Kodo Sawaki is born in a family of seven children, prosperous and happy, near Ise Shrine, on the 16th of June 1880. His name is Tsaikichi. When he was five years old, his mother died and, at eight years old, he lost his father. He was adopted by a friend of his uncle who died also in the mean time, Sawaki Bunchiki. Professional gambler, he was a weak and leazy man believing only in " tabacco and sex " and who had have eleven wifes. The actual one was a prostitute subject to hystery crisis.

When he was thirteen years old, he had to work to feed himself and in this suspicious quarter he became a watcher paid by some gamblers. He was present when the old man died in a cathouse and consequently he became suddently aware that he did not wish to end up his life in such a degrading manner. This incident put him on the track of buddhism. He got disgusted with his way of living. Then he met the Morita Soshichi, honnest and pure people who had received a great education and the help he got from this family has been an open window on the truth. He started to go to a shinshu temple and, although he was tempted to become a monk to escape his family, a shinshu priest advised him to direct himself more towards zen. In 1896 he left for Eihei-ji.

When he got there, the difficulties started as, being unknown, he could not become a monk and had to accept a job of servant, which still allowed him to learn how to practice zazen.

Finally in 1897, with Sawaka Koho Osho, in the temple of Kyushu, he received the tokudo (the ordination) and became a monk under the name of Kodo. He staid with him during two years.

Later on, he met another master, Fueoka Sunum Osho. This master teached him the correct way: dont look for satori or something else. Simply sit in zazen. This master-disciple relationship lasted for one year and was interrupted by his incorporation in the armee, in 1900. In 1904, during the Russian-Japanese war, he was sent in the infantery on the Chinese front where he was severely wounded. He then came back to Japan to be taken care of and stay in convalescence. In 1905, he was sent back to China until the end of the war.

In 1935, he became professor in the University of Komasawa, where he gave lectures about the zen litterature and lead there the practice of zazen, then godo of Soji-ji. It is at this time (in 1936) that Yasuo Deshimaru became his disciple.

Just before the war, in 1940, Kodo Sawaki lead also a great temple in the mountain, the Tengyo Zen-en.

After the war he really became famous in Japan by organising sesshin and some summer camps in various places. He was teaching to the lay people as well as to the monks, was giving lectures in the Universities and in the jails and participated to the creation of numerous dojos. He was given the nick-name of " Kodo without residence " because he refused to stay in a temple and he was always travelling alone.

He brought then a new breath to the dying zen by introducing again the universal practice of zazen. During all this time, Master Deshimaru followed him everywhere and Kodo Sawaki transmitted to him the essence of buddhism.

In 1963, at eighty six years old, he became severely sick and retired himself at Antai-ji ( a temple which he had transformed in a place of pure practice). From his bed, he spent long hours to look at the mount Takagamine and three days before his death, he said to a nun: ¨ Look! Nature is beautiful. I understand the problems of the men. During my whole life, I did not meet a single person to whom I could surrender and whom I could have admired. But this mount Takagamine looks at me always from above and calls me ¨Kodo, Kodo¨. That were his last words. He died on the 21th of December 1965, at 13:50 pm.

In 1908, at twenty-nine years old, he entered the Horyu-ji school in Nara and went through his philisophical studies, without ever neglecting neither zazen nor the Shobogenzo. In 1912, he became the first assistant in the dojo, tanto, of Yosen-ji.

Then followed a time of loniless concentrated on the practice of zazen, in a small temple of the province of Nara. In 1916, he left this retreat to become reader, koshi, at Daiji-ji Sodo. Then, in 1922, he left Daiji-ji to live in the house of a friend. In 1923, he started to travel around Japan to give lectures and lead sesshin.