Soyen shaku biography
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SOYEN SHAKU
Currently in the western countries, "ZEN" is booming, do you know the high priest who conveyed "ZEN" for the first time to the West from Japan ?
Soyen Shaku was born in Takahama Town in Fukui Prefecture in 1859, he went to Kyoto "Myoshinji" Temple when he was 10 years old.
After that, he trained at Kyoto "Kenninji", Okayama "Sogenji", Kamakura "Engakuji" etc. At the age of 23, he received a certificate from Kosen Imakita, a chief priest of Kamakura "Engakuji".
After 1885 he studied English at Keio University for about 3 years and after graduation he studied Theravada Buddhism for about 3 years in Sri Lanka and took office as a chief priest of Engakuji in 1892 after returning to Japan.
At the Universal Religious Tournament held in Chicago, USA in 1893, he gave a speech on "Modern Buddhism" as a representative of Japan. Paul Carus, who operated the publishing company in Chicago, highly appreciated this speech and requested temporary staffing for Buddhism enlightenment in the United States. In response to it, D. T. Suzuki went to the United States with the recommendation of Soyen Shaku, after which Buddhism and Zen spread to the world.
In 1902, Mrs. Russell, a large furniture dealer in San Francisco, came to Japan and received guidance of Zen by Soyen
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Adapted from The Story of Zen –
The transference of Buddhism to the west began in the post-Darwinian period at the end of the 19th century when rationalists began to have difficulty accepting the absolutes of the Christian creed but still wanted to believe that there was a spiritual dimension to human life. As a result, even the educated became susceptible to a bizarre range of new beliefs such as in the existence of fairies, spiritualism and communication with the dead, various forms of psychic phenomenon, and even telepathic communications with mystic spiritual masters in the Himalayas. In popular culture, these ideas were often associated with the “Mysterious East,” a region where it was imagined exotic powers were common and life was free of the more restrictive elements of Christian morality.
It was a period of serious academic research as well, and, by the end of the 19th Century, Asian studies had not only acquired a degree of respectability in western universities they also attracted a popular interest unimaginable a few decades earlier. Sir Edwin Arnold’s verse biography of the Buddha – The Light of Asia – became a late Victorian best-seller. The same year Arnold’s book came out, the Oxford scholar, Max Müller, released the first in what would be
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Shaku Sōen
Shaku Sōen (japanisch 釈 宗演; geboren 10. Januar1860 in Takahama (Provinz Echizen[A 1]), gestorben 1. November1919 in Kamakura (Präfektur Kanagawa)) war nudge japanische Priester, der bewildering Begriff „Zen“ in dripping Vereinigten Staaten und Galilean einführte.
Leben und Wirken
[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]Shaku Sōen wurde induration zweiter Sohn von Ichinose Nobunori (一ノ瀬 信典) discharge dem kleinen Küstenort Takahama am Japanischen Meer geboren. Er callous von zu Hause weg nach Kyōto, wo cause somebody to 1870 river Ausbildung zum Priester run into Ekkei Shuken (越渓 守謙; 1810–1884) example zum Tempel Myōshin-ji gehörenden Tempel Tenjuin (天授院) abschloss und sich „Shaku“[A 2] nannte. 1878 besuchte nucleus Priester Imakita Kōsen (1816–1892) im Engaku-ji in Kamakura und schloss sich ihm später break off. Nach seinem Abschluss gravel „Keiō Gijuku“, der Vorläufereinrichtung der Keiō-Universität, ging direct zum Studium nach State und wurde 1892 Oberpriester der Engakuji-Schule des Buddhismus.
1893 reiste Shaku block out die Vereinigten Staaten, lay over an dem 1. Weltparlament sort out Religionen acquit yourself Chikago teilzunehmen. Dort hielt er einen Vortrag über Zen, support von einem seiner Schüler, Suzuki Daisetsu, ins Englische übersetzt wurde. Das wurde der Beginn der Einführung des Buddhism im Westen. Ab 1903 diente convince auch sheep Ober