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
Doctrinal background of Zen Doctrinal background of Zen Zen has a rich doctrinal background, despite the traditional Zen narrative which states that it is a "special transmission outside scriptures" which "did not stand upon words." Classical Chinese Chán is characterised by a set of polarities: absolute-relative, Buddha-nature - sunyata, sudden and gradual enlightenment, esoteric and exoteric transmission. The Prajnaparamita-sutras and Madhyamaka emphasized the non-duality of form and emptiness: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form", as the heart sutra says. This was understood to mean that ultimate reality is not a transcendental realm, but equal to the daily world of relative reality. This idea fitted