Joshu Sasaki
Joshu Sasaki
1907 – 2014
Kyōzan Jōshū Sasaki (佐々木承周, 1907–2014) was the Japanese Rinzai roshi who taught in the United States for more than fifty years and founded the Rinzai-ji network — one of the longest-lived first-generation Japanese Zen lineages in the West[1]. Born in Miyagi Prefecture, he entered Zuiryū-ji in Hokkaido at fourteen and trained for decades under Jōten Sōkō Miura, eventually receiving the rank of *rōshi*. In 1962 he settled in Los Angeles, and in 1966 founded Rinzai-ji Zen Center; he later established Mount Baldy Zen Center in the San Gabriel Mountains, which became known for the unusual length and severity of its training schedule[1].
His distinctive teaching framework — what he called the *tathāgata* dynamic of "plus and minus," the simultaneous expansion and contraction he treated as the basic activity of the awakening mind — gave his *teishō* a recognisable conceptual signature and a deliberate resistance to received Zen-talk[2]. Among his long-term students was the poet Leonard Cohen, who spent extended periods of residence at Mount Baldy. Sasaki continued teaching into his 106th year, making him one of the oldest active Zen teachers on record; his legacy is also complicated by allegations of long-running sexual misconduct that became public in 2012 and were formally acknowledged by Rinzai-ji the following year[1]. He died at Mount Baldy in 2014[1].
Names
Teachers and lineage of Joshu Sasaki
Teacher / root master:
Teachings
- proverbPlus and Minus
Plus and minus—they are one activity. When you truly understand this, you are free.
Everything in the universe is the activity of expansion and contraction, of plus and minus. When you breathe in, the whole universe contracts. When you breathe out, the whole universe expands. This is not philosophy—this is the direct experience of zazen. Plus activity and minus activity are not two separate things. They are one activity manifesting in two directions. When you truly understand this, you understand that birth and death, self and other, are one activity. There is nothing to fear and nothing to grasp.
- sayingOn Sitting Zazen
When you sit zazen, do not sit as a person sitting. Sit as the whole universe sitting. Your spine is the axis of the world. Your breath is the wind moving through all of space. If you sit with the idea 'I am sitting,' you make yourself small, separate, alone. But if you let go of that 'I,' then sitting sits, breathing breathes, and the whole universe is doing zazen through you. That is true sitting.
Other masters in Rinzai
Master Record Sources
- datesZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation
1907-2014
- nameZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation
Joshu Sasaki
- schoolZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation
Rinzai
- teachersZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation
Joten Soko Miura