Sawaki Roshi’s 20th century nyoho-e movement
One of the reasons that we focus on nyoho-e at Sanshin is that our direct ancestor, Kodo Sawaki, was one of the leaders of the 20th century movement to teach about and wear this kind of robe. Understanding this kind of practice is an important element of our family style.
Okumura Roshi’s teacher was Kosho Uchiyama, and Kosho Uchiyama’s teacher was Kodo Sawaki, so the story begins only two generations back. However, before we can begin, we need to back up and understand the context of discussions within Japanese Buddhism about what robes should be like. |
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Robe reforms
There was a reform movement in the 17th century that aimed to put robes more closely in alignment with the ancient monastic rules, or vinaya. This effort was mostly a study of texts, but a Shingon teacher named Jiun Onko also studied artworks and old robes themselves. Sawaki Roshi would later do this as well, looking at statues to see how things were made or worn rather than relying only on texts. Jiun Onko taught his own students to make robes according to the vinaya and also used the old robes as models.
The reformers originally expected that across Japanese Buddhism there would be continuity in robes, even while individual sects and schools still carried on their own practice, but by the mid 18th century, sectarianism was increasing. Reformers became subsets within their own schools. Figuring out what exactly the vinaya said about robes was not so easy; reformers had to reconcile two thousand years of history, teachings and practice culture to decide what a nyoho-e really was.
Even so, Jiun Onko went on working for a consistent robe across sects. He and his followers decided to make 1000 robes according to the vinaya. It took them 40 years, with the sewing mainly done by nuns and laywomen. The scope of the project meant that people really got to understand the okesa and be inspired by it.
In the 18th to 20th centuries, the Soto school went to work to reconcile the scholarship on robes with Dogen’s teachings. These were really important questions, because in other schools, like Shingon, the vinaya were the source of authority, but for Soto Zen, while vinaya and later monastic rules were important Dogen was the major source of authority. If there were apparent disagreements between Dogen and the vinaya, then the integrity of Soto Zen as an institution was jeopardized.
In his writings, Dogen said that the true robe hadn’t yet been introduced in Japan, and he says this even though he’s surrounded by people wearing robes. His point is that they don’t really understand how to wear them or take care of them, and they don’t know about materials or color or size or what these things mean for practice. He starts with the the vinaya and the precepts and adds his own interpretations and teachings. He teaches about the robe that doesn’t have physical characteristics and call this the true robe. He also fills in gaps in forms and rituals, and this is important because of his teachings about the robe and the dharma or Buddha being one: the way we treat the robe is the way we treat Buddha. He also equates transmission of the robe with transmission of the dharma, so the robe isn’t just an everyday garment.
Thus Dogen is interpreting the vinaya and older teachings, and when the 18th century reform movement comes along in Soto Zen, the reformers are interpreting Dogen. Things quickly become very complicated and factions start forming. The reformers want to return everything to what they see as the original Soto Zen approach based on the writings of Dogen and Keizan and to push out influences that have crept in from other schools of Buddhism or misunderstandings of the practice. This is a “return to the old ways” movement.
Part of this effort involved determining whether or not robes should have rings. Ancient okesa were fastened at the shoulder with hooks and rings; today these have become a set of fabric ties or a fabric loop with a tie. In the old days in China, the ring was sometimes elaborately carved out of expensive materials, particularly on fancy brocade robes. Instead of a hook there was a cord, which could also be expensive. We can see the ring in ancient portraits of Zen teachers.
The fastening system on a robe affects how the robe hangs. If there's a ring, the front corner of the robe hangs down and makes an impressive kind of drapery. If there is no ring, then the corner gets tucked up out of the way. (We can see why nyoho-e proponents might start to have problem with this; it’s all about impressing people and showing the high status of Soto Zen clergy and temples.) There’s a lot of technical discussion about whether the fastener can be a closed ring or simply a bent metal fastener, and what metals are allowed.
One point of view is that rings are not appropriate for any kind of Soto Zen robe because they don’t adhere to the vinaya rules, but then there’s the larger question about whether a robe that violates the rules is or is not still Buddha’s robe. The vinaya are Buddha’s rules, so doesn’t breaking them in making a robe mean that the robe is inauthentic? Then there are Dogen’s teachings about the true robe not having characteristics, and simply being the transmission of the dharma, which would make it impossible to devalue a nonconforming robe.
