Tokudo: Becoming a Shingon Priest

As I knelt before my preceptor on my ordination day a little over two years ago, I found myself looking just over his head at the face of Kannon, the main image of my teacher's temple. Unlike many Kannon statues in Japan, the image at Fukusho-ji is not a gentle mother; she has a fixed jaw and determined eyes, and stares intently at who's before her. Her many arms drip with potency, and her skin is ruddy, as though all her muscles are clenched in the desire to save. 

Fukusho-ji's Senju (Thousand-armed) Kannon

The road to ordination, and everything since, has been soaked in Kannon. Her Ten-Line Sutra was the first I learned when I got interested in Zen in college. I was so taken with her mantra while visiting Buddhist sites in India that I (foolishly) tattooed it on my arm when I got back to the US. An image of Amida, Kannon, and Taiseishi I picked up at a Kansas City occult shop has been my constant companion for the last ten years, one of the few items I've kept since I left the US. The 34 Kannon Pilgrimage in Chichibu is a foundational practice of the dojo where I practice Shugen, and it was a perception-shattering experience of Kannon's presence in humanity that convicted my faith in Shugen and interest in Esoteric Buddhism. 

If all goes according to plan, at the end of this month I will receive Dembo Kanjo, comprehensive initiation into the Shingon school. Preparing for this I want to write a little series about my journey through the main steps of novitiate practice in the Koyasan Shingon school, from Tokudo (ordination), to Shido Kegyo (training), to Jukai (receiving precepts). 

Laying it all out in a straight line, the process can seem like a conveyer belt leading to a foregone conclusion. But at every step of the way, the grace of Kannon, En no Gyoja, and Kobo Daishi, manifesting in loud intuitions, fortunate encounters, and timely encouragement has been both the external and internal driving force in this process. The rest of my days will be spent returning their kindness, which has truly saved and changed my life. 

For those interested in pursuing the Shingon path, whether as a lay or ordained person, looking back at my own experience this is my main piece of advice: invoke Kannon's power, ask for her help and guidance, and be willing to follow the path she lays out for you as best you can. She will create the karmic matrix for your practice to flourish and transform you, and if I'm any evidence, no raw material is too coarse for her merciful attention. 

The Path Toward Shingon

The first chunk of the Shingon path can be summed up pretty simply this way: 

Step 1: Find a good teacher. 

Step 2: Do whatever they tell you. 

Good old Lao Tzu tells us, “When the student is ready the teacher appears,” and this was definitely true in my case. As I mentioned above, I had been practicing Omine Shugendo in Chichibu for a couple of years before I considered ordination, and I was also practicing a self-directed course in western esotericism called Quareia. For the several years of the pandemic I was very happy with the balance of these two; Shugendo gave me a good amount of structure rooted in nature and local traditions, while Quareia gave me what felt like a look “under the hood” of Japanese spirituality. Because of my Catholic upbringing, I was (and am) very suspicious of religious institutions. I was convinced that real attainment was to be found outside their auspices. 

There were two people who really changed my view on this. One I met on Mt. Omine. I was set to be designated a Sendatsu in Shugendo, and as a preliminary purification decided to hike up from Yoshino to Ominesan-ji and stay the night there before heading down to our group's main practice event. At the top, I was fortunate enough to see the Secret Gyoja, a statue of the founder of Shugendo hidden deep in the recesses of the temple away from public view. His rock crystal eyes glitter gold in the candlelight. This was a time of tremendous uncertainty for me: just coming off a big breakup, I'd decided to move to Shikoku, away from my friends and community near Tokyo, based on a gut feeling and a love for Kobo Daishi. I wanted to deepen my practice and commit to it as a life path, rather than flirt around the edges, as I felt I had been.  Looking into the Gyoja's eyes, I felt a strong message: Pay attention.

A stone image of En no Gyoja on Mt. Sanjo (Omine)

A couple hours later as I had dinner by myself at one of the mountaintop lodges, a priest bounded in and unceremoniously plunked himself down at my table. Beneath bushy brows his dark eyes had an intensity similar to En no Gyoja's. Without introducing himself, he started interrogating me about my Shugen practice and my interest in Buddhism.

After a while he cut in. “Look, if you're interested in Esoteric Buddhism, do what Kobo Daishi did and go all the way to Dembo Kanjo. You won't regret it.”  

To someone else or at a different time, this advice might have been inappropriate or needed nuance. For me at that moment, it seemed like En no Gyoja was speaking through him. The conversation stuck with me.

The other person, my good Dharma friend Myogen, I met on Facebook. Though the last few years have seen a modest increase, at that time a profile pic with a white person in Shugendo gear was a vanishingly rare thing. Such a person randomly popped up on my recommended friends list, and though adding strangers is unlike me, I felt a strong nudge to do so. 

