Keizan Study Material
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Keizan Study Material for the 2010 National Conference of The Soto Zen Buddhist Association Table of Contents Biography and Basic Information on Keizan 3 William Bodiford - Gale Encyclopedia Entry on Keizan 4 William Bodiford - Keizan (Ch 8) & Sojiji (Ch 9 excerpt) 5 Sotozen-net - Keizan Zenji 12 Heinrich Dumoulin - Keizan 13 Thomas Cleary - Keizan and Gazan Soseki Biographies 15 Bernard Faure –from Visions of Power 17 Overview of Keizan’s Major Writings 27 Keizan and Women 28 Salli Tisdale - Family 29 Bernard Faure - Women in Keizan's Life 32 Keizan and Dogen 37 Keizan and Dogen 38 William Bodiford – excerpt on Keizan and Dogen 39 Keido Chisan - The True Spirit of the Two Ancestors 40 Eto Sokuo - Founding Patriarch & Successor Patriarch 44 William Bodiford - Remembering Dōgen: Eiheiji and Dōgen Hagiography 53 Keizan and Dreaming 65 William Bodiford - Keizan’s Dream History 66 Bernard Faure – excerpts from Dreaming (in Visions of Power) 77 Denkoroku and Koan Commentary 85 Approaches to Denkoroku 86 Shohaku Okumura – from Realizing Genjo Koan 88 William Bodiford - The Denkoroku as Keizan's Recorded Sayings 91 Denkoroku Verses Translation Study 100 On the Himitsu-Shobogenzo 108 Thomas Cleary - Esoteric Shobogenzo 109 Zazen 113 On Keizan and Zazen 114 Sankon-zazen-setsu Study 116 Zazen Yojinki Study 120 Ritual 160 Griff Foulk - excerpts on ritual and the Keizan Shingi 161 Griff Foulk – The Origins of the Gyoji Kihan and the Question of Ritual in the Zen Tradition 163 Bibliography 173 Keizan memorial dedication from the Gyoji Kihan 176 Statue of Keizan Biography and Basic Information on Keizan William Bodiford - Gale Encyclopedia Entry on Keizan 4 William Bodiford - Keizan (Ch 8) & Sojiji (Ch 9 excerpt) 5 Sotozen-net - Keizan Zenji 12 Heinrich Dumoulin - Keizan 13 Thomas Cleary - Keizan and Gazan Soseki Biographies 15 Bernard Faure –from Visions of Power 17 Overview of Keizan’s Major Writings 27 3 William Bodiford - Gale Encyclopedia Entry on Keizan KEIZAN (1264–1325), more fully Keizan Jōkin, was latter’s teachings being portrayed as more pure, more the founding abbot of the Sōjiji Zen monastery. Since the elitest, and more monastic in orientation, in contrast to late nineteenth century, he has officially been designated, which Keizan’s teachings are seen as more eclectic, more along with Dōgen (1200–1253), as one of the two common, and more accessible to laypeople. This narrative founding patriarchs of the Japanese Sōtō Zen school. of Keizan as the purported popularizer of Dōgen’s so- called strict Zen rests not on the historical evidence but on Born in 1264 (not 1268 as previously assumed), Keizan simplistic apologetics that attempt to justify Sōjiji’s entered Eiheiji, the Zen monastery founded by Dōgen in modern preeminence over and above Dōgen’s Eiheiji. Echizen province, in 1276. Keizan studied Zen directly Keizan, as much as Dōgen, focused his life’s efforts on under four of Dōgen’s leading disciples: Ejō (1198– providing strict monastic training for monks and nuns. 1280), Jakuen (1207–1299), Gien (d. 1313), and Gikai Likewise, Dōgen, as much as Keizan, worked to build an (1219– 1309). In 1298 Keizan succeeded Gikai as second institutional foundation for Japanese Zen. Keizan was abbot of Daijōji monastery in Kaga province. Eventually long departed before subsequent generations of monks at Keizan entrusted Daijōji to his disciple, Meihō Sotetsu Sōjiji and its affiliates began effecting the rapid growth (1277–1350), and began constructing a new monastery in and transformation of Sōtō Zen into an institution Noto province named Tōkoku-san Yōkōji, which he consisting primarily of local temples that service the envisioned as the future headquarters of the Sōtō Zen religious needs of laypeople who themselves do not lineage in Japan. With Yōkōji as his base, Keizan founded practice Zen. It is also true, however, that Keizan was a six more monasteries nearby, including Hōōji, the first man of his times. In addition to Zen history, Zen training, Sōtō nunnery, and Sōjiji, which he entrusted to his and Zen monasticism, his writings reveal many religious disciple Gasan Jōseki (1276– 1366). themes common to other fourteenth-century Japanese religious writings. Keizan openly described, for example, Keizan worked hard to establish a firm religious and his reliance on inspired dreams as a source of religious institutional basis for the nascent Sōtō Zen school. authority, his use of astrology, his devotion to his mother Toward these ends, he authored a history of the Sōtō Zen and grandmother, his invocation of the local gods who lineage (the Denkōroku), founded a memorial hall at protect Buddhism, and his devout faith in the bodhisattva Yōkōji to enshrine relics of five generations of Sōtō Zen Avalokitesvara (Japanese, Kannon). These kinds of trans- patriarchs, wrote beginner’s guides to Zen training, and sectarian religious values exerted, no doubt, a greater compiled detailed instructions for every aspect of Zen influence on the lives of ordinary people than did monastic life. His most