| Hakuun Yasutani | |
|---|---|
| Religion | Zen Buddhism |
| School | Sanbo Kyodan |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Born | 1885 Japan |
| Died | 1973 |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Rōshi |
| Predecessor | Harada Daiun Sogaku |
| Successor | Yamada Koun Taizan Maezumi |
Hakuun Yasutani (安谷 白雲 Yasutani Hakuun, 1885 - 1973) was a Sōtō Rōshi, the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Buddhist organization and an ultra-nationalist.
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Ryōkō Yasutani (安谷 量衡) was born in Japan in Shizuoka Prefecture. At the age of 13 he was ordained at a Sōtō temple and given the name Hakuun.[1] He began training in 1925 under Harada Daiun Sogaku, who was formally a Sōtō Rōshi and had studied Zen under both Sōtō and Rinzai masters. Hakuun Yasutani received Dharma transmission from him in 1943.[2]
At this time in Japan Sōtō Zen practice had become rather methodical and ritualistic.[3] Yasutani felt that practice and realization was lacking. He broke away from the Sōtō sect and in 1954 established his own organization as independent school of Zen Sanbō Kyōdan (Fellowship of the Three Treasures).[2] After that his efforts were directed primarily toward the training of lay practitoners. The Sanbõ Kyõdan incorporates Rinzai methods (Kōan work) as well as much of Soto tradition, a style Yasutani had learned from his teacher Harada Daiun Sogaku.
Yasutani first traveled to United States in 1962 when he was already in his seventies. He became known through the book The Three Pillars of Zen. The book was compiled by Philip Kapleau. It contains short biography of Yasutani and his Introductory Lectures on Zen Training. The lectures were the first instructions on how to do zazen ever published in English. The book also has Yasutani's Commentary on the Koan Mu and somewhat unorthodox reports of his dokusan interviews with Western students.[4]
Like Harada, through the end of the Pacific War, Yasutani was a vigorous supporter of Imperial Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere policy and even in his writings on Buddhist subjects expressed views strongly supporting ultra-nationalism, the anti-democratic Kokutai system of imperial autocracy, militarism and vehement anti-Semitism.[5] As in his criticism of other writers on Buddhism such as Kaiten Nukariya (忽滑谷 快天) and others, the tone of his comments frequently rose to the level of vitriol. He also routinely referred to China as Shina, which, then as now, most Chinese consider condescending and derogatory and which the government under the Occupation of Japan banned in official government usage. Upon the end of the war, Yasutani quickly became silent about his pre-war support for imperialism but retained a strongly conservative and anti-communist tone in his writing.
Yasutani's political extremism and intense support for Japanese imperialism has been extensively documented[6] by professor Brian Victoria (in his book Zen at War), who showed that Yasutani's views were by no means exceptional among Japanese Buddhists of the Zen and other sects. In 2000, the Sanbo Kyodan itself issued an apology[7] for Yasutani's statements and actions during the Pacific War.[8] According to its Japanese website, the Sanbo Kyodan now refuses to make Yasutani's books available to non-members. However, Yasutani's writings from before and after the war remain widely available in Japan in used bookstores and major libraries such as the National Diet Library.
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