Tag: Japan

Making Sense of Zen Lineages

Recently, I found myself stuck in one of my usual nerd “rabbit holes” of trying to make sense of Zen lineages in Japanese Buddhism, but this led to a more complicated rabbit hole of making sense of the source “Chan” (Zen) lineages in China. This started after reading my new book on Rinzai Zen, which included a nice chart. At first, I tried to emulate and translate that chart in Canva, but then I realized it was missing some critical details, so I kept adding more. This is the result (click on the image for more detail):

Let’s go over this a bit so it makes more sense.

The premise behind all Zen sects regardless of country and lineage is that Zen started when the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, supposedly held a flower up to his disciples and said nothing. Everyone was confused except his disciple Maha-Kashyapa who smiled in understanding. From here, according to tradition, the teachings were passed down from teacher to disciples for 28 generations in India, culminating in a monk named Bodhidharma who came to China.

A painting of Bodhidharma at Sojiji temple (head of Soto Zen sect) in Kawasaki, Japan. Taken by me in 2010 (?).

The history up to this point is somewhat vague, and possibly apochryphal, but easy to follow.

This continues for a few more generations in China, until you get to a monk named Hui-Neng (Enō in Japanese)1 who is the supposed author of the Platform Sutra, a Chinese text. As the 6th “patriarch” of the lineage in China, he establishes what we know today as “Chan Buddhism” or Chinese Zen.

Things become more complicated a couple generations later as two descendants: Mazu Daoyi2 and Shitou Xiqian3 directly or indirectly found different schools of Chan Buddhism. This is known as the Five Houses of Chan period during the Tang Dynasty. Thus, the entire Chan/Zen tradition as we know it today is derived from Hui-neng and transmitted through these two men.

Out of the five houses, the Hongzhou,4 Lin-ji and Cao-dong5 all survive in some form. The others are gradually absorbed into the Lin-ji school, which in the long-run is what becomes the most widespread form of Chan Buddhism in China. The Cao-dong school is the one exception, while the Hongzhou school’s success in Korea helps establish 8 out of 9 of the “Nine Schools of Seon (Chan)”6 in Korea. It through Bojo Jinul’s efforts in Korea that these nine schools are unified into the Jogye Order (homepage) which absorbed other Buddhist traditions in Korea into a single, cohesive one.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the Lin-ji and Cao-dong schools find their way to Japan where the names are preserved, but pronounced different: Rinzai and Soto respectively. Rinzai’s history is particularly complicated because they were multiple, unrelated transmissions to Japan often spurred by the Mongol conquest of China. Of these various Rinzai lineages, the two that survive are the “Otokan” Rinzai lineage through Hakuin, and the “Obaku” lineage through Ingen, but eventually the Otokan lineage absorbed the Obaku lineage. Today, Rinzai Zen is more formally called Rinzai-Obaku, or Rinnou (臨黄) for short. This is a bit confusing because Rinzai came to Japan under a monk named Eisai, and his lineage did continue for a while in Japan especially in Kyoto, but the lineage from the rival city of Kamakura ultimately prevailed and absorbed other Rinzai lineages. Obaku Zen arrived pretty late in Japanese-Buddhist history, and as you can see from the chart has some common ancestry with Rinzai, but also some differences due to cultural divergence and history.

Soto Zen’s history is quite a bit more streamlined as it had only one founder (Dogen), and although it did grow to have rival sects for a time, Keizan was credited for ultimately unifying these though not without some controversy even into the 19th century.

Anyhow, to summarize, the entire tradition started from a legendary sermon by the Buddha to Maha-Kashyapa, and was passed on over successive generations in India to a legendary figure who came to China and starting with Hui-neng became a tree with many branches. Yet, the roots are all the same. Speaking as someone who’s relatively new to the tradition, I realize while specific liturgy and practices differ, the general teachings and intent remain the surprisingly consistent regardless of culture or label.

Hope this information helps!

P.S. I had trouble deciding which term to use here: Zen or Chan or Seon since they all literally mean the same thing, but are oriented toward one culture or another. If this all seems confusing, the key to remember is that the entire tradition of Zen/Chan/Seon (and Thien in Vietnam) is all one and the same tree.

