Zoso Royo

"I pondered Buddha's teaching A full four and eighty years. The gates are all now locked about me. No one was ever here - Who then is he about to die, And why lament for nothing? Farewell! The night is clear, The moon shines calmly, The wind in the pines Is like a lyre's song. With no I and no other Who hears the sound?"

"When I was in my twenty-seventh year [1252], I converted Hōonji into a temple where the regulations were observed (ritsuin). At twenty-eight, I became a monk without any temple affiliations (tonsei);21 and when, after studying the regulations for priestly behavior for six or seven years I then decided to pursue the practice of meditation, in my thirty-fifth year [1260] while staying at Jufukuji, I listened to Higan Choro lecture on the Explanation of Mahayana and on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. (I had heard him speak before on the Explanation [at Chorakuji]" in Serada in my twenty-seventh year.) I practiced zazen but within a year gave it up; being sick with beriberi, I could not achieve zen awareness."

"Higan Choro or Zoso Royo (1194-1277), Rinzai monk attached to the in Kamakura, succeeded Eicho (d. 1247) at the Chorakuji in Serada, where Muju had heard him discuss the esoteric Shakuron in 1252. Royo's presence at the Jufukuji in 1260 was evidently a temporary engagement for him to lecture on his specialty. His last moments are recorded in Sand and Pebbles."

"Eicho's disciple Zoso Royo (1193-1276) succeeded him as head of Choraku- ji, which was considered a Tendai temple.88 Eicho's disciples made his name known and secured for him a place in the history of Japanese Zen."