About Richard K. Payne

Richard Payne's account of his experience with the Shingon tradition. From the first time I saw it, I knew what I wanted. The raw emotional power of the Shingon fire ritual was so moving that it has given definition to my practice and study of Shingon ritual since that New Year’s morning in 1982. My wife and I had driven up to Sacramento from our home in the south San Francisco Bay Area in time for the first service of the New Year. Rev. Taisen Miyata—who recently retired as bishop of the North American Shingon Mission in Los Angeles—had invited us to come and participate. The temple, dark at this early morning hour, began filling up until there were about a hundred people, and the service began. As Rev. Miyata lit the fire on the altar of the temple, a taiko drum began a steady rhythm, leading all of us in chanting the Heart Sutra: “Kanji zai bosai gyojin, Hannya Haramita ji…” (“The Great Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, while practicing the perfection of wisdom…”) As my own voice joined with the voices of a hundred others in the predawn darkness, the sounds of the Heart Sutra completely replaced my thinking mind. The ritual of making offerings to deities through the medium of a fire characterizes tantra in all of its forms, both Hindu and Buddhist. With its roots in the practices of Vedic India, the history of the fire ritual extends over perhaps as much as five thousand years. This was the practice I wanted to pursue. To do so, however, I would have to travel to Koyasan in Japan, the main center of the Shingon tradition, and complete a full course of training. I would have to become a Shingon priest. The history of the Shingon tradition begins in early medieval India, when tantric Buddhism was first taking shape. Two early sets of practices based on two Buddhist tantras (texts that describe a particular deity ritual) and two mandalas (symbolic representations of the world of a particular central deity) were transmitted to China in the eighth century and then to Japan at the beginning of the ninth century. Known in India as the “way of the mantras,” the tradition’s name was rendered into Chinese as zhenyan, meaning “true word,” a translation of one of the definitions of mantra. The Japanese pronunciation then rendered this as shingon. In China, tantric practices came to permeate Buddhism, and no separate, distinct lineage was formed. In Japan, however, Shingon received imperial recognition as a distinct form of Buddhism, and it developed as an autonomous tradition within the variety of different forms of Buddhist practice. Until the seventeenth century, sectarian identity in Japan was not as exclusive as it is today. Throughout the medieval period, many priests engaged in a variety of different practice traditions, much as today someone might train in mindfulness practice under a Theravada master, then spend some time sitting zazen, and finally engage in a Tibetan Dzogchen practice—all the while taking classes on Buddhism and Asian taught at a local college, as well as studying and reading on their own. The freedom that medieval Buddhist priests felt to work with a variety of Buddhist forms facilitated the spread of tantric ideas and practices into other Buddhist lineages, where they can still be found today. The ninth-century monk Kukai—posthumously given the title Kobo Daishi, meaning “Great Teacher Ocean of Dharma,” and commonly referred to by the honorific expression “O Daishi sama”—is revered as the founder of Shingon in Japan. He was placed in charge of Toji Temple in Kyoto, which is still an important center for Shingon. The five-story pagoda at Toji used to mark the southern entrance to the city, and it was, prior to the modernization of Kyoto, one of the most prominent buildings in the entire city. In addition, Kukai was given permission to set up a training center on Koyasan (meaning “high, wild mountain”), which was several days journey from the capital. The training program he established for monks on the mountain was increasingly codified over the centuries. I had already been introduced to Rev. Miyata by one of my teachers at San José State University, and he later agreed to interview me and my wife regarding my desire to study Shingon. His support and the introductions he could make would be crucial for any success I might hope to eventually achieve. One of the first things he asked me about was the extent and character of my study of Buddhism. Little did I realize at the time the importance of this question, as the Shingon tradition balances education in the history and teachings of Buddhism with practice. Unlike many in my generation, my first exposure to Buddhism was not through Zen or Tibetan Buddhism, but rather through Jodo Shinshu, the Japanese Pure Land tradition. Growing up near San José in the fifties and sixties, I was taken by my parents to O Bon celebrations at the San José Buddhist Temple, and I remember going to bonsai shows at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple. It was only later, as the Beats gave