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(1277-1350) was a Japanese
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 ...
monk who lived during the late
Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...
and early
Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...
. He practiced with Keizan Jōkin, often considered the second most important figure in Sōtō Zen after Eihei Dōgen, for twenty-nine years and ultimately became his primary successor. Meihō began his time with Keizan in 1294 at the temple Daijōji in
Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...
. Keizan's teacher,
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 dharm ...
, remained
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...
of Daijōji until 1298, when the abbotship passed to Keizan. Though retired, Gikai remained at Daijōji until his death in 1309. Gikai had familial ties with the Togashi family that patronized Daijōji; when he died, frictions apparently ensued between the Togashi family and Keizan. About two years after Gikai's death, in the tenth month of 1311, Keizan gave the abbotship of Daijōji to Meihō, along with Dōgen's '' okesa'' that had been handed on to him from Gikai in 1295. He claimed that Meihō had been Gikai's true choice for the position. Keizan left to found the temple Yōkōji on the nearby Noto Peninsula. However, for an unknown reason, Meihō was forced to leave the position at the insistence of Daijōji's lay patrons. He was replaced by the Rinzai monk Kyōō Unryō. It is not entirely clear when Kyōō took over, however, and the whereabouts of Meihō are not mentioned until 1323, when he arrived at Yōkōji after coming from
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 ...
, where he had recently performed memorial services for Eisai, one of Dōgen's teachers, at
Kennin-ji is a historic Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, and head temple of its associated branch of Rinzai Buddhism. It is considered to be one of the so-called Kyoto ''Gozan'' or "five most important Zen temples of Kyoto". History Kennin-ji was ...
. Meihō became the abbot of Yōkōji in the eighth month 1325, just one week before Keizan's death. Keizan had instructed that his disciples take turns holding the position of abbot of Yōkōji, so Meihō left the position to Mugai Chikō (d. 1351), another of Keizan's students, around the year 1339. At that time, Meihō was able to return to Daijōji. Meanwhile, after each of Keizan's primary disciples (the others being
Gasan Jōseki Gasan Jōseki (峨山韶碩 1275–23 November 1366) was a Japanese people, Japanese Soto Zen monk. He was a disciple of Keizan Jokin, and his students included Bassui Tokushō, Taigen Sōshin, Tsūgen Jakurei, Mutan Sokan, Daisetsu Sōrei, and J ...
and Kōan Shinkan) had taken a turn as abbot of Yōkōji, they each began rotating their own disciples through the abbotship, again in accordance with Keizan's instructions. However, the system had broken down by 1379, and from that year the next ten abbots of Yōkōji were all descendants of Meihō's lineage. This appears to have been part of a heated rivalry for control of the Sōtō school between Meihō's line with the temples Yōkōji and Daijōji under their control on the one hand, and Gasan Jōseki's line, which control the temple Sōjiji, on the other. Sōjiji would ultimately prove to be the more influential temple, as students in Gasan's lineage fanned out across Japan, founding many new temples that proved long-lived and successful. Meihō's successors, on the other hand, mostly stayed in the north-central region of the country around Yōkōji and Daijōji. There was one notable exception;
Daichi Sokei (1290–1366) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen monk famous for his Buddhist poetry who lived during the late Kamakura period and early Muromachi period. According to Steven Heine, a Buddhist studies professor, "Daichi is unique in being considered one ...
founded a temple in the
Higo Province was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. It was sometimes called , with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces. History The cas ...
of
Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...
in southern Japan. However, his lineage proved short lived after also losing the support of his patrons. Meihō was given an elaborate funeral in 1350 in which some seventy-two items were used to decorate his cremation pyre, suggesting an increase in wealth at the main Sōtō temples since the time of Dōgen. The funeral also displayed an increase in the use of
esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...
rituals, such as the chanting of the
Nīlakaṇṭha Dhāraṇī The , also known as the , or Great Compassion Dhāraṇī / Mantra (Standard Chinese, Chinese: 大悲咒, ''Dàbēi zhòu''; Japanese language, Japanese: 大悲心陀羅尼, ''Daihishin darani'' or 大悲呪, ''Daihi shu''; Vietnamese language, ...
, Śūraṅgama mantra, and
Mantra of Light file:World's Largest Gold & Jade Buddha, Nanshan Guanyin Park (10098528223).jpg, A statue of Avalokiteśvara, Amoghapāśa Lokeśvara at Nanshan Island, Nanshan, China. The Mantra of Light, alternatively (光明真言, pinyin: ''guāngmíng zhēny ...
. These were each chanted by a group of 100 monks who did so continuously with multiple shifts. After his death, Meihō continued to be invoked as a posthumous preceptor during ordination ceremonies so that he would continue to accrue merit from the rituals.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meiho, Sotetsu Soto Zen Buddhists Zen Buddhist abbots 14th-century abbots Japanese Zen Buddhists 1277 births 1350 deaths Buddhist clergy of the Kamakura period Buddhist clergy of Muromachi-period Japan