Hesse, Hermann
(1877-1962) German novelist
The works of Hermann Hesse, the Nobel Prize-winning author, enjoyed a new birth of life in the 1960s as a new generation of alienated youth discovered his writings. one novel in particular stood out, Siddhartha—originally published in 1922 and originally translated into English in 1951. This novel transcended his other writings as it became part of the emergence of Western Buddhism in the last half of the 20th century.
Hesse was born in Germany. He began to write in his teen years. His early novels were expressive of the young adult rejection of his upbringing, which he considered repressive in the extreme. After World War I, he gave up much of his youthful idealism, including his pacifism, and he also went through extensive Jungian psychoanalysis, a treatment that encouraged his own inner explorations.
Hesse visited India in 1911, the catalyst for his interest in Eastern religions. That interest culminated in the novel Siddhartha (1922). In the novel, the main character makes a pilgrimage of self-discovery. He is religious, but dissatisfied. He spends time with Hindu ascetics but is not helped. So, with a friend named Govinda, he goes in search of a teacher of whom they have heard. The teacher is Gautama Buddha, and once introduced, he is allowed to articulate the basic precepts of his enlightenment. Hesse emphasizes the Buddha’s humanity. He is a man who has found a way. While Govinda decides to stay with the Buddha, Siddhartha chooses to become his own pupil and to learn the truth of himself. He thus takes a very Buddhist approach to the search for reality by individual internal self-reflection.
Hesse continued to write novels into the war years but for the last two decades of his life concentrated on essays, poems, and letters. He won the Nobel Prize in 1946 and died in 1962.
Hiei, Mt. (Heizan)
This mountain of 848 meters overlooks Japan’s Kyoto basin. (In current parlance, Mt. Hiei also loosely refers to the chain of mountains from Kyoto in the south to Otsu in the north.) In 788 C.E., Saicho built a small Buddhist temple there. This was the beginning of the Tendai presence in Japan. Until it was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571, the Tendai complex on Mt. Hiei, also known as Enryaku-ji, would dominate much of Japanese Buddhism.
Saicho almost certainly had no inkling that Hiei would become an influential political site. This occurred only when the capital was moved to Kyoto from Nara in 720. In fact Saicho desired to establish an ordination platform (kaidan) that would be separate from the Buddhist schools then dominant in Nara. The monastery’s subsequent closeness to the court almost certainly played a role in many monks’ gaining positions with the government. Among the most famous monks from Hiei are Honen, Nichiren, and Kukai.
The Enryaku-ji complex at Mt. Hiei continues today as the main temple for Japanese Tendai. Buildings there date from 1642, after the complex was rebuilt. At the center is the honzon, or "object of reverence," carried by Saicho. This is housed in the Konponchudo, or Central Prayer Hall.
Higashi Hongwanji
The Higashi (east) Hongwanji, part of the Jodo Shinshu movement, was one of the larger Japanese Buddhist groups during the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It had no real doctrinal differences with its sister group, the Honpa Hongwanji; the split between the two groups was based rather on a single event.
The Jodo Shinshu movement was a Japanese Pure Land Buddhism group that traces its origin to Shinran (1173-1262). Through the 1570s, the head of the Shin Buddhists, Kennyo (1542-92), who served as chief abbot of the movement’s head temple, had conducted a war against oda Nobunaga (1534-82), a warlord who wanted the temple for his own use. In 1580, the Japanese emperor interceded in the situation and ordered Kennyo to give up his temple. Kennyo, an officer of the court, obeyed and subsequently moved to Saginomori, near Wakayama.
The move to Saginomori caused a split in Kennyo’s family. His older son, Kyonyo (15581614), who would normally inherit Kennyo’s lineage, strongly opposed the action. Thus Ken-nyo passed his lineage to his second son, Junnyo (1577-1630). Kyonyo had enough support that he was able to organize his following separately from that of his father and brother, forming the Higashi Hongwanji. Both brothers saw themselves as continuing the lineage from Shinran and both designated themselves the 12th Shinshu abbot of their respective hongwan-ji, or head temple.
