had been well respected in the Daruma School and had come to an awakening under Kakuan’s instruction. He had also had extensive training in the Tendai, Shingon, and Pure Land traditions. In addition, at thirty-one years old he was Dogen’s senior by two years; so to some extent, he and Dogen met as equals. They immediately liked one another, and spent two days in discussions about the Dharma, finding themselves in agreement on every point raised. However, on the third day, Dogen, now confident of Ejo’s sincerity, felt he could begin to speak more directly. He identified the areas where their perspectives differed. Ejo was discouraged that Dogen, who was obsessed with the legitimacy of lineage documentation, questioned the validity of his awakening experience and the practices of the Daruma School. In spite of this, it was clear to Ejo that Dogen respected him. Ejo remained certain that his awakening had been genuine; however, he also recognized that, compared with Dogen’s, his understanding was shallow. He hoped that Dogen could help him deepen it.
In a rigidly hierarchal society like that of Medieval Japan, it would have been unusual for someone older to ask a younger man to accept him as a student, but Ejo was humble enough and admired Dogen sufficiently to do so. To Ejo’s dismay, however, Dogen declined as politely as circumstances allowed, telling Ejo that conditions were not yet right at Kenninji for teaching the Dharma. He told Ejo that he would later seek a more appropriate and permanent temple where he would promote the practice of Zen in Japan, and he invited Ejo to visit him there once it was established.
After this first meeting with Dogen, Ejo went on a pilgrimage of Buddhist monasteries in Japan, and eventually returned to a settlement near the ruins of Tonomine, where Kakuan was still living. Ejo remained with Kakuan, caring for him, until the latter’s death.
The Daruma School had not died out entirely. Some of Kakuan and Nonin’s students continued to study with the new head of the school, a monk named Ekan. Ejo, too, may have studied with Ekan for a while. Among the other monks who studied with Ekan were Gikai and Gien.
Just before his death, Kakuan advised Ejo to approach Dogen once again and ask to be accepted as a disciple. By then Dogen had established his training center at Kannondori, and there, in 1234, Ejo was finally accepted as a disciple. Later, Ekan and several of his students also joined Dogen’s community of monks.
At this point in his career, Dogen was still using koans as a teaching means, and he assigned Ejo the koan: “One thread [hair] pierces many holes.” Ejo focused his attention on the koan for a long while. He remained baffled by it until, one day, as he was setting out his food bowls, he suddenly resolved it. He rushed to Dogen’s rooms and bowed ceremoniously.
“Have you understood something?” Dogen asked.
“I don’t ask about the one thread, but what of the many holes?” Ejo replied.
“Pierced!” Dogen said with a laugh.
Now satisfied with Ejo’s level of understanding, Dogen appointed him head monk of the community. Ejo also served as Dogen’s personal attendant, and, when Dogen established Eiheiji, Ejo was put in charge of the daily operations of the temple.
During his final illness, before he went to Kyoto to seek medical attention, Dogen first appointed Ejo his heir, pointing out that although Ejo was older than he, Ejo would outlive his teacher by many years. At the same time, Dogen put Tettsu Gikai in charge of operations. As Ejo had been before him, Gikai was now responsible for the running of the monastery and overseeing its religious and ritual responsibilities; Ejo, as Dogen’s heir, would be in charge of the formation and teaching of the monks.
After Dogen’s death, Ejo was formally installed as the second abbot of Eiheiji. He brought Dogen’s ashes back to Eiheiji and had them interred in a memorial pagoda. It was Ejo’s goal to preserve, as well as he could, Dogen’s Zen as it was presented in the Shobogenzo and his personal teachings. Ejo collected his master’s writings and perhaps spent too much time working on these. As a result, he may not have realized the extent to which discipline in the monastery had begun to suffer, nor may he have been aware that a division was growing among the monks that would become more serious as time passed. It is also possible that his continued sense of personal unworthiness kept him from growing into the type of leader the community needed.
TETTSU GIKAI
Ejo recognized Gikai as his own heir because he believed that Dogen would have wanted him to do so. However, although Ejo was aware of the respect Dogen had had for Gikai, Ejo himself had some reservations about him. He suspected that, like many of the former Daruma School members, Gikai held beliefs, in particular about the so-called esoteric or ritual practices, which were inconsistent with what Ejo understood to be Dogen’s Zen. Ejo reminded Gikai that zazen was the singular focus of Dogen’s teaching. Ejo knew there were members of the sangha at Eiheiji who did not believe that zazen was necessarily the only appropriate form of practice, so he questioned Gikai about where he stood on the issue. Gikai admitted that, while he valued the practice of zazen, he believed there were other disciplines that could be just as valuable to one’s religious development. Ejo pressed the issue, and Gikai at least gave the impression that his opinion was swayed.
To deepen Gikai’s understanding of Zen, Ejo encouraged him to go on a tour of other monasteries in Japan. Gikai went even further and, on his own initiative but with Ejo’s permission, traveled to China as well. He was impressed by the depth of the established Zen tradition and its trappings in the Land of Song and was awed by both the architecture and the furnishings of the temples he visited. He made detailed copies of the architectural designs of these sites and collected cultic items to bring back to Japan.
When Gikai returned to Eiheiji, Ejo appointed him abbot and retired. Ejo settled in a hermitage not far from the temple, hoping to pass his final days in solitude; however, some of his former students, uncomfortable with Gikai, visited Ejo on a regular basis. It soon became clear that there was a division between a group of monks who supported Gikai and another group that wanted Ejo to return. Gikai, this latter group complained, was less interested in the spiritual development of the monks than he was in transforming Eiheiji architecturally and making it a place of elaborate shrines. He also had never wholly given up his belief that zazen was not necessarily the only appropriate practice, and ritual elements were gradually being introduced into the monks’ daily schedule of activities. There were also questions raised about a subsidiary temple he had built for the care of his mother.
In 1272, the faction that opposed Gikai persuaded Ejo to return and resume the position of Abbot. Gikai withdrew his claim to the post rather than cause further divisions within the community, although he remained at Eiheiji and continued to work with Ejo.
Ejo tried to reconcile the divisions that had arisen at Eiheiji, but went to his death feeling that he had failed to do so and, thus, had failed in his responsibilities to his teacher, Dogen.
Just before he died, Ejo commanded his students not to build a memorial pagoda for him but simply to bury him at the foot of Dogen’s pagoda.
After Ejo’s death, Gikai was returned to the position of Abbot, but the divisions within the community remained unresolved. For the traditionalists, the final straw came when Gikai complied with a government request that Shingon rituals be carried out at Eiheiji for the benefit of the country.
The Government directive had come about because they sought divine aid in their efforts to resist the intentions of the Mongol leader, Kublai Khan, to add Japan to his vast conquests. The Khan had already taken control of both China and Korea. Eight years earlier he had sent a number of delegations to the Japanese