Kukai: founder of the “mantra” school of Buddhism

• Kukai
• From the deep, dim, most distant past,
• A thousand thousand tomes we hold
• Of sacred texts and learned lore
• Profound, abstruse, obscure and dark,
• Teachings diverse and manifold —
• Who can encompass such a store?

• Yet, had no one ever written such,
• And if no one read what they have told,
• What should we know, what should we know?
• However hard they strove in thought,
• The saint today, the sage of old
• Would still be lost, have naught to show

• The ancient god with herb and balm
• Took pity on the stricken host
• Of suffering, sore humanity
• And he who made the compass-chart
• Showed them the way whose way was lost,
• A guide in their perplexity

• Yet senseless dawdlers in this world,
• The three-fold realm of fantasy,
• Mad, their madness do not perceive,
• And all the four-fold living things
• Are blinded so they cannot see
• How blind they are, the self-deceived

• Born, reborn, reborn and reborn
• Whence they have come they do not know.
• Dying, dying, ever dying
• They see not where it is they go.
• - from The Ten Stages of Religious Consciousness by Kukai

Kūkai (774-835) was a Japanese monk, scholar and poet who founded the “mantra” school of Buddhism, also known as Esoteric Shingon Buddhism. He is often attributed as the inventor of the syllabic system with which the Japanese language is written. According to Shingon Buddhism, enlightenment is achievable not only by the select few after ages of study, but by all who cultivate their spiritual potential – known as the Buddha-nature. This nature emerges in expressions of innate wisdom and is often attainable with the help of a teacher and through proper discipline of mind and body.