Buddhism Zen Buddhism is divided into two main schools: Rinzai (臨済宗) and Sōtō (曹洞宗), the former greatly favouring the use in meditation on the koan (公案, a meditative riddle or puzzle) as a device for spiritual break-through, and the latter (while certainly employing koans) focusing more on "shikantaza" or "just sitting". Zen Buddhism is primarily found in Japan, with some presence in South Korea and Vietnam. The scholars of Japanese Soto Zen tradition in recent times have critiqued the mainstream Japanese Buddhism for "dhatu-vada", that is assuming things have substantiality, a view they assert to be non-Buddhist and "out of tune
Buddhism in the United States Kodo Boyd, born in Texas, became the first African-American woman ever to receive Dharma transmission in Zen Buddhism. Sanbo Kyodan is a contemporary Japanese Zen lineage which had an impact in the West disproportionate to its size in Japan. It is rooted in the reformist teachings of Harada Daiun Sogaku (1871–1961) and his disciple Yasutani Hakuun (1885–1971), who argued that the existing Zen institutions of Japan (Sōtō and Rinzai sects) had become complacent and were generally unable to convey real Dharma. Sanbo Kyodan's first American member was Philip Kapleau, who first traveled to Japan in 1945 as a court reporter