My Teacher’s House (2), April 24th 2019
Antaiji’s history
About Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama (with links to English texts)
One text of special relevance: “To you who has decided to become a Zen monk”
Muho: “Adult Practice”
Muho: “Adult Practice: You create Antaiji!”
Muho: “Adult Practice: You don’t count at all!”
Muho: “Adult Practice: Tomatoes and cucumbers”
Muho: “What does it take to become a full-fledged Soto-shu priest and is it really worth the whole deal?”
My Teacher’s House
Shinyu Miyaura and the History of Antaiji in Hyogo According to Muho Noelke
(by Edward Moore)
II – A Delicate Flower and the Trump of Zen (1)
The original Antaiji was located in an area named Gentaku, in the northern part of Kyoto. While founded for the research of Eihei Dogen’s Shobogenzo in 1921, it was made famous by Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama, who began using it as a place of practice after the second world war. In the late 1960s, hippies from the west flocked to Asia to learn more about Buddhism, and some ended up at Antaiji – under the abbacy of Uchiyama at the time. Unlike other Zen temples, Uchiyama’s Antaiji welcomed westerners from all walks of life, male and female. He was a frail and gentle figure, the complete opposite of his strong and powerful master Kodo Sawaki. Uchiyama would always use the phrase, a violet blooms as a violet; a rose blooms as a rose, when comparing himself to his teacher. While there were impressive characters like Sawaki that resembled roses, there were also precious violets like Uchiyama. When he […]