Serving the Dharma

If you haven’t heard of Tendai Buddhism or the Japanese monk Saicho (767–822), that’s understandable. You won’t hear much about either in Western circles outside the academy. Yet this 9th-century monk and the school he founded shape the core of Japanese Buddhism as we know it today.

In this conversation, Tricycle talks with Australian Tendai priest Jikai Tyler Dehn. Jikai, 34, follows the way of a householder, combining his roles as a temple leader, teacher, husband, and father. His mission is to bring Saicho’s ideas and Tendai teachings to English-speaking audiences. Through his ambitious Saicho Repository translation project, his work at the Tendai Buddhist Sangha of Australia, and his YouTube channel, he’s inviting a new generation to consider what these centuries-old teachings can give us—and what we can give back. “We need to think not just about how the dharma can help us live better,” Jikai says, “ but how we can help the dharma thrive in the world.”

You grew up Catholic and later trained in Hawaii and Japan before founding a Tendai center in Australia. How did that path unfold? It’s hard to pinpoint the initial spark, but I remember in Catholic primary school, we had to give a presentation on a different religion. Everyone made posters about other forms of Christianity. I went first and presented on Buddhism. The room went silent, and the teacher looked uncomfortable. I thought I’d misunderstood the assignment. Only later did I realize I was the only one who hadn’t chosen another Christian denomination. That moment stuck with me and left me very curious about Buddhism.

A few years later, I stumbled on the Pali Nikaya—it grabbed me! I started investigating Buddhism more seriously and came across a translation of the Lotus Sutra at a local library. It was so different from the other texts I’d been reading. I was hooked. 

When I was 15, I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student. The Lotus Sutra led me to Nichiren Buddhism, and from there, I discovered quotes from Zhiyi (538–597), the founder of the Tiantai school in China. That sent me down the rabbit hole. His teachings led me to Tendai, the Japanese form of Tiantai, and I visited Mount Hiei, a major center of Tendai Buddhism. At the end of the exchange, I was put in touch with the Tendai mission in Hawaii, where I began studying with Archbishop Ara Ryokan (1928–2019). 

Did you move to Hawaii? No, I returned to Australia to finish high school and university, but I kept in close contact with my teacher. Every year, sometimes more than once, I’d travel to Hawaii to help at the temple for a month or two.

One day, he asked me, “Do you think you’ve come to Tendai by chance? Don’t you think you have an obligation to be more than a lay member?” I gave it serious thought but told him, “Look, I don’t think I’m good enough for ordination.” He slapped me on the back and said, “Good! If you ever think you’re good enough, you’ve fallen off the track.” 

The rest is history. I was ordained in Hawaii, and I completed my training and esoteric, or tantric, initiations at Enryaku-ji, the ancient Tendai monastery on Mount Hiei, and lived in Japan for another five years. I spent much of that time gathering everything needed to build what we’ve started here at our little temple, Enmitsu-ji. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re doing our best.

For readers unfamiliar with the tradition, what is Tendai Buddhism at its core? Even among those familiar with Tendai, it can be a bit bewildering. It appears ritually complex and predisposed to heady, deep conversations. 

If we boil it down to its basics, two fundamental propositions are nonnegotiable. The first is that everything the Buddha said from his awakening under the Bodhi tree until his final parinirvana is not false. In our tradition, we need a way to understand how our ostensibly varied and often contradictory canon could be the product of a single mind, a single strand of enlightenment. So we must be able to recognize all the contradictions as part of a skillful adaptation, a skillful mission. The second proposition is that the way the Buddha sees things in his mind, in other words, his perception of reality, is what he expounded in the Lotus Sutra.

On the one hand, we have a vision of the Buddha’s mission that is broad enough to encompass the body of Mahayana teachings. And on the other, we have a lens that helps us interpret those teachings through the Buddha’s vision as written in the Lotus Sutra. That’s why the Lotus Sutra is so important in Tendai.

It seems that faith in the Buddha and the Lotus Sutra is at the heart of Tendai. Yes! At its foundation, Tendai is a faith tradition. That’s where it starts. With a firm trust or faith in these two propositions, the rest of the practice and study fall into place.

For readers who know the Mahayana sutras came later, how can texts like the Lotus Sutra be considered the Buddha’s words? Even from a text-critical perspective, this concern often rests on a narrow idea that the textual status of buddhavacana—that is, the “word of the Buddha,” or texts regarded as authentic expressions of his dharma—means only the literal words spoken by Shakyamuni. But even in the earliest texts, we see stock phrases repeated again and again, and many early texts, like the Dhammapada, are compilations. The point isn’t strict authorship. The point is realization.

The Prajnaparamita sutras state that when disciples study the Buddha’s teachings and achieve realization in them, then whatever they expound is buddhavacana because it comes from the same liberation and doesn’t contradict it. That’s the framework we’re working with. Realization is what makes something true dharma—not whether it came out of a particular historical mouth. These teachings were preserved without disruption, and they’ve transformed lives. That’s what matters.

At its foundation, Tendai is a faith tradition.

