is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...

that belongs to the

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngshān L ...

school of

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

. It is located in the town of Shin'onsen, Mikata District, in northern

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, where it sits on about 50 hectares of land in the mountains, close to a national park on the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

. It accepts visitors in the summer months, but is inaccessible during the winter because of the heavy snow.

Kyoto

Antai-ji was founded in 1921 by Oka Sotan as a

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

for scholars to study the

Shōbōgenzō is the title most commonly used to refer to the collection of works written in Japan by the 13th century Buddhist monk and founder of the Sōtō Zen school, Eihei Dōgen. Several other works exist with the same title (see above), and it is som ...

. It was located in the Gentaku area of northern

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

and many leading scholars studied there. Vacated during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Kōdō Sawaki was a prominent Japanese Sōtō Zen teacher of the 20th century. He is considered to be one of the most significant Zen priests of his time for bringing Zen practice into the lives of laypeople and popularizing the ancient tradition of sewing the ...

became its fifth abbot in 1949 and made it a place for

Zazen ''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technicall ...

. However, because Sawaki was almost constantly on the move, most of the temple's responsibilities fell to his student,

Kōshō Uchiyama was a Sōtō priest, origami master, and abbot of Antai-ji near Kyoto, Japan. Uchiyama was author of more than twenty books on Zen Buddhism and origami, of which ''Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice'' is best kno ...

. Sawaki did not actually reside in the temple until 1962 when his legs became too weak to travel. With Sawaki's death in 1965, Uchiyama became the sixth abbot. During the late 1960s, the small temple became well-known in the Zen community both in Japan and abroad for its devoted practice of zazen and formal begging, or

takuhatsu is a Japanese term used to refer to the Buddhist monastic almsround. Theravāda In Theravāda Buddhism, ''takuhatsu'' is referred to by the Pāli term ''piṇḍacāra'' (). Monks or nuns on ''piṇḍacāra'' go around town on foot with thei ...

. It was unusual in Japan at the time to be supporting itself without income from parishioner families. Instead of performing ceremonies such as funerals to make money, Antai-ji relied completely on donations from lay practitioners and begging. During this time, Uchiyama took on several students who would later become prominent in their own right, such as Shohaku Okumura and Eishin Ikeda. The increase of visitors and the many new houses being built around the temple created much noise, which made it difficult for the practice of Zazen to continue at the Kyoto location. Therefore, the following abbot, Watanabe Koho (1942–2016), decided to move Antai-ji to its present location in northern Hyōgo. The temple was later demolished, and all that remains of the original Antai-ji is a fenced-off stone under a maple tree that used to be part of the temple garden just outside the abbot's room. It contains a memorial to

Sawaki Kodo Sawaki (written: 沢木 or 澤木 lit. "swamp tree") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese voice actor *, Japanese long-distance runner *, Japanese Zen Buddhist *, Japanese actor Fictional characters *, protag ...

. A

Jehovah's Witness Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ev ...

church now stands approximately in its former location

Northern Hyōgo

Together with the quietude of the mountains, the seventh abbot Kōhō Watanabe sought a new lifestyle that would bring Zen back to self-sufficiency when he moved Antai-ji to its present location. The eighth abbot Shinyu Miyaura (1948–2002) protected this quiet life of Zazen while putting the ideal of a self-sufficient monastery into practice, until his sudden death in the snow in February 2002. His disciple, the German monk Muho Noelke (b. 1968), continued as the ninth abbot until 2020. He was succeeded by Nakamura Eko, his Japanese Dharma heir. A documentary film about the monastery entitled "Zen for Nothing", directed by Werner Penzel and starring

Sabine Timoteo Sabine Timoteo (born 25 March 1975) is a Swiss actress from the Lorraine district of Bern. She has appeared in more than thirty films since 2000. Early life Timoteo grew up dividing time between the United States and Lausanne, Switzerland. As ...

, premiered at the Solothurn film festival in 2016.

Antaiji’s abbots and abbesses

* Founding abbot: Oka Sōtan * Second abbot: Odagaki Zuirin * Third abbot: Kishizawa Ian * Fourth abbot: Etō Sokuō * Fifth abbot: Sawaki Kōdō * Sixth abbot: Uchiyama Kōshō * Seventh abbot: Watanabe Kōhō * Eighth abbot: Miyaura Shinyū * Ninth abbot: Muhō Nölke * Tenth abbess: Nakamura Ekō

References

Bibliography

*Kōshō Uchiyama
''Nakiwarai no Takuhatsu, Laughter Through the Tears: a life of mendicant begging in Japan''
*Kosho Uchiyama
''Opening the Hand of Thought''
*Arthur Braverman
''Living and Dying in Zazen: Five Zen Masters of Modern Japan''

External links

Antai-ji homepage
* {{Buddhist temples in Japan Buddhist temples in Hyōgo Prefecture Religious organizations established in 1923 Soto temples 1923 establishments in Japan