There is a persistent image in the West of samurai being adherents of Zen, that the “way of the warrior” (bushido)¹ and Zen are somehow one and the same. One can imagine a samurai who has practiced swordsmanship to a finely honed skill, meditating under a waterfall, and writing Zen-like deathbed poetry before preparing to throw away their life in battle. In my first visit to Ryoanji temple (featured photo shown above), 28-year old me had a similar image in mind persisting all the way back when I was a naïve 16-year old white kid just reading about Zen for the first time. Looking back after almost 20 years of Buddhist-study and practice, I facepalm at myself a little, but it’s a very persistent image in media. (side note: Last Samurai is not my favorite movie)

So, did samurai really embrace Zen, and was Zen essentially a “samurai religion”? Turns out, it’s complicated, and most of the imagery was romanticized.

Recently, I dusted off an old book that I hadn’t read in years: Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan by Professor Martin Collcutt. As I am stuck home in Covid-isolation for a few days, I finally have time to both read and write about it.

Dr Collcut summarizes all this in the book:

Even at the height of its influence in the last fourteenth century, Zen–including the more widely diffused Sōtō Zen–probably had still not replaced devotion to Kannon, Jizō [Bodhisattva], the Lotus Sutra [e.g. Nichiren Buddhism], or the Pure Land of Amida in the hearts of most ordinary, and many high-ranking, Japanese samurai.

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Further:

Zen in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods can be called “the religion of the samurai” only in the sense that most patrons of Zen were samurai, not in the sense that it was practiced assiduously or exclusive by all, or even perhaps the majority, of those who would be described as warriors.

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So where did the image come from? Let’s take a brief look at the history of Zen, especially Rinzai Zen, in Japan.

The Two Lineages of Zen in Japan

Japan has historically two sects of Buddhism, both descended from Chinese lineages: Soto and Rinzai Zen. The differences between the two are too big to cover here, and there’s plenty of information on the web that explore the two. Suffice to say, the two lineages came to Japan in the 12th century, but took pretty different trajectories.

Soto Zen, founded by Dogen after journeying to China, did not sit well with existing powerful Buddhist sects in Japan, because of Dogen’s unwavering commitment to his ideal of ideal Zen practice, and was pushed out to the countryside. For centuries it was obscure, and enjoyed little patronage beyond certain local samurai families, primarily for the sake of prestige. Its popularity grew later through the efforts of a monk named Keizan, who developed increasing patronage from (mostly) provincial samurai rulers, and cultivated more community support. Professor Bodiford’s book, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan, is an excellent overview of its history. In any case, all Soto Zen traditions in Japan (and beyond) trace back to Dogen.

Rinzai Zen, founded by Eisai, has a much more complicated history. Eisai was willing to compromise more when he returned from China with the Buddhist establishment, so early Rinzai Zen was more like a hybrid Zen-Tendai Buddhist institution with a lot of esoteric practices. It enjoyed further popularity under Enni Ben’en (圓爾辯圓, 1202 – 1280) in the capitol of Kyoto, but remained a relatively small sect, often conflated with existing Buddhist institutions at the time.

Zen really didn’t take off until the second-half of the Kamakura Period under the Hojo Clan regency. After the death of Sanetomo, the 3rd shogun, the subsequent shoguns, distant offshoots of the family, were installed but increasingly powerless against their own regents, the Hojo Clan. Under talented Hojo leaders such as Hojo Tokiyori and Tokimune, power was consolidated, and they became the effective rulers of Japan.

But there was a persistent issue: the Hojo Clan, while militarily powerful and based in Kamakura was seen as inferior to the old aristocracy (e.g. the Fujiwara) in Kyoto who had centuries of refinement to rely upon compared to the upstarts. The old Buddhist establishment was still closely allied to the aristocracy, and thus hostile to the Hojo Clan.

Enter the Mongols

When the Mongols finally destroyed the Song Dynasty in China, establishing the new “Yuan” Dynasty, the upheaval affected many monastic institutions. Some monks, including ardent Song-loyalists, decided to leave China and make the journey to Japan either to get away from Mongol authority, or possibly in some cases, to work as spies for the Mongols who later tried to invade Japan.

Starting with a monk named Lanxi Daolong (蘭溪道隆, 1213-1278), who came to Japan in 1246 for reasons not entirely clear, followed by Wuan Puning (兀庵普寧, 1197 – 1276) in 1260, a steady stream of Rinzai-lineage monks came to Japan. For the Hojo leadership, this new source of Chinese education, culture and religious teachings practically fell into their lap, and they quickly adopted these new monks, establishing a series of monasteries in the new capital of Kamakura starting with Kenchōji (website here) in 1253, and expanding to other temples such as Engaku-ji in 1282. These new temples in Kamakura Zen temples were different than the ones that Eisai and Enni Ben’en’s temples had established in Kyoto, designed to match Song Dynasty practices, with Chinese monks frequently serving as abbots.