Kyonyo received some unexpected support from Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first Tokugawa shogun. Ieyasu saw two weaker Shinshu groups as easier to manage than one larger one. Thus in 1602, he gave land to Kyonyo in Kyoto, where a new temple was built. In the mid-17th century, Higashi Hongwanji established Takakura Gakuryo, a school that grew up to become the present otani university.
Unlike the Honpa Hongwanji, until the early 20th century, the Higashi Hongwonji showed little interest in expanding overseas. Work began in Hawaii in 1899, and its movement to the u.S. mainland was occasioned by a split in the Honpa Hongwanji temple in Los Angeles in 1921. Later temples were opened in Berkeley, California, and Chicago. Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, famous in the West as a Zen teacher, was a longtime professor at otani university. The Higashi Hongwanji expanded to Brazil in the 1950s.
Hinayana
Hinayana, literally "lesser vehicle," is a Sanskrit term of derogation used in Mahayana literature to describe other Buddhist groups, which were considered to be lesser forms of understanding.
For their part, the so-called Hinayanists, whom we can generally equate with the early 18 schools, ignored the Mahayana and their distinctions. To this day the Theravadins of Sri Lanka and other countries do not recognize the term Hinayana except as a label given them by other Buddhists. As such it is a word with very limited practical application today. It is found usually in print and should be approached with caution. The term Theravada is sufficient and preferred as a way to refer to contemporary practitioners of schools descended from the original 18 schools of early Buddhism.
The early Mahayana writers considered their version "great" because of its all-encompassing doctrines of sympathy, its refined notion of SUNYATA (emptiness), and the goal of attaining Buddha-hood. The Hinayanaists, they said, were content with individual cultivation and the lesser ideal of the arhat.
Early Mahayana writers in fact used the term rarely, preferring the alternative description "the disciples and pratyekabuddhas" A pratyekabud-dha is defined in the early literature as one who is enlightened through self-effort but dies without spreading the word of enlightenment. The disciples were, of course, the arhats, the body of original followers of the Buddha.
The Mahayanists were at first a minority within the body of Buddhism. The scholar of Buddhism Conze believed the Mahaya-naists became the majority around 800 c.e., just before Buddhism’s precipitous decline in India. In shifting focus to other areas such as Central and East Asia, the Mahayana apologists became fiercer in their arguments against the Hinayana. They struggled with ways to handle their sectarian competitive nature while being good, compassionate Buddhists, and so often gave contradictory accounts.
Homosexuality, Buddhist attitudes toward
The emergence of the gay community in the West in the last generation has raised the question of homosexuality in a new way for rapidly growing Western Buddhism as well as Buddhism worldwide. The gay issue was primarily set in Christian terminology, given the dominance of Christianity in the West, and called for an alteration of moral categories to make room for homosexual activity. one new observation that demanded reconsideration of homosexuality was the distinction between homosexual orientation, the desire for sex with people of one’s own gender rather than the opposite gender, and homosexual activity, the acting on one’s sexual desire.
Quite apart from any significant reconsideration of homosexuality within Buddhism by sangha leaders, community administrators, or scholars, gay Buddhist groups have emerged and leaders who have made their homosexual orientation known have taken their place in the pluralistic community with relatively little negative criticism. A reconsideration of homosexuality within the community has begun; in it the 1998 anthology Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhism is a landmark statement.
The discussion of homosexuality in the Buddhist community began not so much as pertaining to an ethical issue as to one concerning practice. The original Buddhist community was the sangha, a community of monks and nuns for whom the effort to gain enlightenment was foremost. Engaging in sex was seen as a distraction to practice. Thus the issue was not heterosexuality versus homosexuality, but celibacy versus engagement in any form of sexual activity.
When the Vinaya, the rules governing the sangha, was committed to writing, sexual conduct was dealt with broadly. Engaging in sexual intercourse is grounds for expulsion. Sexual intercourse includes genital, anal, and oral sexual acts. The rules for nuns go beyond those for monks and prohibit touching another’s body or meeting alone with another person—male or female.
