Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a Zen priest and a Zen master, was the 26th successor to the head of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism. He was born in 1878 in the village of Yaguchi in the province of Tochigi, Japan. In his younger years he studied Confucianism and Shinto. At age 17, he entered the Buddhist Order at Kounin Temple in Kyoto as a monk
Read more
In 1899 he became a disciple of Daitoku-Zenji, who was reputed to be a direct descendant of Bodhidharma. In 1904 he received Dharma Transmission from Daitoku-Zenji and was given the name Tsunetomo Yamamoto. He was then sent to study Pure Land Buddhism at Suzaka Temple in Suzaka Province.
In 1907 Tsunetomo attended lectures on Zen Buddhism given by Gudo Nishijima at Komazawa University and later converted to Rinzai Zen. In 1912 Tsunetomo returned to Komazawa University as a professor of Shodo (a form of calligraphy) and lectured on Chinese Buddhist philosophy and ethics before returning to Kyoto as a priest at Enryaku Temple in Shoseikai-cho. Over the years Tsunetomo wrote many books on Buddhist philosophy, including The Doctrine of Hachiman, The Essence of Shodo and The Essence of Calligraphy.