P.P.S. I realized that I never covered the Vietnamese (Thien, “tee-ehn”) tradition, but there’s so little information on it in English (and I cannot read Vietnamese), that I will have to differ that to another day.

1 Pronounced like “hwey-nung” in English.

2 Pronounced like “ma-tsoo dow-ee” in English.

3 Pronounced like “shih-tow shee-chee-yen” in English.

4 Pronounced like “hohng-joe” in English.

5 Pronounced like “tsow-dohng” in English.7

6 The Korean word “Seon” is pronounced like “sawn” in English. It is how the Chinese character for Chan/Zen () is pronounced in Korean Language.

7 If you made it this far in the post, congrats! I had to put so many footnotes in here because the Pinyin system of Romanizing Chinese words is a little less intuitive than the old Wade-Giles system. Pinyin is not hard to learn. In fact, I think Pinyin is better than the old Wade-Giles system (more “what you see is what you get”), but if you don’t learn Pinyin it can be confusing.better This is always a challenge with a writing system that strictly uses ideograms (e.g. Chinese characters). How do you write 慧能 into an alphabetic system that foreigners can intuitively understand. Also, which foreigners? (English-speaking, French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, etc). Anyhow, if you are interested in learning Chinese, I highly recommend learning Pinyin anyway because it’s quick and easy to pick up. BTW, since I posted about Hokkien recently it also has two different Rominzation systems: Pe̍h-ōe-jī (old, but widespread) and Tâi-lô (Taiwan’s official revised system).

Rinzai Zen Sutra Book

Recently, I wrote about a Soto Zen sutra book I purchased some years ago, and it’s still one of the best books I own. Today, I wanted to highlight another Japanese-Buddhist sutra book that I had for years, but never really understood what it was about.

The book is available online here, among other places. The book was published by Nanzenji temple, a major Rinzai Zen temple, and I found it at a Kinokuniya bookstore here in the US in the Japanese-language section. It is titled 私の般若心経 (watashi no hannya shingyō, “My Heart Sutra [book]”)

The sutra book is really small, and easily fits in the palm of my hand. As the website description states, this is designed to that one can carry it on one’s person as a charm, but also use it for home liturgy. Pretty clever. I’ve seen such “sutra book charms” before but usually they are very small, and the print is lower-quality, since it’s meant to be carried, not read. This by contrast is very nice quality.

Inside, the contents are surprisingly dense for such a small book. Inside contains the texts necessary to do a home service according to Rinzai tradition, though it differs slightly from the one I posted previously.1

The contents, shown below include basic liturgy such as repentance verses, the opening of the sutra, a copy of the Heart Sutra, dedication of merit, four bodhisattva vows, and so on.

Above, we see the first four pages of the sutra book, from right to left: a picture of Kannon Bodhisattva, then the table of contents, an explanation about how to gassho, and finally the sangemon (verses on repentance).

Below, you can see the Heart Sutra from end to end (read right-to-left, vertically). If you can read Japanese hiragana script, you can recite this because each Chinese character is annotated with a pronunciation guide (a.k.a. furigana):

The furigana script is a bit small and hard to read, but that’s understandable given how small this book is.

Surprisingly, the sutra book contains other things I wasn’t expecting, such as mantras for the Thirteen Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, often recited during yearly memorials for the deceased. The book also the Mantra of Light, surprisingly. It also contains the five verses for contemplating food.

Finally, the book contains a sermon by the author, and has a handy blank section at the end for taking notes.

Weirdly, I’ve owned this book for almost 10 years, but back then I couldn’t read Japanese very well, so I didn’t fully appreciate what the contents of the book were, plus I had no familiarity with Rinzai Zen. Now that I have a bit more experience, I can appreciate this book a lot more, and have been using it for home liturgy lately.

For such a compact book, it’s really very nice, and only costs ¥550.

If you’re able to read basic hiragana script, and have an interest in Rinzai Zen, it’s definitely worth a purchase.

1 As noted in a previous post, Rinzai Zen in particular a number of lineages and factions, each one based around a different temple. This may help explain why the liturgy varies as much as it does.

