Eido Shimano was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1932. His first encounter with a Buddhist scripture came at the age of nine, when his school teacher instructed his class to memorize the Heart Sutra. During the war the Shimano family moved to Chichibu, the mountain city where his mother was born. He died February 18, 2018 at Shogen-ji, Gifu, Japan, after having given a teisho on Dogen's "Life and Death". Until his death, he held regular meetings with his sangha in both the US and Europe. In his youth Shimano was ordained as novice monk by Kengan Goto, the priest of Empuku-ji, the Rinzai temple in Chichibu. Kengan Goto gave him the Dharma name Eido, composed from first characters of two Japanese Zen founders, Eisai and Dogen. Later he was trained by Shirozou Keizan Roshi, abbot of Heirin-ji, near Tokyo. This was a Rinzai training monastery with strict discipline. In 1954, Shimano left to study at Ryutaku-ji and practice with Soen Nakagawa Roshi, a relatively young Zen teacher. The following year Nyogen Senzaki visited the temple from America and left a lasting impression on Shimano. In 1957, Soen Roshi asked Shimano to go to America for one year to attend the elderly Nyogen Senzaki. He agreed, but Nyogen died in 1958 before Shimano had a chance to go. Soen asked Shimano to go to Hawaii instead to help to guide the Diamond Sangha, founded by Robert Baker Aitken and his wife, Anne Hopkins Aitken. At first reluctant, Soen persuaded Shimano that going to Hawaii would be good for both his recuperation from an illness and his academic studies. On August, 1960 Shimano left for Hawaii by ship. His friend Dr. Bernard Phillips, an American Zen scholar, was returning home on the same ship, after doing research in Japan sponsored by the Zen Studies Society. Without any prior arrangements, they ended up in the same cabin. Shimano later returned to Japan and met Haku'un Yasutani, accompanying him and Soen back to the United States. In 1964, after a rift developed with Aitken, he moved to New York City. In 1965, he became the teacher of the Zen Studies Society in a Manhattan Upper Westside apartment and a few years later became abbot of the Zen Studies Society, consisting of the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji in Manhattan and Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-Ji monastery in the Catskills mountains. Shimano received Dharma transmission from Soen Nakagawa in 1972 in a public ceremony at the New York Zendo Shobo-ji witnessed by his Sangha. In 2004, Eido Shimano Roshi received the Buddhism Transmission Award from the Japan-based Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai Foundation for his impact on the dissemination of Buddhism in the West. This same organization produced a documentary on Eido Shimano Roshi and Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-Ji.
Controversy
In July 2010, Eido and his wife resigned from the ZSS Board of Directors after a relationship between Shimano and one of his female students became subject of controversy, amid accusations that this was only the latest in a series of affairs spanning several decades. Shimano sent a letter of apology to the ZSS community in September, 2010, stating that he would retire as abbot of the Zen Studies Society in December. He did so on December 8, 2010. Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi, who received dharma transmission in 1998, was installed as the new Abbot on January 1, 2011. In February, 2011, the Zen Studies Society announced that Eido Shimano no longer would teach Zen under the auspices of their organization. On July 2, 2011, an open meeting for all sangha members of the ZSS was held, where Shimano encouraged everyone to accept his successor, Shinge Sherry Chayat, as their teacher, and stated unequivocally that in order to avoid further controversy and division, he would no longer formally teach Zen in any capacity. A committee of Zen teachers formed in November 2011 found that the sexual acts were often initiated during formal private sanzen interactions between Zen teacher and student. In December, 2012, Myoshinji, the headquarters of Shimano's claimed lineage sect, issued a public statement responding to the controversies surrounding Shimano and ZSS; they state they have Shimano and his wife filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Society in 2013, but dropped it in 2015. Eido Shimano died of pneumonia on February 18, 2018 in Japan at the age of 85.
