The headquarters Zen temple Myōshinji was planned in 1337 by Emperor Hanazono. He donated his palace Hanazono meaning the flower-garden for a Zen-temple. The first abbot of Myōshinji, Kanzan, was appointed by the Emperor, since Kanzan was the top disciple of Shūhō.
Shūhō named the temple “Shōbōzan Myōshinzenji” after the renowned account of the succession from the Buddha to his top disciple Mahākāśyapa. The key-words of that account were used for the title of “Shōbōzan” (正法山) and “Myōshin-zenji” (妙心禅寺). In studying the texts on which Shūhō may have depended in his naming, we found that the source is not Mumonkan (無門関), but a citation of a Sūtra in the Ninten–Ganmoku (人天眼目), namely the Sūtra on Questions Put to the Buddha by King Mahābrahma to Resolve Doubts (『大梵天王問仏決疑経』).
The account of succession from the Buddha to Mahākāśyapa is: “When Buddha showed his disciples a lotus bloom, Mahākāśyapa only smiled. Then Buddha said to him that he had a ‘shōbō-genzō’ (insight into truth); ‘nehan-myōshin’ (calm and right sense) and ‘jissō-musō’ (real and no figure), so he shall bestow it to him.” In accordance with the account Shūhō named the new temple of the palace of the Emperor Hanazono “Shōbōzan Myōshinji Zen-temple” (正法山妙心禅寺).
The Sūtra was excluded from the canon because it touched on discussing political affairs or because it used the taboo-character, shū (宗), which had been used for the names of the kings of the Song (宋) dynasty. These pieces of evidence were cited by Muchaku (無著,1653–1744) in his Zenrin-Shōkisen (禅林象器箋). The Mumonkan (無門関) added the term, “wise doctrine” (微妙法門), to the above cited account along with “the expression regarding separate transmission apart from the teachings” (不立文字教外別伝). But it turned out that Shūhō had not based himself on this version.