Zen Verses for Mealtime

As I write this post, I am in Dublin, Ireland on a short trip (business, not pleasure), helping my daughter get settled in for college. Thanks to timezone differences my daughter and I were awake at 11:30pm on a Friday and starving.

Taken near Trinity College and the main Bank of Ireland building (right).

Since a lot of pubs close their kitchens early, we went over to the local Supermac’s1 :

My daughter took this photo of her food. Mine is at the far end of the table (upper right corner).

It’s Friday night, so as we’re seated, people are stumbling in drunk looking for some cheap food, and there’s a steady stream of food delivery guys picking up orders. Still, even here, as I open my bag and eat my food, I try to still take a moment and appreciate the food, so I discreetly did gassho.

In Japanese culture, people will usually say itadakimasu before eating food, and gochisōsama deshita after finishing. The word itadakimasu is just the humble form of the verb “I receive”, and gochisōsama deshita means “It was a wonderful meal”.

But there’s also a set of verses that in the Zen tradition are recited before meals called the Shokuji Gokan (食事五観, “five observations at mealtime”). When I was watching a documentary recently, during mealtime, one of the Eiheiji monks walked the documentary host through the five verses. The five verses in Japanese for the Rinzai tradition are:

  1. 一つには、功の多少を計り、彼の来処を量る。
    hitotsu ni wa, kō no tashō wo hakari, kano raisho wo hakaru
  2. 二つには、己が徳行の全闕を忖って供に応ず。
    futatsu ni wa, onore ga tokugyō no zenketsu wo hakatte, ku ni ōzu
  3. 三つには、心を防ぎ、過貪等を離るるを宗とす。
    mitsu ni wa, shin wo fusegi, togatontō wo hanaruru wo shū to su
  4. 四つには、正に良薬を事とするは形枯を療ぜんが為なり。
    yotsu ni wa, masa ni ryōyaku wo koto to suru wa gyōko wo ryōzen ga tame nari
  5. 五つには、道業を成ぜんが為に、応にこの食を受くべし。
    Itsutsu ni wa, dōgyō wo jōzen ga tame ni, ō ni kono jiki wo uku beshi.

The verses in Soto Zen appear to be slightly different. I am fairly certain, these are descended from Chinese Chan Buddhism, but I wasn’t able to find much information.

There are a lot of fine English translations available, though for now I am using the one from Sotozen.net:

  1. We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.
  2. We reflect on our virtue and practice, and whether we are worthy of this offering.
  3. We regard it as essential to free ourselves of excesses such as greed.
  4. We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our life.
  5. For the sake of enlightenment, we now receive this food.

In either case, the meaning is the same: before we take in the food, we should first reflect where it came from (and the countless people who made it possible),2 and whether we are living up to the practice or not. Finally, the verses remind us that food is essentially medicine (hence don’t be a pig), and that it helps us along the path toward Enlightenment. Even some chips (fries) at Supermac’s is something to be grateful for.

So, hello from Ireland, and will post more soon! 🇮🇪🖖🏼

1 The local version of McDonald’s, but ten times better.

2 The Jodo Shinshu tradition focuses on the concept of “gratitude“, so there’s a lot of overlap here.

The Ten Oxen of Buddhism

While reading my introduction book in Japanese about Rinzai Zen, I came across a famous set of paintings that I had totally forgotten about for thirty years.

Me at the age of 17 demonstrating the “Lion Roar Yoga” pose (?) at my world religions class in high school with my teacher. The Burger King crown was something I got from the nearby restaurant because my friends and I would race there during lunch break, eat for 5 minutes, and run back to class. Ah, teenage life….

Many, many moons ago, I was a cocky 17-year old first learning about Buddhism, and Mr Pierini was my World Religions teacher in high school. Mr Pierini was a charming, older Italian-American gentleman who had a lovely opera voice, and loved sharing cool ideas with us kids. This is how I first started to explore Buddhism beyond reading books at home.1

There were a number of things I learned about Zen then that seemed really cool and mystical. Looking back they made no sense to me, but they were fascinating. It sounded “cool” to be Zen, but admittedly, I was young, clueless, showing off, and knew nothing. Among the things I read about at the time were the Mumonkan and the Ten Oxen, texts that (I realize now) are both related to the Rinzai Zen tradition.

