The Japanese Buddhist term, kobutsu (古仏), means “ancient Buddha”. In this context, “ancient” means true, authentic and reliable rather than old in years. Kobutsu can be used to refer to the teachers we feel have been most pivotal in clarifying the Dharma for us personally. Dōgen often referred to these teachers as his kobutsu: Shakyamuni Buddha, Tendō Nyojō (his teacher in China) and Myōzen (his teacher at Kennin-ji who brought him to China). My own kobutsu are Okumura Shōhaku Rōshi, Uchiyama Kōshō Rōshi and Sawaki Kōdō Rōshi. Although I did not have the opportunity to meet either Sawaki Kōdō or Uchiyama Kōshō in person, I feel deeply connected with them through my teachers--Okumura Shōhaku Rōshi and Honda Tekifu Rōshi (my teacher at Myōkō-ji in Japan). Both were instrumental in introducing me to his teachings. Meeting Sawaki Kōdō Rōshi through Okumura Shōhaku Rōshi At the start of the millennium, my professional life was shifting radically--from arts and entertainment journalism to end-of-life care. For this reason, I was spending a lot of time in San Francisco, the hub of the burgeoning hospice movement, where I studied with Frank Ostaseski, cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project. At the time, Zen Hospice Project had a small hospice residence with five residents and an office in a house on Page Street, practically across the street from the San Francisco Zen Center’s City Center. It was the ideal place for me to receive hands-on training in all aspects of end-of-life care and hospice management. Blanche Zenkei Hartman, who was then the Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, learned what I was doing and generously offered me a space in the dormitory at the City Center. Each day after joining the community for morning zazen, I would cross the street to spend the rest of the day at the hospice residence working with Frank and the residents. Around that time my friend, Myōju Kobayashi, returned to the Bay Area from Japan where she had been ordained as a priest after studying and practicing at Daijō-ji in Kanazawa. When I went to visit her, she asked me with great excitement if I had heard of someone named Okumura Shōhaku. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know who he was. Myōju explained that he was a disciple of the legendary Uchiyama Kōshō Rōshi and that he was currently living in San Francisco and giving lectures at Sōkō-ji. I was equally excited, so the following Sunday I accompanied Myōju, her husband, and another American friend to attend one of his lectures at Sōkō-ji. Sōkō-ji is one of the oldest Japanese temples in the United States, situated on a hill in San Francisco’s so-called “Japantown”. Founded in 1934 at the request of Japanese immigrants, it later became the temple where Suzuki Shunryu Rōshi served upon his arrival to the United States in 1959. The basement of Sōkō-ji was a used as conference room, and that’s where Okumura Rōshi was offering free lectures on Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō every Sunday. When we arrived, Okumura Rōshi was seated in front of a large blackboard--the forerunner of the famous white erasable board for which he would later become known. The room was nearly empty, apart from a few homeless people who had come inside to nap, and four of us. Unbothered by the sparse and unusual setting, Okumura Rōshi spoke about Dōgen with his characteristic care and precision, explaining everything meticulously, step-by-step. His voice was soft, steady and soothing. Before long, our two American friends had drifted off to sleep, and even Myōju began nodding, or--as we say in Japan--“rowing the boat”. Yet within me, a powerful, life-changing revolution was taking place. For the first time, I felt with certainty that I was listening to someone who could truly explain Buddhism and the teachings of Dōgen. I had been practicing zazen and studying Buddhism since the mid 1980s--first at a Rinzai Zen center and later with a group loosely affiliated with the Sōtō school that practiced in the Rinzai manner. I made many good friends but did not find a teacher who could answer my deepest questions. As my involvement with hospice work expanded, I increasingly felt that what I had been taught by my previous teachers did not align with what I was encountering in real life. When death draws near, only teachings firmly rooted in “Reality” can reliably offer genuine solace. At the same time, I was very eager to understand Dōgen. In Japan, in the 1970s and 80s, interest in Dōgen had surged and books about him could be found everywhere. I had invested heavily in several expensive sets of his writings translated into contemporary Japanese by so-called “men of intellect”, yet none of them made sense to me. That Sunday at Sōkō-ji, after Okumura Rōshi’s lecture, I was so awestruck that I could not even bring myself to speak with him. Fortunately, not long afterward, during another of my extended stays in San Francisco, I learned that Blanche Zenkei Hartman had invited Okumura Rōshi to live at the SFZC City Center, where I was also residing. Early one morning, as I was preparing for zazen, I noticed a tall, handsome Japanese man slipping quietly out of the City Center’s main entrance. I immediately recognized him as Okumura Shōhaku and wondered where he was going at such an early hour. The next morning, I woke up in time to catch him just as he was heading out the door. This time I stopped him and asked where he was going. He explained that he was temporarily homeless. He had left his position with Sōtōshu Shūmuchō and had been invited to live in Bloomington, Indiana, but his residence there was still under construction. In the meantime, Blanche Zenkei Hartman had invited him to stay at the City Center. Then he told me why he was slipping out so early. Because he was Japanese and wore the brown kesa of a teacher, young people at the City Center often approached him, asking to become his students. Not wishing to appear disrespectful to the American teachers who had devoted their lives to building the San Francisco Zen Center, he chose instead to avoid such encounters by rising well before dawn and walking alone to Sōkō-ji