influential contribution was his Keizan’s difficult Zen practices or abstruse Zen doctrines. detailed instructions on how the abbotship of his For this reason, Keizan’s surviving writings constitute monasteries should be rotated among several lines of prime sources for the study of medieval Japanese succession so as to ensure united support and avoid religiosity and the ways that it interacted with sectarian schisms. This method of rotating abbotship became doctrinal traditions (such as Zen) and their institutions. widely adopted among subsequent Sōtō monasteries. It was implemented most successfully not at Yōkōji, but at Keizan’s numerous writings were not collected, edited, or Sōjiji, which eventually grew to have more affiliated published during his lifetime. Extant manuscript versions, branch temples than any other Sōtō institution. By the as well as published editions, are marred by numerous beginning of the twenty-first century, Sōjiji, relocated in textual defects, copyist errors, and arbitrary editorial 1910 to Yokohama (next to Tokyo), had become one of deletions, additions, and rearrangements. Scholars have the two headquarter temples (along with Eiheiji) of the not begun to resolve all the difficulties these texts present. Sōtō Zen school. In 1909 the Meiji emperor (Mutsuhito, Nonetheless, Keizan’s authorship of the major works 1852–1912) awarded Keizan with the posthumous name traditionally attributed to him is no longer considered Jōsai Daishi. doubtful. These major works include the following: Denkōroku (History of the transmission of the light); Keizan’s life and its significance have been the subject of Zazen yōjinki (How to practice sitting Zen); Tōkoku gyōji much unsubstantiated speculation. Many modern jijo (Procedures at Tōkoku monastery), also known as Japanese interpretations of Keizan reflect an artificial Keizan shingi (Keizan’s monastic regulations); and structural antagonism between him and Dōgen, with the Tōkokuki (Chronicle of Tōkoku monastery). 4 Soto Zen in Medieval Japan CHAPTER 8 Keizan: The Founder of Yokoji William Bodiford As explained in the previous chapter, all early Sōtō Keizan” (shuso Dōgen no kakun to senshi Keizan no sokai). Six communities emphasized Dōgen‟s Chinese lineage as the source years later, in 1878, the Sōtō school published the first modern of their religious authority. This emphasis on the symbolic role of biography of Keizan. Written by Takiya Takushu (1836-1897), Dōgen remained consistent throughout the history of the who was at that time Sōjiji‟s chief Tokyo representative, the new Japanese Sōtō school, except for one brief incident during the biography had the clear intention of glorifying Keizan by modern period. That rejection of Dōgen raised the issue of who emphasizing his and Sōjiji‟s importance in early Sōtō history. should be revered as the founder of the Japanese Sōtō school. Three more biographies of Keizan were published in the prewar The social circumstances of the resulting controversy have period, each written by successive abbots of Sōjiji and each greatly influenced scholarship on the topics addressed in this intended to emphasize the importance of Keizan and Sōjiji. In chapter. Therefore, perhaps the best introduction to Keizan and spite of their sectarian orientation, these biographies have been his community at Yōkōji is to review briefly the modern events widely used by non-Sōjiji (and even non-Sōtō) affiliated that led to the controversial assertion that Keizan Jōkin, not scholars. Dōgen, is the true founder of Japanese Sōtō. Following their formal truce, Sōjiji and Eiheiji continued to work together to modernize the structure of the Sōtō school. A series of reforms followed in quick succession. Rules for the Keizan as Patriarch operation of temples were promulgated in 1876. That same year In 1877 the Sōtō hierarchy announced new dates based on a formal Sōtō church (kyōkai) was organized in an attempt to the solar calendar for yearly rituals. The true significance of that bypass the rigid hierarchy of temple factions. The terms of the announcement, however, went beyond the abandonment of the truce were strengthened in 1879. A constitution defining the lunar calendar. For the first time memorial services for Keizan relations between head and branch temples was established in were included among the annual events observed at all Sōtō 1882. The governing organization and administrative rules temples. Today that proclamation is said to mark the date when (shōsei) of the Sōtō school, including the terms of the 1872 truce, Keizan gained official recognition as the patriarch of the entire were registered with the government in 1885. Finally, in 1888 Japanese Sōtō school. Previously, the only Japanese patriarch the first handbook of Sōtō ritual and liturgy was distributed. common to all Sōtō factions had been Dōgen. Keizan, by Considering the history of bitter disputes between Sōjiji and contrast, was known not as a source of religious authority but as Eiheiji over the details of proper monastic practices during the the founder of Sōjiji, the head temple of the largest Sōtō faction.