The Zen Master Hakuin (1686-1769) travelled extensively to learn from other masters. Hakuin Zenji was a Zen Master responsible for reviving the Rinzai tradition in Japan. He was uncompromising in his teachings and writings as well as being a renowned artist. Not much of his work has been available in translation into English until recently, especially due to the fine work of Norman Waddell. His translation of Hakuin's spiritual biography gives us a sense of who Hakuin was and is a timely antidote to the numerous, modern self-help books that mascerade as so much zen instruction these days. I have included a short extract below and I highly recommend that you seek it out. Also below is Hakuin's poem in praise of meditation, in Japan known as zazen or "sitting in zen." Zen Master Hakuin is the author of the very well known koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Zen Master Hakuin, was born on January 19, 1686, in Hara, a small coastal village situated at the foot of Mt. Fuji on the Tokkaido Road between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. Hakuin was born into a time and place where the established religion had lost its life. The Zen of Bodhidharma, of the Sixth Patriarch, and of Rinzai had become the court religion of the samurai. Hakuin was to fan the dying fire of the true Zen so effectively during the eighty-three years of his life that the Rinzai sect remains a living Dharma to this day, and all modern Masters of the school trace their lineage directly to him.
