Lineage
Kodo Sawaki
Kodo Sawaki (沢木 興道, Sawaki Kōdō, June 16, 1880[1] - December 21, 1965) 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[2] and popularizing the ancient tradition of sewing the kesa. Peter Sloterdijk has called him "one of the most striking Zen masters of recent times."
Sawaki was born in Tsu, Mie on June 16, 1880. He was the sixth child and both his parents died when he was young, his mother when he was four and his father three years later. Sawaki was then adopted by an aunt whose husband soon died. After this, Sawaki was raised by a gambler and lantern maker named Bunkichi Sawaki.
When he was 16, he ran away from home to become a monk at Eihei-ji, one of the two head temples of the Sōtō Zen sect, and later traveled to Soshin-ji where he was ordained in 1899 by Koho Sawada. However, he was drafted to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 to minister to the wounded.
After being discharged in 1906, Sawaki became head student at Soshin-ji. He received dharma transmission later that year from Zenko Sawada. He then studied for two years at the priests training school of Senju-ji, a Jōdo Shinshū temple in the Takada district of Tsu. From there, Sawaki traveled to Hōryū-ji to study Yogacara with Join Saeki. Sawaki then spent a three-month practice period studying Dōgen with Oka Sotan.
He later became a Zen teacher, and during the 1930s he served as a professor at Komazawa University. In 1949, he took responsibility for Antai-ji, a zen temple in northern Kyoto. Because of his regular travels throughout Japan to teach zen, and against tradition his not becoming a conventional abbot of a home temple, he came to be known as "Homeless Kodo" ("homeless" in the Japanese referring more to his lack of a temple than a residence). Sawaki died on December 21, 1965, at Antaiji. He was succeeded by a senior disciple, Kosho Uchiyama.
He is known for his rigorous emphasis on zazen, in particular the practice of shikantaza, or "just sitting". He often called Zen "wonderfully useless," discouraging any gaining idea or seeking after special experiences or states of consciousness.
Taisen Deshimaru
Taisen Deshimaru (弟子丸 泰仙, Deshimaru Taisen, 29 November 1914 - April 30, 1982) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist teacher, who founded the Association Zen Internationale.
Born in the Saga Prefecture of Kyūshū, Deshimaru was raised by his grandfather, a former Samurai before the Meiji Revolution, and by his mother, a devout follower of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism. Interested in the world, he abandoned his mother's practices and studied Christianity for a long while under a Protestant minister before ultimately deciding that it was not for him either. He returned to Buddhism and eventually came into contact with Rinzai teachings.
Eventually, he also grew distant from Rinzai Buddhism and was unsatisfied by his life as a businessman. In 1935, when he was studying economics in Tokyo, Deshimaru began to practice under Sōtō Zen Master Kodo Sawaki.
Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, his master predicted that Japan would lose the war. When Deshimaru departed from his Master, Kodo said "Our homeland will be destroyed, our people annihilated . . . and this may be the last time we see one another. Nevertheless, love all mankind regardless of race or creed."
Deshimaru was exempted from the Imperial Japanese Army because of his near-sightedness. He went to the island of Bangka, Indonesia, to direct a copper mine. There he taught the practice of zazen to the Chinese, Indonesian, and European inhabitants. He defended inhabitants against the violence of his own people, and was therefore almost thrown in jail, in which case he would have been released by "the highest military authorities in Japan".
Thereafter Deshimaru went to the island of Belitung, to direct a copper mine which was captured from the Dutch. After the war he was taken prisoner by the Americans, and sent to a camp in Singapore.
Deshimaru quickly rejoined Kodo Sawaki. He studied with him for fourteen years, until Sawaki's death in 1965. Deshimaru received ordination as a monk shortly before Sawaki became ill. Deshimaru claimed to have received dharma transmission at Sawaki's deathbed, but it was never registered with the Soto school.[citation needed] Sawaki is said to have expressed his wish to spread Zen to other parts of the world on his deathbed, and asked Deshimaru to travel to Europe and spread the teaching.[citation needed]
In 1967, Deshimaru went to Europe and settled in Paris in order to fulfill his master's wish and spread the teachings of Zen. In an interview Deshimaru affirmed he chose France to teach because of its philosophical tradition; he cited Michel de Montaigne, René Descartes, Henri Bergson and Nicolas Malebranche as philosophers who understood Zen without even knowing it. In the 1970s, his mission grew. In 1970 Deshimaru received dharma transmission from Master Yamada Reirin. He became Kaikyosokan (head of Japanese Soto Zen for a particular country or continent) in Europe.
He died in 1982, after he had solidly established Zen practice in the West. After Master Deshimaru's death, three of his closest disciples, Etienne Zeisler, Roland Rech, and Kosen Thibaut, traveled to Japan to receive the shiho from the highest Soto authority, Master Rempo Niwa Zenji. In 1977 Master Deshimaru ordained Olivier Wang-Genh into his Soto-lineage. In 2016 Olivier Wang-Genh was re-appointed President of the Buddhist Union of France.
Deshimaru founded the Association Zen Internationale in 1970, and La Gendronnière in 1979. Deshimaru trained many disciples, and was the catalyst for the creation of a multitude of practice centers. His teachings and multitude of books helped spread the influence of Zen in Europe and America, particularly of the Sōtō sect.
Robert Livingston
Livingston was born in New York City in January 1933. He grew up in New York, California and Texas, and graduated from Cornell University. He spent two years in Japan and Korea in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s, and studied and travelled in Europe after his Army discharge. After three years as a registered representative of the New York Stock Exchange, he returned to Europe where he was head of an international financial services corporation for ten years. He then retired from the business world and began practising Zen with Master Taisen Deshimaru in Paris.
He became a close disciple of Deshimaru, who made Livingston a Zen teacher. In 1982 Deshimaru's asked him to go to America, open a Zen dojo, and teach the Soto Zen practice in the United States. Livingston Roshi founded the American Zen Association (associated with Association Zen Internationale) and the New Orleans Zen Temple in 1983.
"His death in 2021, five years after his retirement from active teaching in 2016, marked the end of an era. His ashes are kept on the altar of the New Orleans Zen Temple" ("Lineage").
Richard Collins
A Zen teacher in the lineage of Taisen Deshimaru, Richard Collins is currently abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple. Dean Emeritus of Arts & Humanities at California State Univ., Bakersfield, he’s held several research fellowships including a Fulbright Senior Lectureship. He received monastic ordination from Robert Livingston Roshi (New Orleans Zen Temple), & Kosen Nishiyama Roshi (Sendai Temple, Japan). He founded the Zen Fellowship of Alexandria, Louisiana and the Zen Fellowship of Bakersfield. His publications include poems, fiction, essays, and articles on Zen topics. He is the author of No Fear Zen. ("Biography")
Attributions
"Lineage - Robert Livingston." New Orleans Zen Temple.
"Kōdō Sawaki." Wikipedia. WP:CC BY-SA 3.0.
"Biography of Editor," Autobiography of a Zen Monk, edited by Richard Collins, Hohm Press, 2022.
"Robert Livingston." Wikipedia. WP:CC BY-SA 3.0.
"Taisen Deshimaru." Wikipedia. WP:CC BY-SA 3.0.
