Julian Daizan Skinner is the first Englishman to go to Japan and become a Roshi or Zen Master in the rigorous Rinzai tradition of Zen. About twenty years ago, he gave up a promising career as a scientist in the pharmaceuticals industry, sold his house, gave all the money away and entered a Zen monastery. Over many years of strict training, in Japan and the west, Daizan Roshi recieved Dharma Transmission in both the Rinzai and Soto lineages of Zen and recieved inka and permission to teach from Shinzan Miyamae Roshi of Gyokuryuji, with whom he continues to study.

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Shinzan Miyamae Roshi

Meeting Shinzan Miyamae Roshi is like meeting a Zen master from the golden age. Openly critical of the institutionalisation and routinisation of much of modern Zen and emphatic on the importance of genuine insight, he has charted an unorthodox course. Born in 1935 in Niigata, Japan, he graduated from Doshisha University with a degree in Economics. In his twenties he failed in three business ventures, experiencing great hardships. Contemplating suicide, he was by chance transformed upon reading a book on Zen. He was 31. He was ordained a Zen monk by Mitsui Daishin Roshi who sent him to train at Shogenji monastery with his own master, the formidable Kajiura Itsugai Roshi. Shogenji, known as the devil’s dojo, had the reputation of being the strictest training monastery in Japan. It was founded in the mountains of Gifu-ken on the spot where Zen ancestor Kanzan Egan (1277-1360) in his post-monastery training worked as a cow herder by day and sat zazen on a precipice by night. After completing his koan study, Shinzan Roshi took the unusual step of visiting every Zen Master in Japan seeking to test and deepen his insight. Later he restored Gyokuryuji, the hermitage of the great Zen master Bankei. He has become known for teaching outcasts and foreigners and protesting against institutional abuses. He withdrew from the Myoshinji branch of the Rinzai Zen school over the system of excessive charges for funerals. He has taught in the US, Canada and Europe and has written two books in Japanese, one about true Buddhism and one about finding happiness. Shinzan Roshi is intending to teach in the UK in spring 2011.
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Upon returning from Japan in 2007, Daizan Roshi went on walking pilgrimage up the centre of the island of Britain from the south tip of the Isle of Wight to the north tip of Scotland, living solely on alms food. He met many of his students from different parts of the UK during this time. Daizan Roshi currently lives and teaches in a single unheated room in London and offers sanzen beneath an apple tree. Together with his students, he has established, “Yugagyo Dojo”, a Zen training place in London. Daizan Roshi is also a resident teacher at The Buddhist Society, the oldest non-sectarian Buddhist Society in Europe.