10 Facts About Soyen Shaku

Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist master to teach in the United States.

Soyen Shaku was a roshi of the Rinzai school and was abbot of both Kencho-ji and Engaku-ji temples in Kamakura, Japan.

Soyen Shaku received dharma transmission from Kosen at age 25, and subsequently became the superior overseer of religious teaching at the Educational Bureau, and patriarch of Engaku temple at Kamakura.

In 1887, Shaku traveled to Ceylon to study Pali and Theravada Buddhism and lived the wandering life of the bhikkhu for three years.

In 1892, upon Kosen's death, Soyen Shaku became Zen master of Engaku-ji.

In 1893 Soyen Shaku was one of four priests and two laymen, representing Rinzai Zen, Jodo Shinshu, Nichiren, Tendai, and Esoteric schools, comprising the Japanese delegation that participated in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, organized by John Henry Barrows and Paul Carus.

Soyen Shaku served as a chaplain to the Japanese army during the Russo-Japanese War.

Soyen Shaku lectured soldiers about how to face their own deaths with unwavering equanimity, stating that they had to defeat not only their external enemies, but their inner enemies, which he called "demons of the mind".

Soyen Shaku spent nine months at their isolated oceanside house on the Great Highway in San Francisco, teaching the entire household Zen.

Shortly after arriving, Soyen Shaku was joined by his student Nyogen Senzaki.