While the discussion of homosexuality in history continues, the present consensus, articulated by Jose Ignacio Cabezon in his essay "Homosexuality and Buddhism," is that overall Buddhism has been neutral on homosexuality, in contrast to the Jewish-Christian-Muslim tradition, which is decidedly antihomosexual. Throughout its history, Buddhism offers no definitive stance on homosexuality and at different times and places Buddhist spokespersons have both strongly condemned it and offered it high praise. It is the case that, as with Christian monastic communities, the act of becoming a Buddhist monk (or nun) allowed people who lacked heterosexual desires to escape the requirement to enter into marriage relationships. In particular, it allowed men who did not desire the company of women to spend their time with male companions and to develop deep friendships quite apart from any overt sexual expressions.
The primary support for homosexuality is from Japan and Tibet. Kukai, the founder of Shin-GoN Buddhism, is cited in some sources as the one who introduced homosexuality from China to Japan, meaning that he introduced forms of homosexual activity into Buddhist monasticism. Certainly, in the medieval period, a positive attitude developed in Japan and produced a set of literature built around the theme of relationships between an older and a younger monk.
In Tibet, monasteries developed communities of what were termed "working monks," young men who desired to participate in the sangha but did not feel called to the rigors of full monastic life. They lived on the fringe of the sangha and performed the practical maintenance tasks to allow the monks to carry on with their religious activities undistracted by the practical necessities of the monasteries’ upkeep. While they were not exclusively homosexual, homosexuality was certainly an aspect of their life.
The flexibility of Buddhism toward homosexuality has provided space for a new generation of gay and lesbian Buddhists to emerge, both as members of older Buddhist groups and as architects of new predominantly gay and/or lesbian communities. The raising of the question of gender-exclusive relationships, other than asexual monastic life, has also provided the environment in which new forms of the religious life such as that which has arisen within the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order can emerge.
Honen
(1133-1212) founder of Jodo (Pure Land) Buddhism in Japan
Honen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, was born into a prominent family in Mima-saka Province. His parents early encouraged him to enter the Buddhist priesthood and as a youth he studied at the famous Tendai center at Mt. Hiei. After his ordination he began a period of retreat when he concentrated on prayer and the study of Buddhist scriptures. He absorbed a belief in Amitabha (Amida) during this period from the reading of a work by Genshin that introduced him to the idea that Amitabha had vowed to save all sentient beings and that faith in his vow would lead one to the Pure Land, the western paradise.
In 1175 he began publicly to advocate his faith in Amitabha. In 1198 he published his Collection of Passages, an anthology of selected works on Amidism along with Honen’s own opinions. This work created a strong reaction from the Tendai leadership. A scandal that broke out within the Pure Land community related to the indiscretion of two Pure Land followers became the occasion for his enemies to act, and the Emperor Toba II (r. 1184-98), though Honen’s friend, was forced to exile him, in 1206. A number of his more prominent students, including Shinran (1173-1262), were also forced into exile.
His formal exile lasted less than a year, but he was not allowed to return to Kyoto, the capital of Japan, until 1211. He was by that time near the end of his life and passed away the following year. His work would be carried on by six primary students. Of these, Shokobo (1162-1238) would lead the most conservative faction, which would later mature into the JoDo-SHu sect. Shin-ran would lead one of the more popular factions, which would later be the Jodo Shinshu; it would still later divide into the Honpa Hongwanji and the Higashi Hongwanji.
Hongaku (benjue)
Hongaku, "innate enlightenment," was a Tendai Buddhism concept that exerted strong influence over all schools during the Kamakura period (1192-1333) of Japanese Buddhism. The concept hongaku, or benjue in Chinese, was first used in the influential Chinese text The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (Dacheng qixin lun), in which it refers to the potential for enlightenment. It was contrasted with shijue (Japanese shikaku), the process of actualizing enlightenment. Kukai (774851), founder of the Japanese Shingon School, incorporated the term into his esoteric—secret and transmitted—teachings. Tendai thinkers later associated hongaku with the Lotus Sutra. Tendai taught that Buddhahood was inherent in all sentient beings, not an external goal to which one needed to work. Tendai held that the world as it exists is a realm of enlightenment, pure TATHAGATA. Essentially the distinction, cause of much debate in Kamakura era Buddhism, contrasts achieving enlightenment through effort, what we normally think of as cultivation practice, as opposed to achieving the realization of one’s inherent Bodhi, or enlightened state.
