Doctrine While Ippen is primarily depicted as a wandering preacher who ministered to the common people in simple ways, his teachings reflected a deep knowledge of Pure Land doctrine. Ippen's teachings were primarily influenced by
Shōkū, founder of the
Seizan branch of the
Jōdo-shū. Ippen was also strongly influenced by the
nondualism of
Zen and studied under the Zen monk Kakushin (覚心; 1207–1298), who was a student of
Dōhan (道範; 1179–1252) and
Dōgen (道元; 1200–1253).
Shōkū's view held that "the various Buddhist practices contain no more than a portion of the merit of the single practice of the nembutsu and serve merely to lead people to recite the nembutsu." As such, all other Buddhist practices are merely skillful means to lead us to abandon all self-power in an encounter with the Buddha's
Original Vow and
Other-power, an encounter manifested in the nembutsu. Another key doctrine taught by Shōkū and adopted by Ippen was that the liberation of all beings was
non-dual with the liberation of Dharmakara bodhisattva as Amida Buddha. Because of this, the one moment of saying the nembutsu is also the one moment of liberation, as well as the one moment of Dharmakara's attainment of
Buddhahood as Amida ten
kalpas ago. The practice of the nembutsu thus links us with the very
enlightenment of the Buddha eons ago, which transcends
time and space. It is a key doctrine taught in the
Anjin Ketsujō Shō, a key Seizan work attributed to Shōkū. Ippen's core doctrine, expressed in his poem of "the non-duality of ten and one," exemplifies this: Perfect enlightenment ten kalpas past—pervading the realm of sentient beings; Birth in one thought-moment—in Amida's Land. When ten and one are nondual, we realize no-birth; Where Land and realm are the same, we sit in Amida's great assembly. Since Amida's enlightenment (the "ten kalpas past," i.e., when he attained buddhahood) pervades all reality, sentient beings can touch this the very moment we remember the Buddha through even a single nembutsu (this is the "one thought-moment" which is non-dual with the "ten"). Ippen's doctrine, rooted in Seizan school teachings, is that these two events are nondual. Amida's enlightenment is the nembutsu of the present moment. Therefore, as Ippen wrote, "each moment is the moment of death, and each moment is birth in the Pure Land." This single nembutsu in the present moment is also one with all nembutsus. It is also one with the coming of the Buddha (
raigō) to meet us at death, as well as with our birth in the Pure Land. It is thus a timeless event in which, according to Ippen, "there is neither start nor finish, beginning nor end". This present moment of infinity is also described by Ippen as the realization of "no-birth" (
anutpada), which is also a term for the ultimate truth. According to Ippen, after this realization "our hearts are Amida Buddha's heart, our bodily actions Amida Buddha's actions, and our words Amida Buddha's words, the life we are living is Amida Buddha's life." Indeed, from this percepctive, “among all living things—mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, even the sounds of blowing winds and rising waves—there is nothing that is not the
nembutsu.” No-birth stands in contrast to "birth and death" (samsara), as well as a "birth" in the Pure Land as something that only occurs in some future time. Since Amida Buddha as Immeasurable Life transcends all dualities, it transcends all conceptions of birth and death, and so ultimately transcends temporal "birth" while also reaching into the present moment. According to this view, our rebirth in the Pure Land after death is attained immediately in the very moment we say the nembutsu, and this is identical with Amida's
Buddhahood, a doctrine called
sokuben ōjō. As Ippen says, “When one takes refuge in the name which cuts the flow of past, present, and future, there is rebirth without beginning or end.” (
Hōgo Shū, 29). When asked by a follower what kind of mental attitude was needed for the recitation of the nembutsu, Ippen wrote in response that no special attitude was necessary besides just reciting Na-mu-a-mi-da-butsu and that nembutsu followers should not worry about these things and just focus on recitation. Ippen further writes: When
Kūya Shonin was once asked in what state of mind one should recite the Nembutsu, he answered simply, “Abandon”, and did not say anything further. This is recorded in
