WAkegarasu Haya was a Shin Buddhist priest in Ōtani-ha. For a decade he was a student of the Shin reformer Kiyozawa Manshi. Akegarasu was also a former head of administration of the Higashi Hongan-ji who was a major inspiration to the formation of the Dobokai Movement.
WBenchō , was a Japanese Buddhist monk and second patriarch of the main Chinzei branch of the Jōdo-shū sect of Japanese Buddhism, after Hōnen. In Jodo Shu Buddhism, he is often called by adherents as Shōkō Shōnin (聖光上人) or Shōkōbō (聖光房). According to biographies, he first ordained as a priest of the Tendai sect at the age of fourteen, and entered Enryaku-ji temple in 1183. He first met Hōnen in 1197. Later, after Hōnen and many of his followers were exiled in 1207, Shōkō was exiled on the island of Kyūshū and taught the practice of the nembutsu there.
WDate Munehiro or Chihiro（Japanese:伊達 宗広 or 千広; June 24, 1802 – May 18, 1877) was a Japanese samurai of Kii Domain and Scholar of Kokugaku, living during the late Edo and early Meiji periods. He was father of Mutsu Munemitsu（陸奥 宗光). His penname was Jitoku (自得)．
WFudaishi was a Chinese Buddhist monk who was later deified as the Japanese patron deity of libraries. He is traditionally accredited with the invention of the rinzō (輪蔵), a system of revolving shelving used in Kyōzō libraries. He is often represented alongside his sons, Fuwaku and Fukon.
WKeian Genju was a Japanese Buddhist monk who studied classics under Ishō at Nanzen-ji.
WGenshin , also known as Eshin Sōzu (恵心僧都), was the most influential of a number of scholar-monks of the Buddhist Tendai sect active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan. Genshin, who was trained in both esoteric and exoteric teachings, wrote a number of treatises pertaining to the increasingly popular Pure Land Buddhism from a Tendai viewpoint, but his magnum opus, the Ōjōyōshū had considerable influence on later Pure Land teachers such as Honen and Shinran. In spite of growing political tensions within the Tendai religious hierarchy, and despite being one of the two leading disciples of the controversial Ryogen, 18th head of the Enryakuji Temple, Genshin and a small group of fellow monks maintained a secluded community at Yokawa on Mount Hiei solely devoted toward rebirth in the Pure Land, while staying largely neutral in the conflict. He was one of the thinkers who maintained that the nembutsu ritual, which was said to induce a vision of Amida, was an important hermeneutic principle in the Buddhist doctrinal system.
WPaul Sueo Hamaguchi was a Japanese Roman Catholic bishop.
WShodo Harada , or Harada Rōshi, is a Rinzai priest, author, calligrapher, and head abbot of Sōgen-ji — a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan. He has become known as a "teacher of teachers", with masters from various lineages coming to sit sesshin with him in Japan or during his trips to the United States and Europe.
WImakita Kōsen was a Japanese Rinzai Zen rōshi and Neo-Confucianist.
WPaul Shinichi Itonaga was a Roman Catholic bishop.
WJakushitsu Genkō was a Japanese Rinzai master, poet, flute player, and first abbot of Eigen-ji. His poetry is considered to be among the finest of Zen poetry. He traveled to China and studied Ch'an with masters of the Linji school from 1320 to 1326, then returned to Japan and lived for many years as a hermit. It was only toward the end of his life that he decided to teach Zen to others.
WKanzan Egen (関山慧玄/關山慧玄) (1277–1360) was a Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk, founder of Myōshin-ji Temple and a principal member of the extant Ōtōkan lineage, from which all modern Rinzai Zen derives. Centuries later, Emperor Meiji conferred the posthumous name Muso Daishi (無相大師) to Kanzan.
WDr. Soyu Matsuoka, along with Sokei-an and Nyogen Senzaki, was one of the early Zen teachers to make the United States his home.
WMujū Dōkyō, birth name Ichien Dōkyō, was a Buddhist monk of the Japanese Kamakura period. He is superficially considered a Rinzai monk by some due to his compilation of the Shasekishū and similar books of koans, but there is good evidence that he was also an eager student of the Tendai, Pure Land, and Hosso sects, and he is occasionally placed in the Shingon and Ritsu sects as well.
WKyudo Nakagawa, or Nakagawa Kyūdō, was a Japanese-born Rinzai rōshi who for many years led Soho Zen Buddhist Society, Inc. in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
WNakahara Nantenbō , also known as Tōjū Zenchū, Tōshū Zenchū 鄧州全忠, and as Nantenbō Tōjū, was a Japanese Zen Master. In his time known as a fiery reformer, he was also a prolific and accomplished artist. He produced many fine examples of Zen Art and helped bridge the gap between older forms of Zen Buddhist art and its continuation in the 20th century.
WNanjō Bun'yū (南条文雄) was a Buddhist priest and one of the most important modern Japanese scholars of Buddhism. Nanjō was born to the abbot of Seiunji Temple (誓運寺), part of the Shinshu Ōtani sect (真宗大谷派) of the Higashi Honganji (東本願寺) branch of Jodo Shinshu.
