Quote from Zen Master Who?
Zen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen
by James Ishmael Ford
Wisdom Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, 2006. 262 pagesOur common ancestor in the foundation of Western and particularly American Zen is without a doubt Soyen Shaku. He was born in 1856. He spent three years at Krio University, which was highly unusual for a Zen priest at that time. This was the first of his many experiences outside the norms of Japanese priesthood. An adventurous young man, he traveled to Ceylon to study Theravada monasticism - possibly the first Japanese priest to do so. In 1880, he was named a Dharma successor to Imagita Kosinski, abbot of the prominent Rinzai training monastery Engakuji, in Kamakura, and became a master of Engakuji when his teacher died.
When he received an invitation to speak at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, most of Soyen Roshi’s associates, priests, students, and prominent laypeople discouraged him from attending. America was, after all, uncivilized and unspeakably barbaric. But he was adventurous and asked one of his lay students who spoke English, D.T. Suzuki, to draft his letter of acceptance. . . (p. 62)
-- quote submitted by Matthew M.
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