In the early 1800s the government required sects to identify the particular characteristics of their robes, so Soto Zen had to decide how to distinguish itself from the Rinzai and Obaku schools. Its document laid out materials, colors and what different ranks could wear, and it also said that clergy could wear rakusu as well as okesa. We don’t really know the origin of the rakusu; it’s not mentioned in the vinaya. Some say it’s an abbreviated okesa, but others say it’s a completely Chinese invention. It first shows up in Japan during the Kamakura period, which is roughly Dogen’s time. Ultimately we don’t really know what Dogen’s robes were like; it’s hard to tell from his portraits and he didn’t leave specific instructions, so those arguing for or against the ring don’t have evidence. If you’re arguing for it, you have to prove Dogen wore it, and if you’re arguing against, you have to prove that he didn’t.
Today Sotoshu has two head temples, Eiheiji and Sojiji. Eiheiji was Dogen’s place and Sojiji was Keizan’s place; these two ancestors are both considered founders of Soto Zen. In the mid 1800s, Eiheiji argued against the ring and said Sojiji should also stop using it. Sojiji objected, since this was also a time when Eiheiji was positioning itself as the sole head temple because it was founded by Dogen and Dogen’s teachings had become the "house rules," or the authoritative source for Soto Zen. Sojiji argued that Keizan had established the use of the ring, while Eiheiji said the ring was Chinese and not in accord with Dogen’s teachings, and also that the rakusu wasn’t really an abbreviated robe and was also not in accord with Dogen’s teachings. Traditionally, monks had three robes: a five panel, a seven panel and a nine panel. Dogen said you always had to have three, and Eiheiji argued that a rakusu was not a replacement for the five panel okesa and not a legitimate robe.
In the late 19th century an agreement was finally reached that allowed each temple will do what it wanted and the two styles to coexist. The agreement is further refined over time; the rakusu would now replace the 5-panel okesa, the seven panel and nine panel okesa would not have a ring, and the size of an okesa would be based on arm length, a measurement we still use today. These were compromises that allowed the Soto Zen institution to hold together. We can’t ignore the likelihood that these two sides became entrenched not because they deeply cared about the robe but because their styles and practices were being challenged and it was unclear from where authority should come.
There was a reform movement in the 17th century that aimed to put robes more closely in alignment with the ancient monastic rules, or vinaya. This effort was mostly a study of texts, but a Shingon teacher named Jiun Onko also studied artworks and old robes themselves. Sawaki Roshi would later do this as well, looking at statues to see how things were made or worn rather than relying only on texts. Jiun Onko taught his own students to make robes according to the vinaya and also used the old robes as models.
The reformers originally expected that across Japanese Buddhism there would be continuity in robes, even while individual sects and schools still carried on their own practice, but by the mid 18th century, sectarianism was increasing. Reformers became subsets within their own schools. Figuring out what exactly the vinaya said about robes was not so easy; reformers had to reconcile two thousand years of history, teachings and practice culture to decide what a nyoho-e really was.
Even so, Jiun Onko went on working for a consistent robe across sects. He and his followers decided to make 1000 robes according to the vinaya. It took them 40 years, with the sewing mainly done by nuns and laywomen. The scope of the project meant that people really got to understand the okesa and be inspired by it.
In the 18th to 20th centuries, the Soto school went to work to reconcile the scholarship on robes with Dogen’s teachings. These were really important questions, because in other schools, like Shingon, the vinaya were the source of authority, but for Soto Zen, while vinaya and later monastic rules were important Dogen was the major source of authority. If there were apparent disagreements between Dogen and the vinaya, then the integrity of Soto Zen as an institution was jeopardized.
In his writings, Dogen said that the true robe hadn’t yet been introduced in Japan, and he says this even though he’s surrounded by people wearing robes. His point is that they don’t really understand how to wear them or take care of them, and they don’t know about materials or color or size or what these things mean for practice. He starts with the the vinaya and the precepts and adds his own interpretations and teachings. He teaches about the robe that doesn’t have physical characteristics and call this the true robe. He also fills in gaps in forms and rituals, and this is important because of his teachings about the robe and the dharma or Buddha being one: the way we treat the robe is the way we treat Buddha. He also equates transmission of the robe with transmission of the dharma, so the robe isn’t just an everyday garment.
