Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

K ONJAKU
MONOGATARI
few koans over a lifetime, based on the notion that
resolving one koan is resolving them all.
In China, kanhua Chan became a standard for Chan
meditation soon after Dahui, even in the Caodong tradition
that Dahui had criticized. Kanhua Chan continues
to be important in Chinese Chan through the
twentieth century, although earlier types of meditation,
similar to silent illumination, are also considered
legitimate.
See also: Chan School; China; Japan; Korea; Meditation
Bibliography
Bodiford, William M. So to Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1993.
Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The ‘Short-Cut’ Approach of K’an-Hua
Meditation: The Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese
Ch’an Buddhism.” In Sudden and Gradual: Approaches
to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, ed. Peter N. Gregory.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987.
Cleary, J. C., and Cleary, Thomas, trans. and eds. The Blue Cliff
Record. Boston: Shambhala, 1977.
Foulk, T. Griffith. “The Form and Function of Koan Literature:
A Historical Overview.” In The Ko an: Texts and Contexts in
Zen Buddhism, ed. Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Hoffmann, Yoel, trans. and ed. The Sound of the One Hand: 281
Zen Ko ans with Answers. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Hori, G. Victor Sogen. “Teaching and Learning in the Rinzai
Zen Monastery.” Journal of Japanese Studies 20, no. 1 (1994):
5–35.
Hsieh, Ding-hwa Evelyn. “Yüan-Wu K’o-Ch’in’s (1063–1135)
Teaching of Ch’an Kung-an Practice: A Transition from Literary
Study of Ch’an Kung-an to the Practical K’an-Hua
Ch’an.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies 17, no. 1 (1994): 66–95.
Schlütter, Morten. “Silent Illumination, Kung-an Introspection,
and the Competition for Lay Patronage in Sung-Dynasty
Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory and
Daniel Getz. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.
MORTEN SCHLÜTTER
of all practices except for the recitation of the name
of AMITABHA Buddha. Orphaned at the age of eight,
Koben was raised by his uncle, a Buddhist priest, and
lived a life of study and practice in monasteries. In 1204
he was granted his own monastery, Kozanji, in the outskirts
of Kyoto, and he spent the rest of his life there
and at his hometown in Wakayama prefecture, studying,
meditating, and writing.
Trained primarily as a Shingon monk, Koben revived
ritual practices and devised new ones for the purpose
of transforming doctrinal teachings into actual
experience and vision. He popularized Esoteric Buddhist
practices, such as the MANTRA of Radiance
(komyo shingon), which is still chanted widely today.
He was also a prolific poet and kept a diary of his meditative
dreams over a period of forty years. Using poetry
and meditation, Koben transfigured the world
around him into the idealized realm of his dreams, and
he even cut off his right ear to prove to himself that he
was not attached to this world.
His active imagination, however, did not prevent
him from exercising his critical faculties. Koben wrote
a lengthy, scathing attack to show that Honen’s exclusive
practice of recitation not only rejected traditional
Buddhism but also misrepresented the Pure Land tradition.
Koben is therefore remembered primarily as a
defender and reviver of traditional Buddhism and the
practice of RITUAL and MEDITATION.
See also: Japan; Pure Land Buddhism
Bibliography
Brock, Karen L. “My Reflection Should Be Your Keepsake:
Myoe’s Vision of the Kasuga Deity.” In Living Images: Japanese
Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. Robert E. Sharf and Elizabeth
Horton Sharf. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2001.
Morrell, Robert E. Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report.
Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1987.
Tanabe, George J., Jr. Myo e the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and
Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1992.
GEORGE J. TANABE, JR.
KO BEN
Koben (Myoe; 1173–1232), a Japanese Shingon-Kegon
monk, embraced traditional Buddhist practices in reaction
to reformers like HO NEN (1133–1212), who
founded the Pure Land school based on the rejection
KONJAKU MONOGATARI
Konjaku monogatari (or Konjaku monogatarishu , Collection
of Tales Now Past) is a monumental collection
of popular stories (setsuwa), mostly emphasizing
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