Kukai part 2

This is a continuation of part 1 on Kukai.

The state exerted control over religious matters, to be ordained and live in a temple was decided by the state. Kukai's list of documents he brought from Japan would make the case he should be included. The court wanted to be assure he was the highest teacher of esoteric Buddhism. It took them 3 years to decide, Kukai was in China for less than 3 years. Kukai stayed in Kyushu waiting,  a subtropical island at the bottom of Japan.

I'm seeing now why Japanese Buddhism is perhaps the way it is, you really have to fight to get a wedge in with the government to get permission and support. Kukai's arrival back home is preceded by Saicho, and Saicho was with the emperor. 

Saicho is profiled in Hakedo. 

He was from Lake Biwa. He studied with Gyohyo (722–797) starting at age 12. He was ordained at 14. He was further ordained at a big temple at 19. He built a grass hut and meditated on Mount Hiei. That is also where the marathon monks run as written about by John Stevens in the book The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, (called Kaihōgyō)

Enryaku-ji is the temple founded in 788 by Saicho. He had 100 disciplines in 807, where his monks lived in seclusion for twelve years of study and meditation.

Saichō's Prayer (Ganmon):

1. So long as I have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture out into the world.

2. So long as I have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts [e.g. medicine, divination, calligraphy, etc.].

3. So long as I have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donor's Buddhist meetings.

4. So long as I have not attained wisdom (lit. hannya 般若), I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it be to benefit others.

5. May any merit from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment.

There is a lamp called Fumetsu no Hōtō that Saicho lit that supposedly has never extinguished.

Sachio was asked to give lectures, and they were successful, he was recognized as a good teacher by the emperor. He was sent to China. His discipline Gishin spoke Chinese, and accompanied him. After a difficult journey he eventually met seventh Patriarch of Tiantai, Daosui. Saichō remained under this instruction for approximately 135 days. 

Then "Saichō spent the next several months copying various Buddhist works with the intention of bringing them back to Japan with him. While some works existed in Japan already, Saichō felt that they suffered from copyist errors or other defects, and so he made fresh copies." Then, "Saichō went to Yuezhou and sought out texts and information on Vajrayana (Esoteric) Buddhism." He got some unspecified transmissions. It's towards the middle of 805 when he goes back to Japan, being in China for 8 months. 

Back in court Saichō's Tendai Lotus school won official recognition. One course would study the Mahayana texts, and one course would study Chih-I's teachings. Paul Swanson says that Chih-I "has been ranked with Thomas Aquinas and al-Ghazali as one of the great systematizers of religious thought and practice in world history."

"Before Saichō, all monastic ordinations took place at Tōdai-ji temple under the ancient Vinaya code, but Saichō intended to found his school as a strictly Mahayana institution and ordain monks using the Bodhisattva Precepts only. Despite intense opposition from the traditional Buddhist schools in Nara, his request was granted by Emperor Saga in 822, several days after his death. This was the fruit of years of effort and a formal debate."

Saicho got back before Emperor Kammu died. With his foot in the door first, he became the transmitter of Esoteric Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, into Japan, with it's reliance on the guru. They had quotas on how many monks could be ordained. Saicho's Tendai was allotted 2 ordinations a year. It would only be the year Kukai died in 835 that Shingon was allowed 2 ordinations a year.

Eventually Kukai was allowed to lecture and proceed to the new Emperor. Jingoji temple in Kyoto was his home temple in Kyoto from 809-823. It has a statue of Bhaisajyaguru, the medicine Buddha.

Emperor Heizei would retire because of health and Emperor Saga favored Kukai. In 823 Kukai would be granted Tō-ji Temple, founded in 796, The Temple for the Defense of the Nation by Means of the King of Doctrines, one of three inside the capitol. The poet emperor Saga favored Kukai, and ruled from 809-823. Kukai exchanged poems with the emperor and was summoned and visited the emperor many times. In 810-813 Kukai was the head of Tōdai-ji temple in Nara, though he lived in Takaosanji on Mount Takao.

There is palace intrigue and shenanigans. Kukai writes letters for the emperor and counsels him in crisis. 

Letters survive between Saicho and Kukai. Saicho asked to borrow some texts. Did they meet before they sailed to China? They sailed from different ports, on different ships. Did they meet the first time back in Japan later? 

Kukai writes, "the essence of Esoteric Buddhism is not to be obtained from written words but to be transmitted from mind to mind; the written words are mere lees and dregs; they are bricks and pebbles." (p.43-44 Hakeda). Saicho and Kukai started to spend time together. Kukai performed an abhisheka for Saicho. "The abhiṣeka ritual in Shingon Buddhism is the initiation rite used to confirm that a student of esoteric Buddhism has now graduated to a higher level of practice." And, "The student, who is blindfolded, then throws a flower upon the Mandala that is constructed, and where it lands (i.e. which deity) helps dictate where the student should focus his devotion on the esoteric path. From there, the student's blindfold is removed and a vajra is placed in hand." Wikipedia quotes the very page I'm reading in Hakeda. Hakeda points out that this sort of proves Kukai's superiority over Saicho in Esoteric Buddhism. Saicho wanted the higher ritual, and Kukai pointed out that it involved 3 years of study. Saicho had performed the ritual in the past too. By everyone seeing Kukai leading the initiation of Saicho, Takaosanji became the center of Esoteric Buddhism in Japan. Kukai was already favored and popular. 

