The Zen rebels: obscure hermits and existential reformers (part 20). Zen Female Masters - Mugai Nyodai

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The significance of female Zen masters from both the Japanese Sōtō and Rinzai school can be traced back to Caodong and the Linji schools of China, to which Dhaui Zonggao of the Linji school famously allowed the mysterious female Zen nun Miaozong (1095-1170), in her attainment and understanding of the Koan process.  As a credence to enter Dahui's Ching-san monastery, so, the combination of the male and female perspectives, particularly within the Koan discipline and its meditation – enlightenment is always the same in its difference.  This is an important aspect in the earlier manifestations of Chinese Zen, with its interest in combining the paradoxical aspects of both the feminine and masculine, embraced as a completed dichotomy.  To prescribe the basic understanding of Ch'an (Zen) which in its early expression in China, wholly took in the Taoist teachings, under the guidance of the 2nd patriarch of Bodhidharma's teachings, Dazu Huike.  Who then begins to imprint that meditation as the trueness of the Buddha nature, removing the duality of the feminine and the masculine as it becomes fixed as one perspective.  To what the Ch'an practitioners would see, is the, at times, divisiveness of other Buddhist schools.  The femininity within the Zen, from both the Sōtō and Rinzai (Jpn) schools, also helped reinforce the rigor of the koan, the difficulty of the penetration of mind that is from both a man and woman can achieve through discipline and stillness of thought, a continued practice.  Before we look at one of the most important female Japanese Zen master's in history - Mugai Nyodai, we need to understand her original master; the great Wuxue Zuyuan.

Wuxue Zuyuan (1226-1286) was a Chinese Zen Master, who lived under the Yuan Dynasty, which was the final conquest of China by the Mongols in 1229 to which they implemented a governing rule over the country.  Marking the end of the Song Dynasty.  A Ch'an (Zen) monk at 13, Zuyuan studied under Wuzhun Shifan was a prominent Ch'an master who saw in the young monk a potentiality of something great within the understand of the legendary Koan of “Mu” in relation to whether a dog, an animal, has the Buddha Nature?  The riddle of its time in Ch'an and Zen lore offers an intensity of thought to which the koan answer offers what appears to be only a “yes” or “no” response.  Legend has it that a young Zuyuan, under Shifan's guidance of assuming it would take Zuyuan a year to resolve, ending up being six years.  Obsessively focused on answering the riddle, in intense meditation, after hearing as sound of wood being struck. Zuyuan became enlightened.  In his  own personal undertaking of what detachment means from the material world, Zuyuan famously wrote down the reasons of his joy after so many years of meditation and practice.  Finally penetrating the mind.  The legend continues with Zuyuan that after his enlightenment, he was then given the title of head priest of his own temple.  A Mongol patrol came across Zuyuan's temple with his residing monks, allowing his fellow monks to flee.  Zuyuan stayed behind and composed a 'death note' as the Mogul's militia were about to execute him and kill the fleeing monks.  The note reads:

'Throughout heaven and earth there is not a piece of ground where a single stick could be inserted;

I am glad that all things are void, myself and the world:

Honoured be the sword, three feet long, wielded by the great Yüan swordsmen;

For it is like cutting a spring breeze in a flash of lightning."

Impressed with Zuyuan's resolve in the face of death.  The Mongols left Zuyuan and his monks, allowing them to live, it is from that point, the legend of Zuyuan's steely resolve and focus as a Cha'an master reaches Japan and his invited by the ruling family at the time and shogunate Hojo Tokimune, as fears that the Mongols were about to invade Japan.  Zuyuan became Tokimune's spiritual advisor.  Legend continues with Zuyuan the Chinses Zen master and Tokiumune, when the shogunate had a moment of doubt that he could defeat the encroaching Mongols, it was Zuyuan that strengthened his resolve.  The Japanese samurai armies defeated the invading Mongols.  In honor and respect of the Zen Master and his attribution towards the shogun Tokimune, the Engaku-ji Temple (Kamakura, Japan) was built in 1282 to honor Zuyuan's and the lives that were lost from both sides.

Mugai Nyodai (her Zen Buddhist name) was born in 1223 her father was the samurai Adachi Yasumori (d1285) not much was known of her mother, who may have been a laywoman.  Nyodai was born to become a servant girl, promised as a bride to her father's retainer family.  The story of her early life, is that the husband she was granted too, passed away at an early age.  Yet, she mothered  a daughter to him.  This is unclear as much as her early past is, what may have occurred, to many young women who suffered misfortunes earlier in life, that may have wandered and became prostitutes.  Since Nyodai's past is very murky, so this is an assumption rather than anything factional.  But, it would fit the general observation, as she was twenty five when she served at a Zen convent in the village of Hiromi.  Taken in by the nuns to cut firewood and carry water, further indicative of a woman in need of shelter and protection.