Many of our early discussions concerned the awful lack of credibility among Shugen/Buddhist teachers in the US, and the weird infighting that seems to plague independent Dharma groups. Slowly our conversations convinced me that if I ever wanted to share the teachings that had begun to transform my life, it would be a good idea to study them systematically within a school of Shingon, and that required ordination. 

Thankfully a couple of years of Shingon study has cured me of the idea that I'm anywhere near ready to take on formal students, but that was an important motivation in the early days. 

Though I was aggressively resistant to the idea of ordination in my initial conversations with Myogen, they gently said “Well, if you're ever interested in pursuing it further, I know a really nice Shingon priest in Wakayama.” 

A “Noble Friend” 

As I mulled it over I eventually felt pulled hard enough toward Shingon to take Myogen up on their offer, and we set up a time to group chat with their friend, Kosei-san, on Zoom. I was immediately taken with his incredible kindness and generosity in conversation. What really impressed me in this first meeting was his humility. Myogen and I asked him all kinds of questions about Shingon history and practice, most of which, of course, he knew the answers to. But when a question whose answer he didn't know came up, he simply said, “Not sure about that one! I'll have to look it up!” with a warm smile. I have met many people, and strongly have the tendency myself, to save face rather than having my ignorance exposed, so this openness and joy about still being a work in progress has been a constant inspiration to me since I met Kosei-san. 

Kosei-san (right), his first student (Koyu-san), and I on our first trip to Mt. Koya together.

Pretty much immediately upon meeting him, I thought, if those are the qualities his practice has produced, then I want to learn what he has. Though we have gotten closer and shared many frank conversations and tough moments over the last few years as teacher and student, I have never seen him be anything but kind, generous, and humble. 

A few more online conversations and an in-person visit in Wakayama convinced me: after talking it over with my Shugen teacher and my parents, I asked to become Kosei-san's disciple. Though the Japanese words Shisho (master) and Shiso (master-monk) convey a hierarchical weight, the word deshi, often translated as “disciple,” literally means “kid brother," and that's how Kosei-san has always treated me. A Sanskrit word for a Buddhist teacher, Kalyana-mitra, means “Admirable Friend,” and this is how I feel about Kosei-san. While I respect his knowledge and experience, what I really hope to emulate is his expansive care for others, including me, which in turn is an outgrowth of his deep faith in the Buddhas and their Way. And that sense of mutual trust, of a teacher's concern and a disciple's admiration, has made learning with him a real joy, even when it's challenging. 

Tokudo - Ordination 

Ordination in Japanese Buddhism is called “Tokudo,” or “Attaining the Crossing,” meaning it marks the crossing over from secular to religious life. In Japan and in much of the Buddhist world, this implies a full-time commitment to monastic life. In modern Japan it signifies a deepened commitment to Buddhist study and practice, and for some, the first step in a longer formal process of formation aiming at full ordination. 

While Kosei-san's two other students were ordained at Mt. Koya in an annual group ordination event, I was both a bit late on the draw for it and I have tattoos, which are generally not welcome at such events. (Sidenote: if you're at all interested in studying Buddhism in Japan your life will be much easier if you don't get that butterfly tramp stamp or Mani Mantra on your arm. At the same time, though they limited my options for training significantly, they have not been a fatal impediment, so don't let them stop you from pursuing deeper study if you already have them). 

As such, Kosei-san kindly offered to have the ceremony done at his temple. While a teacher can perform Tokudo himself, Kosei-san's teacher, an admirer of Xuanzang and Buddhism's international journey along the Silk Road, took a kind interest in me, and offered to perform the role of Kaishi, Preceptor, the officiant of the ceremony. He also requested that he be the one to choose my Homyo, the Dharma name one receives to mark their transition. This was kept a secret from me until he read it out at the ceremony. 

The ceremony has to be done on an auspicious day, and there are lists of appropriate and inappropriate dates and days of the week that I would have to look up. My ordination day was easy enough to remember: 5/5/5, the fifth of May in the fifth year of Reiwa. 

Before the ceremony, as a preparatory practice, my teacher invited me to climb Mt. Omine at night to participate in the annual door opening ceremony. By wonderful chance, out of hundreds of practitioners ushered in to chant sutras before the Secret Gyoja, I happened to be in the front row, staring again into his flickering eyes. On the way out, I bumped into the priest who had encouraged me to ordain, and got to tell him I'd taken his advice to heart, to his delight. 

