Tozen Soshin

Tōzen Sōshin (1532–1602) was a Rinzai master in the Myōshin-ji line of the Ōtōkan stream, receiving Dharma transmission from Ian Chisatsu (1514–1587) and transmitting to Yōzan Keiyō (1559–1629), placing him one generation before Gudō Tōshoku (1577–1661) — the master who comprehensively revived Myōshin-ji in the early Edo period. Tōzen practiced through the final decades of the Sengoku wars, through Oda Nobunaga's unification campaigns, and into the first years of Tokugawa Ieyasu's regime^[1].

His years coincided with one of the most violent and transformative eras in Japanese history, and also with one of the most consequential institutional moments for Rinzai: the gradual re-emergence of Myōshin-ji as a significant religious force after the devastation of the Ōnin War. The chain from Ian Chisatsu through Tōzen Sōshin to Yōzan Keiyō to Gudō Tōshoku traces the last three generations of the Myōshin-ji line's recovery before Gudō's seventeenth-century revival made it one of the dominant Rinzai forces in Edo Japan. Dumoulin's account identifies Gudō as the pivotal figure in that revival, but emphasises that the transmission chain remained continuous through figures like Tōzen even during the school's nadir^[1].