The Ten Oxen (shíniú 十牛 in Chinese) is a famous set of ten paintings, with poetic captions that were composed in the Southern Song Dynasty of China. The powerful Song Dynasty lost the northern half of China to the barbarian Jin Dynasty,2 and retreated to the south beyond the Yangtze River, where it held on for another 150 years. Despite having their back to a wall, the southern Song Dynasty oversaw a wonderful flowering of Chinese culture, including Buddhism, and especially Chinese “Chan” (Zen) Buddhism. This is also noteworthy, because historically this is the time when such monks as Eisai and Dogen both came to China from Japan to study Zen.3

The use of oxen as a symbol for taming the mind in Buddhism, according to Wikipedia, dates way back to early India including such texts in the Pali Canon as the Maha-gopalaka Sutta, but the Ten Oxen were a way to visually explain the Buddhist path (as described in the Chan/Zen tradition) to readers as a nice easy introduction. There were, evidentially several versions in circulation, but in Japan the version by one Kakuan (Chinese: Kuòān Shīyuǎn, 廓庵師遠) from the 12th century was all the rage during the Five Mountains Period of Japanese-Buddhist history. It is since known as the jūgyūzu (十牛図).

My book has a nice, down to earth explanation of the ten oxen and what they mean, so rather than posting the images with poetry, I wanted to share the simple explanations here. The illustrations are from Wikimedia Commons, and were originally painted by one Tenshō Shūbun (天章周文; died c. 1444–50).

Searching for the ox

The cowherd is searching for his lost ox. The book explains that this is like someone looking for their lost Buddha-nature: that potential within us to awaken to full Buddha-hood (a.k.a. “Enlightenment”).

Footprints sighted

The cowherd now finds the footprints of his missing ox. This is like the Buddhist disciple who studies the Dharma (e.g. “Buddhism”), and gets the first hints at the true nature of things.

Ox sighted

Just as the cowherd sees his lost ox at last, the disciple of the Buddha grasps the point of the Dharma is (i.e. what’s it all about).

Grasping the Ox

One moment the cowherd has grasped the ox, another moment he is about to lose it. In the same way, my book explains that a person may perceived their true nature one moment, but lose sight of it again. The Buddhist disciple is still inexperienced and lacks certainty.

Taming the Ox

The wayward ox is now under control and lassoed, so the cowherd escorts it back home. For the Buddhist disciple, my book explains that through self-discipline such as the precepts, one’s delusions and conduct are brought to heel. This doesn’t mean they have resolved things, and one can still backslide, but at least they are under control now.

Riding the Ox

The cowherd is now confidently riding atop the ox, playing a flute. This means that one’s Buddha-nature is expressed through one’s form and behavior.

Forgetting the ox

Now that the cowherd is safely home with the ox, the ox is no longer a concern. My book explains that this symbolizes Enlightenment as one attains peace of mind.

Forgetting the distinction between self and ox

Here this empty circle expresses the Zen ideal that all is empty, and that there’s no distinction between oneself and the ox, or anything else for that matter; this is the Heart Sutra in a nutshell.

Back to basics

Having awakening to the nature of all things, things “return to the source” in a sense, or put another way, one sees mountains and mountains, trees as trees, etc. No more, no less.

Returning to society

My book explains that the cowherd now appears like Hotei (Chinese: Budai), the famous, jolly-looking figure in Chinese Buddhism and is in turn sharing the Dharma with another young cowherd. This cowherd will undergo the same quest, starting at picture one above.

In other words, everything comes full-circle.

In the same way, I don’t think teenage me imagined myself blogging about this 30 years later, and a bit more experienced, but life is funny that way.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu

1 Mr Pierini, thank you. 🙏🏼

2 Both would ultimately be destroyed by the Mongols especially under Kublai Khan who formed the Yuan Dynasty. This period of time is important to Japanese Zen history too because the influx of Chinese monks, especially Rinzai monks, to Kamakura-period Japan helped fuel a rise in Zen there. In the same way, the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 helped fuel the Renaissance in the West as refugees from the Eastern Roman Empire brought lost knowledge and know-how to the West. If there was any proof that we’re all connected in some way, look no further.

