Ryukan

Risshi Ryukan
The Choraku-ji School
The Many Callings

Ryukan (1148-1227) was a great Tendai monk and a leader in the community on Mt. Hiei. It must have been some good karma that he had a natural dislike for all worldly gain and fame and had a yearning for the peaceful life of the Pure Land. And so he went out in search of Honen and began to frequently visit him, earnestly inquiring about the way. At first Honen didn’t open his mind to him very much. But later he became quite surprised to find how deep his longing for ojo was. So he said to him, "It’s really unusual for a monk, recognized as one of our day’s great scholars of the way of self-realization (shodo-mon) and held in such high regard by the great Bishop Jichin, to be so earnest in seeking ojo.” With this he went on to teach him with special care in the way of the Pure Land (jodo-mon).

Ryukan began to chant the Amida Sutra forty-eight times and repeat the nembutsu thirty-five thousand times a day, and later, he increased the number to sixty thousand a day. Once when Ryukan asked Honen what he thought about his chanting the Amida Sutra so often, Honen said, "I used to chant it over three times every day myself. The first time I pronounced the words as they do in the Chinese province of Wu; the second I would give the pronunciation in style during the T'ang dynasty; and the third time I’d follow the Japanese order and pronunciation - but now I do nothing but repeat the sacred name." So Ryukan gave up his daily chanting of the sutra and instead devoted himself to repeating the nembutsu eighty-four thousand times a day. Thus, the way which Ryukan taught is commonly known as the “Teaching of Many Callings" (tanen-gi), or that of the school of Choraku-ji Temple because his residence was just inside the outer gate of that temple.

There is an important passage in Shan-tao's Commentary on the Meditation Sutra which says, "[Amida Buddha’s 18^th Original Vow reads:] ‘If all sentient beings of the ten quarters who have called upon my name as many as ten times, should, after I have obtained buddhahood, fail to be Born into my Buddha land, may I not obtain the highest perfect enlightenment.’ That Buddha is now in the Land of Bliss, having already obtained enlightenment. All you sentient beings should therefore know that his great Original Vow was not in vain, and that if you call upon his name, you will without fail be Born in the Pure Land." Ryukan thought that these words expressed the essentials of the ojo teaching. He then noticed that the number of Chinese characters in the passage corresponded exactly to the forty-eight original vows. He felt there had to be some deep significance in this, and so with great emotion said to himself, "I am surely included in those words, 'All sentient beings who call upon the sacred name shall without fail be Born into the Pure Land.' Can I be the only one left out from the Buddha's welcome?" This was something he was always saying to himself.

In the winter of 1204, Ryukan visited Honen at Komatsu-dani, the mountain villa which Kujo Kanezane had converted into a temple. Honen met him at the back door of the temple, and handed him a book from inside his robes, saying, "This is the Senchakushu written by myself at Kanezane Tsukinowa's request. The most important passages and teachings set forth give you the heart and soul of Shan-tao, the founder of the Pure Land school. Please make a copy of it at once and read it, and if there are any questionable points, let me know. Also don’t show it to others during my lifetime, but after my death do as you like with it." With the help of Sonsho and Shoren, he followed these directions, quickly making a copy and returning the original to Honen. After this, he used to sit quietly reading it, deepening his faith all the while.

It certainly appeared that Ryukan was doing so much for the whole Buddhist community and had piled up so much merit that he must have achieved the level of insight that Honen had. When someone asked him about this, he said that like Honen he had often seen with his own eyes the inhabitants of the Pure Land and their environment. But immediately afterward, it seems that he felt he had done wrong to say such a thing and then added, "But this may have been an hallucination on my part." Prince Masashige of Tajima province once went to Ryukan to ask him about nembutsu ojo, and he replied in great detail, summing up all into the Three Minds (sanjin). This prince dreamt that he saw Honen and Ryukan each in turn acting the part of both master and disciple, and each helping the other in his respective teaching. The latter was the master and the former the disciple in the Pure Land, while in this world it was the other way around.

