Hoitsu Suzuki

Hoitsu Suzuki (鈴木 法逸) is the eldest son and Dharma heir of Shunryū Suzuki, and the 28th abbot of Rinso-in, the family temple in Yaizu, Shizuoka, that Shunryū Suzuki had inherited from his own adoptive father Gyokujun So-on Suzuki^[1]. Hoitsu received Dharma transmission from his father in 1963 — Shunryū's first transmission and the act that made it possible for him to depart for San Francisco in 1959 with the institutional question of Rinso-in's succession already resolved^[1][2]. Hoitsu has subsequently played a quiet but significant role in the modern SFZC line by transmitting onward to several Western Sōtō teachers (Mel Weitsman, William Kwong, Les Kaye, Reb Anderson among others), each of whom is conventionally described as a 'second-generation' Suzuki line heir through this branch.