Ingen Ryuki and Nembutsu Zen
I know nothing about Japanese Zen but recently came across the story of Ingen Ryuki, the founder of Japan's third and least known school of Zen, Obaku, and thought it so fascinating that I'd like to put together an account of it here. My sources are the Wikepedia and Buddhist Channel articles I link to at the end, and some pages from a wonderful travel guide for practitioners called 'Zen and Kyoto' by John Einarsen, the founding editor of the Kyoto Journal, published by Uniplan, Kyoto, in 2004.
Ingen Ryuki, the Japanese rendering of his name, was born as Yinyuan Longqi in Fuqing, Fujian, China, in 1592. When he was five years old Ingen's father left on a journey but never returned, and Ingen was left having to support his family through farming and woodcutting. One evening at the age of 16, Ingen started off on his own, spiritual, journey when, resting under a pine tree looking up at the stars, he suddenly realised that "only the Buddha and sages can find the true way in life".
A little later, no doubt ensuring that his mother and siblings would cope well enough without him there, Ingen spent two years looking for his father, until one day, while staying at a Temple dedicated to Guan Yin, he realised that coming face to face with the Bodhisattva of Compassion was in essence the same as finding his father. After this realisation, he served tea to the Buddha and to everyone he met for one year, including to monks at Mount Putuo in Zhejiang province.
Ingen's mother died when he was 28 or 29 and he ordained as a monk at the temple his family attended, called Wanfu, near Mount Huangbo, Fujian, where his teachers were Miyun Yuanwu and Feiyin Tongrong. Some time later, but I'm not sure about the dates, the temple burnt down and Ingen travelled around the Chinese countryside collecting donations for its reconstruction. I can't help but picture him, solid in his faith in the Bodhisattva, but wondering still if he might catch a glimpse of his old dad.
Later, at the age of 34, Ingen gained Enlightenment when a gust of wind blew into his window one winter's day, and in 1633 he received Dharma transmission from his teacher Feiyin Tongrong. Four years later, at the age of 46, he became the 33rd abbot of the Mount Huangbo Temple. I don't know what interrupted his abbotship, but it resumed again in 1646, and under his guidance the temple became a thriving Buddhist centre, developing the arts for which it became internationaly famous.
In 1654, after many requests from the Chinese monk Itsunen Shoyu, already resident there, Ingen travelled to Nagasaki, Japan with 20 disciples, including Mokuan Shoto, and a large group of artists and artisans, including architects, sculptors, tailors and cooks. At first Ingen was kept under close observation by the government in Nagasaki, the only gateway from China at the time, who, seeing the large crowds attracted to his teachings, were nervous in case of political trouble.
He was scheduled to return to China after three years, but his followers persuaded him to stay in Japan and in 1658 he was introduced to the 4th shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna, who gave Ingen 100,000 tsubo (81.68 acres) of land on which to build a temple. It was here, in Uji-shi in Kyoto, that Ingen founded Mampuku Temple in 1661. Ingen named the temple using the Chinese characters "man" and "fuku", meaning "ten thousand" and "fortune", after his family temple, Wanfu, back in Fujian Province.
Mampuku Temple became the head temple of the Obaku sect and is still standing today. Sadly, I've not yet been there myself, but I understand that it is very much modelled on those of the Chinese Ming period. There are long covered corridors, hundreds of Chinese-style lanterns, and in the bunkaden a portrait of Ingen at 80 years old which shows him in his robes, holding a cane and a brush, with white hair, a moustache, and a thin, lined, face. He looks surprisingly similar to my own father.
After the foundation of Mampuku-ji many highly educated Chinese monks followed Ingen to Japan where his arrival had caused something of "an Obaku boom", as described by Korei Okada, the current head priest of Mampuku-ji. Chinese Buddhism and Chinese arts, including Chinese food, were enthusiastically embraced by the Japanese, and string beans, a food previously not seen in Japan and an important source of protein in the Obaku sect's strict vegetarian diet, were named 'ingenmame' in Ingen's honor.
This Chinese Buddhist vegetarian cuisine, fucha ryori, certainly helped increase the popularity of Ingen's new sect, which at its peak could boast around a thousand temples, but part of its popularity was also its strict vegetarianism and adherance to precepts. Ingen was, Okada says, "an ideal priest for Japanese monks to learn from". And the food is still available today, by reservation, at the Mampuku-ji fucha ryori restaurant, overseen by Gisho Ienaga, a tenzo monk keen to promote this cuisine.
Alongside food, tea is also important at Mampuku-ji, and it was an Obaku priest, Baicha (Gekkai Gensho), who developed the sencha tea ceremony, and whose association headquarters can be found in the temple. Every year, on a weekend in the middle of May, the temple hosts Japan's largest tea gathering, attended by over four thousand people. As well as new food and tea, Ingen also brought Chinese arts to Japan and was himself a skilled calligrapher, and an example of his work can be seen on the nameplates to the main temple gate which were inscribed by Ingen himself.
But what interests me most about Ingen Ryuki is his combination of Zen with Pure Land faith and practices. Of course this was nothing unusual in China at the time, and I've seen it still very much in evidence in Korea, but in Japan, where emphasis has historically been placed on single-practice schools, this was quite unusual. Sadly, the followers of Hakuin Ekaku later purged many Pure Land elements from Obaku practice, suppressing the recition of Amida Buddha's name, and emphasising the study of koans.
However, some small element of Pure Land practice has survived to this day, with sutras still chanted in Chinese, in an approximation of the Fujian dialect, in Obaku's 460 temples throughout Japan. But the emphasis now is on zazen, and at Mampuku-ji laypeople can practice with the monks in the zendo every Thursday afternoon. Again, reservations are required. Meditation is not, personally, my main practice, but to sit here one day is very much an ambition of mine for this lifetime.
Ingen Ryuki never returned to China, and died in Uji in 1673. He was over eighty years old. His posthumous title was Daiko Fusho Kokushi, and, in summing up his life, Ingen was credited not only with introducing Chinese culture and Buddhism to Japan, but, through his vigorous example, with also re-vitalising even the already existing Japanese Zen schools. Today, on the door of the zendo in Mampuku-ji, there is a short verse with which I want to close, and which I am sure is fully in the spirit of Ingen himself.
All who practice the Way take heed:
Birth and death are a grave matter.
Nothing is permanent; time passes quickly.
Awake! Devote yourself to training; do not waste any time.
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