Kenshin, the doubtful Buddhist

As I study more about the lives of the people who followed Honen and his Pure Land Buddhist movement, I found this helpful site about a follower named Kenshin.* Kenshin is an interesting of someone who has access to the best Buddhist resources but is still unsure of his path. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? :)

I belong to a generation that has tons of information available on the Internet, plus books, plus “meditation centers”, DVDs, and so on and so forth. But anyone whose read this blog for a while knows my periodic frustration with finding a practice within Buddhism. It seems that many Buddhists through the generations have been confronted with this issue.

Kenshin in his forties decided to get out of temple politics, and find seclusion which is a hallmark of Buddhist tradition. While in seclusion he talked with Honen about the Pure Land path, but later criticized Honen’s response and “one-sided” meaning that Honen didn’t see the whole picture. Honen, being his elder, retorted that Kenshin needed to study more. Humbled, Kenshin is quoted as saying:

“That’s the truth. Though I’ve studied the teachings of both the exoteric and esoteric schools, I’ve been so busy looking after my worldly interests that I haven’t dedicated myself to seeking Birth into the Pure Land. And so I haven’t even looked at the commentaries of Tao-ch’o and Shan-tao at all. Who but Honen could have said anything like this about me?”

Later, during a debate, Honen was invited to speak on behalf of his beliefs. This is what he said:

“The teachings of them all [Tendai, Shingon, and Zen] are profound and of great value to me. If only people’s capacity were really equal to the requirements of the Dharma, they would attain salvation as easily as turning on their heels. But the fact is that a dull, ignorant person like myself is not fit as a container of such treasure. So I find it very hard to understand and very easy to go astray. But when a sincere desire for enlightenment was awakened in my mind, I sought it in all the schools of the path of self-realization (shodo-mon). Yet whichever way I turned, I found all of them quite beyond me….”

He then concluded by pointing out that he was speaking in language applicable to his own individual case and by no means intended to say anything against those who in understanding and practice were of perfect capacity.

This is where Kenshin is first convinced of Honen’s teachings, and begins to follow the Pure Land path. What’s interesting about Honen’s words is that he never criticizes the monastic paths currently in Japan. In fact, he seems to praise them highly, but laments that he is not able to follow the path himself. Honen doesn’t make blanket statements here about how the Pure Land path is better, but speaks from his own individual experience about what’s worked for him.

I think this point is very important in that some Buddhists really can and do follow the monastic paths to fruition. When I read about famous Asian Buddhists such as Ajahn Chah in Thailand or Yin-Shun and Xu-Yun in China, I can see that the Buddhist path is good and true, but these wonderful monks are exceptional. As Honen states, he wish that he could follow the path as easily as turning his heel. So, for a man of his capacity, he felt the Pure Land path is better.

Kenshin was later appointed as the head of the Tendai School, and while he kept up his ecclasiastical duties, he began to delve into the Pure Land path more seriously, introducting changes to Tendai liturgy at the time to include more Pure Land practices. The last sentence of this article is particularly telling:

He always used to say that until the time he abandoned all the other practices of the esoteric and exoteric schools and gave himself up to the one practice of the nembutsu that he had always had a strange feeling that there was something he was still missing.

I wish I could see Kenshin’s actual words, but I think this statement is pretty important. In his blog, Kyoushin wrote a great post one time about his recent adventures at a local Chan meditation group. In this post he makes a couple interesting statements:

The most interesting part of the evening was talking to the other people who attended. Only two or three seemed to self-identify as ‘Buddhist’ and several were vocal in their opposition to ‘religious’ Buddhism – seeing it as a ‘mind-body technique’ that has accumulated cultural accretions.

This is typical of a lot of Western Buddhists who look down upon Asian Buddhism, ignoring the obvious fact that we are deeply indebted to Asians for preserving the teachings for so many generations and keeping them alive.** ;) Also, it seems that when people get so hung up on the mind-based techniques, it kind of sucks the life out of Buddhism. It becomes dry and stilted. I think this is what happened to Kenshin back on Mt. Hiei: having been an administrator and monk for so long, the Buddhist path had become dry and technical until he met Honen.

Honen and his simple straightforward teachings, as well as his own admission of weakness, injected a human quality to Buddhism that reinvigorated Kenshin’s path. It’s not that the Pure Land path was better than Tendai, but rather Kenshin had been caught up in dogma and doctrine for so long he’d forgotten who he was or why he practiced Buddhism. Through Honen he found what he sought and started the path anew.

