Ippen

1234/9–1289 was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher (hijiri) whose movement, the became one of the major currents of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhism.

Born in what is now Ehime Prefecture, he studied at the Seizan branch of Jōdo-shū before meeting many Shingon- and Tendai-associated hijiri, and then became a hijiri himself. During a Kumano pilgrimage, Ippen had an experience that inspired him to spread the Pure Land faith throughout Japan. Accompanied by bands of followers, he traveled throughout Japan teaching that salvation lay in the single-minded invocation of Amida’s Name and that the very moment of recitation unites the reciter with the timeless enlightenment of the Buddha. Ippen traveled over fifteen hundred miles, visiting every major population center and devotional center in Japan, such as Kumano, Zenkō-ji, Taima-dera, and Mount Kōya.