Lanxi Daolong

Who is Lanxi Daolong?

Lanxi Daolong, born in Sichuan Province, China in 1213 A.D., was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, idealist philosopher, and is the founder of the Kenchō-ji sect, which is a branch of the Rinzai school. He entered temple life at the age of thirteen. Due to the Mongol Conquest of the Song Dynasty in China in 1246, also driven by the new trend that Zen monks of the Southern Song Dynasty increasingly tended to voluntarily go to Japan to preach Zen Buddhism, plus the influences of his teachers and friends, he sailed to Japan to preach Zen Buddhism, and later moved to Kamakura, where he took charge of Kenchō-ji. after having accepted the invitation of Hōjō Tokiyori in 1253. His calligraphy was famous in Japan, especially Rule of Zen. Daolong died in Kenchō-ji, and was given the Posthumous Name as Dajue Zen Master by Emperor Go-Uda. Throughout his lifetime, he made great contributions to promote Sino-Japanese cultural interactions.