Ippen
Ippen Shōnin 1234/9–1289 was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher whose movement, the Ji-shu became one of the major currents of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. Born in modern Ehime Prefecture, he studied in the Seizan branch of Jōdo-shū before meeting with many Shingon and Tendai associated hijiri and then becoming a wandering holy man himself. During a pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrines, Ippen had an experience which inspired him to spread the Pure Land faith throughout Japan. Accompanied by bands of followers, he traveled throughout Japan teaching that salvation lay in the single-minded invocation of Amida’s Name and that the very moment of recitation unites the reciter with the timeless enlightenment of the Buddha. Ippen traveled over fifteen hundred miles, visiting every major population center and devotional center in Japan, such as Kumano, Zenkōji, Taimadera, and Mt. Kōya.
In his itinerant ministry, Ippen combined the devotional recitation of the nembutsu with ecstatic dancing, and the distribution of ofuda inscribed with Amida’s Name, which he handed to people as symbols of faith and rebirth in the Pure Land. His teachings blended the Pure Land ideal of Other-Power with Zen non-dualism and the folk religious practices of wandering ascetics. Rejecting all self-powered efforts and sectarian distinctions, Ippen held that the simple recitation of even a single nembutsu invariably linked one with Amida Buddha's enlightenment, assuring our birth in the Pure Land. Ippen’s radical vision of faith and his insistence that the heart can attain birth in the Pure Land while the body remains in this world gave rise to a popular movement that appealed to all social classes. His life is outlined in the Ippen Hijiri-e, a series of narrative painted scrolls which are the main historical source for his life and activities.
Biography
Early life
Ippen was born to the Kōno clan who ruled the Iyo Province on the island of Shikoku. After the decline of the Kōno clan, his father, Michihiro, became a monk at Hōgonji temple, which is where Ippen was born. Ippen's secular name may have been Kawano Tokiuji, Tsūshū, or Tsūshō. As a monk, he was given the Dharma names Zuien and Chishin. Ippen means one yet all pervading. He is respectfully referred to as "Ippen Shōnin," where "Shōnin" signifies a holy person.Following his mother's death and on his father's command, Ippen became a Buddhist monk at an early age and resided at Keigyōji temple as early as 1245. In 1251, he traveled to Dazaifu to study under a Tendai monk called Shōtatsu who was devoted to Amida Buddha and who urged Ippen to "learn to read the sūtras and commentaries of the Pure Land school." Ippen also sent to study the Pure Land sutras in Hizen under a monk named Kedai, who changed Ippen's name from Zuien to Chishin, because Zuien refers to "various good karmic conditions," which sounded like a self-power oriented name. After studying with Kedai, he returned to study with Shōtatus for twelve years. Both Shōtatsu and Kedai were disciples of the Pure Land teacher Shōkū, who was the founder of the Seizan branch of Jōdoshū.
When his father died, the 25-year old Ippen returned to secular life and assumed family responsibilities at his home province of Iyo. He got married and became head of the household. Eventually, in 1271, he eventually felt called to renounce a second time, which, according to different accounts, was for one of four different reasons:
- He had a philosophical insight about karma while watching a spinning top.
- He was fleeing a relative trying to kill him in an inheritance dispute.
- He saw the hair of two of his napping wives turning into snakes, making him fearful of jealousy.
- He had inheritance problems with his two jealous wives..
He then returned to Iyo and entered ascetic retreat in a place called Iwaya at Sugō, at a temple called Kubodera. At this temple, he hung the image of the "Two Rivers and the White Path" on his wall, and began a life of exclusive Nembutsu practice. After three years, he composed his central teaching, the verse on the "non-duality of ten and one."
In 1273, Ippen secluded himself in Iwayaji temple on the Kumano Kodō, a site associated with Kukai. He found resonance in his doctrine of the "non-duality of ten and one" with Kukai's teaching of "attaining Buddhahood in this very body," which led him to seek out esoteric teachings. He engaged in Shugendō and became devoted to Fudō Myōō, thereupon receiving divine dreams. These experiences solidified his resolve and belief that that kami supported the Nembutsu.
In 1274, Ippen visited Shitennōji and then Mt. Kōya, which was a major site for a large old community of nembutsu hijiri who practiced Pure Land influenced by Shingon esotericism. Ippen's practice of distributing nembutsu ofuda may have been influenced by the practices of these hijiri. At this point, Ippen seems to have become committed to a life of ascetic wandering.
Ippen then continued his pilgrimage following the Kii Peninsula south until he reached three major Shinto shrines at Kumano which were important sites for yamabushi mountain ascetics. From a Buddhist perspective, the local kami Hongū had come to be known as a manifestation of Hōjō bosatsu as well as a manifestation of Amida Buddha. Ippen had a religious experience at this shrine that transformed his spiritual practice. After offering some ofuda talismans to a reluctant priest who felt that his faith was not true enough to accept the talismans, Ippen then prayed to the gongen Hongū at the hall of witness in the main shrine at Kumano. According to the Ippen Hijiri-e:
This statement confirmed Ippen's nembutsu recitation practice along with his fuda distribution to all people as consistent with his non-dual Pure Land beliefs. This meant that the saying of a single nembutsu and the reception of a nembutsu talisman could act as the one nembutsu which marked someone's liberation in the Pure Land, an attainment which was already assured by Amida ten kalpas ago. Furthermore, there was no need for practitioners to make an effort to attain a specific state of faith or concentration. Ippen saw this teaching as being based on this direct revelation as well as on the sutras. He would go on to state "My teaching is the oral transmission bestowed in dream by the Kumano Manifestation".
