In November, 1987, the Hawaii Council of Jodo Missions conducted special services in celebration of the lives and achievements of the Three Grand Masters of the Pure Land Movement.   This biographical sketches are offered in the hope that they will inspire members of the Jodo Shu to learn more about these great teachers, participate fully in their memorial services, and earnestly practice the way of Nenbutsu.  (Jodo Mission of Hawaii - Pure Land Institute) 

      The venerable Shoko-bo Bencho was born in the village of Katsuki in the province of Chikuzen (currently Kitakyushu city).  In his fourteenth year, he began the study of the Tendai doctrines, and at the age of twenty-two, entered Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei.  His religious instructor was Kwanei( 観叡), and his preceptor Abbot Shoshin of Hochi-bo （証真）.  After mastering the teachings of the Tendai, Shoko-bo returned to his home province in 1190, at the age of twenty-nine, to become chief instructor of a temple on Abura-yama.   In his thirty second year, deeply impressed by the impermanence of all things, he renounced worldly ambitions and resolved to seek the highest enlightenment. 
      His search at length brought him to the feet of Saint Honen, then in seclusion at Yoshimizu Higasyi-yama in Kyoto.  The year was 1197; Shoko-bo was thirty-six and Saint Honen sixty-five years of age.  A learned and eloquent scholar, Shoko-bo decided to test Saint Honen by asking him some difficult questions on fundamental points of the Pure Land teaching.  In reply, Saint Honen expounded at length on the differences between the respective doctrinal interpretations of Master Chih-i, Genshin and Shan-dao, asserting that the last was the most suitable and all -inclusive.  At the end of Honen’s discourse, which lasted ten hours, Shoko-bo has been freed of both pride and uncertainty.  From that day forward, he remained convinced that the only direct way to deliverance for ordinary people was the nembutsu as taught by Master Shan-dao and transmitted by Master Honen.  He looked up to Saint Honen as his master and thereafter hardly left his side until he was thoroughly versed in all the Pure Land teachings. 
      In the spring of the following year, 1198, Master Honen entrusted Shoko-bo with a copy of his major doctrinal work, Selected Passages on the Fundamental Vow and Nembutsu.   The work had not yet been published for fear of arousing the animosity of the established sects.  Saint Honen asked Shoko-bo to copy it, master its contents, and hand it on to posterity.  Later in the same year, Saint Honen sent him to preach in the province of Iyo, where countless people heard and accepted the teaching of salvation through the name of the Buddha Amitabha for the following six year, he attended Saint Honen with great devotion, all the while reading and re-reading Master Shan-tao’s commentary on the Meditation Sutra.   
      Upon completing his studies, Master Shoko-bo returned to the Chinzei district (Kyushu), where he propagated the Pure Land principles with such success that he had disciples everywhere.   And through Shoko-bo Bencho was now himself a master, he never ceased to regard Saint Honen as the final authority .   Many times he requested him to clarify matters of doctrine.   In the winter of 1228, Shoko-bo held a nembutsu recitation session of 48 days duration, during which time he composed a pamphlet that contained his personally certified version of the Pure Land teachings, intended to dispel certain misunderstandings about the practice of Nembutsu.   It contained nothing that he had not heard directly from Saint Honen.   On completion of the work, Master appeared before him in approval of what had been written. 
      On another occasion, at Kuriyadera, he practiced nembutsu for one thousand days.  The jealous monks of Mt. Koya intended to drive him away, but were converted by a collective vision in which a brilliant light from the west was accompanied by a voice that announced, “Because the monk Shoko practices nembutu, the Buddha sends forth his light to this place and will continue to do so.  “The monks repented and paid homage to Shoko-bo. 
      In the village of Yamamoto in Chikugo, Shoko-bo built a temple called Zendoji, later renamed Komyoji.  Here he preserved and defended the doctrines he had received from Saint Honen, and propagated the nembutsu for the rest of his life.   Six times a day he read the Amitabha Sutra, six times a day he made offerings and paid homage to the Buddha and sixty thousand times a day/ he recited the words Namu Amida Butsu.  Of recitation, the said that is it not possible to do it too much. 
       On the fifteenth day of the first month of 1238, after seeing a vision f Amitabha and a heavenly host coming to greet him, Shoko-bo Bencho departed for the Pure Land.  The words on his lips at the moments of his passing were these from the Amitabha Sutra: “The Buddha’s light illuminates all sentient beings in the ten quarters of the world.  
       His own teachings are neatly summarized in his words of exhortation to his disciples, “To awaken and maintain true confidence, the essential thing is to be always thinking of death and of the Buddha.  Who knows whether death may not come after any breath we draw!  So we should always be mindful of this, and keep saying in our hearts, Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, help me!  Namu Amida Butsu!” 