WNichiō was a Nichiren Buddhist who founded the Fuju-fuse subsect. His sect was founded when he refused to attend funeral services for Hideyoshi. The regent Tokugawa Ieyasu subsequently exiled him to Tsushima.
WNichirō was a Buddhist disciple of Nichiren, the nephew of Nisshō.
WEshin Nishimura is a Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, the former president of Hanazono University in Kyoto, Japan, and also a major modern scholar in the Kyoto School of thought. A current professor of the Department of Buddhism at Hanazono University, he has lectured at universities throughout the world on the subject of Zen Buddhism. The author of many books, most written in the Japanese language, Nishimura has been a participant in many dialogues on the relationship of Zen to Christianity and Western philosophy.
WNisshō was a Buddhist disciple of Nichiren and the uncle of Nichirō. He was the only disciple who was actually older than Nichiren himself.
WMuhō Nölke (ネルケ無方) is a German-born Zen monk who was the abbot of Antai-ji, a Japanese Sōtō Zen temple in Shin'onsen in the Mikata District of Japan's Hyōgo Prefecture from 2002 until 2020. He has translated works of Dōgen and Kōdō Sawaki, and has authored five books in German and sixteen books in Japanese.
WSasaki Gensō is a Japanese Rinzai Rōshi, a successor in the Tenryū-ji line of Rinzai Zen, a teacher of Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmanship, and a calligrapher.
WSengai Gibon was a Japanese monk of the Rinzai school. He was known for his controversial teachings and writings, as well as for his lighthearted sumi-e paintings. After spending half of his life in Nagata near Yokohama, he secluded himself in Shōfuku-ji in Fukuoka, the first Zen temple in Japan, where he spent the rest of his life.
WZenkei Shibayama , a former Abbot of Nanzen-ji, was a Japanese Rinzai master well known for his commentary on the Mumonkan. One of his better-known students was Keido Fukushima, abbot of Tōfuku-ji. Shibayama also taught at Otani University and was the head abbot of the entire Nanzenji Organization, overseeing the administration of over five hundred temples. Due to a number of lecture tours he undertook to the United States in the 1960s, and the translation of several of his books into English, Shibayama was a significant contributor to the establishment of Zen in America.
WShōkū , sometimes called Seizan (西山), was a disciple of Hōnen, founder of the Jōdo-shū Buddhist sect. Shōkū later succeeded Jōhen, another disciple of Hōnen, as the head of a former Shingon Buddhist temple, Eikandō, established a separate branch of Jōdo-shū called the Seizan branch, and completed the transition of Eikandō from a Shingon temple into a Jōdo shū one.
WKobori Nanrei Sōhaku (1918—1992) was a Japanese Rinzai roshi and former abbot of Ryōkōin, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, Japan. A student of the late Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Sōhaku was fluent in English and known to hold regular sesshins until the 1980s which many Americans attended. One of his American students is James H. Austin, author of Zen and the Brain. Austin writes of his teacher, "This remarkable person, Kobori-roshi, inspired me to begin the long path of Zen and stick to it. As a result, I have since continued to repair my ignorance about Zen and its psychophysiology during an ongoing process of adult reeducation."
WShiba Sonome was a Japanese zen poet. She was an acquaintance and friend of Matsuo Bashō, and their correspondence is a treasure of zen and haiku history. On a final visit in 1694, Bashō paid homage to her in a haiku, hiragiku no me ni tatete miru chiri mo nashi, 白菊の目に立てゝ見る塵もなし, in the eye of a white chrysanthemum, there is not a speck of dust.
WSosei was a Japanese waka poet and Buddhist priest. He is listed as one of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals, and one of his poems was included in the famous anthology Hyakunin Isshu. His father Henjō was also a waka poet and monk.
WKazuaki Tanahashi is an accomplished Japanese calligrapher, Zen teacher, author and translator of Buddhist texts from Japanese and Chinese to English, most notably works by Dogen. He first met Shunryu Suzuki in 1964, and upon reading Suzuki's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he stated, "I could see it's Shobogenzo in a very plain, simple language." He has helped notable Zen teachers author books on Zen Buddhism, such as John Daido Loori. A fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science—Tanahashi is also an environmentalist and peaceworker.
WThe Most Venerable Etai Yamada was the 253rd head priest of the Japanese Tendai school of Mahayana Buddhism.
WRyoun Yamada, aka Yamada Ryoun or Yamada Masamichi, the son of the late Yamada Koun, is the current Zen master of San'un Zendo in Kamakura, Japan and the Abbot of the Sanbo Zen school of Zen Buddhism. Sanbo Zen is a lay organization of Zen, so Yamada also worked at Mitsubishi Bank and Mitsubishi Securities. Currently he heads the Itoki Corporation. As of the late 1990s, Yamada was returning to Japan only a few times each year.
WPaul Aijirō Yamaguchi was a Japanese prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Nagasaki from 1937 to 1968.
WGempō Yamamoto was the abbot of both Ryūtaku-ji and Shoin-ji in Japan—also serving temporarily as the head of the Myōshin-ji branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism.