Kyozan Joshu Sasaki facts for kids

Kyozan Joshu Sasaki (佐々木承周, Sasaki Jōshū), Roshi (April 1, 1907 – July 27, 2014) was a Japanese Rinzai Zen teacher who sought to tailor his teachings to westerners, he lived in Los Angeles, United States. Joshu Sasaki opened dozens of centres and was founder and head abbot of the Mount Baldy Zen Center, near Mount Baldy in California, and of the Rinzai-Ji order of affiliated Zen centers. He was one of the most influential Zen masters in America.

Biography

Joshu Sasaki became an ordained monk at age thirteen under his teacher, Joten Soko Miura. Soon after, he followed Joten Soko Miura to Myoshin-ji, the head temple of one of the largest branches of Rinzai. Having been awarded the title of roshi in 1947, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki took the position of an abbot at Yotoku-in. In 1953 he was appointed abbot of Shojuan.

In 1962, at the request of Daiko Furukawa, Joshu decided to travel to the United States to teach students in the West, founding a Zen center in Los Angeles.

Joshu Sasaki regularly offered formal training sessions at both the Mount Baldy Zen Center and the Bodhi Manda Zen Center, occasionally offering sesshin at the Rinzai-Ji Zen Center in Los Angeles and Haku-un-ji Zen Center in Tempe, Arizona, as well as at numerous other centers on the American East Coast, and in Europe. His teaching could be characterized as direct, challenging and uncompromising; he maintained a rigorous training and teaching schedule well into his 90's. Joshu Sasaki's public and retreat talks centred on "Tathagata Zen", and he very often used the Rinzai Roku and Blue Cliff Record as starting points for his lectures and teishos. Towards the end of his life, his teaching schedule greatly depended on his health. In early February 2012, at the age of 104, Joshu Roshi became ill with aspiration pneumonia and did not teach at MBZC (or any affiliate Zen Center) again. On November 10, at a dedication ceremony for the Zendo remodel, Joshu Roshi officially resigned as abbot of the Mount Baldy Zen Center for health reasons.

Joshu Sasaki has given full Rinzai priest ordination to approximately 20 students, which grants them the title oshō. But Kyozan Joshu Sasaki did not give dharma transmission, which is in Rinzai the qualification needed to train students in a training hall to become a priest. Nevertheless, several of his students are recognized by their community "as wise guides of various communities". Although he had no official "dharma heirs," followers of Sasaki founded about 30 Zen centers around the world.

One of his best known students was Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who served as personal assistant to Joshu Sasaki during his 1990s seclusion to the Mt. Baldy monastery. Many of the poems in Cohen's 2006 Book of Longing refer to Mt. Baldy and Joshu Sasaki (mostly referred to as "Roshi").

Writing under the pen name Shozan Jack Haubner, another student of Sasaki Roshi's has published partially fictionalized books and essays which refer to Sasaki Roshi's teachings and describe everyday life in Rinzai-Ji affiliated Zen centers.

Joshu Sasaki died at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on July 27, 2014, aged 107.

See also

• Rinzai school
• Myoshin-ji
• Mount Baldy Zen Center
• List of Rinzai Buddhists
• Buddhism in the United States
• Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States
• Leonard Cohen