The Jodo Shu founder Honen was familiar with hongaku thought and concluded it was dangerous in that it led people to conclude strict practice was not critical. His final emphasis on NEMBUTSU teachings underlies his belief that humans are far from the state of the Buddha’s awareness.
Honpa Hongwanji
The largest branch of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan traces its origin to Shinran (1173-1262), founder of a variation on the Jodo-Shu doctrine of Honen. After Shinran’s death, his daughter (who had become a Buddhist nun) established a shrine at Kyoto in her father’s honor. Emperor Kameyama (r. 1249-74) gave this shrine the name Kuon Jitsujo Amida Hongwan-ji and it became the first head temple (hongwanji) of the Jodo Shinshu (or the True Pure Land school). The special emphases of Shinshu Buddhism can be found in a book, the Tannisho, a collection of the sayings of Shinran compiled several decades after his death by his disciple Yui-en, who also wrote the prologue and epilogue. Several sections of the book highlight points of controversy with which Shinran contended.
Leadership of the movement passed through a series of abbots of the hongwanji, the first several direct descendants of Shinran. The movement experienced a significant revival under Rennyo (1415-99); however, his success led some rivals to attack the head temple and destroy it. In 1482, Rennyo returned to Kyoto and built a new hong-wanji at Yamashina. He also built a second temple at Ishiyama in 1496.
All was calm for a generation, but in 1532 the Yamashina temple was burned down by soldiers. The then-abbot, Shonyo (1516-54), moved to the Ishiyama temple at Osaka, which became the third Shinshu head temple.
Shonyo’s successor, Kennyo (1542-92), ran into trouble with Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), a warlord who wanted the Ishiyama temple as his own headquarters. Kennyo refused to abandon the temple and war ensued (1570-80). In 1580, the emperor interceded to stop the fighting and commanded Kennyo to surrender. obeying the emperor, Kennyo moved to Saginomori near Wakayama. Then in 1582, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98) replaced Nobunaga as the true power in Japan. Friendly to the Shinshu, he gave them 700 acres of land at Nishi Rokujo, Kyoto, where a new hongwanji was established. A school established adjacent to this temple would become Ryu-koku university.
At the time that Kennyo surrendered Ishiyama (1580), his two sons developed opposing views of his action: his elder son, Kyonyo (1558-1614), opposed his father’s action, which the younger son, Junnyo (1577-1630), supported. Kennyo passed leadership of the Nishi Hongwanji to Jun-nyo. The followers of Kyonyo organized separately and went on to become a second substantial Shin-shu organization, the Higashi Hongwanji.
Junnyo’s lineage continued in control of the Nishi (west) Hongwanji in Kyoto and its members would become the largest Pure Land organization and one of the largest Buddhist communities in Japan.
In the late 19th century, the Honpa Hongwanji would begin its expansion outside Japan following the Japanese diaspora. It would initially establish temples in Hawaii, and as the century ended, launch a mission in San Francisco. Through the 20th century it would expand into South America and Europe. The San Francisco Mission would mature as the Buddhist Churches of America from which the Buddhist Churches of Canada would emerge. The Hawaiian work continues as the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii.
Horyu-ji (Ikaguradera)
The Horyu-ji is a temple built by the regent Prince Shotoku during the reign of Empress Suiko (592628 c.e.) in Japan. The actual year of its founding is debated, but it was most likely around 607 c.e. The temple served as head temple of the Sanron school and later promoted teachings of the HoSSo school, two early schools of Buddhism in Japan.
The presently existing Horyu-ji complex, the central pieces of the ancient temple, includes the oldest presently existing wooden buildings in the world. Though the original temples built by Shotoku were burned in 670, they were rebuilt in the first decade of the eighth century, prior to the removal of the imperial court to Kyoto in 710. The buildings are most unusual as they have escaped the many destructive forces that occurred around them—including war, fires, and earthquakes.
Horyu-ji contains statues of the Medicine Master (Bhaisajya-guru Buddha) and Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha.