Ryukan’s Exile and Ojo

In the years after Honen's death in 1212, Ryukan and other disciples like Kosai and Shoku worked strenuously to take care of the Pure Land community in Kyoto. However, mounting opposition by the established Buddhist schools eventually led to the Karoku Persecution, which was the worst of the several persecutions of Honen's nembutsu followers after Honen's death. The persecution was triggered when Ryukan attacked Josho's A Criticism of the Senchakushu (Dansenchaku), a critique of Honen's Senchakushu from a Tendai point of view. Tendai monks appealed directly to the Emperor to exile Ryukan and Kosai. Moreover, some Tendai monks attempted to break open Honen's tomb and to throw his corpse in the Kamo River. When Ryukan learned of his banishment, he said to himself that as his revered master had had to go into exile for the sake of the nembutsu, there was nothing he could more desire than to follow in these footsteps. He therefore arranged special services for the practice of the nembutsu to continue for seven days at Raikobo Temple in the precincts of Choraku-ji, thinking these would probably be his last in the capital. When it came to the last day of the services, remarkable omens appeared: the room was filled with sweet odors; a white lotus flower sprang up in the garden; and miraculous flower petals floated down from the sky. People looked on in wonder at a monk who had already attained ojo while living in this world. It was truly a surreal event.

An ordained follower (nyu-do) called Sai Amidabutsu was put in charge with leading Ryukan to the Kanto region in the summer of 1227. During the subsequent winter, Ryukan came down with a cold. While confined to bed, he started to write the story of his life, calling it A Song in Exile (Kichugin), in which the following passage occurs: "I have heard that the great Indian master Bodhidharma left his footprints in the brushwood of his place of exile, and that K’uei-chi's name is associated with a hut in a remote and despised region. The first was the founder of the Zen school, and the second was the founder of the Consciousness Only school (Ch. Fa-hsiang, Jp. Hosso). If this was true of such great countries as India and China in ancient times, how much less can we expect the same among ourselves in this latter degenerate Age of the Final Dharma (mappo). Rest is not to be found in this world of sorrow. It is soon to pass away like a dream. The only thing I look forward to is the coming of those holy beings to welcome me to the Pure Land. So I am no longer concerned about the things of this impermanent world."

And so in December of the same year, Ryukan said, "My time has at last come to enter the Pure Land. I will now give proof of the truth of my teaching by myself attaining ojo through the single-minded practice of the nembutsu. So saying, he turned his face toward a picture of Amida Buddha and his two bodhisattvas and took a cord in his folded hands made of five-colored strands. He then sat upright and went on calling upon the sacred name in a loud voice, two hundred times or more. Then he recited a familiar passage, "Amida's person is like a golden mountain. The light emitted from his signs of physical eminence shines upon all the ten quarters, but it protects only those who practice the nembutsu. Thus the Original Vow is the most effective of all." His disciples Shochi and Yuigwan, who joined him in the recital, remarked, "It is worth more to say the nembutsu over once as one draws near to death, than to have done it for a hundred years of an ordinary lifetime." So with a pleasant smile Ryukkan gazed upon the Buddha's image, and in a loud voice, called upon the sacred name and passed away in a deep samadhi. He was in his eightieth year. Clouds of various colors were seen hanging over the eaves of his house, and a wonderful perfume filled the chamber, while many came to witness the death-bed scene.

Reference:
The text has been edited and adapted from the Pictorial Biography of Honen Shonin (Honen Shonin gyojoezu), also known as the Forty-eight Fascicle Biography (Shijuhachikan-den) with reference to the translation made by Harper Havelock Coates and Ryugaku Ishizuka entitled Honen the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teaching. Kyoto: Chion-in, 1925.

Paintings:
1.Followers from the Sanmon faction of Mt. Hiei attempt to destroy Honen’s tomb. Book 3, Fascicle 42, Leaves 5-6, p.46
2. Ryukan attains Birth (ojo). Book 3, Fascicle 44, Leaf 14, p.70

Both Pictorial Biography of Honen Shonin (Honen Shonin gyojoezu), corresponding to the Honen Shonin Pictorial Biography (Honen Shonin Den-en), part of the Complete Japanese Pictorial Scrolls, Volume I (Zoku Nihon Emaki Taisei I), Tokyo: Chuo Koron-sha, 1981.