Taisen Deshimaru
Taisen Deshimaru
1914 – 1982
Taisen Deshimaru was born in 1914 in Saga Prefecture, Japan, into a samurai family with strong Buddhist roots. He first encountered Kodo Sawaki's teaching as a young man in the 1930s and was profoundly struck by Sawaki's radical insistence on zazen without gain or purpose. For decades Deshimaru lived as a layman—working as a businessman, surviving the war, raising a family—while maintaining his practice and connection to Sawaki. Only near the end of Sawaki's life, in 1965, did Deshimaru receive ordination and his teacher's final instruction: "Go to the West and plant the seed of the Dharma."
In 1967, Deshimaru arrived in Paris with almost nothing and began teaching zazen in the back rooms of health food stores and borrowed apartments. His fierce energy, physical presence, and absolute conviction drew students rapidly. He founded the Association Zen Internationale (AZI) in 1970, and by the time of his death in 1982 had established over a hundred dojos and practice groups across Europe, including the temple La Gendronnière in the Loire Valley. His teaching centered on three pillars: shikantaza as the sole essential practice, mushotoku (no gaining idea) as the correct attitude, and hishiryo (beyond thinking) as the quality of mind in zazen. He gave kusen—oral teachings delivered during zazen—that became his primary medium, and published prolifically in French. His books, including The Zen Way to the Martial Arts, Questions to a Zen Master, and Sit: Zen Teachings of Master Taisen Deshimaru, introduced Zen to a European audience that had no prior exposure to the tradition. He transmitted the Dharma to several successors who continue his lineage across Europe and beyond.
Names
Teachers
Students
Teachings
- proverbJust Sit
You must simply sit. Do not think. Do not try to become Buddha. Just sit. Only sit.
- proverbThe Cosmos in the Posture
When you sit in zazen, you are the whole cosmos sitting. There is nothing outside of this posture.
- proverbAutomatic Thinking
During zazen, thoughts come automatically. Let them come, let them go. Do not run after them. Do not run away from them. This is the secret.
- proverbObserve Your Own Mind
You do not need to search for the truth. You only need to observe your own mind.
- sayingMushotoku: Without Seeking Gain
True zazen is practiced without any object, without seeking any result, without any goal—mushotoku. If you practice zazen to gain something, it is no longer zazen. Sit simply, concentrate on the posture, breathe naturally, and let thoughts pass like clouds in the sky. This is the highest form of practice. There is nothing to achieve because you already have everything from the beginning.
- sermonHishiryo: Beyond Thinking
During zazen, do not try to stop your thoughts. Do not try to chase them away. And do not follow them either. Let them come, let them go. This is the secret of Zen: hishiryo, beyond thinking. It is not thinking, it is not not-thinking. It is the consciousness before thought arises, the consciousness that is the source of all thought. When you return to this consciousness, even for a single breath, you touch the essence of Buddha.
- sermonThe Posture Is the Teaching
Concentrate on the posture. Push the earth with the knees, push the sky with the top of the head. The chin is pulled in, the nape of the neck stretched, the nose vertical above the navel. The hands are in the cosmic mudra, left hand on right, thumbs touching horizontally. Do not lean to the left or the right, forward or backward. The posture of zazen is not the means to awakening—it is awakening itself. The body and mind are not two. When the body takes the posture of Buddha, the mind becomes the mind of Buddha.
- sayingTrue Zen Is Useless
True Zen is useless. It does not serve any purpose. It is not useful for business, for health, for success. In our civilization, people want everything to be useful—they cannot understand something that has no utility. But the highest things in life are useless: love, art, poetry, contemplation. Zazen is the most useless thing, and therefore the most precious.
- sayingHere, Now, Nothing Else
You must concentrate on zazen. Only zazen. Here, now, nothing else. Not the zazen of yesterday, not the zazen of tomorrow. This zazen, this breath, this posture. If you can truly be here, completely, for just one moment—that is satori.
Master Record Sources
1914-1982
Taisen Deshimaru
Soto
Kodo Sawaki