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 school, Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Caodong school, Cáodòng school, which was founded during the ...

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 ...

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 ...

temple founded about 1278 in Echizen,

Fukui prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Fukui Prefecture has a population of 737,229 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,190 Square kilometre, km2 (1,617 sq mi). Fukui Prefecture border ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

.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 file:Plan Eihei-ji.svg, 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). The other is Sōji-ji in Yokohama. Eihei-ji is loc ...

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 The 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 ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

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, 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 . Keiz ...

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

Bibliography

References

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