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Founder of Sambo Kyodan, Zen Master, teacher and instructor.

• Born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, in 1885. Formally became a Soto Buddhist monk when he was 13 years old. Through his twenties and thirties he continued his training with several other Buddhist priests. He also furthered his education, going to a teacher training school and then beginning a ten year career as an elementary school teacher and principal. At thirty he married and started raising a family of five children.

• In 1925, at the age of forty, he returned to his vocation as a Buddhist priest. Soon after, he was appointed as a Specially Dispatched Priest for the Propagation of the Soto sect, traveling around giving lectures. He was not satisfied with his vocation and its practise. In this same year he met his master Daiun Shitsu, Harada Sogaku Roshi (1871-1961), and eventually became one of his Dharma successors. He sat his first sesshin with Harada Roshi in 1925 and two years later at the age of forty-two was recognized as having attained kensho. Some ten years later he finished his koan study and then, at the age of fifty-eight, received dharma transmission from Harada Roshi (1943).

• In 1954, some ten years after his dharma transmission, and after certain post-war restrictions were lifted, he established his organization as an independent school of Zen. The group, Sambo Kyodan (Fellowship of the Three Treasures), broke with the Soto school in which he was ordained, asserting a position of direct connection with Dogen and no longer recognizing the authority of the sect's ecclesiastical leaders. Such an action had been strongly advocated by his teacher Harada Sogaku. "Sanbô," literally "three treasures," signifies the three most basic principles of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. "Kyôdan," on the other hand, means "religious organization." In this name, therefore, one can perceive his aspiration as well as his determination to create a religious community that purely devotes itself to maintaining the true Buddhist Way. The genesis of the foundation reveals already that the basic character of the organization is that of the Soto line. But, following the tradition stemming from Harada Sogaku Roshi, the Sanbô Kyôdan integrated the Rinzai method of koan study in its Zen training in order to bring its students effectively to the realization of their true self.

• During the next thirty years he held over three hundred sesshins, led numerous regular zazen meetings, and lectured widely. In addition, he left almost one hundred volumes of writings. He traveled to Europe and the United States (1962-69). He has also become widely known and indirectly influenced many people through the book Three Pillars of Zen, compiled by Phillip Kapleau and published in 1965 – and contains a short biography of himself. In 1970 he resigned from the abbotship and had Yamada Kôun Roshi take the leadership of the organization.

• He passed away in 1973.