Kukai

I'm always complicating things, I want to know the depth, breadth and width. But there's some virtue to the stripped down and smooth narrative. It seems I'm unable to do that, so this is just another narrative of Kukai's life, which might be easier to read that my previous posts. Maybe the first 4 posts were rough drafts, source material. I decided to write it all over again. For some reason I go into detail about different things I've just learned.

Kukai was born into an aristocratic family in Zentsuji. Zentsūji is located in northwestern Kagawa Prefecture. It is the only city in Kagawa Prefecture that does not face the sea. It's a small town in the middle of nowhere, but he has an uncle in Nara who begins to teach him at 15 and he goes to college. He begins to try and chant a mantra a million times as suggested in a sutra he reads. Whether he really becomes disillusioned with worldly life at that time, well, he says he does. 

The uncle's influence is on the wane because the family is accused an assassination, they are out of favor. In college Kukai realizes he's not going to get a job as a bureaucrat and/or he finds Buddhism. He chants mantra of Kokuzo, associated with the space element, and meditates. At some point he begins to wander as a mendicant. At 24 he writes a small tract that begins his literary output called Indications of the goal of the three teachings.

“Now I have a nephew who is depraved and indulges in hunting, wine, and women, and whose usual way of life consists of gambling and dissipation. It is obvious that an unfavorable environment has caused him to lead this kind of life. What has induced me to write this story are the opposition of my relatives to my becoming a Buddhist and the behavior of this nephew.” (p. 103 Hakeda)

"I am writing just to express my own unsuppressable feelings and not in forder to be read by others." (op cit).

From 24-31 he wanders around Japan, meditating and chanting his mantra. It's hard to get ordained in Japan, because it implies state support, and the state didn't want to support monks, so some emperors, to cut costs, would just destroy Buddhism, which was only in Japan for roughly 250 years prior to Kukai's existence. 

Kukai decides he wants to go to China because he likes a sutra, and he thinks he can be initiated into the tantra of a sutra there by teachers who are empowered. He wants to go to Chang'an, which is now called Xi'an. In Kukai's day it was a center of civilization and the start of the silk road. Somehow he gets onto a boat going there, and with his good Chinese talks his way to the city, and finds Huiguo. Huiguo is glad to see him and teaches him everything he can before he dies. He's passed on the lineage to one fellow who will carry on the lineage in Chang'an, but Kukai is to spread the lineage to Japan, in what will become the Shingon sect of Vajrayana Buddhism in Japan.

Kukai has a rival, Saicho. Saicho became a monk at 13 under Gyōhyō in the Flower Garland (Kegon) sect of Japanese Buddhism. Saicho is on the second boat to China, which takes longer to get to China in perilous journey, where the 4th boat loses everyone but one survivor. Saicho goes to a mountain to get his teachings that is closer to the coast. He comes back before Kukai, and charms the emperor, who grants him some recognition and resources, and his career is set, except the emperor dies, and the next one will favor Kukai. And Saicho will eventually ask Kukai for initiations, which shows he was the superior monk. Even so, this is not the end of Shingon and Tientai Buddhist rivalry. On Reddit someone asks why Tientai is more popular than Shingon in America, as if the rivalry is part of the legacy.

Kukai waits 3 years at the port he landed to be invited to approach the emperor. Seems like a really long time.

The fight for state support creates rivalries, but the surviving correspondence between the two seems cordial and collegial. Saicho would die in 822, and Kukai would ascend even more, though he would eventually get old and retreat from service to the emperor, but not after initiating some universal education in Kyoto, where students and teachers would get breakfast and lunch. I'm reading that Massachusetts just re-instituted this policy. 

Kukai would trade poems with the emperor, advise him, and supervise the building of temples, which was a great honor in those days. He died in 835, which is 1,188 years ago in 2023. That's a long time. 

I'm grateful for the stories, artwork, and temples that come down to us using him as inspiration. I'm grateful for Yoshito Hakeda's book on Kukai, a Columbia professor who died in 1983, 40 years ago.

Today you can visit temples that have been replaced since Kukai's day, but still represent the Shingon sect and the spirit of Kukai's teachings. If I were to plan a trip to Japan to honor Kukai I would do the 88 temples on Shikoku, and visit Kongobuji Temple, Looking at pictures of the temples and reading about pilgrimage is enough for me. You could probably spend a lot of time tracking down all the tourist sites associated with Kukai. 

I'm impressed with the wandering years between 24 and 31, the trip to China, and then building a sect of Buddhism that comes down to us today. There are many quaint legends, and you can go sit on a rock that he sat on. There's a shrine where they put food out for Kukai every day. They gave him the honorary name of Kōbō Daishi upon his death which means The Grand Master who Propagated the Dharma. 

Kobo Daishi is on the Triratna refuge tree of inspiration. I've never been initiated into anything in Shingon Buddhism. Vajrayana is the whispered lineage which, in opposition to open source Buddhism, whispers things from the guru to teach you.

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Kukai