Hōnen (1133–1212). Founder of the Jōdo Shū, or Pure Land school, in medieval Japan. Hōnen was born into a locally prominent family, and lost his father at an early age when a manager of nearby imperial estates raided his family lands. He was sent to the local Tendai school temple, where his maternal uncle was the priest, for safekeeping, but he took to monastic life and spent many years practising and studying in various places, finally receiving full ordination in 1147 on Mt. Hiei. He eventually became quite well-known for his scholarship, sincerity, and strict morality. Dissatisfied with the corruptions of life on Mt. Hiei, he retired to Mt. Kurodani, long known as a centre of nembutsu practice. He remained there for 20 years. During this time, he remained doubtful that his own accomplishments were enough to guarantee liberation, and he searched the scriptures for other ways of practice more suited to his capacities. In 1175 he found the inspiration he sought in Shan-tao's Commentary on the Meditation Sūtra, which advised keeping the name of the Buddha Amitābha in mind at all times to guarantee rebirth in the Pure Land.

From then on, Hōnen advocated this practice of reciting the Buddha's name aloud for extended periods and keeping it fixed in one's mind at all times. He took the further step of proclaiming this practice the only one that could be effective in the troubled times of mappō, or the declining period of Buddhism. He himself was very discreet in his teaching, but some of his disciples began causing trouble by either proclaiming loudly that all other practices were ineffective, arousing the ire of the established schools, or proclaiming that Amitābha Buddha's compassion (karuṇā) and ‘other-power’ (tariki) were effective in themselves for salvation, thus rendering morality nugatory. Accusations of troublemaking and antinomian behaviour ensued, and Hōnen found himself under attack. His own irreproachable conduct and willingness to engage in other practices, such as monastic ordinations and esoteric rituals (see esoteric Buddhism), protected him for a time, but in 1206 two of his disciples passed the night in the ladies' quarters of the emperor's palace, giving rise to rumours of sexual improprieties against the emperor himself. Four of Hōnen's disciples were executed, and Hōnen himself was banished to Shikoku and forced to return to lay life. Even though he was pardoned soon thereafter, he was prevented from re-entering the capital until just before his death in 1212. After his death, clerics outside his immediate circle of disciples discovered that he had compiled an anthology of scriptural passages defending the exclusive use of the oral nembutsu as the only practice suited to the times, and they moved to have copies confiscated and the wood printing blocks burnt. As the nascent Jōdo Shū gained strength his reputation was rehabilitated, and he is today honoured as the founder of the first independent Pure Land school.

Honen

The Japanese Buddhist monk Honen (1133-1212) is considered the real founder of Japanese Amidism in the form of the Pure Land sect, or Jodoshu.

Honen was the son of an official of Mimasaka Province whose dying wish was that Honen become a monk. Honen began his studies at the great Tendai center on Mt. Hiei. Ordained, he withdrew to the outskirts of Kyoto to lead a solitary life of meditation and contemplation. Dissatisfied with religion as he had learned it, he wanted to break with traditional religious observance. It was only in 1175, when he was 43, that he began to teach his beliefs.

In 1198 Honen formalized his ideas in the Senchakushu, an abbreviated title which, rendered in full, means "Collection of Passages on the Original Vow of Amida, in Which the Nembutsu Is Chosen above All Other Ways of Achieving Rebirth." In this work, Honen made it clear that the nembutsu, or the calling of Amida's name for his aid, was superior to all other forms of religious practice. One was saved not through one's own efforts (jiriki) but through the compassionate mercy of another (tariki), that is, Amida. Traditional methods of salvation relied on severe personal disciplines that ultimately led to enlightenment; these he called the Path of Holiness (shodo) and the Path of the Pure Land (jodo), as the heaven over which Amida presided was called. To attain the Pure Land all that was necessary was the invocation of Amida's name and complete dependence on his mercy. It was felt that for most men the Path of Holiness was beyond their capacities and that hope for salvation thus lay in the second path, which was bound to be successful since it stood beyond personal jurisdiction.

This book was written for the edification of the premier, Fujiwara Kanezane; but when it came out, it provoked the harshest of criticisms from the monks of Mt. Hiei, who destroyed all the copies they could set their hands on. They felt that Honen was turning against Tendai teachings, and he was accused of moral laxity as well.

In 1207, as a result of a misunderstanding with the emperor Toba II, Honen was exiled to Tosa. He remained there only 10 months but was not permitted to return to the capital until 1211. He died in March 1212.

Further Reading

Excerpts of Honen's writings are in The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan, edited by William Theodore de Bary (1969). The most authoritative treatment in a Western language of Honen's life is Harper H. Coates and Ryugaku Ishizuka, Honen the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teaching (1925). See also Mamine Ishii, A Short Life of Honen (1932). Alfred Bloom, Shinran's Gospel of Pure Grace (1965), contains pertinent material on Amidism.

Additional Sources

Honen the Buddhist saint, New York: Garland, 1981. □

Hōnen (1133–1212). Founder of the Jōdo (Pure Land) sect of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. At the age of 13, he became a monk of the Tendai sect. At the age of 43, he converted to the Pure Land teachings upon reading Shantao's Kuan-wu-liang-shou-fo ching shu. Subsequently he preached that everyone without exception can be reborn in Amida Buddha's Pure Land by simply reciting the nembutsu, and insisted that the Pure Land teachings be considered an independent sect. The older established sects' opposition to Hōnen's teachings led to his exile from the capital of Kyōto in 1207. Although he was soon pardoned and returned to Kyōto in 1211, he died the following year. Among his major works are the Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Shu, an outline of his Pure Land teachings, and the Ichimai Kishomon, a one-page summary of his teachings written or dictated on his deathbed.

Genku (founder of Jodo): see HŌNEN.