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Thursday 23 December 2021

Taizan Maezumi

While reading the Buddha's biography, one of Taizan Maezumi’s female students learned that for a long while the Buddha had resisted allowing women to join the sangha. Finally, pressured by his attendant, Ananda, he conceded and permitted them to do so. “But,” he prophesied, “as a result, the Dharma will last 500 years less on this earth than it would have otherwise.”

The student was shaken by the story and asked Maezumi his opinion. He remained silent for a moment, then remarked, “It was worth it.”

[Taizan Maezumi portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

The Third Step East: 165-82; 9, 119, 161, 220, 231, 232

The Story of Zen: 5, 78, 269-76, 284, 286, 302, 304, 307-08, 309, 320-23, 336, 337, 343-49, 350, 353, 354, 356, 363, 414, 424

Thursday 9 December 2021

Eido Tai Shimano

Tai Shimano told his students that his introduction to Buddhism occurred while he was still a schoolboy in Japan during the war. A teacher copied out the words of the Heart Sutra on the blackboard and taught the students to recite them. It was enough to stir his interest. After the war, Shimano entered Empukuji in Chichibu, where his family had moved to escape the bombing raids on Tokyo. The teacher there was Kengan Goto, from whom Shimano received his Buddhist name, Eido; it was derived from the first syllable of the names of the two monks who brought Rinzai and Soto Zen to Japan— Eisai and Dogen.

The Third Step East: 155-61; 55, 56, 115, 117, 118, 119, 147, 152, 153, 181, 212, 230

The Story of Zen: 5, 6-7, 233, 240, 242-44, 283-84, 286, 299, 301, 306-07, 311-13, 330-35, 338, 350, 367, 371, 397