THE DEVELOPMENT OF ZEN MONASTICISM 619
in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By the close of the six-
teenth century, it was outstripping the
gozan
and Daitokuji lineages.
At least one key to the rapid growth of the Myoshinji school in the
sixteenth century was an effective monastic organization begun under
the abbot Sekko Soshun.
Kanzan began his Zen studies in the gozan monastery of the
Kenchoji in Kamakura. There, he found no monk who could steer
him toward enlightenment. He did, however, hear of Shuho Myocho
(Daito) in Kyoto. Kanzan immediately left the Kenchoji and prac-
ticed Zen under Daito's guidance for several years until he attained
enlightenment by resolving a koan by Yun-men Wen-yen (Unmon
Bun'en, 864-949) hinging on the single character kan (barrier). From
this he took his name, "Barrier-mountain." Although Kanzan fell out
with Daito and left the Daitokuji, he had learned from Daito a severe
Zen based on rigorous meditation. In his own Zen practice and
teaching, Kanzan earned a reputation for austere meditation and
total indifference to personal advancement, monastic prosperity, and
cultural accomplishments. Like Daito, Kanzan was patronized by
Godaigo and especially by Hanazono who practiced Zen under
Kanzan's guidance and converted a detached palace into the Zen
monastery of Myoshinji, naming Kanzan as the founding abbot. Ac-
cording to all the surviving accounts, Kanzan remained indifferent to
his environment. During his lifetime, it was said that the Myoshinji's
roof leaked, that there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and that
when he entertained the eminent prelate Muso he sent out a monk to
buy a few cheap rice cakes. These accounts may be apocryphal.
What is important, however, is that they had currency in Kanzan's
day and shaped his reputation within the Myoshinji lineage as a stern
Zen master who set the highest standards of effort in zazen and koan
study. The term O-To-Kan school applied to his line reflects his
prestige as heir to, and equal of, Daio and Daito.
56
The first century or so of the Myoshinji's history was troubled and
unpromising. The Myoshinji was a branch temple of the Daitokuji,
but the discord between Kanzan and Daito had created tensions in the
relationship between the two communities. The monks who suc-
ceeded Kanzan as heads of the Myoshinji, Juo Sohitsu (1296-1380)
and Muin Soin (1326-1410), maintained his ideal of a reclusive, frugal
monastic life and spartan Zen practice. Although Muin had come to
56 For a more detailed biography of Kanzan and the early history of Myoshinji, see Ogisu
Jundo, "Kanzan Egen no shomondai," in Nihon chusei zenshu-shi, pp.
332-431;
and
Kawakami Kozan, Myoshinji-shi (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1975), pp. 25-60.
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