Ryōnin

Ryōnin (良忍, 1072–1132) was a Tendai Buddhist monk in the late Heian period and the founder of the Yuzu Nembutsu sect.

Ryōnin was born the son of Tomita no Shō (富田 荘), the feudal lord of Owari Province.

After his education, he worked in the Jitsuhōbō (実報房) as a temple priest (Nembutsu - choir priest), who continuously practiced nembutsu in the Jōgyō-Sanmaidō Hall (常行三昧堂), where Amida Buddha is the main object of worship.

[1] In later years, Yoshihito retired to Ōhara on the outskirts of Kyoto, called himself Ryōnin, and began a life in which he recited a portion of the Lotus Sutra and the nembutsu 60,000 times a day as a priest and practiced it as a method of incantation in the morning, at noon, and at sunset.

According to the illustrated text scroll "Yūzū−Nembutsu Engi Emaki" (融通念仏縁起絵巻), which was produced in 1314 during the Kamakura period, when the idea of the Yūzū−Nembutsu was completed and spread, Ryōnin was immersed in Amida Buddha at the age of 46 and taught Nembutsu to the people.