Mujū Dōkyō (; 1 January 1227 – 9 November 1312), birth name Ichien Dōkyō, was a

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

monk of the Japanese

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

. He is superficially considered a

Rinzai The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school of ...

monk by some due to his compilation of the '' Shasekishū'' and similar books of

koan A ( ; ; zh, c=公案, p=gōng'àn ; ; ) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement from Chinese Chan Buddhist lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways. The main goal of practice in Z ...

s, but there is good evidence that he was also an eager student of the

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

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, and Hosso sects, and he is occasionally placed in the

Shingon is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō- ...

and Ritsu sects as well. Born into the privileged Kajiwara family, he began his service by becoming a page at Jufuku-ji at the age of 13. He became a priest at the age of 18, in

Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

. He founded Choraku-ji temple in Ueno as well as various other temples, and retired at the age of 80. His most important teacher was

Enni Enni Ben'en (圓爾辯圓; 1 November 1202 – 10 November 1280) or simply Enni, also known as Shōichi Kokushi, was a Japanese Buddhist monk. He started his Buddhist training as a Tendai monk. While he was studying with Eisai, a vision of ...

, who practiced zazen as well as the engaged study of various traditions. The only ideology Mujū disapproved of was intolerance, and he "was himself aware of, and intrigued by, the paradox of the position" (Morrell 1985:19). He was disdainful of contemporaries such as Nichiren Shonin who denounced all practices but their own, and he accepted all schools of Buddhism as having a useful teaching, writing in the preface to ''Shasekishū'' that "when a man who practices one version of the Way of Buddha vilifies another because it differs from his own sect, he cannot avoid the sin of slandering the Law."

Writings

*'' Sand and Pebbles'' (Shasekishū)『沙石集』 *''Mirror for Wives'' (Tsuma Kagami)『妻鏡』 *''Casual Digressions'' (Sōdanshū)『雑談集』

References

* Tamura Yoshiro. "Kamakura Shin Bukkyo shiso no kenkyu". pp. 290–306 * Robert Morrell. ''Sand & Pebbles'' Albany, New York: SUNY Press. 1985. 1227 births 1312 deaths Zen Buddhist monks Japanese Buddhist clergy Rinzai Buddhists Shingon Buddhist monks Buddhist clergy of the Kamakura period Shinbutsu shūgō {{zen-bio-stub