There are a few jades running through a golden needle (celebrity standouts) in the line of 52 Soto Zen Buddhist Ancestors and Patriarchs. Although the remnants of most of the ancestors lives remain sketchy, there are three who remain well remembered today and whose writings are still extant: Nagyaarajunya (commonly referred to as Nagarjuna), Bodaidaruma and the Master Eihei Dogen, author of the Shobogenzo-Zuimonki and Moon in a Dewdrop, both profound Soto Zen Buddhist texts which remain studied in monasteries and by Buddhists the world over today.
Keizan Zenji
Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1267, Master Zenji entered a monastery – Eiheiji – and learned from Koun Ejyo and Tettsu Gikai. He became one of the greatest of the Soto Zen Ancestors and became Chief Abbot of Shogakuji in 1321 shortly thereafter renaming the temple Shogaku-zan Sojiji which later was made one of the two primary temples in Japan for the Soto Zen Church.
Zenji wrote many works including the Sankon-Zazen-Setsu, Denkoroku and most of the religious ceremonies used in the Soto Zen Tradition.
Denkoroku
The Denkoroku records the moment when the Way was transmitted from teacher to disciple for each of the fifty two patriarchs. In each story, there is a narrative of the moment the student received the Way, short biographical information and a set of verses summarizing that particular Patriarch’s teaching.
Saint Tanka Shijyun, The Forty Sixth Ancestor
“When Tanka asked Fuyo, ‘What is the one phrase that all the sages have passed on from the beginning?’ Fuyo answered, ‘Were you to reduce IT to a single phrase, you would really bury the tradition of our line.’ Upon hearing this, Tanka had a great awakening to his TRUE SELF . . . IT, THE EMPTINESS THAT IS NOT EMPTY, is the TRUE PLACE to which all return; there has never been anyone who has not possessed IT fully and completely, however many students make the mistake of thinking that originally there was nothing at all, saying moreover that there is nothing that can be said about IT and nothing that the mind can conceve about IT. The ancients gave such people the name of ‘non-Buddhists who have fallen into vacant nothingness.’. . . This is why we speak of it as ‘the one phrase that has been passed on.’” The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light.
Tanka Shijyun’s name means ‘Pure and Honest as a Child’ and he was from the Ko clan in Kenshu.
“Though a clear breeze swirls round and round,
stirring up the earth,
Who can grasp hold of it and show it to you?”
Keizan Zenji summarizes the teaching of Tanka Shijyun
Sources: The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light – Keizan Zenji, Shasta Abbey Buddhist Monastery
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