     Seikwan-bo Genchi was the descendant of high government officials associated with the Taira Clan (Heike).  Following the defeat of the Taira by the Minamoto (Genji), his mother went into hiding with him until he was thirteen years old, when she brought him to Master Honen.  Honen sent him to Priest Jichin for training.  After becoming a priest, Seikwan-bo Genchi returned to Honen and served him faithfully for eighteen years.   

     Honen regarded Genchi with special affection.  He instructed him thoroughly in the Pure Land doctrines, and made him his successor in the transmission of the Perfect Precepts.  Eventually he handed over to him all his utensils, sacred images and the scriptures he himself had read and annotated.

As Master honen neared the end of his life, Seikwan-bo said to him, “I’ve always been indebted to you for instruction and counsel in the way of Nenbutsu.  Please write, with your own hand, something that I may remember you by and profit from.   Honen took up his brush pen and wrote the famous Ichimai Kishomon or “One-Sheet Document”, a simple but profound summary of his teaching.

     One day during Honen’s last illness, Seikwan-bo happened to be sitting just outside his door when a lady of high rank entered for an interview.  He overheard the following exchange; “I’m very sad that you are so near the end despite all our effors to keep you with us.  After you are gone, to whom should we go for instruction about Nenbutsu?”  Honen replied, “I have written it all in the Senchakushu.  The holder of my teachins is he who took her leave.  Seikawan-bo was so impressed by her noble appearance and demeanor, he followed her palanquin as it was carried northward along the river bank.  Suddenly, to his amazement, the lady and her carriage disappeared.  Later,          Genchi asked Honen about the lady of rank who had visited him.   “That,” answered Honen, “was Queen Vaidehi, who lives near the kamo Shrine.  (Queen Vaidehi was a disciple of the Buddha Shakyamuni, who appeared to her in a magical body and taught her the visualizations described in the Scripture on Contemplation of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life or Kan Muryojo-Kyo.)  Seikwan-bo never forgot this experience.  After Master Honen’s death, he moved to a place called Sasakino, near the Kamo Shrine, and often went there to worship.

     On the whole, Seikwan-bo preferred a life of seclusion to the bustle of a big temple.  In his teaching he stressed individual practice, and seems to have doubts about the benefits of elaborate rituals and huge religions gatherings.  Perhaps he felt that the promoted spiritual pride and hindered the development of complete reliance on the utterance of Namu Amida Butsu.  In any case, it is recorded that whenever more than five or six people would come to hear him, he would stop short his discourse, saying, “This will never do.  The evil ones will now be upon us.”

     On the twelfth day of the first month in the first year of Ryakunin (1238), at the age of 56, he lay down racing east, with his head to the north.  Repeating the holy words 200 times, he passed away, the final repetitions so faint that one could hear only the last two syllables, “….DA..BU.”   He died in room off the corridor adjoining the Kudokuin, a shrine temple dedicated to the God Kamo.  As sweet perfume issuing from the Buddha’s image filled his chamber for several days afterward.