Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
Joshu Sasaki Kyozan ( born April 1, 1907) is a Japanese Rinzai Rōshi who lives in the U.S. since 1962.
Joshu Sasaki is the founder and was abbot of Mt Baldy Zen Center, which was built in the seventies on the Mount San Antonio in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. He is head of the line of Rinzai -Ji order, belonging to the many Zen centers in the U.S. and Europe ( Dusseldorf, Kempten, Augsburg, Vienna, Oslo).
Despite his age, he was a Zen teacher until February 2012, partly in the monastic training center Mount Baldy, both in the main temple of the Rinzai -ji in Los Angeles.
After a serious illness he gave on 10 November 2012 at the age of 105 years, his retirement as abbot of Mt Baldy Zen Center known, so its probably unprecedented, sustained over a period of 84 years of teaching ended.
His training as a Zen monk he received at the age of 14 years in the temple Zuiryo -ji. At the age of 21 years Joshu was a Zen priest ( Osho ) ordained and given the name Kyozan. Shortly thereafter, Joshu Sasaki then followed his teacher, Soko Miura Roshi Joten, the ( Kancho ) had been appointed in Kyoto for Abbot, in the Myoshin -ji, the main temple of the Rinzai Zenlinie largest in Japan. After he had received in 1948 the title of Roshi named Denkyo - shitsu, he assumed the position of an abbot at the temple Yotoku - in. In 1953 he left the Yotoku -in and became abbot in Shoju - in Iiyama, Nagano Prefecture in, with the mission of this temple and in the Shoju Ronin ( Dokyo Etan, 1642-1721 ), the master of the Reformer Hakuin Ekaku had worked to renovate.
In 1962, he decided to travel across the Pacific to the U.S. to teach interested students in the West Zen. Over the years he has become one of the most respected and influential Zen masters in the U.S. and Europe. Some of his consecrated to monks and nuns students have themselves become a Zen teacher and guide Zen centers in several states of the USA, Germany, Norway and Austria. One of the most famous Zen teacher in the German language, genro Seiun Osho, he also transferred the power to teach the koan practice. For years, Sasaki is also regularly traveled to Austria to conduct in Buddhist Centre Scheibbs sesshin and to give its European students the opportunity to hear his Teishos and practice koan practice.