Influence
Although the membership of Sanbō Kyōdan is small, 3,790 registered followers and 24 instructors in 1988, "the Sanbõkyõdan has had an inordinate influence on Zen in the West".
Westerners involved with Sanbō Kyōdan, including a number of Roman Catholics, promoted its teachings in North America and Europe in the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century. One early American Zen member was Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen. Kapleau studied under Harada Sōgaku in Obama and Yasutani Haku'un in greater Tokyo in the 1950s and 1960s, but never received formal dharma transmission, and started his own lineage. Another influential student was Taizan Maezumi. In Europe the Sanbō Kyōdan was associated with Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle and others.
Sanbō Kyōdan was also connected to Soen Nakagawa, a friend of Yamada Koun and a strong supporter of Japanese imperialism, and Eido Tai Shimano, who has been accused of sexually abusing lay American practitioners.
Read more about this topic: Sanbo Kyodan
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Temperament is the natural, inborn style of behavior of each individual. It’s the how of behavior, not the why.... The question is not, “Why does he behave a certain way if he doesn’t get a cookie?” but rather, “When he doesn’t get a cookie, how does he express his displeasure...?” The environment—and your behavior as a parent—can influence temperament and interplay with it, but it is not the cause of temperamental characteristics.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)
“The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because it is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)