Kennin-ji

The priest Eisai, like many others, studied the tenets of Tendai on Mount Hiei. And, like many other ecclesiastics before him, he went to China. There, in 1168 he discovered the discipline of Zen and became convinced that here was something which might protect during this terrible period of mappo, the end of Buddhist order. He said so at length in an essay.

According to divine law the history of the world is divided—after the Buddha's entrance into nirvana—into three periods. These are the period of the True Law (shobo), that of Imitative Law (zobo) and, finally, the period of the Last Law (mappo). Throughout these periods the truth of the Buddha and his teachings decline and in this third, though the teachings remain, no one lives by them anymore and hence enlightenment is never attained.

Mappo—estimated to have begun in 1052, just a year before the paradise of the Byodo-in was built—was the background against which such priests as Honen and, later, his disciple Shinran emerged, encouraging believers to depend upon the saving grace of Amida Buddha to lead them from this place of degeneration to the further shores of salvation.

Now, Eisai's claims for Zen began to look equally promising. It was not concerned with the popular good death—if anything it is recipe for a good life, for it seeks to overcome all of those desires which make one so miserable. A product of the new Chinese government we now identify with the Song (Sung) dynasty, Zen speaks of dedication, of inner strength, of the ideal of independence of self. The mercy of Amidal is not even mentioned.

This was because, in a sense, Zen predated many of the other sects and was, in fact, nearer original Indian Buddhism than most of the orders that had already appeared in Japan. The name itself means meditation in the cross-legged position and this is one of the most fundamental practices of Buddhism. The historical Buddha way back at the beginning had meditated in this manner.

Whatever its strong claims as a metaphysical system, however, Zen was also an organized religion and as such could also be put to worldly uses. And no sooner had it reached Japan than these were discovered.

The Hojo regents who had succeeded the house of Minamoto and hence now formed the Kamakura shogunate were indeed looking for just such spiritual relief. Anxious for any indication that change was for the better, and seeking a formula for peace and prosperity, the Hojo regents were busy legitimizing their position by putting up temples and the Zen sect seemed just what was needed.

In Zen there is no canon, no scripture, because words are themselves illusionary, indeed, the aim is for an intellectual vacuum which will allow for enlightenment. Here was also offered a political vacuum through which the Hojos could establish the connection between Zen and the warrior class.

Another reason was that Zen soon became the conduit for cultural imports from China. The Tang Dynasty might be over but the Song offered all sorts of interesting new ideas. Zen itself was one of these and was thus in part responsible for the growth of Song borrowings which had began during the tenth century and grew with Taira overseas trade policies in the twelfth.

Most of the big Zen temples in Japan were soon patronized by warrior families. Not only did Zen search for simplicity, it also encouraged the simple stoicism which the warrior traditionally cultivated. It also sought to transcend the boundaries of both life and death and hence gave the warrior in his dangerous profession a religious foundation for his bravery.

Eisai, back from China, was invited to found a Zen temple. This he did and Kennin-ji was erected in full Chinese style. Indeed, it was patterned after the Baizhang-shan, China's first Zen monastery. Founded in 1202 as the first temple of the Rinzai branch of the Zen sect, it was named by the emperor Tsuchimikado—who gave it the name of the imperial era in which it was built.

The location of the temple—-just north of Rokuhara—also suggested that one of its functions was to look after the dead Heike, since Rokuhara was where their headquarters had been. Furthermore, the big black gate which formed the entrance to the new temple was reputed to have been a part of Taira no Shigemori's Rokuhara palace.

The temple's main function, the sole teaching of Zen, was for a time denied it. Both the Tendai and the Shingon sects, having lost their battle against Amidism and the later Jodo sect, now combined to force the new temple to also offer instruction in their faiths. It was not until the time of the eleventh abbot—the Chinese master Lan-hsi Tao-lung—that it became a purely Zen temple.

Besides teaching Zen (it is head of the Kennin-ji branch of Rinzai Zen, third-ranked in the Five Great Zen Temples of Kyoto) the temple also became known as the place from whence sprang the Japanese cult of tea. Eisai had brought back the plant from China where it was apparently thought of as a medicine. In his Kissa Yojo-ki (The Book of Tea and Health), tea was, he says, "a miraculous elixir."

Consequently the court monopolized it. It was connected with Zen, the attractive new religion that seemed to support aristocratic beliefs, or could be made to seem to, and it was good for you, and no one else had it. When it ceased eventually to be drunk solely by the imperials, the clergy got to it and found that it proved helpful in keeping the meditating priest from falling asleep.

On its way to becoming the main ingredient in the famous chanoyu, the tea ceremony, its consumption took many forms, one of the most intriguing being a Muromachi period innovation, rinkan chanoyu, apparently a combination of bathing and tea drinking. The acceptance of tea was complete when it was discovered to be a remedy for the hangovers of the shogun Sanetomo.

It was the tea ceremony itself, however, that brought new respectability to the beverage. Originally—and even now in its ideal form—this was a gathering of a few like-minded friends, conducted according to an understood etiquette in simple and quiet surroundings. The room was small, bare, with only a few beautiful things in it. Tea was drunk and the scroll or the bowl or the flower arrangement was spoken of.

This simple ceremony was, however, soon made substantially more complicated. By the time of the Ashikaga shogun Yoshimasa, it was already an aristocratic and costly pastime; under master-aestheticist Sen no Rikyu it achieved a true elegance in the chabana, that combination of tea and the spirit of wabi—a much prized sobriety based on an economy of means so stringent that the results (kettle, tea cup) appeared attractively mundane; and in the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Rikyu's parvenu pupil, it was a Technicolor extravaganza.

The teahouse at Kennin-ji is perfectly traditional: plain, simple, with its classical small entrance through which the guests crawled—the military had to leave behind its swords and social equality was assured. It was built in 1587 by the tea master Toyobo Chosei, and might be seen as sober contradiction to the lavish tea party held during the same year by Hideyoshi at Kitano.

Everyone was invited—literally everyone. From the grandest daimyo down to the humblest farmer, all were asked to a ten-day tea ceremony during the course of which were plays and dancing and music and Hideyoshi showed off his tea treasures—rare and expensive tea-caddies, spoons, kettles, the collecting of which had become a fad. One has no idea how everyone from Kyoto and Osaka and Nara and all the towns in between were accommodated. One notes, however, that the farmers had bring with them a cup and a kettle and mat to sit upon, while their betters received no such stipulation at all. One imagines that the monster tea party kept the guests rather well divided; one knows that all this had nothing at all to do with chanoyu.

The teahouse at Kennin-ji, though, was about nothing else. Now, however, no one is allowed in, though one may peer through the door. At present it is the abode of a large and elegant but not very friendly cat. Perhaps the animal finds here a place of rest, away from the dogs and tourists. Certainly Kenninji itself has a great need for quiet and repose. It is now right off a much rundown Gion and surrounded by bars and pachinko parlors, the grounds themselves filled with the priest's automobiles, the fulfilled desires of this world rank within the holy grounds.