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General Information: Overview: Biographies: Hakuun Yasutani, Roshi

yasutani
1885-1973

Japanese Zen Master Yasutani Hakuun Roshi was born in 1885 to a family of meager means, soon being adopted into another family. At the age of five his head was shaved symbolizing Buddhist monkhood and sent to a Rinzai temple, Fukuji-in, located on the coast at the foot of Mount Fuji near the city of Numazu. At the age of eleven he moved to a second nearby Rinzai temple, Daichu-ji. A little over a year later, following an altercation with a fellow student, he moved to a Soto temple, Teishin-ji, studying under Yasutani Ryogi, from which he took his name. At age sixteen he went to Denshin-ji temple, also Soto sect, in Shimoda, some seventy-five miles away on the tip of the Izu peninsula to continue study and serve as an attendent to Nishiari Bokusan Zenji

Throughout his twenties, thirties, and up to age forty Yasutani continued his studies and training in Japan, travelling from temple to temple studying under a variety of Buddhist priests and Zen masters searching for the Truth. At age thirty Yasutani married and, although a priest, because no temple was avaiable, began a ten year career as an elementary teacher and principal. In the interim he had five children.

Even though married and teaching at the elementary level he continued to travel and study under various masters throughout his tenure searching for a genuine master. In 1925, at age forty, he found his master, giving up his teaching and principalship to become a fulltime Soto sect priest at the Hosshin-ji Temple under the great Zen master of both Soto and Rinzai linage, Harada Daiun Sogaku Roshi.

Two years later under Harada's auspices he attained Kensho. Sixteen years after that, on April 8th, the day Japanese traditionally recognize Buddha's birthday, 1943, at age fifty-eight, Yasutani received Inka Shomei, the Seal of Transmission.

Starting in the summer of 1962 Yasutani Roshi made the first of six trips to the United States, continuing to do so basically yearly up through 1969. On the first visit in 1962 he conducted four to seven day sesshins in Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles and Claremont, California; Wallingford, Pennsylvania; New York, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; and Washington, D.C. His following five visits to America were similar in scope.

What sets Yasutani Roshi apart from other contempory Zen masters was his fervent, almost zealous drive to synthesize what he considered the strengths and best of the Soto and Rinzai sects, in the process creating a new linage of Zen called Sanbo Kyodan, 'The Fellowship of the Three Treasures.'

Photo History of Yasutani Roshi

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