Yamada Koun

, or Koun Yamada, was a Japanese Buddhist who was the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, the Dharma heir of his teacher Yasutani Haku'un Ryoko. Yamada was appointed the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan in 1967, 1970 or 1973 and continued to differentiate the lineage from other Japanese Zen traditions by deemphasising the separation between laypeople and the ordained—just as his teacher Yasutani had done. Yamada was also instrumental in bringing Christians to the practice of Zen that “by the end of Yamada’s teaching career approximately one quarter of the participants at his sesshins were Christians.”

Biography

Early career Yamada Koun was born Yamada Kiozo in Nihonmatsu in Fukushima prefecture of Japan in 1907. He attended school with Soen Nakagawa at Dai-Ichi High School located in Tokyo, Japan, and also went to university with him. In 1941 Yamada began working as a labor supervisor for the Manchurian Mining Company—a company known for poor working conditions and exploiting its slave labor forces composed of Chinese peasants, POWs and criminals. By 1945 he had become deputy director of the General Affairs Department for the company.

While working as supervisor for the company his old friend Soen Nakagawa came to the Mining Company's headquarters in Xinjing (modern-day Changchun, Jilin) on behalf of his master, Gempo Yamamoto, in an effort to encourage workers to double their output for Japan's war efforts.

Later that night he awoke abruptly from sleep and saw the same passage flash in his mind, which was followed by a kensho experience. The next day Yasutani confirmed that what Yamada had experienced was a kensho. Finally, according to Michelle Spuler in the book Developments in Australian Buddhism, "Yasutani's successor, Yamada Koun Zenshin (1907-1989), was appointed as the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan in 1973."

It is likely the date is not 1967 or 1970 because Yamada would not need anyone's blessing to go to Hawaii were he already the head of the school, not to mention 1973 was the year of Haku'un Yasutani's death.

List of Dharma heirs Robert Chotan Gyoun Aitken Niklaus Brantschen Ruben Keiun-ken Habito Johannes Kopp Akira Kubota Victor Löw Elaine MacInnes Gundula Meyer Ama Samy Ana Maria Schlüter Roselyn Stone Masamichi Ryoun-ken Yamada