Origins of our modern kinhin practice
You might imagine Dogen doing everything in the zendo that we do today, and assume that he is the source of all elements of our practice. We may think this because he wrote so many instructions, like the Fukanzazengi and the Eihei Shingi. When it comes to kinhin, however, what we do was fabricated in the late 1700s as part of a reformation project. Let’s see how that happened, and where our kinhin actually comes from.
Walking is mentioned in the Pali Canon as one of the four postures of Buddha and his disciples. As a practice, the focus is on correct walking demeanor rather than on a particular form. Walking was done in various places outside, but there's no description of kinhin as we know it in the standard texts, certainly not for the slow style we use today. Kinhin 經行 is a Japanese word. Kin 經 means to pass through in time or space; hin 行 is to go, and it also refers to Buddhist practice in general (you may recognize this kanji when it's pronounced gyo). We can see where we get the sense of correct walking deportment from this term.
Dogen spends plenty of time writing about zazen, but he doesn’t focus on kinhin, so we don’t really know what it looked like for him. A monk named Menzan Zuiho (1683-1769) pieced some instructions together out of bits of writings attributed to Dogen and then tried to show the connection with two well known sutras in order to legitimize it. Menzan was a reformer who wanted to root out practices and doctrines that had crept into Soto Zen but that he considered not to be Dogen’s teaching. This reform movement started in 1700, before Menzan became involved. In 1615 the government ruled that Soto Zen had to follow the "house rules" of Eiheiji because it was the denomination's head temple; there were similar guidelines for other Buddhist sects. However, Eiheiji didn’t have a written set of house rules, so reformers said that the entirety of Dogen’s writings should be taken as the house rules. Dogen’s writings were just becoming widely available at the time; his writings and life story had previously been unread for centuries. Reformers went over all the writings in order to find examples of how current practices had deviated from them. Those practicing at Eiheiji said that their way was right because they were directly descended from Dogen and were the protectors of his temple and practice. Thus the conflict became texts vs practice – which was authentic? The government supported the texts as authoritative over heavy opposition from many leaders of the Soto school. Once this happened, any time there was a disagreement, both sides turned to Dogen’s texts for support for their arguments, which made texts the ultimate source. Authority no longer rested in face-to-face transmission of practice from teacher to student, but from interpretations of texts.
Menzan became a leading figure in the reform movement, particularly related to monastic practice. He wanted to take practice back to what he considered the old true Chinese way that Dogen learned when he went to China and practiced with Tendo Nyojo. One thing he wanted to change was the practice of walking while reciting Buddha’s name, which he saw as not being a legitimate Soto practice. However, there isn’t much in Dogen’s writings about kinhin, so the house rules didn’t help. Menzan had to start looking elsewhere for clues.
Ultimately, he used citations from Indian and Chinese sources to write the Kinhinki, a short text describing kinhin that connects it to mainstream Buddhists texts and includes his own explanations and comments. Menzan had to do two things in this text: gather up descriptions and instructions for doing kinhin, and quote sutras and other texts that gave those instructions the weight of authority. Early sources describe shashu and the mental attitude, as well as walking neither fast nor slow in a straight line and then turning around and coming back. Yet the texts on monastic rules that were available to Dogen when he was training simply instruct practitioners to walk in a way appropriate for a temple, and if desired, to walk inside or under the eaves in their free time.
Dogen’s Bendoho talks about something that sounds like our slow kinhin in relation to entering and leaving the zazen hall, but not as something done between zazen periods. The hands are clasped together inside the sleeves, and there is nothing about matching breathing to steps. The Hokyoki has more; that text outlines what Dogen learned from his teacher Tendo Nyojo and describes the slow walk with half steps and matched breathing. Nyojo says he’s the only one who knows this practice. Again there is nothing about timing, when and for how long to walk, or kinhin's role as a practice. Overall, there is nowhere near the detail about posture or context present in Dogen’s writings about zazen, so we can’t really make a direct link between Dogen’s walking and our kinhin process. We also can’t link kinhin to what’s described in the Pali Canon.
Despite this, Menzan’s Kinhinki argues that:
The result is that Menzan made something new out of fragments of unrelated texts scattered across time and space. He doesn’t refer to living examples of temples that do it this way, which is an interesting contradiction in the way the Kinhinki is created. On the one hand, it relies on various texts to establish the way kinhin should be done. On the other, the central theme in the Kinhinki is that Tendo Nyojo somehow preserved the practice and personally passed it down to Dogen, and thus it’s a legitimate Soto practice.
Menzan wrote the Kinhinki in the style of Dogen teaching about zazen, and it’s now considered the basis for modern kinhin. However, he doesn’t talk about integrating kinhin with zazen or alternating it with sitting periods. It's also not clear whether he’s describing isshu 揖手 or shashu 叉手 as the proper hand position during kinhin, and that’s relevant to Sanshin. Kodo Sawaki did isshu, as we do now at Sanshin; others do shashu. It's not clear why this difference happened or how he chose. Also, the Kinhinki says to stand without moving for a few minutes before starting to walk; practitioners in Hashimoto and other lineages do this, while Sawaki Roshi's style is to begin walking right away.
According to Okumura Roshi, when Sawaki started teaching, there were some differences within Soto Zen about how to do kinhin and he had to find reliable sources. Uchiyama Roshi said that before Sawaki Roshi, practitioners weren't sitting more than one period at a time and thus didn't need to know about kinhin. Sawaki and Hashimoto disciples had to recreate the practice, and while both teachers studied texts about kinhin, they interpreted them differently. Sawaki Roshi's biography says that only his lineage does isshu, even in Japan.
