was a

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 E ...

rōshi (Japanese: "old teacher"; "old master") is a title in Zen Buddhism with different usages depending on sect and country. In Rinzai Zen, the term is reserved only for individuals who have received ''inka shōmei'', meaning they have completed th ...

remembered for his daring resistance to religious oppression directed toward

Buddhists 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 ...

during the late

Tokugawa period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterize ...

and

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

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 ...

. He received

Dharma transmission In Chan Buddhism, Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken Lineage (Buddhism), lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretica ...

from his teacher Daisetsu Shōen and later became abbot of

Shōkoku-ji , formally identified as , is a Buddhist temple in northern Kyoto, first founded in 1382 by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, with the existing temple complex having undergone several periods of extensive reconstruction and rebuilding in the succeeding eras. ...

in 1879.Baroni, 248 In 1872 he was appointed director of Daikyō-in, which was an institution of the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

set up that same year in order to "promote the 'prompt modernization' of the nation."Dumoulin; 403, 410 Guised as an organization promoting the "Great Teaching" — consisting of

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

and

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

—

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

Heinrich Dumoulin Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J. (31 May 1905 – 21 July 1995) was a Jesuit theologian, a widely published author on Zen, and a professor of philosophy and history at Sophia University in Tokyo, where he was Professor Emeritus. He was the founder ...

states that, "...one is hard put to find anything Buddhist there. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Buddhists were not very happy with this new decree, even though it did give them a participatory voice in policy matters and introduced a new organizational order." As leader of Daikyō-in Dokuon protested these policies to the government, though with virtually no effect. Even still, he was one of the most outspoken of anyone of his time period in the Buddhist community.

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References

* * Rinzai Buddhists Zen Buddhist abbots 1819 births 1895 deaths Japanese Zen Buddhists Edo period Buddhist clergy Rōshi {{Zen-bio-stub

See also

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