Welcome to Ocean Mountain Zen Village (OMZ Village in the lineage of Sanbo Zen)
Sanbo Zen History
Sanbo Zen, based in Kamakura, Japan, was founded in 1954 by Hakuun Yasutani Roshi. This lineaged tradition combines Soto-style practice with the Rinzai method of koan study to help students realize their true selves. Sanbo Zen has helped significantly in the transmission of Zen to the West over the past fifty or sixty years.
Well-known teachers who studied in this tradition include Maezumi Roshi, Robert Aitken Roshi, and Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen (1965).
In the early 20th Century, Harada Roshi, a high-ranking Japanese Soto Zen master, realized something vital was missing from the Soto Zen tradition. Later, he trained under a master in Rinzai Zen. He was introduced to koan studies which clarified the quintessential position of direct experience in awakening.
Yasutani Roshi, another Soto Zen master became a student of Harada Roshi and both founded Sanbo Kyodan which was later changed to Sanbo Zen.
Yamada Koun Roshi, a layman and a student of Yasutani Roshi
became his teacher's principal successor. Being a lay teacher, he has responsibilities toward his family, his job, and his Zen students.
The Three Pillars of Zen was compiled by three of Yasutani’s students, Yamada Koun Roshi, Kubota Jiun Roshi, and Philip Kapleau, under whose name the book was published in the West
in 1965.
Sanbo Zen's central objectives are to encourage direct, actual, and deep awakening. To accomplish this aim, this tradition offers intensive koan study with a teacher as formulated by Hakuin Zenji in the 1700's. This training is available to lay practitioners.
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