[Buddha-l] Dharuma shu

[Elihu Smith]

"FM> So what they *really*  taught and practiced I'm
not sure of. What
FM> I do know, is they were a  very early Zen school
in Japan, with
FM> temples and all that jazz, and  that both Dogen
and
FM> Yosai/Eisei--in other words both mainline Soto and
 Rinzai
FM> founders--excoriated them and anathematized them
for
FM> antinomianism. Whether they were really
antinomian, I'm not sure, 
but 
FM> they did argue that the precepts were not
fundamentally important, 
as 
FM> the original mind was pure and unstained by
afflictions.

I'm not really sure if you are talking about the
Daruma school leaded
by Nonin. If this is the case, that people were
accused of not
maintaining precepts and social disorder. It seems
their teaching was
similar to some of the early Chinese Chan.  As in the
case of the
famous Lhasa debate in Tibet, it seems the Nonin's
teaching was not
welcomed as a religious standard for the Japanese
society.
 
Nonin had the Dharma transmission from a Chinese
master named
Te-kuang. Nonin followers had temples in Settsu, Kyoto
and many other
places. However, many years later, groups of militant
monks from Mount
Hiei destroyed all them, except Hajakji, in where the
Nonin
descendants took refuge.

As you points, the conflict with Tendai and Soto
schools it seems
was around morality and the social order of Religion.

Somebody asked to Eisai about Daruma school:
'Some people recklessly refer to the Daruma sect
School as the Zen
school. But these Daruma adherents say, "There are not
precepts to
follow, no practices to engage in. From the outset
there are not
passions; from the beginning we are enlightened.
Therefore we do not
practice, do not follow precepts. We eat when we are
hungry, rest when
we are tired. Why recite's the Buddha's name, why make
offerings, why
give vegetarian feasts, why curtail eating?" How can
this be?'

It is from "The Development of Japanese Zen", P.
Yampolsky. Inside
"Zen, tradition and Transition", Grove Press. 

Eisai replied that those people maintained a false
view about
emptiness. Although maybe it can be really
questionable, unless
one can think the right view of emptiness must include
the social
survive of the emptiness teaching.

This conflict it's similar of the Lhasa debate, in
where even today
some contemporary scholars like Luis O. Gomez seem to
be scared in
front those radical interpretations of the religious
live.
Despite that probably, those radical positions are so
old as the same
religion."


In addition to the matters noted above, a matter of
contention was the fact that Nonin, the founder of
Daruma Shu, had what might be called a "mail-order"
Dharma Transmission - sending his disciples via sea
with written material to a Linji Ch'an Master in China
and receiving approval in return. 

Most of the Daruma Shu monks eventually joined Dogen
at what would become Eihei-ji; in fact, several
generations of Dogen's major successors and the
ongoing lineage of Soto Shu were former Daruma Shu
monks. 

For further information about this and a more nuanced
clarification of the Dharma issues raised by the
Daruma Shu, see 2 excellent works: 
"Soto Zen in Medieval Japan" by William M. Bodiford
and"Did Dogen Go to China? What He Wrote and When He
Wrote It" by Steven Heine.

Best.

Elihu