Thus Dogen is interpreting the vinaya and older teachings, and when the 18th century reform movement comes along in Soto Zen, the reformers are interpreting Dogen. Things quickly become very complicated and factions start forming. The reformers want to return everything to what they see as the original Soto Zen approach based on the writings of Dogen and Keizan and to push out influences that have crept in from other schools of Buddhism or misunderstandings of the practice. This is a “return to the old ways” movement.
Part of this effort involved determining whether or not robes should have rings. Ancient okesa were fastened at the shoulder with hooks and rings; today these have become a set of fabric ties or a fabric loop with a tie. In the old days in China, the ring was sometimes elaborately carved out of expensive materials, particularly on fancy brocade robes. Instead of a hook there was a cord, which could also be expensive. We can see the ring in ancient portraits of Zen teachers.
The fastening system on a robe affects how the robe hangs. If there's a ring, the front corner of the robe hangs down and makes an impressive kind of drapery. If there is no ring, then the corner gets tucked up out of the way. (We can see why nyoho-e proponents might start to have problem with this; it’s all about impressing people and showing the high status of Soto Zen clergy and temples.) There’s a lot of technical discussion about whether the fastener can be a closed ring or simply a bent metal fastener, and what metals are allowed.
One point of view is that rings are not appropriate for any kind of Soto Zen robe because they don’t adhere to the vinaya rules, but then there’s the larger question about whether a robe that violates the rules is or is not still Buddha’s robe. The vinaya are Buddha’s rules, so doesn’t breaking them in making a robe mean that the robe is inauthentic? Then there are Dogen’s teachings about the true robe not having characteristics, and simply being the transmission of the dharma, which would make it impossible to devalue a nonconforming robe.
In the early 1800s the government required sects to identify the particular characteristics of their robes, so Soto Zen had to decide how to distinguish itself from the Rinzai and Obaku schools. Its document laid out materials, colors and what different ranks could wear, and it also said that clergy could wear rakusu as well as okesa. We don’t really know the origin of the rakusu; it’s not mentioned in the vinaya. Some say it’s an abbreviated okesa, but others say it’s a completely Chinese invention. It first shows up in Japan during the Kamakura period, which is roughly Dogen’s time. Ultimately we don’t really know what Dogen’s robes were like; it’s hard to tell from his portraits and he didn’t leave specific instructions, so those arguing for or against the ring don’t have evidence. If you’re arguing for it, you have to prove Dogen wore it, and if you’re arguing against, you have to prove that he didn’t.
Today Sotoshu has two head temples, Eiheiji and Sojiji. Eiheiji was Dogen’s place and Sojiji was Keizan’s place; these two ancestors are both considered founders of Soto Zen. In the mid 1800s, Eiheiji argued against the ring and said Sojiji should also stop using it. Sojiji objected, since this was also a time when Eiheiji was positioning itself as the sole head temple because it was founded by Dogen and Dogen’s teachings had become the "house rules," or the authoritative source for Soto Zen. Sojiji argued that Keizan had established the use of the ring, while Eiheiji said the ring was Chinese and not in accord with Dogen’s teachings, and also that the rakusu wasn’t really an abbreviated robe and was also not in accord with Dogen’s teachings. Traditionally, monks had three robes: a five panel, a seven panel and a nine panel. Dogen said you always had to have three, and Eiheiji argued that a rakusu was not a replacement for the five panel okesa and not a legitimate robe.
In the late 19th century an agreement was finally reached that allowed each temple will do what it wanted and the two styles to coexist. The agreement is further refined over time; the rakusu would now replace the 5-panel okesa, the seven panel and nine panel okesa would not have a ring, and the size of an okesa would be based on arm length, a measurement we still use today. These were compromises that allowed the Soto Zen institution to hold together. We can’t ignore the likelihood that these two sides became entrenched not because they deeply cared about the robe but because their styles and practices were being challenged and it was unclear from where authority should come.
Sawaki Roshi's 20th century nyoho-e movement
This is the backdrop for Sawaki Roshi’s movement in the 20th century. It’s bigger than just a dispute between Eiheiji and Sojiji; it’s a question of what has authority: artwork and artifacts, like antique robes, or vinaya and Zen text sources.
