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
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“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
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