Ruth Fuller Sasaki - Her Research Team in Kyoto

Her Research Team in Kyoto

She gathered together and employed a small team to study and do translation work under her leadership, and under the banner of the First Zen Institute of America in Japan (or Nichibei Daiichi Zen Kyokai, founded in 1957.). Her headquarters was Ryosen-an, a subtemple within Daitoku-ji. Most of the team had other, full-time jobs, and did work in this team part-time. One of the main projects of the team was to produce a translation of the Record of Rinzai (or Rinzai-roku, or Record of Linji, or Lin-chi Lu), a classic text of sayings of the founder of Rinzai. Sasaki originally planned to use translations made by her deceased husband, Sokei-an, and recorded by his students in New York, but the researchers found these translations inadequate.

The director of the team was Iriya Yoshitaka (1910–1999), who was considered the world's foremost authority on colloquial Chinese of the Tang and Sung Dynasties. He taught at Kyoto University, and eventually became Head of the Department of Chinese Literature at Nagoya University.

English professor Kanaseki Hisao (1918–1996) was on the team, as well as Yokoi (later Yanagida) Seizan (1922-), who taught at Kyoto University and later was president of Hanazono University. Yampolsky wrote in 1991 that Yanagida "is recognized as the foremost scholar of Zen Buddhism in both China and Japan."

Three Americans were on the team: Burton Watson, Philip Yampolsky, and Gary Snyder. (Sasaki sponsored Snyder's first trip to Japan.) They were also joined by Walter Nowick, a pianist and member of the First Zen Institute, to work on the Record of Rinzai.

Between 1959 and 1963, the Institute published several small pamphlets, including Zen: A Religion, Zen: A Method for Religious Awakening, Rinzai Zen Study for Foreigners in Japan, The First Zen Institute of America in Japan, Ryosen-an Zendo Practice, and The Wooden Fish: Basic Sutras and Gathas of Rinzai Zen.

This group was dealt a blow in August 1961, when she dismissed Yampolsky (whom she accused of stealing the team's translation of the Rinzai-roku to publish it as his own), and Watson and Snyder resigned in protest. This may be considered the culmination of a long-standing tension between Sasaki's authority as an employer with an autocratic style, and the scholarly authority of members of the team. The three Japanese scholars continued to work on Zen Dust for her. Zen Dust was finally published, first in Japan in 1966, then in the US the following year. It was preceded by Zen Koan, a four hundred page shorter edition in 1965. The Record of Rinzai was published after Sasaki's death, in 1975, as The Record of Lin-chi, but without Iriya's notes or Yanagida's introduction.