Importantly, the Lotus Sutra’s completeness isn’t limited to the Mahayana. When it speaks of skillful means, it refers to the full range of the Buddha’s teachings, including those of the early schools. That inclusivity is essential to how Tendai holds the entire canon together.

So, yes, Tendai holds that the Buddha’s whole teaching can be found in the Mahayana sutras. And, yes, that takes faith. Not blind faith, but faith grounded in centuries of practice, realization, and transmission.

How do these faith commitments shape your daily practice as a Tendai priest? Our daily practice begins with the Dharma Flower Repentance ritual in the morning and a Pure Land–oriented service in the evening. We also cultivate samatha-vipasyana meditation, usually one to two hours a day, and are strongly encouraged to study the dharma in equal measure. I read the Lotus Sutra daily. Beyond that, depending on each priest’s focus, other rites are observed on weekly or monthly schedules. These might include esoteric practices, precept recitations, or prostration rituals.

We also have what’s called the Constantly Sitting Samadhi, a ninety-day retreat focused solely on samatha-vipasyana meditation. It’s incredibly challenging, and not something we do regularly, but it represents an ideal of deep commitment. I’ve done it, and I can tell you, the pain that arises from nowhere is unbelievable. That said, practice isn’t limited to form. Tendai seesstudy, ritual, and daily responsibilities as all part of the path. Our faith is lived through integration.

Alongside daily practice, what do Tendai priests study? Of course, the Lotus Sutra is central, but Tendai training includes several foundational texts: the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Prajnaparamita in 25,000 Lines, Nagarjuna’s Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, and the Brahmajala Sutra, which is the basis for our precepts. We also study the doctrinal systems of Madhyamaka, especially Nagarjuna, and the Abhidharma traditions of the Sarvastivada, one of the early pre-Mahayana schools. This is essential for understanding the roots of Mahayana thought. On the esoteric side, there are additional texts and practices introduced after ordination.

Tendai’s founder, Saicho, was trained in Huayan and Yogacara, and that influence persists in Tendai. So anyone who studies the tradition has to engage not only with Chinese Tiantai, the foundation of Japanese Tendai, and the Lotus Sutra system but also with the wider Mahayana landscape. This broad study of the Mahayana reflects Saicho’s training in the schools of his day. 

And at every step, priests are encouraged to keep reading, not just our root texts but also a wide range of sutras and shastras. Study and practice are never separated in Tendai. They’re both essential paths of cultivation.

What else can you tell us about Saicho’s life? From what we know, Saicho was born in the 760s and became involved in Buddhism by the age of 12. This is the Nara period in Japan, a very early period of Japanese Buddhism during which it primarily served the state. The Heian period quickly follows, and Saicho and the development of Tendai are usually grouped into Heian Buddhism. The average person at the time lived an agrarian life rooted in animistic beliefs. 

Buddhist ordination created several problems for the government, prompting the imperial powers to impose restrictions. First, monks were exempt from paying taxes and from forced corvée labor. In other words, monks were a source of lost revenue and labor. Second, monks were not subject to capital punishment, since it was unseemly to behead a monastic. Not subject to taxes or punishment, monks were strictly controlled by the government.

Saicho most likely became a monastic around 14 and was fully ordained at 19. It was customary to spend time in the capital learning about the precepts and making sure you understood monastic duties. Those duties were essentially to serve the state. Your role was to act as a teacher and to perform rituals to safeguard the nation, ensuring that invasion didn’t happen and the rains and harvests came in well—those sorts of things. 

At some point, Saicho packs his bags, exits the capital, and disappears. He goes to a mountain not far from where he lived—Mount Hiei—builds a small hermitage, and practices assiduously. He spent roughly twelve years studying and practicing in a harsh and cold environment, with limited food and resources.

His writings from this time give the impression that the burdens of the average person deeply struck his heart. He saw that the taxes, corvée labor, poverty, and so forth were crushing people. A deep religious sentiment was driving him, and he wondered why the people had to suffer like that. To help the situation, he asked how he could do something different from the way Buddhism was being practiced in Japan. These were questions driving his practice and study.

And after Mount Hiei? Around the twelfth year of retreat on the mountain, the court held a lecture series on the Lotus Sutra. Having heard of Saicho’s study, it invited him, along with other senior monastics, to participate. The court was deeply impressed by his insights and command of Buddhist doctrine, and we still have Emperor Kanmu’s orders for Saicho to establish a new school. 

Saicho insisted on traveling to China first, to receive verification of his understanding from a Tiantai master. He spent most of his time in and around Mount Tiantai, receiving transmissions and copying as many texts as he could to take back to Japan. He also received esoteric transmissions while there.

Upon returning, he spends the rest of his life establishing the Tendai school. Throughout all of it, what stands out most is his religious sincerity. He wasn’t interested in fame or courtly appointments. His writings show a practitioner motivated by his devotion—a desire to share what he saw as the most essential expression of the Buddha’s teachings.

