Fr. Zen. S.J.

Fr. Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle (☸ November 11, 1898—July 7, 1990) was a German Jesuit priest and Sanbo Kyodan Zen master, a Dharma successor of the late Yamada Koun Roshi. As a missionary in Japan, his initial interest in Zen practice stemmed from his desire to better understand the Japanese people, who he began working with in 1929 when he established a settlement in the Tokyo slums to care for the poor. He quickly realized that Zen was one of the key ingredients that permeated the Japanese arts and also Japanese thinking. Appointed as vicar of Hiroshima in 1940 he was wounded in the nuclear blast of 1945 and returned to Germany shortly after. In 1946 he had audience with Pope Pius XII, with whom he spoke of his intention to build a cathedral in Japan dedicated to the idea of world peace. His vision came to fruition in 1950 and the cathedral was completed in 1954, dedicated as the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace. Memorial Cathedral for World Peace, at Naka-ku Hiroshima Japan, design by Togo Murano in 1954. Despite the unpopularity of such a position, Lasalle urged other Christians to practice Zen meditation, stating that kensho was not inherently Christian or Buddhist. He did not find it to possess any religious connotation at all, in fact. Lassale began his Zen training with Daiun Sogaku Harada, the forefather of what would come to be a unique strand of Japanese Zen – the Sanbo Kyodan. After undergoing the Harada-Yasutani koan curriculum he was in 1978 acknowledged as a Zen master in the lineage by Yamada Koun Roshi, a successor of Haku’un Yasutani Roshi. He spent the final years of his life traveling widely, leading sesshin for Christians throughout Europe. He is remembered as a quiet and unassuming man with a laissez-faire approach to leadership.

Link (here) Sweeping Zen