Myōchō Shūhō also Shūhō Myōchō, known as Daitō Kokushi (kokushi), 1282- 1338; Japanese Zen master of the Rinzai school; a student and dharma successor (hassu) of Shōmyō (known as Daiō Kokushi) and the master of Kanzan Egen (also Musō Daishi). These three Zen masters are the founders of the Ō-tō-kan school, a particularly important lineage of Rinzai Zen in Japan. Myōchō was the founder and first abbot of Daitoku-ji in Kyōto, one of the most important Zen monasteries in Japan.
Myōchō entered the monastery of Enkyō-ji on Mount Shosha in Hyōgo province at the age of ten. Later he trained under master Ken’ichi, the abbot of Monju-ji in Kyōto. In Master Shōyō, whom he met in Kyōto and followed to Kamakura, he finally found the master who was to lead him to enlightenment. He was confirmed by Shōyō as his dharma successor at the age of twenty five. Myōchō returned to Kyōto and, following the counsel of his master, “effaced his traces” for roughly twenty years before he came forward as a Zen master. It is said that during this time he lived in utmost poverty among the beggers under Kyōto’s Gojō Bridge.
At last he settled in a hermitage on a hill on the edge of Kyōto, where soon many students gathered around him. The press of persons seeking instruction from him on the way of Zen was soon so great that a great monastery, Daitoku-ji, was built to house them. From the abdicated emperor Hanazono, who was among his students, he received the honorific title of kōzen daitō kokushi. Daitoku-j i was soon declared the monastery in which the emperor’s health was to be prayed for and, in the classification of the Gosan of Kyōto, placed above them. Myōchō received posthumously the honorific titles of daiijun kyōshi kokushi and genkaku kōen kokushi from the imperial house.
In spite of the great esteem in which he was held already during his lifetime, Daitō Kokushi remained a man of utmost humility. At a time several generations after Daitō when Rinzai Zen in Japan was in the grips of decline, Ikkyū Sōjun, one of Daito’s most important dharma heirs in the Ō-tō-kan lineage, sang the praise of the great Zen master in a poem with the title “Written on the Last Page of a Biography of Daitō” (trans. from Shuichi & Thom 1979):
Far
Over the heavens
Streams Daitō’s light.
Before his monastery
They throng in gorgeous sedan chairs
Trying to see the master.
No one remembers the time
When he lived from wind
And slept on water
Twenty years
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Myōchō Shūhō
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