Mokushi Soen

Mokushi Soen (1673–1746) was an early-to-mid-Edo Sōtō master who received transmission from Tokuo Ryoko and passed it to Gangoku Gankei (1683–1767). His career unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the *shūtō fukko* — the restoration movement led by Gesshū Sōko and Manzan Dōhaku that in 1703–1704 obtained shogunal recognition for the principle that Sōtō Dharma transmission must be face-to-face and cannot be assigned by temple-family inheritance^[1].

Mokushi thus lived through the critical decades when the Manzan reforms were being institutionalised across the Sōtō school. His teacher Tokuo Ryoko stood in the direct lineage of Gesshū Sōko himself, making Mokushi a second-generation heir of the reformed transmission. Dumoulin's account of the Edo Sōtō revival situates this generation as the one responsible for spreading the restored standards beyond Daijō-ji and Eihei-ji into the wider provincial temple network — a normalisation process in which mid-level abbots like Mokushi played an indispensable role^[1].