3 Earlier generations of Buddhist monks like Kukai (founder of Shingon) and Saicho (founder of Tendai) came to China during the Tang Dynasty, when connections to India were still flourishing. Hence, in Kukai’s case, he could study esoteric doctrine and Sanskrit directly from Indian-Buddhist monks. Centuries later, when Dogen and Eisai came to China, Buddhism had declined in India, and had gradually taken root in China in a more Chinese way. Of course, the Dharma is the Dharma, regardless of which culture and time it is taught, but it’s noteworthy that the Buddhism Dogen and Eisai was different: esoteric and scholarly Indian Buddhism had fallen out of favor, and a growing Zen (Chan in Chinese) community had largely replaced them.

Jodo Shu Home Liturgy

Hello dear readers, I realized recently that after posting I home liturgy examples for Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, and Tendai sect Buddhism, I had never posted about Jodo Shu sect home liturgy despite being a follower for many years. There are a couple reasons for this.

Sutra book for Jodo Shu followers. I think this might be the first such book I have ever owned.

First, as someone who came to Jodo Shu Buddhism many years ago, I tended to rely on English sources only, and such sources tend follow Honen’s teachings, but nothing beyond that. Thus, through such books I followed Honen’s simple advice that focusing on the nembutsu is all that mattered. So, in my early efforts to learn Buddhist practice, I focused on reciting just the nembutsu. More on why the liturgy has expanded over time later in this post.

The second reason is that the Jodo Shu home liturgy is particularly long. My book on Jodo Shu explains that this usually takes about 20 minutes.

My limited experience confirms this. I have an old Jodo Shu sutra book from many years ago, which I received during one of our earliest family trips to Japan. That particular winter, we celebrated New Year in Japan, I got to participate in a local Joya-no-kané (“ringing of the temple bell”) ceremony, thanks to my father-in-law, and generally had a great time. It might even be the first sutra book I ever owned.

A photo of Honen, founder of Jodo Shu Buddhism, with his famous poem “Moonlight” below. A copy of his handwriting is to the right depicting the Nembutsu.

The book, needless to say, has some sentimental value for me.

But I digress.

You can find example Jodo Shu liturgy here on the official Jodo Shu homepage in Japanese. There is even a translated one on the Jodo Shu North American mission website. The format of the liturgy is:

  1. Kōgé – verse for offering incense
  2. Sanbōrai – taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha
  3. Shibujō or Sanbujō – both are verses of praise to the Buddhas
  4. Sangege – verses of repentance
  5. Junen – reciting the nembutsu ten times.
  6. Kaikyōgé – verses for opening the sutra
  7. Shiseigé – an excerpt of the Sutra on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, which I posted here.
  8. Honzeigé – dedicating the good merit to all beings
  9. Junen – reciting the nembutsu ten times.
  10. Ichimai-kishōmon – Honen’s One-sheet Document, essentially his last will and testimony.
  11. (optional) Hotsuganmon – a verse attributed to Chinese Pure Land master Shan-dao, expressing a desire to be reborn in the Pure Land, become a bodhisattva and help others.1
  12. Shōyakumon – a verse for expressing the light of Amida Buddha.
  13. Nembutsu-ichi-é – reciting the nembutsu as much as one likes.
  14. Sō-e-kō-gé – Another verse for transferring the good merit to all beings.
  15. Junen – reciting the nembutsu ten times.
  16. Sōgangé – a variation of the Four Bodhisattva vows.
  17. Sanshōrai or Sanjinrai – three adorations or prostrations toward Amida Buddha
  18. Sōbutsu-gé – verses of praise to the Buddhas, but also a kind of warm sendoff too.
  19. Junen – reciting the nembutsu ten times.

As you can see, it has many components, with the nembutsu sprinkled throughout. Many of these verses are very short too, so once you get used to the format, it is not that hard. It can feel a bit daunting upfront if you’re new to Pure Land Buddhism, though.