After a day to recover, we started preparing for the ceremony at Fukusho-ji, hanging images of Kobo Daishi and Aizen Myo-O, an important deity that helps form connections to the Buddhas, as well as sheets of paper representing my parents, my Tutelary Deities, and the ruler of the land - the matrix of support one “leaves” when they ordain, which in Japanese is also called Shukke or “leaving home.” That night, Kosei-san gave me the most ridiculous haircut I hope I'll ever have: a clean-shaven head except for three tufts to be shorn off during the service. 

The next morning I took a bath in clove-infused water to purify my body, dressed in white under-robes, and waited for the ceremony to start. One of the staff from the training facility on Mt. Koya where Kosei-san had studied, with whom he later became fast friends, kindly offered to help with the ceremony, and we chatted for a long while that morning. Himself an avid Shugen practitioner, he'd ruined his knees on the mountains and in half-lotus posture, but can't keep himself away from the sacred peaks he loves. In his words, “It's just so much fun!” 

That simple phrase has become one of my mottos for practice. I have a horrible tendency to get stuck in my head and treat intense practice as a kind of self-flagellation, which then naturally makes me want to quit because it's no fun. But Buddhism promises bliss, and I've found that following the fun, that glimmer of the full moon amidst the clouds, has made practice something I look forward to every day, and miss when I slack off on it.  In other words, it's good clean fun!

Once the Preceptor arrived, I was sent packing up to a room adjacent to the main hall where miniature statues of the 33 Kannons of the Saigoku Pilgrimage are enshrined. There I was instructed to chant the mantra of Cundi, a form of Kannon, and wait until I was called into the main hall. 

The other priests processed up the steps to the temple to a dinging chime, getting ever closer as I got more and more nervous. After they filed into the hall, the Preceptor began intoning preparatory prayers. When his voice faded, the door cracked open, and I was invited into the outer part of the main hall. I knelt on a square mat; between the Preceptor and I was a table on which were placed an ancient straight razor, my robes, my nenju beads, and a folded paper inside of which was my new name. Behind him, Kannon looked out over the ceremony, as she had on every step of the journey to then. 

The first part of the ceremony is for “leaving home.” I was led through prostrations to my parents, gods, and rulers. Then he touched the razor to the three tufts of hair on my head, symbolically shaving them, before handing me my robes. The assistant priest led me back to the adjoining room to put the robes on. Nervous and shaky, I couldn't remember how to put them on right. Though Kosei-san had told me his friend was the most terrifying staff member at his dojo, he gently said, “Don't rush, don't rush! You're the main character today.” His kindness almost made me cry. It might have been to make up for the dullness of the scissors he used to cut my hair off and put it in paper packets as proof of my ordination. 

Now dressed in the plain black robes of a novice, we returned to the main hall where I received the Ten Precepts. These include the five basic precepts not to kill, steal, have [improper] sex, lie, or drink alcohol, plus five more explicitly monastic ones: not to watch spectacles, not to eat after noon, not to adorn the body, not to sit or sleep on high platforms, and not to touch money. 

Precepts are a tricky issue in Japan, and I'll treat them in more detail when I talk about the full Precepts ceremony I attended on Mt. Koya, but for now I'll tell you what Kosei-san told me when he explained these to me. Once he said, “They apply when you're in intense training.” Another time he said, “Just keep them as best you can.” I'll admit to feeling a little uncertainty when I responded, “I will keep this precept!” to each one in spite of having a partner, a job, and a love of movies.

The precepts taken, at least symbolically, it was time to receive my new name. He ceremoniously unfurled the rectangular paper and read it out: Koei. Since it's a common practice to include part of one's secular name in a Dharma name, I'd asked for the syllable “Dan,” to be included, so the Dan-less name was a surprise. He then handed me the orange robe, specifications for its size and shape passed down since Buddhism's earliest days, and sent me out again to put it on.

When I returned, I was now dressed in the full robes of a priest. The emotional impact was incredible; where at first I was outside, dressed in only white underwear, now I was one of their number. 

The Preceptor then explained his choice for my name:

“Throughout his life, Kobo Daishi had many names. When he was a child he was called Mao. When he was ordained under Gonzo, he took the name Kukai. Later he was given the name Henjo Kongo by Keika, and after he died he was called Kobo Daishi because he brought the Dharma from China to Japan. Your Dharma name has the “Ko” from Kobo Daishi and “Ei” from the Japanese word for English, Eigo, since you hope to share the teachings with people outside Japan. Now that you are ordained, you may feel like you want to rush on to the next step, and for things to move quickly. My hope is that you cherish these early days, and remember them well.” 

With tears in my eyes, I thanked the Preceptor and the gathered priests, and we all chanted the Heart Sutra together to thank the Buddhas for a successful Tokudo. 

I was now officially ordained, but Kannon's piercing gaze looking down on us reminded me: there is still a long way to go. 

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu 

Namu Daishi Henjo Kongo