way to the hippies, that I began to hear about Zen, reading Paul Reps’ Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and listening to Alan Watts’ lectures on KPFA, back when FM radio could still be described as underground. Inspired by the idea that one could achieve a kind of heroic perfection by way of meditation, I began practicing and studying, first Zen and then other forms of Buddhism as well. Over the years I explored several kinds of practice, including not only Zen but also yoga, TM, and vipassana, until I finally learned about Tibetan Buddhism. Although it is now seriously outdated, the movie Requiem for a Faith exposed me to the art of Tibetan Buddhism, whose intensity and power I found fascinating. The idea of transforming negative energies into positive ones, portrayed in the form of wrathful bodhisattvas, held much more appeal to me than the idea of overcoming or repressing my own desires—strategies too clearly identifiable in the moralistic culture of America at the time. After learning about the Nyingma Institute, the center near Berkeley founded by Tarthang Tulku, and its first Human Development Training Program, I began a more systematic study and practice of Tibetan forms of Buddhism, a path I would follow for another seven years. Shingon appealed to me, however, as a combination of the tantric Buddhism I had found in the Tibetan traditions and the Japanese cultural context that I felt quite comfortable in, given the mix of ethnicities I had grown up with in California. Rev. Miyata’s interview explored this range of study and experience and was the gateway that led me to study on Koyasan the following year. By train, Koyasan is about two hours from Osaka’s Nanba station. Gazing out the window, one first sees industrial Osaka, but fairly soon this begins to give way to suburban Japan and eventually to areas with houses surrounded by small rice paddies. About halfway to Koyasan, as the line begins to climb toward Hashimoto—the largest city between Osaka and Koyasan—the countryside becomes more and more agricultural, the rice fields larger, the houses farther from one another. Finally, one is in rural Japan, where the land is mountainous with only scattered houses set far back at the edges of fields to maximize the space available to grow rice. Emerald green in the spring and summer, the paddies change to tawny brown in autumn, when the plants are cut and hung upside down for the rice to dry before threshing. Here train stations may only be a concrete platform with a single bench, no building, and no staff; you might see one or two people get off or on, or perhaps in the late afternoon a few students reading manga (comic books) coming home with their backpacks and school uniforms. The end of the line is known as Gokuraku bashi station—the “Bridge to the Land of Bliss,” referring to the old idea that Koyasan is Amida’s Pure Land, Sukhavati, here on earth. This station is on an old pilgrims’ trail that led to the mountain, and at this site there is a bridge over a stream, where pilgrims left the world of defilements and entered the world that purifies. Hastening through the station, one next boards a cable car that climbs the side of the mountain, often through fog, that affords occasional glimpses of massive trees and forests. On my first trip I felt like I was back home in California, but then I realized these were not redwoods but Japanese cypress, and the underbrush was bamboo. Struggling with the backpack and duffle bag that contained all my worldly possessions, I exited the upper station and splurged on a taxi. Soon I had my first glimpse of the town of Koyasan and the temple where I would begin the hundred days of training to become a Shingon priest. The town of Koyasan is nestled in a small mountain valley, surrounded by five peaks, and is home to the main lineage of Shingon Buddhism, the Chuin-ryu. At one end of town is the Great Gate (Daimon), which seemed to be perpetually under reconstruction while I was training on the mountain. As is commonly the case in Japanese Buddhism, the Great Gate marks the boundary between the outer world and the domain of practice, or the domain of at least making a serious attempt to pay attention to the reality of the dharma. Although the Great Gate was traditionally the main entryway into Koyasan, today most travelers come via the rail and cable-car line, and the station is located on a different side of town. In the middle of the town is the Garan, a large complex of buildings that includes the Golden Hall (Kondo) and the Great Stupa (Daito). The Garan as a whole serves as the central ritual space for Koyasan. Close by is the head temple, called Kongobu-ji. This is the ecclesiastical and administrative center for the Chuin-ryu lineage. At the far end of town is Kukai’s mausoleum. Opposite the Garan is Yochi-in, the temple where Rev. Miyata sent me to study under the guidance of Rev. Chisei Aratano. There are two large temples specifically devoted to...

About Richard K. Payne

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