Soen Nakagawa - Ryutaku-ji

Ryutaku-ji

In 1935 Nakagawa accompanied Katsube Roshi to lead a weekend retreat for Tokyo Imperial University students, and realizes he forgot the kyosaku (Zen stick). In search of a replacement stick Soen went to a nearby Zen center, Hakusan Dojo, where he hears Myoshin-ji Zen master Gempo Yamamoto speaking. Soen became transfixed by the talk and intrigued by the man. Soen would return to the dojo several times after this encounter. One day, Gempo stated:

If you practice zazen, it must be true practice.

This remark struck a deep and spontaneous chord within Soen, and so he requested dokusan with Gempo following the talk where he expressed the desire to train under him. So Soen became a student of Gempo Yamamoto at Ryutaku-ji. In 1937 Nakagawa makes a trip with Gempo Yamamoto to Manchuria to start a branch of Myoshin-ji Zen. Soen had recently began corresponding with Nyogen Senzaki (now in Los Angeles) in 1935, whose unconventional style of Zen teaching Soen greatly appreciated. In 1938 Yamada Koun was transferred to Manchuria on business where he meets Soen again. Here Soen mentions to Yamada his earlier dream of one day founding a non-traditional monastery on Dai Bosatsu Mountain in the spirit of Bassui. Yamada and Soen were walking one night together while Yamada was going on about some thing or another, and Soen stopped to say something that sparked Yamada's interest:

Yamada, all you do is argue. Why don't you try sitting?

Years later Yamada Koun would become a Zen monk and roshi, as well. In 1939 Nakagawa returns to Dai Bosatsu Mountain for another solitary retreat. In 1941 Ryutaku-ji is officially recognized as a Rinzai training monastery.

In 1949 Nakagawa makes his first trip to the United States where he meets Nyogen Senzaki in San Francisco. He found Senzaki's approach to Zen refreshing, and was happy to find a new freedom in expressing himself to followers that would be unheard of in Japan. Free to combine his love for Japanese theater (Noh) into analogies that paralleled sayings of the great Zen masters of the past. Nyogen expressed his wish to Soen that he would like him to stay with him to become his heir, but Soen has responsibilities back at Ryutaku-ji he is unwilling to compromise. The two saw each other again in latter visits to the USA. During this year, Soen also publishes his Meihen (Life Anthology).