was a Buddhist

Rinzai The Rinzai school ( ja, , Rinzai-shū, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (along with Sōtō and Ōbaku). The Chinese Linji school of Chan was first transmitted to Japan by Myōan ...

Zen master Zen master is a somewhat vague English term that arose in the first half of the 20th century, sometimes used to refer to an individual who teaches Zen Buddhist meditation and practices, usually implying longtime study and subsequent authoriz ...

the chief abbot of

Myōshin-ji is a temple complex in Kyoto, Japan, and head temple of the associated branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism. The Myōshin-ji school is by far the largest school in Rinzai Zen, approximately as big as the other thirteen branches combined: it contains wit ...

and

Daitoku-ji is a Buddhist temple, one of fourteen autonomous branches of the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen. It is located in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The "mountain name" ('' sangō'') by which it is known is . The Daitoku-ji temple complex today covers more ...

temples, and a past president of Hanazono University of Kyoto, also known as "Rinzai University."

Biography

Zuigan was influential in the development of Buddhism in America in the early 20th century. He was a student of the Zen master Tetsuo Sōkatsu and followed him to California in 1906 with a group of fourteen who went to the US with Tetsuo Sōkatsu in 1906, attempting strawberry farming in Hayward, California, and founding a branch of

Ryomo Kyokai Ryōmō Kyōkai (両忘協会 "Ryōmō Society",Janine Sawada, ''Practical Pursuits''. pp.157-161. University of Honolulu Press, was a lay Rinzai Zen Buddhist Dharma center located in Tokyo, Japan. History Intellectual society Ryōmō Kyōkai ...

on Sutter Street in San Francisco. Zuigan returned to Japan in 1910. In 1916 Sōkatsu bestowed upon him the

Inka Shōmei In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' ('' kechimyaku'') theoretically traced back to the Buddha hi ...

. He then spent fifteen years as a missionary in Seoul. Later, he returned to Japan and taught at the temple Daitoku-ji in Kyoto.

Notable students

Among Zuigan's notable students were: * The American religious scholar

Huston Smith Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was an influential scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, ' ...

who studied with Zuigan for fifteen years. * Pianist Walter Nowick who studied with Zuigan at

beginning in 1950 until Zuigan's death in 1965. * Sōkō Morinaga, Nowick's Dharma brother, who wrote in "Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity", who was also a head of Hanazono University. * The Dutch author Janwillem van de Wetering who lived a year and a half in Daitoku-Ji with Nowick under Zuigan's successor Oda Sessō, and described this period of study in the book, "The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery."The Philosophical Exercises of Janwillem van de Wetering
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Dharma heirs

* Oda SessōKraft, 20Smith, viiiLevine, 316Miura, xvi * Sōkō Morinaga

Notes

References

Sources