When he had closed his eyes but not yet fallen asleep, the doors of the sacred hall were pushed open and a yamabushi with white hair and a long hood emerged. On the verandah three hundred other yamabushi touched their heads down in obeisance. At that moment Ippen realized that it was surely the Manifestation himself and entrusted himself completely. Then the yamabushi stepped before Ippen and said, "Hijiri spreading the nembutsu of interpenetration , why do you go about it mistakenly? It is not through your propagation that sentient beings come to attain birth. In Amida Buddha's perfect enlightenment ten kalpas ago the birth of all sentient beings was decisively settled as Namu-amida-butsu. Distribute your fuda regardless of whether people have faith or not, and without discriminating between the pure and the impure."
After this encounter, Ippen devoted himself to nembutsu practice exclusively and to distributing the nembutsu fuda as a way to lead people to the Pure Land. He saw himself as a follower of the hijiri Kūya. Ippen soon sent a female companion back to Iyo with an ofuda print block for his half-brother Shōkai along with a poem which states:
The karmic beings of the ten realms are one body.
Abandoning the myriad practices and relying on the one nembutsu,
One rises among humans as a beautiful lotus.
Forming a new hijiri order
Ippen then spent the next three years as a solitary hijiri before gaining his first and foremost disciple, Taa Amidabutsu. By the time he returned to Iyo in 1278 he may have had a few other followers as well. Ippen's activities were varied, and included chanting sessions, practicing an ecstatic form of dancing nembutsu, handing out nembutsu ofuda and keeping a register of the converted.His activities drew a wide following from all social classes. The dancing nembutsu practice began as early as 1279, and may have been derived from traditional funerary practiced tied with placating the spirits of the dead. In Ippen's teaching though, dancing nembutsu was seen as a spontaneous ecstatic expression of Ippen's joyful faith in the nembutsu. The idea that one's faith can lead to such ecstatic joy is also found in the Pure Land Sutras. The dancing nembutsu practice became quite popular throughout Japan and it was spread by many different groups not just Ippen's sect.
Ippen continued to travel throughout Japan, gathering a band of followers and proselytizing a unique version of Pure Land Buddhism. During Ippen's time, hijiri were often affiliated with specific temples and promoted specific geographical sites. However, Ippen created an independent group of hijiri not based on any single temple or site. Instead, his teaching was based on the immanent presence of Amida in all places. Nevertheless, this new universal movement also embraced all the popular devotions and local deities of Japan, since they were all considered to be manifestations of Amida Buddha's power. This universality and inclusiveness allowed Ippen's movement to absorb many hijiri groups, including those of Zenkōji and sections of Mt. Kōya's hijiri community. According to Foard, Ippen's movement soon emerged as "the leading order of medieval mendicancy, and perhaps the major source of Pure Land propagation for over a century and a half."
The tradition came to be known as "Jishū", a name which ultimately comes from a passage in Shandao to those who practice nembutsu in each of the six times of the day. This referred to specific periods of intense uninterrupted nembutsu practice that Ippen's group would undertake at certain times of the year where different hijiri would take turns in leading the chant during the six four-hour periods of the day. According to Foard, the intended meaning of the term is equivalent to “twenty four hours a day nembutsu group.” Male members of the group were given names that all ended in Amidabutsu, and female member names all ended in ichibō. All members wore plain grey robes and black kasaya, and shaved their heads.
In 1279, while conducting a nembutsu chanting session in Nagano, purple clouds filled the sky and flowers fell. Shortly after this auspicious sign Ippen began to dance while reciting the nembutsu. People joined him while waving their arms and beating a rhythm on whatever implements they had at hand. Ippen would later say:
My meditative practice lies in letting my lips freely utter Amida's Name; hence, even the marketplace is my practice hall. My contemplation of Buddha lies in following after my voice; hence, my breath is a rosary...To the course of nature I give charge of my thoughts, words, and deeds, and to the working of enlightenment leave all my acts.
Ippen's group traveled around Japan performing the increasingly popular nembutsu dance at local temples, drawing large crowds, which would also donate to the sponsoring temple or shrine. Perhaps the first such public performance was at Kagase in 1282. This event also saw some of the first religious suicides for rebirth, a practice that was also admired by Ippen and his band. Further public events followed, which drew increasingly larger and boisterous crowds who clamored to receive Ippen's fuda. The core group of wandering hijiri often included about 20 to 30 close disciples. Ippen also tonsured many more followers who did not join the wandering group but stayed at home. According to the Hijiri-e, Ippen's movement drew people from all classes, including people from the lowest classes and those at the margins of society: "fishermen and itinerant peddlers were his companions on the road. He talked with lowly people whose names he did not know, and even before he spoke of the teaching, tough village elders made their bonds with the Dharma through him."
Throughout his travels, Ippen would give instructions and teachings to his followers, often passed down in poems. One such teachings is the Seigan Gemon, which states:
… until our present bodies
Are finally exhausted,
We shall not be devoted to mortal life,
But will take refuge in the Original Vow.
All our lives
We will single-mindedly chant the name …
Throughout the six divisions of night and day,
Successively, without interval,
Like an object and its shadow,
Never once parting from it …
Over time, various dōjōs sprung up associated with the Jishū order, though they were initially seen as secondary places, since the tradition was based on wayfaring mendicancy and never living in a single place.
Ippen's insistence on constant traveling and giving up of family and possessions led to his nicknames: Traveling Saint and Holy Man of Renunciation. He also received the following posthumous names: "Grand Master Enshō", and "Grand Master Shōjō".