Note (return) — Chapter IX · - THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

When only nine years of age, the boy afterward called Hō-nen, was converted by his father's dying words. He went to school in his native province, but his priest-teacher foreseeing his greatness, sent him to the monastery of Hiyéizan, near Kiōto. The boy's letter of introduction contained only these words: "I send you an image of the Bodhisattva, (Mon-ju) Manjusri." The boy shaved his head and received the precepts of the Ten-dai sect, but in his eighteenth year, waiving the prospect of obtaining the headship of the great denomination, he built a hut in the Black Ravine and there five times read through the five thousand volumes4 of the Tripitaka. He did this for the purpose of finding out, for the ordinary and ignorant people of the present day, how to escape from misery. He studied Zen-dō's commentary, and repeated his examination eight times. At last, he noticed a passage in it beginning with the words, "Chiefly remember or repeat the name of Amida with a whole and undivided heart." Then he at once understood the thought of Zen-dō, who taught in his work that whoever at any time practises to remember Buddha, or calls his name even but once, will gain the right effect of going to be born in the Pure Land after death. This Japanese student then abandoned all sorts of practices which he had hitherto followed for years, and began to repeat the name of Amida Buddha sixty thousand times a day. This event occurred in A.D. 1175.