Kodo Sawaki
Kodo Sawaki (沢木 興道, Sawaki Kōdō?, 1880-1965) is considered by some to be the most important Japanese Zen master of the 20th century. His parents died early, and he grew up being adopted by a gambler and an ex-prostitute. When he was 16, he ran away from home to become a monk at Eihei-ji, one of the two main temples of Sōtō Zen. At first unsuccessful, he was finally ordained as a monk and began his Zen studies. Later, he started to give lectures and instructions in the practice of zazen, and during the 1930s he served as a professor at Komazawa University. At the same time, he also took responsibility for Antai-ji, a zazen temple in northern Kyoto. Because of his continuous travels throughout Japan to practice zazen with people everywhere, he began to be called "Homeless Kodo". Sawaki Roshi has been accused, along with several other WW2 era Zen monks, of supporting Japanese imperial aggression, although these charges appear groundless. Apparently Sawaki Roshi was skeptical of the Japanese war effort, in fact characterizing war in general as "useless". Sawaki Kodo Roshi died on December 21st, 1965, at Antaiji. He was succeeded by his closest disciple, Kosho Uchiyama.
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