Thankfully, the Japanese site also has a couple example videos showing slightly different versions of the liturgy. Version one below with uses the Shibujo and Sanshorai:

and version two, which recites the Sanbujo and Sanshinrai instead:

The North America sites uses a little of both: the Sanbujo from version two, and the Sanshorai from version one. By contrast, my sutra book has all the verses, so you presumably pick which version you want to recite. It seems like they are basically interchangeable.

Since there is already an official English translation available online, I won’t repost here. Please refer to the links above for more details.

Instead, I wanted to address the question of liturgy versus just saying the nembutsu, and I found a good explanation in this article.

The author reiterates that Jodo Shu Buddhism begins and ends with the nembutsu and doesn’t need other verses to effect rebirth in the Pure Land. So, pretty consistent so far.

And yet, the author cites Honen who encouraged people to cultivate the “five right practices” (五種正行, goshushōgyō) which includes:

  • Recitation of verses
  • Observation
  • Paying homage
  • Reciting the nembutsu [lit. Amida Buddha’s sacred name]
  • Praise

Thus as a liturgy, it is meant to cultivate all five, with the nembutsu as the peak or the climax of a movie. From a general Mahayana-Buddhist standpoint, it covers all the important points: taking refuge, repentance, reciting a Buddhist sutra, sharing the good merit, and vows toward becoming a Bodhisattva.

My personal opinion is that if you’re new to Pure Land Buddhism, it’s perfectly fine to just recite the nembutsu, but as you become more comfortable with Buddhism, you can expand to include the whole liturgy. I have no doubt that it’s a wonderful experience once you do it from start-to-finish, but without context it can seem a bit difficult.

In any case, good luck and happy chanting!

1 My sutra book puts the Hotsuganmon at the very end, while the Jodo Shu site in Japanese puts it just after the One Sheet Document. The North America Jodo Shu site doens’t include it at all. I am not sure why there is a difference in format. I assume it is optional.

Obaku Zen Morning Service

This is just another small, bonus post. A little while back, I was looking into the Obaku school of Zen, but even in Japanese information is pretty hard to find. However, I was able to find this sound clip from the NHK. This is a sound clip of a morning service at Manpuku-ji Temple, the head temple of the sect.

What distinguishes Obaku Zen (ōbaku-shū, 黄檗宗) from other Zen sects, and Japanese Buddhism in general is how late it was imported into Japan from China. Most sects imported during the Tang or Song dynasties, namely 8th or 11th centuries. But Obaku Zen came to Japan during the Ming Dynasty (14th century). It shares the same common lineage as Japanese Rinzai Zen, so they’re sibling sects. Yet, across centuries some things had diverged, and Obaku imports a lot more Ming-era Buddhist aspects, such as a fusion of Pure Land and Zen teachings (which came later in Chinese-Buddhist history), and changes to liturgy and pronunciation.1

So, if you ever see Obaku Zen liturgy (I’ve only seen a few screenshots), it sounds somewhat different even when it’s the same liturgy, because pronunciation changed over time in China.

Anyhow, just a minor nerd moment. Please enjoy!

1 Languages change and shift, including Chinese. Chinese-Buddhist liturgy imported to Japan from the Tang Dynasty would sound different than the same imported into Japan during the Ming. If that seems far-fetched, look at English language.

Bad Tourists at Buddhist Temples

I found this video on Youtube recently by a native Laotian tour guide:

I’ve seen bad behavior in Japan too, not toward Buddhist monks, but toward local Geisha. I remember at Asakusa Temple, a trio of geisha were walking, and a horde of male photographers (Japanese and foreign) ran after them. It was… weird.

I also remember one time at Zojo-ji Temple seeing a foreign couple (European maybe), who were doing yoga poses in front of the mausoleum of the Tokugawa shoguns. I don’t think they understood what they were standing in front of, but it looked really stupid, and Buddhist temples have nothing to do with Yoga anyway.

I doubt readers here are the kind of people to get in monks’ faces for a camera shot, or harass geisha, or make stupid photos at temples, but hopefully readers can help raise awareness about such awful behavior. Tourists might act normal at home because they are bound by social conventions, but some people forget that they are guests in other people’s countries and flaunt common courtesy. Tour companies will gloss over this in the name of profit. In the end, it’s the locals who suffer.

