Question
Hello, what is your view of the questioning of Taisen Deshimaru and his teaching, as well as his lineage connection to Kodo Sawaki, found on http:// www.butsudo.net/AZI or on the forum of the excellent portal http://www.chez.com/bouddhisme?
Thank you in advance for your answer.
Philippe Dollé
Answer from Master Kosen
My view is that the AZI should sue this idiot for defamation. He says dreadful things about Master Deshimaru that have nothing to do with reality, which he neither understands nor knows. His judgments are misinformed and neurotic. Since 1969, I have met a multitude of great masters for whom I felt the deepest respect. Great Indian masters such as Swami Shivananda, a friend of Deshimaru, Swami Satshitananda, and many others. Tibetan masters: the Karmapa, regarded in Tibet as the incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, spiritual teacher to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who said verbatim when he met Master Deshimaru, “I have no doubt about it: Europe has a truly great master!”; Kalu Rinpoche? All the highest authorities of Japanese Zen: Hiwamoto Zenji, who said, “Master Deshimaru is the Bodhidharma of modern times”; the head of Rinzai Zen in Japan in the 1970s, who supported his mission and declared that Deshimaru was the greatest Zen master since Hakuin; the head of the Obaku Zen school; not to mention Yamada Reirin Zenji, Niwa Zenji… All, without exception, affirmed that Master Deshimaru was the greatest Zen master in a very long time and Master Kodo Sawaki’s Dharma successor. Of all these masters I was able to see—and sometimes even touch, such as the Karmapa, who embraced me—none impressed me like Master Deshimaru. And this is not merely a subjective or superficial impression: I had the time and good fortune to know him intimately by being at his side, listening to his life story, which he told me at length, and meeting his friends in France and Japan, as well as his family. I may know him better than my own father… What a blessing that such a being humbled himself so much to save beings as pitiful and ignorant as we, his disciples, were, for whom he ultimately sacrificed his life.
Kosen