddhism—stemmed from or was enhanced by his mother's devotion to her. Around 1323 or 1324, Keizan named Myōshō, his cousin (his mother's niece), abbess of Hōō-ji. Following his mother's example of teaching Buddhism to women, Keizan gave the first

to a Sōtō nun to his student, Ekyū; Keizan had helped Ekyū by giving her copies of Dōgen's writings translated into Japanese, making them easier for her to follow than Chinese. Keizan had a nunnery constructed near Yōkō-ji (eventually making Sonin the abbess) and ensured that funds were allocated for its continuing survival (Faure 2000: 42). It is believed that five monasteries for female monks (nuns) were established by Keizan (Matsuo 2010: 143). He also named Sonin, the wife of the original donor of Yōkō-ji, as a Dharma Heir (Faure 2000: 44); Keizan claimed that Sonin was the reincarnation of Myōchi, his grandmother.

Writings

Keizan was the author of a number of works, including "Zazen Yōjinki" and, most famously, the ''

Denkōroku is a kōan collection written in 1300 by Keizan Jokin Zenji, the Great Patriarch of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, based on approximately a year of his Dharma talks. The book includes 53 enlightenment stories covering 1600 or more years based on the tra ...

'' (''Transmission of the Light''), which is a series of fifty-one sermons detailing the Sōtō lineage from

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

through the Indian Ancestors from

Bodhidharma Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to a 17th century apo ...

and the Chinese Ancestors, and finally to the Japanese Ancestors Dōgen and his immediate successor at Eihei-ji, Ejō.

Legacy

Keidō Chisan Kohō Zenji, abbot of Sōji-ji in the 1960s, wrote in ''Sōtō Zen'':

Notes

References

* ''Zen is Eternal Life'', P. T. N. Jiyu Kennett,

Shasta Abbey Shasta Abbey, located on sixteen forested acres near Mount Shasta in northern California, United States is a training monastery for Buddhist monks and a place of practice for lay Buddhists and interested visitors. It was established in 1970 by R ...

Press, 4th edition, 2000, * ''The Wild White Goose'', P. T. N. Jiyu Kennett,

Press, 2nd edition, 2002, * Nearman, Hubert, trans. (2001). Keizan Zenji, Denkoroku, , Shasta Abbey Press, 2001, * ''Visions of Power'',

Bernard Faure Bernard Faure (born 1948) is a Franco-American author and scholar of Asian religions, who focuses on Chan/Zen and Japanese esoteric Buddhism. His work draws on cultural theory, anthropology, and gender studies. He is currently a Kao Professor of ...

, Phyllis Brooks, Published by Princeton University Press, 2000 , * ''Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan'', William M. Bodiford, University of Hawaii Press, 1993, * ''Sōtō Zen'', Keidō Chisan Kohō Zenji, originally published 1960 Sōji-ji Temple, Yokohama Japan, . Available from Shasta Abbey Press, www.shastaabbey.org. * ''History of Japanese Buddhism'', Matsuo Kenji, Global Oriental, 2010, * McRae, John; Tokiwa, Gishin; Yoshida, Osamu; Heine, Steven, trans. (2005)
Zen texts
Berkeley, Calif.: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research (Advice on the practice of Zazen by Keizan) {{Authority control Soto Zen Buddhists Zen Buddhist abbots Japanese Zen Buddhists 1268 births 1325 deaths Kamakura period Buddhist clergy