Taking the Path of Zen
Honolulu, Hawai'i · 1982
R
Robert Aitken
Robert Aitken
1917 CE–2010 CE · Modern · Philadelphia, PA
June 19, 1917 – August 5, 2010
Robert Aitken (1917–2010) was an American Zen teacher in the Harada–Yasutani (Sanbō Kyōdan) lineage and a founder of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, which he established with his wife Anne in 1959. Introduced to Zen while interned in Japan during World War II, he later received transmission as an independent master in 1985 and built one of the principal Western Zen networks. He was also a co-founder of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (1978) and a noted advocate of socially engaged Buddhism. He died in 2010.
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Stop 1 of 2Born
Philadelphia, PAPennsylvania, USA
What they did here
Born in 1917; a lifelong resident of Hawai'i, he first encountered Zen while interned in Japan during World War II, where he met the scholar R. H. Blyth.
About Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania in the northeastern United States, was founded in 1682 by the Quaker William Penn as a colony open to religious freedom. The Declaration of Independence was adopted there in 1776, and the city served as the nation's capital at intervals until 1800. Its Jewish community dates to the colonial era, with Congregation Mikveh Israel tracing its origins to 1740; the city later became a centre of Jewish scholarship as home to the Jewish Publication Society (1888) and Dropsie College (chartered 1907), where the scholar Henry Malter taught. Philadelphia was also the birthplace, in 1917, of Robert Aitken, the American Zen teacher who co-founded the Diamond Sangha in Hawaiʻi.
Across the traditions, in Philadelphia, PA at the same time
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Robert Aitken’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Robert Aitken’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works(2)
The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics
Honolulu, Hawai'i · 1984