Nōnin

Dainichibō Nōnin
大日房能忍
School Zen
Lineage Daruma School
Personal
Died ca. 1196
Senior posting
Title Zen Master
Predecessor Zhuóān Déguāng
Religious career
Teacher Zhuóān Déguāng
Students Koun Ejo
Tettsu Gikai

Dainichibō Nōnin (大日房能忍?) (fl. 1190s) was a Japanese Buddhist monk who took part in introducing the concept of Zen to Japan. While a monk with the Tendai school, he came across texts about Zen which has been brought from China. In 1189, he dispatched two of his disciples to China to meet with Zhuóān Déguāng (拙庵德光, 1121–1203), himself a student of the Rinzai master Dahui Zonggao. The disciples presented a letter Nonin had written describing his realization from practicing Zen on his own. Te-kuang apparently approved and sent a letter certifying Nonin’s enlightenment. Nonin then started his own school, which he called the Darumashū, or "Bodhidharma school". Because of his nonstandard Dharma transmission and extensive blending of various teachings, his school was heavily criticized. Heinrich Dumoulin wrote of Nonin:

"Nonin did not adopt Ta-hui’s form of Zen. His own style came from the Zen meditation practiced in Tendai, which resonates with the early Zen of the Northern school first introduced from China by its founder Saicho. He drew copiously from the Sugyoroku, which was studied zealously on Mt. Hiei. In this way he fused Zen and the teachings of the sutras (zenkyo itchi). He also incorporated into his doctrine and practice elements of Tendai esotericism (taimitsu). He did not engage in the practice of koan. The Zen of the Daruma school, as its texts show, distinguished itself in this way from the Rinzai Zen of the Sung period in the line of Ta-hui.[1]

The Bodhidharma School apparently drew a number of followers, but in 1194 the Tendai establishment requested that the government have it shut down. They accepted the proposal for the school “being ‘incomprehensible’ and circulating nonsense.”[2] His students continued the school for a brief time, but eventually they dispersed to study with Dogen or Eisai. In fact, Koun Ejo and Tettsu Gikai, both prominent students of Dogen to whom nearly all modern Soto Zen teachers trace their lineages, were originally students of Nonin.

References

  1. ^ Dumoulin, Heinrich (1990), Zen Buddhism: A History, 2, New York: MacMillian 
  2. ^ Matsunaga, Daigan; Matsunaga (1988), Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International