Rinzai

(Japanese, Rinzaishū). One of the schools of Japanese zen Buddhism, founded in the early Kamakura period by the monk Eisai (or Yōsai, 1141-1215). Eisai, a Tendai monk, made two excursions to China during his life, and on the second trip, he received training and certification in the Huang-lung lineage of Lin-chi Ch'an (‘Rinzai Zen’ is the Japanese pronunciation of ‘Lin-chi Ch'an’). Even though he is revered as the ‘founder’ of the Rinzai school in Japan, recent scholars have pointed out that he never explicitly set out to establish a new school that would practise only Zen techniques or propagate only Zen literature and teachings. Rather, he seems to have wanted to revive Zen within the overall framework of Tendai's multifaceted programme of religious training, called ‘enmitsuzenkai’ (perfect teachings [of the Lotus Sūtra]), esoteric ritual (see Esoteric Buddhism), Zen meditation, and monastic precepts). Nevertheless, he did set in motion the chain of events that would eventuate in the establishment of Rinzai as an independent school of Buddhism.

Eisai's immediate disciples carried on their master's mixed practice, and some went in almost entirely for performing esoteric rituals. A purer tradition of Rinzai Zen appeared under the leadership of Eisai's third-generation disciple Enni Ben'en (1202-80). After studying with two of Eisai's disciples, though without any certification of enlightenment, Enni set out for China in 1235 and had a certified enlightenment experience under a Lin-chi master. However, this master was from the Yang-ch'i line, the primary rival to the Huang-lung line in China. Thus, since Enni never received recognition as a Zen master from his own teachers within Eisai's lineage, and since the inka (certification) he received in China came via a different lineage than Eisai's, we may say that Enni represents a second transmission of the Rinzai teachings to Japan. After some setbacks upon his return, Enni established the Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto, and in his leadership of this temple he departed from Eisai's practice and brought Zen to the forefront. At first he encountered some resistance from both the established schools of Buddhism who resented his encroachments into their membership base, and also from Dōgen (1200-53), who, in a nearby temple, was attempting to develop support for his own fledgeling Sōtō Zen school. Despite this hostility, Enni's diplomatic skills carried the day, and he was able to make peace with his rivals and maintain a viable school that taught a purer practice of Zen than that of his predecessors. However, it must be noted that Enni's training merely emphasized Zen, and he did not exclude other practices in principle.

During the period when Buddhism appealed primarily to the aristocracy, Buddhist monks were compelled to perform the services demanded if they wished to receive support. Aristocrats and rulers demanded the performance of esoteric rituals for various this-worldly ends, and so it remained impractical for monks to give all of their time and energy to a purely Zen practice. The Sōtō school's insistence on unadulterated Zen practice kept it marginalized for a time, but in the mid-to-late 13th century, two interlocking developments helped change the situation of the Rinzai school. First, the warrior classes began to discover the practical effects of Rinzai's results-oriented style of practice in the pursuit of their martial duties. Rinzai made use of kōans in the pursuit of enlightenment (satori), and warriors who engaged in this training found it helped them concentrate on the present moment in the pitch of battle, assisted them in letting go of clinging to life and victory, and the fear of death and defeat, as well as helping to improve their reflexes and concentration. Thus, they were more willing than their aristocratic masters to support Zen for its own sake and not demand any admixture with esoteric ritualism. Second, the Rinzai school became active in inviting Chinese Ch'an masters to come to Japan to train disciples. These Chinese masters, such as Lan-chi Tao-lung (Japanese, Rankei Dōryū (1213-78), Wu-an P'u-ning (Japanese, Gottan Funei 1197-1276) among others, had not learned the esoteric arts in China and did not care to learn them to accommodate the Japanese aristocrats. They taught only Zen, and their activities helped to further purify the Rinzai school of extraneous elements. However, it must be noted that the mixed practice of esoterism and meditation continued through such masters as Musō Soseki (1275-1351).

The next generation of Rinzai masters found themselves under closer government scrutiny, partly because of the influence they wielded among the warrior class, and partly because of the ruling Ashikaga family's interest in Zen even prior to their rise to power. When the Ashikaga shōgunate came to power and set up their government in Kyoto, they asserted more direct supervision over Rinzai monasteries by organizing them into ranks, with the five most distinguished temples, called the ‘Five Mountains’ (Japanese, gozan) after an earlier Chinese Lin-chi Ch'an institution, at the top. (See Five Mountains and Ten Temples.) The actual temples included in the gozan changed with the ruler's favour, and at various times there might even be more than five temples in the ‘Five Mountains’ rank.

In the course of the Muromachi period (1392-1568), the favour shown by the Ashikaga shōguns to Rinzai Zen led to monks becoming heavily involved in affairs of state, and the corruption that usually accompanies membership in a religious group when it serves as a conduit of upward social mobility. Not all monks were happy with this state of affairs, and Ikkyū Sōjun (1394-1481) protested by boycotting life in a conventional Rinzai monastery and living an itinerant life, composing verses, and behaving outrageously. Others, such as Battai Tokushō (1327-87), simply removed themselves from temples within the gozan system and lived in the provinces under the patronage of local worthies. These monks grew close to the families that would become the great estate-holders (Japanese, daimyō) upon whom power would devolve at the end of the Muromachi period, and so, even with the loss of the Ashikaga government and the erection of the Tokugawa shōgunate, Rinzai, with its appeal to the samurai, remained popular. During the Tokugawa period (1615-1868), Rinzai Zen practice continued to function as a training device for the samurai, and contributed to the formation of the warrior's ethic of bushidō. The Tokugawa rulers made use of this close connection with Zen in requiring all local families to register with a local Zen temple, thus turning the Rinzai school into a de facto census bureau. Involvement with the warrior class and government record-keeping led, in the minds of many, to an unhappy secularization of the school, but there were still many signs of vitality, as witnessed in the careers of masters such as Bankei Eitaku (1622-92) and Hakuin Zenji (1685-1768). Such men could still inspire reverence for their learning and accomplishments in religious practice. Hakuin in particular was a great reformer and revitalizer of the Rinzai tradition; he took the vast body of kōans then in use, systematized them into a kind of graded curriculum, and classified them according to the kind of experience they evoked.

Sōtō and Rinzai are the two primary schools of Zen Buddhism in Japan, and their difference is generally characterized in this way: whereas Sōtō emphasizes the practice of ‘just-sitting’ in the conviction that human beings are already possessed of an enlightened nature that needs only to be realized, Rinzai actively pursues the goal of enlightenment through the use of tools such as kōans and strenuous practice. It is this more active and goal-oriented approach that made Rinzai popular among the samurai, and still draws practitioners today.