Walking is mentioned in the Pali Canon as one of the four postures of Buddha and his disciples. As a practice, the focus is on correct walking demeanor rather than on a particular form. Walking was done in various places outside, but there's no description of kinhin as we know it in the standard texts, certainly not for the slow style we use today. Kinhin 經行 is a Japanese word. Kin 經 means to pass through in time or space; hin 行 is to go, and it also refers to Buddhist practice in general (you may recognize this kanji when it's pronounced gyo). We can see where we get the sense of correct walking deportment from this term.
Dogen spends plenty of time writing about zazen, but he doesn’t focus on kinhin, so we don’t really know what it looked like for him. A monk named Menzan Zuiho (1683-1769) pieced some instructions together out of bits of writings attributed to Dogen and then tried to show the connection with two well known sutras in order to legitimize it. Menzan was a reformer who wanted to root out practices and doctrines that had crept into Soto Zen but that he considered not to be Dogen’s teaching. This reform movement started in 1700, before Menzan became involved. In 1615 the government ruled that Soto Zen had to follow the "house rules" of Eiheiji because it was the denomination's head temple; there were similar guidelines for other Buddhist sects. However, Eiheiji didn’t have a written set of house rules, so reformers said that the entirety of Dogen’s writings should be taken as the house rules. Dogen’s writings were just becoming widely available at the time; his writings and life story had previously been unread for centuries. Reformers went over all the writings in order to find examples of how current practices had deviated from them. Those practicing at Eiheiji said that their way was right because they were directly descended from Dogen and were the protectors of his temple and practice. Thus the conflict became texts vs practice – which was authentic? The government supported the texts as authoritative over heavy opposition from many leaders of the Soto school. Once this happened, any time there was a disagreement, both sides turned to Dogen’s texts for support for their arguments, which made texts the ultimate source. Authority no longer rested in face-to-face transmission of practice from teacher to student, but from interpretations of texts.
Menzan became a leading figure in the reform movement, particularly related to monastic practice. He wanted to take practice back to what he considered the old true Chinese way that Dogen learned when he went to China and practiced with Tendo Nyojo. One thing he wanted to change was the practice of walking while reciting Buddha’s name, which he saw as not being a legitimate Soto practice. However, there isn’t much in Dogen’s writings about kinhin, so the house rules didn’t help. Menzan had to start looking elsewhere for clues.
Ultimately, he used citations from Indian and Chinese sources to write the Kinhinki, a short text describing kinhin that connects it to mainstream Buddhists texts and includes his own explanations and comments. Menzan had to do two things in this text: gather up descriptions and instructions for doing kinhin, and quote sutras and other texts that gave those instructions the weight of authority. Early sources describe shashu and the mental attitude, as well as walking neither fast nor slow in a straight line and then turning around and coming back. Yet the texts on monastic rules that were available to Dogen when he was training simply instruct practitioners to walk in a way appropriate for a temple, and if desired, to walk inside or under the eaves in their free time.
Dogen’s Bendoho talks about something that sounds like our slow kinhin in relation to entering and leaving the zazen hall, but not as something done between zazen periods. The hands are clasped together inside the sleeves, and there is nothing about matching breathing to steps. The Hokyoki has more; that text outlines what Dogen learned from his teacher Tendo Nyojo and describes the slow walk with half steps and matched breathing. Nyojo says he’s the only one who knows this practice. Again there is nothing about timing, when and for how long to walk, or kinhin's role as a practice. Overall, there is nowhere near the detail about posture or context present in Dogen’s writings about zazen, so we can’t really make a direct link between Dogen’s walking and our kinhin process. We also can’t link kinhin to what’s described in the Pali Canon.
Despite this, Menzan’s Kinhinki argues that:
- kinhin is an old and orthodox practice of the Buddha himself;
- Tendo Nyojo somehow had preserved this neglected practice and taught it to Dogen;
- and that by putting together the old texts that have instructions, Menzan has restored the true ritual kinhin practice of the buddhas and ancestors.
The result is that Menzan made something new out of fragments of unrelated texts scattered across time and space. He doesn’t refer to living examples of temples that do it this way, which is an interesting contradiction in the way the Kinhinki is created. On the one hand, it relies on various texts to establish the way kinhin should be done. On the other, the central theme in the Kinhinki is that Tendo Nyojo somehow preserved the practice and personally passed it down to Dogen, and thus it’s a legitimate Soto practice.
Menzan wrote the Kinhinki in the style of Dogen teaching about zazen, and it’s now considered the basis for modern kinhin. However, he doesn’t talk about integrating kinhin with zazen or alternating it with sitting periods. It's also not clear whether he’s describing isshu 揖手 or shashu 叉手 as the proper hand position during kinhin, and that’s relevant to Sanshin. Kodo Sawaki did isshu, as we do now at Sanshin; others do shashu. It's not clear why this difference happened or how he chose. Also, the Kinhinki says to stand without moving for a few minutes before starting to walk; practitioners in Hashimoto and other lineages do this, while Sawaki Roshi's style is to begin walking right away.
According to Okumura Roshi, when Sawaki started teaching, there were some differences within Soto Zen about how to do kinhin and he had to find reliable sources. Uchiyama Roshi said that before Sawaki Roshi, practitioners weren't sitting more than one period at a time and thus didn't need to know about kinhin. Sawaki and Hashimoto disciples had to recreate the practice, and while both teachers studied texts about kinhin, they interpreted them differently. Sawaki Roshi's biography says that only his lineage does isshu, even in Japan.