Anyways, cool story I wanted to pass along.

Namuamidabu

* – The name “Kenshin” is his monastic name by the way, not his given name. This is true with other monks like Honen, Shinran, Dogen, etc. These are better known as “ordination names” and are received by Buddhist monks according to local tradition, but usually only after one ordains. Doesn’t matter much, but wanted to throw that out.

** – Most have never even been to Asia or know any Buddhists there in person. I was of this arrogant type until I went with my wife to Japan in 2005. The culture just breathed Buddhism, even if people weren’t consciously aware of the teachings, and there was more heart-and-soul in the Buddhism I saw there than what I saw in Western books on the subject. If you’re a Buddhist in the West, definitely take the time someday to make a pilgrimage to Asia, even once, doesn’t matter where, and see how Buddhism is practiced on that side of the world. It’s humbling and will help round out our own understanding. :)


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7 Comments on “Kenshin, the doubtful Buddhist”

  1. Al Billings says:

    One problem is that many of us left our own “traditional” religions because we were dissatisfied with things about them. Sometimes these were theological and sometimes cultural. Joining up with another very “churchy” seeming faith is probably one of the last things that people in these circumstances want to do.

    Why would I leave Catholicism and Christianity in general only to go sit in pews with a priest doing a service, etc. whether it was Buddhist or something else?

    Reading Suzuki’s biography, Crooked Cucumber, an encounter between Suzuki and a BCA priest he knew is mentioned. In this encounter, the BCA priest admits that he isn’t sure that he could be a priest in America because he simply wasn’t trained to answer the kinds of questions that he was being asked here. Suzuki mentions having to improve his knowledge of Buddhism because he was being asked questions that in 30 years of being a priest in Japan, no one had bothered to ask. I’ve heard the same thing from people who have trained in Japan. Buddhist priests there are usually much more knowledgeable about the forms and structures of things but are not necessarily well versed in Buddhist history, doctrines, sutras, etc. the way that we would expect here. The prevalence of Buddhism seems to have caused some to take things for granted and only learn to a certain depth because “everyone knows all of this” or somesuch.

    Having to learn all of this from scratch with no cultural basis, that the opposite of my experience in the convert, non-ethnically Buddhist community. Of course, that community has its own problems too.

  2. Gerald Ford says:

    Joining up with another very “churchy” seeming faith is probably one of the last things that people in these circumstances want to do.

    …Having to learn all of this from scratch with no cultural basis, that the opposite of my experience in the convert, non-ethnically Buddhist community.

    Totally. Before I got into Pure Land about 3 years ago, I was definitely among this crowd in every sense of the word. I think it’s a natural outcome of leaving something like Christianity. I think thought that joining Buddhism just to get away from Christianity is ultimately missing something though, and part of a Buddhist’s path is to figure out what’s missing. It’s certainly something I’ve struggled with.

    Yeah, my father-in-law, whose Japanese, complains a lot about Japanese Buddhism and its monks, so in all fairness the Asian Buddhist culture certainly has its problems too. :)

  3. tornadoes28 says:

    What is also amazing about Honen’s statement that he was unable to follow the path’s of the other Buddhist schools is that Honen is considered at that time to be one of the most knowledgeable buddhist monks within Tendai Buddhism and his knowledge of Buddhism in general was superior.

    And yet he still felt he could not follow the other paths.

  4. tornadoes28 says:

    I did not know that Kenshin became the head of the Tendai School and that he included more emphasis of Pure Land.

    Also interesting since the Tendai monks of Mt. Hiei continued to torment the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land School for another two hundred years up to about the time of Rennyo.

  5. Al Billings says:

    Well, the lack of belief in God or the salvic properties of Jesus the Carpenter tended to make me want to leave Christianity above and beyond social factors. I don’t believe in any great sky fathers anymore. :-)

  6. Jeannie says:

    The whole leaving something for Buddhism has always interested me. Before practicing Buddhism, I practiced nothing.

    It doesn’t matter one bit to me why someone practices Buddhism- they will reap the benefits.

  7. Gerald Ford says:

    Tornado: Yeah, the relationship between the “old school” sects like Tendai and Shingon with the new ones appears to be more complicated than first thought.

    Al: Yeah, having left Christianity itself it took quite a while to let go of believe in wrathful sky fathers and such. I think when my beliefs in Buddhism got stronger after 2005, I think I just forgot about it. :) I probably should blog about that at some point in the future.

    Jeannie: Certainly a good point.


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