Does he continue to show concern for the poor and suffering people? He very much maintains that concern. If you look at the documents he sends to the court, on the surface, they appear to be designed to impress the court with how this new school can serve the government and the state. However, upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that he’s establishing a framework in which the exclusive responsibility of ordained religious clergy lies with the people.

If clergy are good and sincere in their practice, Saicho says they should be sent to local government offices to construct dikes, build schools, pave roads, and perform other forms of manual labor. If they are skilled in understanding doctrine and classical Chinese, they should be sent to the provinces to start educational institutions in the villages. And if they are good at both, then they should stay in the capital and train the next generation of monastics. His vision is of a clergy that serves the bodhisattva ideal. That is his central concern.

Despite shaping Japanese Buddhism as it is known today, Saicho remains relatively unknown in the West. Why is that? One reason his influence is not well-known in contemporary Western Buddhism, and even in Japan and the East, is the emergence and later influence of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) traditions, including Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren. As they grew, the Tendai school, as a matter of course, began to contract. 

Because most of the Kamakura schools’ founders were ex-Tendai monks, they attempted to distinguish themselves from Tendai, presenting themselves as unique traditions. But in distinguishing themselves, you see Saicho’s influence everywhere—in Dogen, Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren. For instance, Saicho brought the first Zen transmission to Japan and modeled a path of solitary mountain retreat that helped legitimize meditative asceticism as a central feature of Buddhist life. Amida Buddha holds a place in the Tiantai meditation system that Saicho transmitted into Tendai, and his disciples helped establish chanting nenbutsu as a practice in Japanese Pure Land. People are often unaware of Saicho’s influence and the extent to which they are indebted to his spirit and efforts.

You’re currently translating Saicho’s writings through the Saicho Repository project. What has surprised you most about working with his texts? Saicho is an incredibly astute Buddhist. He was patronized by emperors and received gifts from the Chinese court. But his writings reveal a man whose primary interest is transmitting the Buddha’s dharma.

Everything that Saicho does maintains that spirit. Even when debating with other schools, he doesn’t try to supplant them. For him, each school of Buddhist thought represents a medicine that can be employed for different illnesses. And the Tendai school is just another medicine that can expand the horizon of the Buddha’s teachings.

In service of this, Saicho incorporates an immense wealth and diversity of material into his teachings and the Tendai training curriculum, as I mentioned. His early training is in Yogacara and Huayan, both very dense philosophical traditions. This influence is discernible in his writings. Then he goes to China and grabs Tiantai’s Lotus Sutra system by the horns. But he also receives Chan and esoteric transmissions in China. He returns to Japan, and not only transmits these teachings through Tendai but he also does novel things, such as proposing to adopt the bodhisattva precepts as the basis for ordination. 

Religious humility inspires me, and we don’t have many materials that are both incredibly humble and philosophically complex. And grassroots figures who can debate with scholars and move between those two spaces are rare. I was surprised by Saicho’s spirit that, as Rudyard Kipling puts it, could “walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.” 

As you mentioned, Saicho proposed replacing the traditional ordination with the bodhisattva precepts. Why was this so radical, and what does it tell us about his priorities?  The ordination lineages undergird the sangha. In the earliest Buddhist schools, they essentially defined what a school was, each tied to a particular vinaya, or monastic code.

In his Kenkairon, or “Treatise Clarifying the Precepts,” Saicho reflects on how all traditions uphold the three trainings: moral discipline (sila), meditative insight (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna). He knew Tiantai had developed a rich system of doctrine and meditation rooted in the Lotus Sutra but that it lacked a corresponding precepts system. So he proposed that Tendai monastics ordain using the bodhisattva precepts instead of the vinaya—a discipline aligned with their own doctrinal and meditation path. 

This was a radical departure and had a lasting impact on Japanese Buddhism. But Saicho was clear: He never meant to replace the vinaya precepts entirely. This gets lost too often. He’s emphatic that the vinaya lineages need to continue. His claim was simply that Tendai needed its own framework—one rooted in its vision of practice. Still, for the time, this was a revolutionary move.

Related to Saicho’s mission of service, people often come to Buddhism seeking personal benefits. But Saicho seems to flip that. What did he teach about service, and what might that mean for us as students of the dharma? Because Tendai is so broad, I’m forever being contacted by people who want to learn ancient secrets or esoteric rites. There’s a lot of sincerity in that, but there’s often that same underlying assumption of What can the dharma do for me? What can I get from it? And what you get through Saicho instead is: How can I serve the dharma?

I think that’s something Western Buddhism needs to grapple with right now. We’ve had Buddha’s dharma around long enough that we’re maturing. As we mature, we need to start turning our focus outward: not toward what we can extract from Buddhism but toward what we can offer to it and to each other.

There’s a quote I love from Saicho’s biography. Someone told him, “Your teachings are good, but your monks are struggling to support themselves. Maybe court Buddhism is better.” Saicho replied, “In bodhicitta, there is food and clothing; in food and clothing, there is no bodhicitta.”

That’s the shift we need right now. We need to think not just about how the dharma can help us live better but how we can help the dharma thrive in the world. How can we serve?