If you are traveling, think of yourself as a guest in someone else’s house. In other words, don’t be a dick.

Buddhas of the Three Time Periods

Something cool I learned about while watching a Japanese documentary of Eiheiji temple, one of the two core temples in the Soto Zen tradition. Evidentially there is a small Buddhist altar there that features three Buddha statues. You can see photos of it here, the building (called the butsuden 仏殿) is here. This is posted on a separate blog too. You can see a photo of the three buddhas at the very bottom of this page here.

But who are these three Buddhas? In Japanese this is called the Sanzebutsu (三世仏), or “Buddhas of the Three Time Periods”.

In order these are:

  • Amida Buddha – the Buddha of the Past (he accomplished his vows eons ago), and thus the Pure Land was established.
  • Shakyamuni Buddha – the Buddha of the Present (the current eon of history), the historical founder of Buddhism. Also known as Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni, etc.
  • Maitreya Buddha – Buddha of the Future (he has not accomplished his vows yet, but will eons later). For now he dwells in the heaven realm of Tushita.

This “trinity” of Buddhas is not limited to Eiheiji Temple. You can find similar works of art in other temples as well.

Anyhow, it’s an intriguing idea that the Dharma has always existed across space and time, but simply represented by different Buddhas as appropriate.

Namu Amida Butsu
Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Miroku Bosatsu

Family

Ying Nan: You are a product of all who came before you. The legacy of your family, the good and the bad, it is all a part of who you are.

Shang-chi (2021)

My kids and I have been watching the Marvel MCU movies for years. My firstborn is particularly a Marvel fan since she was a little girl. Some of the movies are better than others (my personal favorite is Thor: Ragnarok),1 but we both really like the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

When my wife (who is Japanese) and I first dated, there was an immediate clash of cultures. I was a generic American white kid who grew up in an impoverished broken home with lots of issues, my wife grew up in a working-class Japanese family that was not overly traditional, but still very Japanese compared to American standards. The fact we were dating in the first place was a bit awkward for her and her parents, whereas I hardly ever talked to my own parents.

The good news is that over time, we learned to understand one another, and that means that I too learned to appreciate her viewpoint sometimes. For example, family.

Even when she disagreed with her parents, she still respected them, and understood her family obligations. This was something frankly new to me because I openly rebelled against my parents, told my dad off, and hardly paid them any heed. I gradually did reconcile with my parents to some degree as I got older (and a bit wiser), to a level where we can get along, but more importantly I learned to accept that I am who I am due to my family. Like the quote above says, you can’t deny your own heritage, both the good and the bad, and that it does shape who you are.

But also, through my wife and through parenting myself, I learned that I do owe some level of gratitude to my parents for what they did. I chose not to be like my parents in how I raise my kids, but even that is something I learned from them.2 Thus, the lesson I learned from my wife is that I also have to be humble, and respectful to my parents enough to acknowledge what they’ve done for me, even if I disagree with them. This is a very Confucian outlook, but I can see the value in this.3

It rubs against my American sense of individualism, but I’ve found it a valuable lesson over the years, and something I think we can all learn from.

P.S. Xu Wenwu, the father in Shang-chi, is a great example of a plausible chaotic-evil person in Dungeons and Dragons: he craves absolute power and yet is also capable of being in love, being a father, etc. Yet, he inevitably bends everything toward evil or ruin, including his lawful-good wife, Ying Li. Tony Leung Chiu-wai‘s performance was excellent.

1 The Thor movies do a really nice job of weaving science fiction with magic and myth, much like Roger Zelazny did in his books generations ago (Lord of Light, the Amber Series, Creatures of Light and Darkness, etc.). Put simply, I like weird, transcendent stuff more than the “grounded” story lines like Captain America or Black Widow.

2 In Japanese there is a four-character phrase for this: hanmen kyōshi (反面教師) meaning to learn from a bad example (i.e. what not to do).