to sit morning zazen by himself. When I heard this, I was enormously impressed. I thought to myself, “This is the man must be my teacher.” The next morning, I woke up early again to walk with Okumura Rōshi to Sōkō-ji. These days the neighborhoods we had to pass through are thoroughly gentrified, filled with million-dollar homes, but at the time they were dimly lit, run-down and not at all reassuring. I was even more struck to learn that this man had been walking through those dark streets alone every morning. When we arrived at Sōkō-ji, Okumura Rōshi sat like a Buddha. His presence was so extraordinary that I suddenly felt unworthy to be near him and chose a seat as far away from him as possible. The following day he invited me to dinner in Japantown. This was my first real chance to speak with him, and I was overflowing with questions. The first thing I asked about was what to study. In the United States, resources for Buddhist study were extremely limited, while in Japan there was such an overabundance of books and commentaries that I had no idea where to begin. After listening carefully, Okumura Rōshi suggested that after dinner I walk back with him to his room at the City Center so that he could lend me some books. Okumura Rōshi’s current library at Sanshin-ji easily surpasses even Harvard’s Buddhist collection, but at that time since he was still in transit, he had only a small number of books stacked neatly on the floor of his room. From this select collection, Okumura Rōshi pulled out two volumes of Sawaki Kōdō’s teachings and suggested I begin with them. The first was Sawaki Rōshi’s commentary on Kannon-gyō (Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sūtra) and the second was his commentary on Dōgen’s Gakudō Yōjinshū (Points to Watch in Practicing the Way). It is no exaggeration to say that these books completely transformed my understanding of Buddhism and opened the gate to the mesmerizing world of Dōgen’s teaching. This was how I encountered Sawaki Kōdō Rōshi through Okumura Shōhaku Rōshi. Meeting Sawaki Kōdō Rōshi through Honda Tekifu Rōshi Many years after my first meeting with Okumura Rōshi, when I had become his disciple, I was given the opportunity to live and study in Japanese monasteries. I decided to travel through Japan, visiting various accrediting monasteries (senmon sōdō) and participating in sanzenkai—a combination of zazen and dharma study--to get a sense of their approach. I went from one well-known monastery to another, but none of them resonated with me. I was hoping to find a monastery deeply rooted in Dōgen’s traditions and teachings. Instead, I discovered that the primary mission of most sōdō was to train young priests who were preparing to succeed their fathers as abbots. The emphasis was on learning to conduct ceremonies, memorial services, and similar duties. I understood how important these responsibilities are in Japan, but what I longed for was to find a teacher who understood the predicament of a seeker of the Way who is simultaneously responsible for the education of young temple priests. I am always hesitant to take time away from Okumura Rōshi’s work, so I only ask him questions after exhausting every effort to find answers on my own. This was one of those times. I wrote him an email asking whether he knew of any such teachers. As usual, he responded immediately. He told me that he knew of only one place that matched the description: Myōkō-ji in Hakata, Kyūshū, where the abbot was Honda Tekifu Rōshi. The moment I met Honda Rōshi, I knew at once that Myōkō-ji was the place I had been searching for. Honda Tekifu Rōshi had been one of the last young students to study under Sawaki Rōshi. After Sawaki Rōshi’s passing, Honda Rōshi became one of the first residents to move into Antai-ji to study with Uchiyama Rōshi. Myōkō-ji itself, founded in the 15th century, had a close connection with Sawaki Rōshi. A room was always kept for him there and he visited frequently to offer sesshin, lecture series and genzō-e. It was there that the president of Komazawa University came to persuade Sawaki Rōshi to serve as an honorary professor even though Sawaki Rōshi had no formal education or academic credentials. Sawaki Rōshi accepted but on one condition: that a zendo be built on campus and that all incoming students be required to sit zazen for a mandatory credit. His condition was gladly accepted, and this step helped reinvigorate the practice of shikantaza zazen among a new generation in Japan. Honda Rōshi cherished his memories of Sawaki Kōdō and loved to share them. Whenever I asked a question, his answers would go on and on and on. For my part, I was thrilled to be living and practicing in a monastery so closely connected to Sawaki Rōshi and to study with Honda Rōshi who had known him as a young man. In those days, I was a very hard-working man (I still am, I hope), and Honda Rōshi was the same. Even after lights-out, when the young monks had gone to bed, the two of us would still be working. Inevitably, we ended up taking our baths together almost every night, and these moments became the setting for our most relaxed and informal conversations. I would wash his back and ask about Sawaki Rōshi and I could tell that Honda Rōshi also cherished these talks which led him down memory lane to the days of his youth. I had first encountered Sawaki Rōshi through Okumura Rōshi’s books. Now, I was meeting him again through Honda Rōshi’s living embodiment of Sawaki Rōshi’s teachings. It is my hope that new generations of Zen students--especially those living in the West--will also come to know Sawaki Rōshi’s extraordinary teachings. I have accumulated a wealth of Sawaki Rōshi’s writings that have never been translated, including commentaries, lectures and more informal talks. On this webpage, I will be offering new translations in both English and French, supplemented with stories told to me directly by Honda Rōshi and by other students of Sawaki Kōdō. In this way, I hope that readers interested in Dōgen and in the lineage of Sawaki, Uchiyama and Okumura Rōshi, will be able not only to encounter their teachings but also get of glimpse of their personalities and how they lived.