Bodhi Manda Zen Center year. Sasaki Roshi came to the West in 1962 when a group of Zen practitioners in Los Angeles asked Myoshin-ji, Japan’s largest Rinzai school, to send a teacher. Sasaki was among several venerable Japanese teachers that helped to nourish the Zen community in North America as interest in Buddhism grew during the 1960’s. The increasing popularity of the Sasaki’s practice in Los Angeles led to the establishment of the Rinzai-ji home temple. It was followed by the creation of training centers and affiliated Zen temples in the United States, Canada and Europe, including the Bodhi Manda. The Bodhi Manda flourished
Zen at War types of social discrimination found in Sõtõ rituals and temple practices" find their origin in "the medieval institutional regulations imposed by the Tokugawa regime, not in the religious attitudes, religious practices, or religious mission of Sõtõ Zen itself". The Soto-school has installed a Human Rights Division, to terminate the regulations which contribute to discriminatory practices. "Zen at war" has contributed to discussions on the meaning of "enlightenment", and the role of Zen-teachers in the emerging western Zen-Buddhism. Bodhin Kholhede, dharma heir of Philip Kapleau, says: Stuart Lachs has written several essays on this issue, connected to teacher-scandals in western sanghas.