A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism
Hakuin Zenji, the Zen teacher (1685–1768), was the father of purely Japanese Rinzai Zen Bsm., as distinct from Chinese Ch’an Bsm. practised in Japan. From a humble life in a small temple he became the greatest Zen master of modern times. He believed in fierce, direct methods of training, and entirely remodelled the Kōan system. He trained a very large number of successors.
A prolific writer, little of his work is yet published in English, but his ‘Song of Meditation’ appears in W. of Bsm. No. 137, and, with a long commentary by a modern master, Amakuki Sessan, in Leggett, A First Zen Reader (1960). Hakuin produced the famous Kōan, the ‘sound of one hand clapping’. He was also a notable sculptor and artist
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