Mujū, Date of Birth, Date of Death

    

Mujū

Japanese Buddhist monk

Date of Birth: 01-Jan-1227

Date of Death: 09-Nov-1312

Profession: writer

Nationality: Japan

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


Show Famous Birthdays Today, Japan

👉 Worldwide Celebrity Birthdays Today

About Mujū

  • Muju Dokyo (Japanese: ????; 1 January 1227 - 9 November 1312), birth name Ichien Dokyo, was a Buddhist monk of the Japanese Kamakura period.
  • He is superficially considered a Rinzai monk by some due to his compilation of the Shasekishu and similar books of koans, but there is good evidence that he was also an eager student of the Tendai, Pure Land, and Hosso sects, and he is occasionally placed in the Shingon and Ritsu sects as well. Born into the privileged Kajiwara family, he began his service by becoming a page at Jufuku-ji at the age of 13.
  • He became a priest at the age of 18, in Hitachi Province, moving to Kanto for his studies.
  • He founded Choraku-ji temple in Ueno as well as various other temples, and retired at the age of 80.
  • His most important teacher was Enni, who practiced zazen as well as the engaged study of various traditions. The only ideology Muju disapproved of was intolerance, and he "was himself aware of, and intrigued by, the paradox of the position" (Morrell 1985:19).
  • He was disdainful of contemporaries such as Nichiren Shonin who denounced all practices but their own, and he accepted all schools of Buddhism as having a useful teaching, writing in the preface to Shasekishu that "when a man who practices one version of the Way of Buddha vilifies another because it differs from his own sect, he cannot avoid the sin of slandering the Law."

Read more at Wikipedia