Born around 1155 into a family of Shinto priests at Shimogamo Shrine (Kamo no Mioya Shrine) in Kyoto. His father, chief priest Nagatsugu, died while Chomei was still young. He devoted himself to waka poetry, joined the Shunzei circle (Karinoen) and was recognized as a first-rate poet, with verses included in the Shin Kokin Wakashu. He petitioned to succeed to the priesthood of Kawai-sha—a sub-shrine of Shimogamo—but was denied, suffering a deep setback that bred disillusionment with the world. Around 1204, at about age 50, he took Buddhist vows. He built a tiny hermitage—one jo (about 3 meters) square—on Mount Hino in the outskirts of Kyoto (present-day Hino, Fushimi Ward). In 1212, he wrote the essay "Hojoki" in that hut. Drawing on his own experience, he recorded five great calamities with vivid detail: the Angen fire (1177), the Jisho whirlwind (1180), the Fukuhara capital relocation (1180), the Yowa famine (1181–82), and the Genreki earthquake (1185). He framed them with a Buddhist insight into impermanence. The opening line—"The river flows ceaselessly, yet the water is never the same"—is celebrated as one of the finest passages in Japanese literature. He died around 1216 at approximately age 61.

A literary figure who found peace in reclusion after worldly setbacks. He loved nature and played the koto and biwa. While deeply aware of impermanence, he possessed a complex inner life, acknowledging his own attachment to his simple lifestyle.

Hojoki is one of Japan's three great essays alongside "The Pillow Book" and "Tsurezuregusa." It is also valued as pioneering disaster literature and attracted renewed attention after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.