Hosso school (Faxiang, Fa-hsiang, Dharma Marks school)
The Hosso school is the Japanese form of the Fax-iang school of Mahayana Buddhism started by the Chinese translator Xuan Zang. It was based on the Yogacara Buddhism teachings of Vasubhandu and his brother, Asanga (c. fourth century c.e.). Hosso teachings were absorbed by the Japanese monk Dosho, who spent nearly 10 years in China as Xuan Zang’s student. Dosho returned to Japan and founded the Guango-ji monastery. He in turn taught Gyogi, who founded the Southern Monastery lineage. A second lineage of Hosso was founded by Gembo, who visited China for 10 years from 716 c.e. He returned to Japan and taught Genju, who started the Northern Monastery lineage.
Despite all this activity in the end Hosso never took root in Japan, at least not to the extent it did in China. Japan, after the initial importation of Buddhist schools during the Kyoto period, has tended to favor development of Chan Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu).
Hsing Yun (pinyin: Xing Yun)
(1927- ) Zen master and founder of Foguangshan
Hsing Yun, founder of the Foguangshan International Buddhist order, was born in Zhejiang Province in eastern China. He joined the Buddhist sangha in 1941 and lived at a monastery near Nanjing. He is the 48th patriarch of the Linji (Rinzai Zen) school of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and settled in the southern city of Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong). He established the Foguangshan International Buddhist Order at Mt. Foguang. The foundation has since grown to be the largest Buddhist organization in Taiwan, with branches in many countries and two universities. The Hsi Lai Monastery in Los Angeles is affiliated with the Fo Guang Foundation.
Hsing Yun’s lectures focus on such traditional themes in Chinese Buddhism as prajna, the wisdom that perceives the true nature of things, as well as such popular texts as the Heart Sutra. His publications include Humanistic Buddhism A Blueprint for Life.
Hsuan Hua (pinyin: Xuan Hua)
(c. 1908-1995) modern Chan master and founder of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
Hsuan Hua is a major figure in the survival and transmission of a relatively strict monastic version of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, which he founded, sponsors the Buddhist Text Translation Society, which has taken the lead in translating Buddhist texts in English and other Western languages.
Hsuan Hua was born in Shandong Province, northeastern China, and became a monk at an early age. During the 1940s he spent time in monasteries in China, and in 1947 the venerable Abbot Hsu Yun passed the Wang Yin lineage to him.
In 1949, reacting to the Chinese Revolution, he moved to Hong Kong. He lived alone in hills above Shatin and spent time assisting other refugee monks. He built two temples in the Hong Kong countryside. In 1959 he founded the Sino-American Buddhist Association, later renamed the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association. In 1960 he moved to Taiwan; in 1962 he moved to San Francisco, where he took charge of the San Francisco Buddhist Lecture Hall founded by some of his students. As Americans were attracted to his teaching, he began training them to assume the role of Buddhist monks. The first group was received as novices in 1973 in Taiwan.
In 1972 he founded the Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco. While the whole spectrum of Chinese Buddhist perspectives (in which the divisions between schools is not as rigid as in other cultures) were taught, Chan Buddhism was at the heart of his instructions. In 1976, he established the Wan Fo Cheng (City of Ten Thousand Buddhas) in Talmage, California, now the site of a monastery, a convent, and the Dharma Realm university.
Through the 1980s, Hsuan Hua traveled the world spreading the work of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association. He also invited religious leaders to a series of interfaith conferences he held at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. He attracted a loyal following of well-educated Chinese and American individuals who were attracted to his strict approach to cultivation practice. He died in 1995.
Hsu Yun (pinyin: Xu Yun)
Buddhist monk associated with early modern renaissance in Chinese Buddhism Hsu Yun, who is known for his efforts to revive a declining Buddhism in China, was born in the middle to late Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and died after the dawn of the communist regime. He lived for 120 years, 101 of them as a monk. From Guangzhou, in southern China, he originally focused on stringent practice, including periods of silence and isolation with extremely limited food intake. His final years were spent living in the cowshed at the Zhen Ru Monastery.
In order to stem the decline of Buddhism in China, Hsu Yun traveled widely and gave Dharma talks in public. He also urged the rebuilding of important Buddhist sites, including the Nan Hua temple in Guangdong Province, home of Hui Neng, the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism, as well as the Yunmen Monastery.