3 This importance in family isn’t even limited to Confucian-influenced cultures. You can find it in many unrelated world cultures where family is emphasized, and respect towards one’s ancestors. For whatever reason, it is not emphasized in Western culture, and maybe to our detriment I think.

The Flexibility of Tendai

As I talked about in a recent post, the main core idea of the venerable Tendai (天台) sect in Japanese Buddhism, including its parent Tiantai sect in China, is that the Lotus Sutra is the most important text in the Buddhist canon, a kind of capstone (lit. “complete teaching”, engyō 円教) for the rest of Buddhist literature up to that point. Because the Lotus Sutra is pretty long (equivalent to a modern book), I tried to summarize its teachings here.

Anyhow, Tendai/Tiantai focuses on how to put the Lotus Sutra into practice. For Japanese Tendai in particular, this is encapsulated in a phrase called shishū yūgō (四宗融合) meaning “Four Integrated Practices”. According to my book, these are listed as follows:

  • Meditation1
  • Esoteric Practices (mantras, dharani, mandala, etc)
  • Precepts
  • Pure Land2

This a lot. It helps to think of Tendai as a big umbrella or parasol with a bunch of people standing under it.

Photo by Ryutaro Tsukata on Pexels.com

Different people under the umbrella represent different Buddhist followers, with different practices and inclinations, but the umbrella itself represents the concept of upāya (“expedient means”) or hōben (方便) in Japanese. This is one the main themes of the Lotus Sutra, and expresses that all Buddhist teachings and practices lead toward the same end goal, and thus whatever works for a person at that time is perfectly fine for that person.

This is encapsulated in the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the so-called Kannon Sutra, because the Bodhisattva Kannon (a.k.a. Guan-Yin, Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig, Quan Âm, etc) according to this chapter takes on whatever form is most beneficial for that person and teaches the Dharma to them. Thus, Kannon can appear as a man, woman, monk, rich person, etc. It’s also why statues of Kannon often depict them as having 1,000 arms, each holding a different object. Similarly, many of the early Buddhist monks who were Tendai followers practiced it differently from one another. On the one hand, you have monks like Eisai, who focused on meditation and precepts (and would later found the first Rinzai Zen temples), you also had monks like Genshin who focused a lot more on Pure Land practices, as well as esoteric experts such as Ennin.

Tendai as a sect in Japan was almost universal in the 9th through 12th centuries, but for a variety of historical (often self-inflicted) reasons, it has diminished in size and influence. Yet when you visit historical temples in Japan such as Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto, and Sanjusangendo in Kyoto, these are all Tendai temples. Further, its influence lives on in newer sects that we know well: Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren and such, which all inherited practices and concepts even if they apply them in differing ways.

But while Tendai as an organized sect is somewhat diminished,3 its teachings of “umbrella” or “universal” Buddhism continue to live on. Rather than insisting there’s only one way to practice Buddhism, it gives a large, spacious framework for people to figure out their own path and use the vast toolkit available to work it out, all under the Lotus Sutra concept of expedient means. Use what works for you, and do not be afraid to adapt, change, or expand your practice as you go.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu
Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

P.S. Publishing off-schedule just for fun. Happy Sunday!

1 Tendai/Tiantai has the same meditation tradition as Zen, but tends to call it shikan (止観) not zazen (座禅) meditation. The founder, Zhi-yi, in China wrote multiples treatises, the Mohe Zhiguan, that provides a comprehensive manual about meditation. I have a copy of the The Essentials for Practicing Calming-and-Insight & Dhyana Meditation, but have only read parts of it. It is a nice training manual for those interested, but it is a little dense since the intended audience was the monastic community.

2 In the time of Zhi-yi, the founder of Tiantai, Pure Land Buddhism was approach more as a meditation tradition than a separate set of practices that what we see today. By the time it came to Japan, this had changed somewhat, and we see through the writings of Genshin that there were a variety of approaches both devotional and meditation-focused.

3 According to my book, as of 2015, the number of registered followers in Japan was around 1.5 million give or take. This makes it the second smallest of the major sects in Japan, and one-eighth the size of Jodo Shinshu-sect Buddhism. Only Rinzai Zen is smaller (1.1 million).