Kukai was writing and teaching quite a lot. He wanted to move further away from Kyoto. He asked Emperor Sega to grant him Mount Koya, what would come to be Kongobuji Temple, Diamond Peak Temple, the head monastery for the Shingon Sect. The one standing there now was built in 1593.

The legend has it that when Kukai was about to land in port coming back from China, when he stood on land for the first time, he threw a vajra, and that it landed on flat land near Mount Koya. When he went to look for the vajra, a hunter showed it to him, it was in a tree that has 3 pronged needles. Usually they are 2 pronged needle pines in Japan. A kami, or Japanese deity, appeared and declared Kukai lord of the mountain. The highest peak of Mount Koya is 3,230 feet above sea level, and there are 8 different peaks along the chain. There is a plateau. In 818 Kukai climbed the mountain. He wanted the summit view to help him understand where to build the temple and other buildings. Kukai didn't like it that he had to leave after the ground breaking, to return to Kyoto to advise the secretary of state. He had to ask his supporters for oil and rice, and nails. Kukai saw the 8 peaks as the petals on a lotus. Kukai died before the grand pagoda, the lecture hall and monks quarters could be completed.

Kobo Daishi means "Great Master Who Spread the Dharma". It was the name Kukai was given upon death, and how he's often referred to (source). The comments on an article on Reddit has a lot of interesting information. Gūmonjihō is a method for increasing memory, and is referred to in the Indications. "Temple monks were a kind of a magical bureaucrat."

"what we know about Kūkai's sexuality:

As a young man, he was familiar with an infamous, popular work of erotic fiction.

The self-insert monk character in Indications is said to have become infatuated with a girl at some point and contemplated returning to the world, but a nun's admonishment put him back on track.

He was definitely celibate at least starting from his official ordination, which he got before leaving for China." (op cit)

(I'm cobbling this together from Hakeda, Wikipedia and a Reddit post as my three sources.)

Links:

I watched this video of myths and places of Kukai. He's a wonderful legendary figure in Japan. There's one shrine where they give food to Kukai who they imagine is still meditating. Kukai wrote about the 3 kaya doctrine, and of course you can always consider everyone alive in the Dharmakaya. So to feed him at a shrine is to honor that doctrine that he articulated.

I watched a video on a monk talking about Kukai: Major Works by Hakeda. 

David Gardiner

Read and looked at photos: "Uncovering Kukai's Influence Across Japan" Japan Travel

"88 Temples, 750 Miles, Untold Gifts: Japan’s Shikoku Pilgrimage" NY Times

You get your nokyocho or book stamped at each temple.

Osettai: the act of giving gifts to the pilgrims.

Travel advice for the pilgrimage. "never stand in the center passage in front of the main gate as this path is meant for the gods." And, "When leaving, always exit on the left side and bow once facing the gate."

"While it's most common to start the pilgrimage at the first temple in Ryōzenji in Tokushima prefecture, many also start in reverse order for good luck. The last temple, number eighty-eight, is Ōkuboji in Kagawa prefecture."

"Legends of Monk Kukai Abound across Shikoku"

"Shikoku is known for its forested mountains and slow pace of life" The Week

Journal of someone who did it.

Poetry of Kukai pdf

Kukai's Letter to a Nobleman in Kyoto (also on pp. 51-2 Hakeda.

Thoughts:

First off, Shingon is Vajrayana, so to really practice it, you need to get a Shingon guru. So it's going to be superficial study. But there is a lot of Kukai that is interesting in terms of historical development of Buddhism in Japan and history of Japan. To really understand Kukai, I would think time wandering, meditating and studying, and then finding a Shingon guru and doing initiations. He says, "the essence of Esoteric Buddhism is not to be obtained from written words but to be transmitted from mind to mind; the written words are mere lees and dregs; they are bricks and pebbles." You're not going to get it reading the book. I do value what he did and some of his ways of being. I am not initiated into the Shingon tantra.

I've always felt a weird competitiveness in Japanese Buddhism, and I understand now, with the limiting of ordinations and state controlled religion. I guess I prefer the mountain hermits not coming down off the mountains to play in the halls of power. 

It's long enough ago that there are some fun legends and mythologies. I not a fan of the religion as a way get things in the world approach that seems to sneak in. Another version of spiritual materialism. I'm more into authentic spirituality than the performance of piety and the enforcement of respect. 

Last updated  6:30 AM 9/19/2023.