Saigyō’s Senjūshō. This saying is really the golden rule. The Nembutsu followers abandon wisdom, folly, the knowledge of good and bad, the thought of one’s social position, noble and mean, high and low, the fear of hell, the desire for a land of happiness, and even the
aspiration for enlightenment as exhorted by different schools of Buddhism. In short the Nembutsu followers abandon all these. When the Nembutsu is thus recited, it is in perfect accord with the incomparable
Original Vow of Amida. When the Nembutsu is recited without interruption with this frame of mind, there is no thought of
Buddhahood or self-hood, not to say anything about the presence of an argumentative mood; the world of good and bad is no more than the
Land of Purity itself and beside this there is nothing for which we cherish a desire or from which we turn away. The universe, with all its beings, sentient and non-sentient, with blowing winds and roaring waves, is no other than the Nembutsu. You must not imagine that man is the only being who is embraced by the incomparable Vow. But if my words are hard to understand, leave them as they are, giving no further thoughts to them, and just recite the Nembutsu putting your absolute trust in the Original Vow. As for the Nembutsu, whether you recite it with a believing heart or not, it never fails to be in accord with the incomparable Original Vow of
other-power. In the Original Vow of Amida, nothing is wanting and nothing is superfluous. Beside this, what mental equipment do you wish to have? Only going back to the state of mind found in a simple-minded Nembutsu devotee, recite the Nembutsu. Na-mu-a-mi-da-butsu. Ippen writes that after receiving this "I abandoned my own intentions and aspirations of self-power once and for all."
Hijiri practices Ippen led the Ji-shū community on continual
itinerancy (
yugyō), guiding the people (including peasants and
outcasts) to the Pure Land through the practices of dancing nenbutsu and
fusan (distribution of
nembutsu slips). Ippen's community adopted numerous religious practices from past wandering hijiri and local traditions like the
yamabushi including mountain asceticism, pilgrimages to sacred places, retreats at sacred places hoping to receive divine messages in dreams or visions, funeral rites, distribution of talismans (ofuda), ecstatic dancing, and "the keeping of a register for recording the names of the faithful." Regarding the dancing nenbutsu, Ippen taught: “Merely hearing that the
nembutsu is the teaching of Amida brings such joy that one cannot help but dance."
Method of propagation While his thought has been praised by thinkers like
Yanagi Muneyoshi, Ippen himself placed value not on abstract doctrine but focused on the practice of propagating the single-minded recitation of the six-syllable
nembutsu. The way Ippen taught the nembutsu to others is described by the term
ippen-nembutsu (single nembutsu, or "once" nembutsu) which indicated a single racitation of "Namu-amida-butsu" (I take refuge in Amida Buddha). According to Hirota, his method of propagation "seems to have been an 'exchange' or 'bestowal' of utterance in which Ippen, reciting the Name himself, would urge a passerby to follow his example." The figure “600,000” or "sixty myriad" was derived from the first characters of the following verse by Ippen: The six-character Name is the Dharma teaching of Ippen; the dependent and true realms of the
ten realms are the body of Ippen; the abandonment of ten thousand practices and meditations are the realisation of Ippen; the highest grade of the highest rank [referring to the ranks in the
Contemplation Sūtra] of persons are the supreme and wondrous flowers (puṇḍarīkas). This number, whose size could represent the concept of a very large number, stood for all sentient beings. Sixty was also the approximate number of provinces in Japan, and so was meant as an aspiration to bring the Pure Land teaching to everyone. According to one account, the number also indicated that Ippen would first allot 600,000
woodblock printed slips, then repeat the distribution for further groups of 600,000. Ippen also directed his followers to create a nembutsu registry where the names of all those who had received the slips were counted. This practice may have been adopted by Ippen from previous figures like
Ryōnin, the founder of the
Yuzu nembutsu sect. == Art ==