Hakuun Yasutani

Hakuun Yasutani (1885–1973) was a Japanese Zen master, trained in the Harada–Yasutani line, who in 1954 founded the independent Sanbō Kyōdan, combining Sōtō practice with Rinzai kōan study and emphasizing direct insight (kenshō). Beginning in 1962 he made teaching visits to the United States, and his lineage—carried by students such as Philip Kapleau (compiler of The Three Pillars of Zen) and Taizan Maezumi—became one of the principal channels of lay Zen practice in the West. His wartime writings also expressed Japanese ultranationalist and, in places, antisemitic views—brought to wider attention by later scholarship and publicly disavowed by the Sanbō Kyōdan leadership—noted here for honesty and balance. He is included as a Japanese teacher decisive for American Zen rather than as an American teacher. He died in 1973.