Thus, Rinzai Zen in Japan was essentially established as two separate lineages² albeit with a common ancestry: the first lineage established by Eisai and popularized in Kyoto by Enni Ben’en that incorporated more native Japanese-Buddhist practices, and the second lineage which came later driven by Chinese Zen monks during the end of the Song Dynasty who established a more “pure” form of Zen based on the Chinese model. It should be noted that the Chinese monks mentioned above did journey to Kyoto as well to update existing monasteries of the older lineage to modern (e.g. Song Dynasty) standards as well, but the temple of Kenchōji was the premiere Zen temple for centuries in Japan. Further, by the 14th century, and especially later, much of Rinzai Zen was more homogenized than the early communities.

The arrival of the Chinese-Buddhist teachers to Japan in the 13th century is important to note, though, because this is the point in time where the samurai class really start to interact with Zen communities.

The Hojo Clan had finally found a way to one-up their rivals in Kyoto by raising their own cultural credentials with the new immigrants from China, but also some Hojo family members really did embrace Rinzai Zen teachings. Hojo Tokiyori (北条 時頼, 1227 – 1263) and his son, Tokimune (北条 時宗, 1251 – 1284) both became avid students under Chinese teachers, patronized the new monastic communities in Kamakura, and encouraged its practice among their samurai vassals. Other regents of the Hojo Clan never took much interest. But now, Zen finally had the patronage it needed to expand and grow in Japan, yet as Collcut’s book shows, it was still largely adopted for cultural prestige, and also oftentimes due to obligation towards Hojo Clan. Many of these vassal clans later rose to be major powers centuries later (cf. Hosokawa, Takeda, Uesugi, Tokugawa, etc) with their own patronage to Zen temples in their provinces.

Later, as the Hojo Clan finally declined in power, and gradually replaced by the Ashikaga Clan (e.g the Muromachi Period), the pattern continued. Both the emperors of the time such as Go-Daigo and Hanazono, and the Ashikaga Shoguns patronized Rinzai Zen temples, but often times for political expediency. The “Five Mountains” monastic system developed at this time, borrowed from Chinese cultural, is a big topic, and worthy of its own post.

The high-point of “Zen-Samurai” culture as we know it can probably be traced to the 8th shogun of the Ashikaga Clan, Yoshimasa (足利 義政, 1436 – 1490) who while being a dismal military commander, was a brilliant innovator of Zen aesthetics. Yoshimasa had a taste of artistic genius, and patronized Zen-influenced architecture, painting, poetry, and gardening, and so on, but also directly added his own spin. The “zen aesthetic” we all recognize is largely due to Yoshimasa who synthesized earlier Song-Dynasty culture through establishment of institutions by the Hojo Clan.

However, on a personal level, Yoshimasa recited the nembutsu and seldom meditated.

Conclusion

All this is not meant to detract from Zen teachings, or the contributions of Zen monks to Japanese culture, or to imply that there were no Zen-devotees among the samurai class, but as I alluded to in the beginning, the romanticized Zen-Samurai image mostly exists on paper or in the writings of its sincere devotees. It was the ideal at the time among enthusiasts, and this ideal has persisted into Western culture, including teachers and self-help gurus.

How samurai in Japan, or Japanese in general, interacted with Buddhism (including Zen) was complicated and very individual, and not always related to piety. When you look at other pre-modern cultures, you see similar patterns. The emperors of the Eastern Romans had a complex relationship with the Church, and usually were not interested in the deeper teachings, or various doctrinal conflicts of the Byzantine Orthodox church except when it interfered with political goals (cf. iconoclasm, schisms, etc), or were varying degrees of sincerity. Further, how they practiced religion would have been noticeably different than your typical Eastern Roman in the provinces or the streets of Byzantium.

Now, imagine the same in any other culture: Western medieval communities, people in the Islamic caliphate, Chinese Buddhists, etc.

In short, how people interact with religion, and how its romanticized, are two different things. The dynamic interaction of people, culture and religion is fascinating, but not very marketable. The romanticized form of religion is marketable, but is like a bag of potato chips: tastes good, but rarely provides anything meaningful.

¹ Please, please, please: if you ever go visit Japan, do not wear a “bushido” shirt. It really pegs you as a tourist.

² The third “Obaku” sect of Zen in Japan is in fact yet another Rinzai Zen lineage that came from China, this time from the Ming Dynasty. By this point, Pure Land Buddhism and Zen in China had largely reconciled, and Obaku Zen includes more elements of Pure Land than is found in other Rinzai lineages, while still retaining its core Zen element.