Winter 2023 Newsletter: Letter From the Abbot
Omori Sogen
A Dragon Creating Peace Temples
Omori Rotaishi doing calligraphy at an early sesshin at Farrington High School.
At this Winter’s Sesshin, my teisho was on Chozen-ji co-founder Omori Sogen Rotaishi. Though he is known as a master of Zen, Kendo, and Shodo, my focus was on him as a political activist.
Omori Sogen lived a big and bold life, and he approached political activism the same way. Perhaps his story can inspire us to make a difference in this time of global crises: the horror of Gaza, the numbing war in Ukraine, the pending catastrophe of irreversible climate changes, and extreme, incapacitating division among people over ideology and culture.
How is it possible for us to make a difference in the face of all this? It is not if you look at things dualistically and search for simple rational answers.
Most of us will never work at the level of national politics that Omori Roshi did. We may not make a big difference, but we can still make some difference with the vibration we put into the world. At the end of his life, Omori Rotaishi’s quest was to create a thought movement to spread the spirit of Universal Brotherhood. He wanted to make intangible peace temples. Perhaps his example will inspire you to make yourself into a temple of peace.
Omori Roshi was born in 1904, the year of the Dragon. As a child and youth, Omori Roshi was on the quiet side until he discovered his physical strength, then he became unruly. At 20 he was arrested for knocking down all the stone lanterns in a cemetery. He learned to push them so that the round stone on top would fall and break the hat shaped rock underneath. He was thrown in jail for 29 days. When he was brought in, he fought with seven or eight detectives in his formal kimono. Eventually he got out by claiming his confession was coerced because of the beatings from the police and showed his body scarred from Sumo as proof.
At 21 he started Zen training with Seki Seisetsu, Abbot of Tenryu-ji, his greatest teacher. Omori Roshi attended more sesshin than we can track, but in the early sesshins, despite resolving to do zazen through the night, he ended up sleeping. He rationalized that it would be bad to sleep in zazen the next day. Looking back, he considered his attitude pitiful. Finally, at 25 after risking his life doing the Hundred-times Practice of the Hojo for seven days, he realized “the valorous mind” and was able to sit intently through the night. He wrote, “Zazen is just one stroke of the valorous mind (Hosokawa, 1999, 26).”
Omori Roshi established the Jikishin Dojo in 1934 at the age of 30. Toyama Mitsuru, the head of the Dark Ocean and Black Dragon Societies, supported him and said, “If no one comes after you build your Dojo, swing your bamboo sword by yourself. No one need come….If you are doing what is right, Heaven will surely provide food. But even if this were not so, you be the first who starves and dies from doing the right thing. (Hosokawa, 1997, 42)” As the head of the right-wing and the underworld, Toyama had more power than the prime minister at one time.
Omori Roshi, however, was inspired even more by the Great Compassion of his son Ryusuke, and with Toyama’s permission asked Ryusuke to be an advisor to the Jikishin Dojo. Ryusuke once swallowed the blood vomited by his university roommate who was sick and despairing because of tuberculosis to encourage him and said, “Tuberculosis is nothing.” Ryusuke, himself, subsequently became bedridden with tuberculosis. When people visited him, he often just did gassho and smiled, but people left feeling full of energy. Omori Roshi said Ryusuke was a true “Giver of Fearlessness.”
Omori Rotaishi with Tanouye Tenshin Rotaishi and Kanemaru Sosetsu Sensei at an early sesshin at Farrington High School.
Japan and the world were turbulent in the 1920’s and 1930’s. There was the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, the global financial crisis caused by the stock market crash in New York, the dispatch of troops to China, and the assassination of a prime minister. The Jikishin Dojo became the headquarters for the People’s Movement which was committed to preserve the sacred status of the emperor as part of their opposition to Japan’s expansion into China and joining the Triple Alliance with Italy and Germany. The leaders of the Jikishin Dojo believed that this alliance would inevitably draw Japan into a war they could not win.
Omori Roshi was swept up in several attempts to overthrow the government. In 1937 he was jailed for one year for giving money to his student who posted flyers opposing the military aggression in China. He said of his time in jail, “There is no other place that one can study so leisurely. (Hosokawa, 1999, 47)” After his release, Seisetsu Roshi praised him for completing a long sesshin.
In 1940 Omori Roshi tried to stop Japan from slipping into World War II by influencing the choice for the commander of the army. Using his connections, he secured meetings with Konoe Fumimaro, then the chief advisor to the emperor and later the prime minister, and implored Konoe to get an imperial order to appoint General Ugaki or Mazaki as commander of the army. Despite repeated attempts, he failed and later faulted himself, “I was weak of purpose….I should have persevered and even used intimidation if necessary. This is the one thing that I deeply regret. (Hosokawa, 1999, 51)”
After Japan lost the war, Omori Roshi sought advice from Seisetsu Roshi who was critically ill. For Japan to recover, Seisetsu Roshi implored him, “Drum the true meaning of Hakko Ichiu (Universal Brotherhood) into the hearts of all Japanese people. (Hosokawa, 1999, 53)” Seisetsu Roshi died a few weeks later.
In 1946 at 42, Omori Roshi became a Zen priest. He lectured widely, wrote copiously, and conducted frequent sesshins. He established two temples, Chozen-ji in Hawaii in 1972 and Seitai-ji in Japan in 1975. In 1976 he became the president of Hanazono University.
In 1979 I remember Omori Roshi walking the grounds at Chozen-ji when I lived in. He seemed to be floating even going down the stairs of the hill. Once he stopped to talk to me as I was weeding. He talked to me for what seemed a long time. Although he was grandfatherly, his attention made me nervous so I said, “I better get back to work.” He sincerely apologized for taking my time and floated away.
We should now unite and put together all the wisdom to initiate a thought movement which overcomes the evils of the modern civilization and gives a cultural guide to the people. It is like building intangible peace temples today.
—Omori Roshi (Hosokawa, 1997, p. 4)
To keep Omori Roshi’s legacy alive, each of us at Chozen-ji should train to become an intangible peace temple. That means developing the clarity and intensity of the kiai we send into the world. If enough of us do this, perhaps it can start a thought movement to spread Universal Brotherhood. Then synchronistically we can make a difference in today’s existential problems which defy dualistic solutions.
References
Hosokawa, Dogen. “Building Peace Temples Around the World,” The Journal of the Institute of Zen Studies, (1) 1, 1997.
Hosokawa, Dogen. Omori Sogen, The Art of a Zen Master. London: Kegan Paul International, 1999.