Enni Ben'en (圓爾辯圓; 1 November 1202 – 10 November 1280) or simply Enni, also known as Shōichi Kokushi, was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

monk. He started his Buddhist training as a

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

monk. While he was studying with

Eisai was a Japanese Buddhist priest, credited with founding the Rinzai school, the Japanese line of the Linji school of Zen Buddhism. In 1191, he introduced this Zen approach to Japan, following his trip to China from 1187 to 1191, during which he w ...

, a vision of

Sugawara no Michizane , or , was a scholar, poet, and politician of the Heian period of Japan. He is regarded as an excellent poet, particularly in '' waka'' and '' kanshi'' poetry, and is today revered in Shinto as the god of learning, . In the famed poem anthology ' ...

appeared to him in a dream and told him to go to China and study meditation. Following this vision, he met the

Rinzai The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school of ...

teacher

Wuzhun Shifan Wuzhun Shifan ( zh, c=無準師範; Wade-Giles: Wu Chun Shih Fan; 1178–1249) was a Chinese calligrapher, and Chan (Zen) Buddhist monk who lived during the late Song Dynasty (960–1279). Life Wuzhun Shifan was born in Zitong, Sichuan pro ...

in China, and studied

Mahayana Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...

with him. When he returned to Japan, after founding

Jōten-ji is a Rinzai temple in Hakata, Fukuoka, Japan. Its honorary '' sangō'' prefix is . It was founded by Enni-Ben'en upon his return from China, with support from Xie Guo Ming, a Chinese merchant. Construction was completed in 1242. Introduction o ...

temple in Hakata (Fukuoka), he founded

Tōfuku-ji is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku in Kyoto, Japan. Tōfuku-ji takes its name from two temples in Nara, Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji.Japan ReferenceTōfuku-ji/ref> It is one of the Kyoto ''Gozan'' or "five great Zen temples of Kyoto". It ...

monastery in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, and practiced

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

as well as other types of Buddhism. His disciples included

Mujū Mujū Dōkyō (; 1 January 1227 – 9 November 1312), birth name Ichien Dōkyō, was a Buddhist monk of the Japanese Kamakura period. He is superficially considered a Rinzai monk by some due to his compilation of the '' Shasekishū'' and similar ...

. It is traditionally believed that Enni was one of the monks who introduced noodles to Japan from China. The origin of the most famous festival in Fukuoka City, the

Hakata Gion Yamakasa is a Japanese festival celebrated from the 1st until the 15th of July in Hakata, Fukuoka. The festivities are centered on the Kushida Jinja. The festival is famous for the Kakiyama, that weigh around one ton and are carried around the city a ...

is believed to date back to 1241 and is closely related to Enni. He had people carry him around the town on a float while praying against the plague and eventually getting successfully rid of it. Thus in remembrance, it became an annual event.

Works

Enni Ben'en is the possible author of the ''Shoichikokushi Kana Hogo'' (''Vernacular Dharma Words of the National Teacher Sacred Unity''). The text is also known as the ''Zazenron'' (''Treatise on Seated Meditation''). It is a brief text, composed of 24 questions and answers.

References

Sources

* * * 1202 births 1280 deaths Zen Buddhist monks Japanese Buddhist clergy People of the Kamakura period 13th-century Buddhists Rinzai Buddhists Buddhist clergy of the Kamakura period {{Japan-reli-bio-stub