New Podcasts: Buddhism in Kamakura Japan
Our guiding teacher, Taigen Dan Leighton, recently gave some talks on Myō-e (1173-1232). Myo-e was a Buddhist monk who practiced a generation before the founder of our lineage, Eihei Dogen. These are part of a series of talks from Taigen about the Japanese Buddhist background for Dogen’s teachings. The images above are from the Sanjūsangen-dō temple in Kyoto, built during the time of Myō-e and Dogen, which contains 1,001 statues of the thousand-armed bodhisattva Kannon (including the large main Kannon pictured on the left), as well as the Ryugen-an and Nansen-in temples in Kyoto. The pagoda pictured, the largest in Japan, is from Toji in Kyoto, a Shingon School temple that Myō-e was affiliated with and where he sometimes taught.
Check out Taigen’s talks on this topic:
Unkei, the Japanese Buddhist Michaelangelo
Old School Devoted Monk Myō-e: The Background of Japanese Buddhism
Myō-e’s Dream Journal and Imagination in Buddhism
Return to Dragons: Dreaming in Japanese Buddhism
Aspects of Our Practice from Early Japanese Buddhism
The Six Destines as a New Paradigm for Medieval Japanese Buddhism and Creative Playful Adjustments