17 Facts About Taizan Maezumi

Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi was a Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist priest who substantially contributed to development of Zen in the USA.

Taizan Maezumi was born in Japan on February 24,1931, to Yoshiko Kuroda-Taizan Maezumi and Baian Hakujun Kuroda, a prominent Soto priest, in his father's temple in Otawara, Tochigi.

Taizan Maezumi was ordained as a novice monk in the Soto lineage at age eleven, and in high school began studying koans under a lay Rinzai instructor, Koryu Osaka.

Taizan Maezumi began sitting zazen occasionally with Nyogen Senzaki, in nearby Boyle Heights, Los Angeles for the next two years.

In 1959 Taizan Maezumi took classes in English at San Francisco State University.

Early in the 1960s, Taizan Maezumi began holding zazen at Zenshuji for Western students, which eventually led to the opening of the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1967.

Also in 1967, Taizan Maezumi began koan-study with Hakuun Yasutani, who had left the Soto-sect, completing koan study under him and receiving his inka in 1970.

Taizan Maezumi did koan-study with lay teacher Koryu Osaka of the Shakamuni-kai, who studied koans with a Shingon-priest, receiving his inka in 1973.

In 1975 Taizan Maezumi married his second wife, Martha Ekyo Taizan Maezumi, and later the couple had three children.

In 1976, Taizan Maezumi founded the non-profit Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, promoting academic scholarship on Buddhist topics.

That following year Taizan Maezumi founded a summer retreat for the ZCLA called the Yokoji Zen Mountain Center, which today serves as a year-round residential and non-residential Zen training center.

Taizan Maezumi publicly admitted he was an alcoholic in 1983, and sought treatment at the Betty Ford Center.

Taizan Maezumi was forthcoming in admitting his mistakes and did not justify his behaviors.

Taizan Maezumi died on May 15,1995, while visiting his family in Japan, drowning in bath while being drunk.

Taizan Maezumi was known to be especially strict about the posture of his students while sitting zazen.

Taizan Maezumi used a range of koans from different Zen traditions, including the Blue Cliff Record, The Gateless Gate, Transmission of the Lamp, and the Book of Equanimity.

Taizan Maezumi was not a good father, or a good husband to my mother, but he was an outstanding teacher with a love for the dharma and a vision of liberation that took precedence in all he did.