Eisai

Myōan Eisai (Japanese明 庵 栄 西; probably then Yosai pronounced) (born 20 day of the fourth month (May 27 ) in 1141 in the province of Bitchū; † 5th day of the sixth month (July 2 ) in 1215 and the data refer to the pre-modern Japanese lunisolar calendar ) was a Japanese Buddhist priest who brought the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism and supposedly the green tea from China to Japan. He is often referred to simply as Eisai Zenji (栄 西 禅师), which translates as " Zen master Eisai " means.

Eisa was in the province Bitchū (now Okayama ) was born and began at the age of eleven years, his study of Buddhism under the supervision of the priest Joshin († 1157 ) in the Tendai temple Annyō -ji near the Mii -dera. Two years later he went to the Hieizan, where he was ordained in 1154.

Unhappy with the existing at that time Buddhism, he went in 1168 on his first trip to the Tiantai Mountains, home of the sect, in which he made first contact with the Khan, which was later known in Japan as Zen. He spent during this visit only half a year in China, but returned in 1187 to go back there to be a student of Xuan Huaichang.

After his appointment as a Zen teacher (Chinese chanshi ) and thus obtaining the succession of the Dharma lineage of Linji, Eisai returned in 1191 with Zen writings and supposedly even with the first tea seeds to Japan. He then founded several temples, among others, the Hoon -ji - allegedly Japan's first Zen temple - in remote Kyūshū.

Eisai slowly began to spread the new faith. But he considered himself a likely time of his life as a Tendai monk, and did not try to own as Rinzai school / sect (Japanese宗, Shuu ) to establish what would have quickly pulled sanctions the powerful Tendai and Shingon by organizations themselves. He wanted to reform Tendai by particularly emphasized the monastic rules of the then Chinese Chan circles. In Kennin -ji, he led not only to the practice of Chan ( as zazen ) and contemplative practices of the Tendai by, as well as other esoteric rituals of Mikkyo.

1199 Eisai left Kyoto to pull in the northeastern Kamakura, where the Shogun and his bushi then the capital had built. Hōjō Masako, the widow of Minamoto no Yoritomo, allowed him the foundation of the Jufuku -ji, Kamakura first Zen center. The Rinzai school soon experienced a close connection to the shogunate government and the warrior nobility. However, reasons were not that Eisai's teachings would have been martial arts - oriented, but its severity. Other important points were the connections Rinzai to the Middle Kingdom, China, where the Rinzai monks brought the then latest culture. This later developed into the myth of the arts and ways of Zen. Another reason may be also the prestige and legitimacy of their government have been, because the only two really established schools at that time, Tendai and Shingon, were themselves become dangerous and powerful players in politics, the defeated militarily only in the 16th century could be.

Eisai died in 1215 at the age of 75 years. His student Myōzen was a teacher of Dogen. The two traveled together to China, where Myōzen died. Dogen is considered the first patriarch of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism in Japan.