Background
Zenkei Shibayama was born on November 30, 1894 in Shibayama, Chiba, Japan.
1969
Shibayama Zenkei Roshi at UC Santa Barbara
柴山 全慶
Zenkei Shibayama was born on November 30, 1894 in Shibayama, Chiba, Japan.
Zenkei studied Esperanto and became one of the best Esperanto speakers in Japan at that time. Still on the spiritual search, he heard an inspiring lecture from a rōshi, which made him decide to enter a Zen monastery in 1916.
Shibayama Zenkei Rōshi began his long career in Buddhism when, under the influence of his devout mother, he entered a Buddhist temple at age fourteen. Zenkei Shibayama developed his career as a Japanese Rinzai Zen priest who served as head Roshi of Nanzenji Zen Monastery in Kyoto and also as head of the Nanzenji Branch of Rinzai Zen — which oversees some five-hundred subtemples.
Shibayama (a Dharma heir of Kono Roshi) was also a Buddhist scholar, holding professorships at Hanozono University and Otani University (both Buddhist colleges). Shibayama was a prolific author on Zen Buddhism in the Japanese language, works which have since been translated for an English audience.
Shibayama’s revised version of the "Zenrin kushū" is one of the standard handbooks that Japanese Rinzai monks consult when assigned jakugo. The first edition of the book appeared in 1952 and, although he probably intended it for monks doing kōan practice, it also became popular with people practicing the tea ceremony and calligraphy.
Consequently Shibayama produced a revised second edition in 1972, increasing the number of phrases by 300 and simplifying the ordering system. The second edition contains 2,646 phrases and verses, arranged according to number of characters within each number division, according to the on-reading of the first Chinese character of the phrase (and not according to the Japanese reading, as is the case in the Zengoshū). In addition, each phrase or verse is accompanied by a full Japanese reading written in kana and a short annotation or explanation.
Shibayama-Roshi was an influential calligrapher and traveled throughout the United States lecturing and teaching zazen for select audiences during the 1960s and 1970s. Ordained a monk at age fourteen, he briefly practiced Christianity resulting from disillusionment with the state of Buddhism in Japan. He was also an expert in Esperanto, the constructed international auxiliary language.
In 1916 he returned to Zen practice and after many years of training at Nanzenji and teaching in the universities, he was invited to become head teacher of Nanzenji in 1948. In 1959 he was elected as kancho, or chief abbot, of the Nanzeji Branch of Rinzai Zen. One of Shibayama’s better-known students (and Dharma heir) is Keido Fukushima — the late Abbot of Tofuku-ji in Kyoto. He died on August 29, 1974.
As he grew older, he grew critical of the Buddhist institution in Japan and for a while left Buddhism for Christianity.