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Hakuin Ekaku

Hakuin Ekaku

1686 CE–1768 CE · Modern · Hara (Numazu), Suruga

1686–1768/69 CE (born 1686; died early 1769 by the modern calendar)

Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1768 CE) is regarded as the reviver of Japanese Rinzai Zen, whose reorganization of koan training still structures Rinzai practice. Born in Hara in Suruga province (modern Shizuoka), he taught from his modest home temple, Shōin-ji, insisting on rigorous zazen and koan work for monks and laity alike; his own koan 'What is the sound of one hand?' is among the most famous in Zen. He was also a prolific painter, calligrapher, and writer who brought Zen teaching to ordinary people. His life and dates are well documented.

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Hara (Numazu), Suruga

What they did here

DOCUMENTED: from this small home temple he trained a generation of successors, systematized koan practice, painted and wrote prolifically, and revived the Rinzai school.

About Hara (Numazu), Suruga

Hara, a post-town on the Tōkaidō road near Mount Fuji in the old province of Suruga (now Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture), Japan, was the birthplace, in 1686, of Hakuin Ekaku, the Rinzai Zen master who revitalised the school and systematised its kōan curriculum.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Hakuin Ekaku’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

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