Keizan Shingi
Introduction
The Keizan Shingi (瑩山清規), or "Keizan's Rules of Purity," is the monastic code compiled by Keizan Jōkin (瑩山紹瑾, 1268–1325), the fourth patriarch of the Japanese Sōtō school and the founder of Sōji-ji monastery. While Dōgen transmitted the essence of the Dharma and the fundamental rules of monastic life from China, Keizan adapted them to the Japanese context and developed them to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding Buddhist community.
The Keizan Shingi takes up and extends Dōgen's Eihei Shingi, but adds detailed instructions on rituals and ceremonies that would become the hallmark of the Japanese Sōtō school, notably funeral rites, services for ancestors, and Dharma transmission ceremonies. It was through the Keizan Shingi that Sōtō Buddhism took root in medieval Japanese society.
The text is written in classical Japanese mixed with kanbun (classical Chinese in a Japanese style). It has not yet been fully translated into French; this page offers an introduction to this fundamental text of the Sōtō tradition.
Historical Context
Keizan Jōkin was born in 1268, fifteen years after Dōgen's death. He studied under Koun Ejō (孤雲懷奘, 1198–1280), the second Sōtō patriarch, and then under Tettsū Gikai (徹通義介, 1219–1309), the third patriarch. After a pilgrimage to China where he received the transmission of the Chinese monastic rules of his time, Keizan founded Yōkō-ji monastery in 1313, and then Sōji-ji in 1321 in Noto province (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture).
Sōji-ji quickly became one of the two main centers of the Sōtō school, alongside Eihei-ji founded by Dōgen. Under Keizan's leadership, the community grew significantly, and it became necessary to formalize the rules of monastic life for a larger and more diverse community than that of the early days of Eihei-ji.
The Keizan Shingi was compiled to meet this need. It adopts the structure of the Chinese codes (the Chanyuan Qinggui and its derivatives) and Dōgen's Eihei Shingi, but innovates by integrating elements of Japanese Buddhist culture—notably rites for the dead, which became central to Sōtō practice in Japan.
Content and Structure
The Keizan Shingi covers a wide range of subjects:
- Règles pour l'abbé : installation, responsabilités, succession
- Rituels journaliers : récitation des sūtra, cérémonies du matin et du soir
- Cérémonies saisonnières : célébrations liées au calendrier bouddhiste japonais
- Rites funéraires : procédures détaillées pour les moines et les laïcs
- Règles pour les novices : formation, ordination, préceptes
- Administration du monastère : gestion des terres, des offrandes, des finances
The emphasis on funeral rites is particularly significant: it was largely through services for the dead that the Sōtō school became established in Japanese rural communities, with each family needing a priest to ensure the salvation of their ancestors.
Importance in the Tradition
The Keizan Shingi holds a unique place in the history of the Sōtō school. While Dōgen is the spiritual founder who brought the essence of the Dharma from China, Keizan is the true organizer of the Sōtō institution. Without his monastic code, the school might not have survived the turbulent period of the Japanese civil wars (14th–16th centuries).
The Keizan Shingi is traditionally studied alongside the Eihei Shingi in Sōtō monasteries. Together, they form the basis of monastic training: the former for the essence of zazen practice according to Dōgen, the latter for the concrete organization of community life according to Keizan.
Original Text / 原文
夫清規者。佛祖之洪範也。所以整頓僧伽。匡徒眾。令正法久住于世。故當寺之規矩。不可不遵行。
Original text
The text of the Keizan Shingi is preserved in the Sōtōshū Zensho and in various editions of the Japanese Buddhist canon.
Online sources:
Original text in classical Japanese (文語/kanbun) · Source: Sōtōshū Zensho, public domain · Mokusan presentation, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Keizan Jōkin · Kamakura (c. 1320)