There were several important encounters early on in Sawaki Roshi's training and practice that kept putting robes in front of him as something to investigate. In his late teens he went to study with Fueoka Ryoun, who he thought really embodied Dogen’s teachings and was a true teacher. This is where he really picks up the attitude of "zazen is good for nothing." He was really competitive, so this was an important, challenging teaching for him. He followed Fueoka Ryoun to various temples for a year and a half until he was drafted into the army in December of 1900. Meeting Fueoka was his first encounter with nyoho-e. He noticed that this teacher was wearing an unusual style of okesa, with fabric and construction different from the average robe worn by other monks. He didn’t know anything about nyojo-e at the time, but this robe made a big impression on him and he aspired to wear one himself someday.
Fueoka gave Sawaki Roshi private lectures on some of Dogen’s important texts, such as Gakudo Yojinshu and Eihei Shingi, but when he begged him to teach the Shobogenzo, he said that in order to truly understand Dogen’s teachings, he needed to study Buddhism in general first. Sawaki roshi took that advice and went to study at two different Buddhist schools, which led to the second important encounter. In 1908 when he was 28 and finishing his Buddhist education and training after the war, he visited the temple of Jiun Onko and saw the robes that his followers had made that were stored there at the temple. Over the years, he would return there to look at those robes when he had questions about nyoho-e.
He also went to a funeral where he met two Shingon nuns who were wearing nyoho-e similar to that of Fueoka’s. He asked their lineage and they said they were the fourth generation from Jiun Onko. Ultimately they invited him to come and lecture on Buddhism and Dogen, and for seven years, once a week he talked about texts like the Zuimonki and Gakudo Yojinshu. One day they brought him one of Jiun Onko’s texts and asked him to lecture on it. He thought it would be pretty accessible and not so difficult to understand, but he quickly saw that he didn’t know what it meant. He had to study nyoho-e -- how to wear it, practice with it, construct it -- and so the nuns taught him to sew robes.
This is the backdrop for Sawaki Roshi’s movement in the 20th century. It’s bigger than just a dispute between Eiheiji and Sojiji; it’s a question of what has authority: artwork and artifacts, like antique robes, or vinaya and Zen text sources.
There were several important encounters early on in Sawaki Roshi's training and practice that kept putting robes in front of him as something to investigate. In his late teens he went to study with Fueoka Ryoun, who he thought really embodied Dogen’s teachings and was a true teacher. This is where he really picks up the attitude of "zazen is good for nothing." He was really competitive, so this was an important, challenging teaching for him. He followed Fueoka Ryoun to various temples for a year and a half until he was drafted into the army in December of 1900. Meeting Fueoka was his first encounter with nyoho-e. He noticed that this teacher was wearing an unusual style of okesa, with fabric and construction different from the average robe worn by other monks. He didn’t know anything about nyojo-e at the time, but this robe made a big impression on him and he aspired to wear one himself someday.
Fueoka gave Sawaki Roshi private lectures on some of Dogen’s important texts, such as Gakudo Yojinshu and Eihei Shingi, but when he begged him to teach the Shobogenzo, he said that in order to truly understand Dogen’s teachings, he needed to study Buddhism in general first. Sawaki roshi took that advice and went to study at two different Buddhist schools, which led to the second important encounter. In 1908 when he was 28 and finishing his Buddhist education and training after the war, he visited the temple of Jiun Onko and saw the robes that his followers had made that were stored there at the temple. Over the years, he would return there to look at those robes when he had questions about nyoho-e.
He also went to a funeral where he met two Shingon nuns who were wearing nyoho-e similar to that of Fueoka’s. He asked their lineage and they said they were the fourth generation from Jiun Onko. Ultimately they invited him to come and lecture on Buddhism and Dogen, and for seven years, once a week he talked about texts like the Zuimonki and Gakudo Yojinshu. One day they brought him one of Jiun Onko’s texts and asked him to lecture on it. He thought it would be pretty accessible and not so difficult to understand, but he quickly saw that he didn’t know what it meant. He had to study nyoho-e -- how to wear it, practice with it, construct it -- and so the nuns taught him to sew robes.
Kodo Sawaki and Oka Sotan
A third influence was Oka Sotan, a Shobogenzo scholar. Sawaki Roshi studied with him and this is an early inspiration for studying what Dogen says about the okesa. He had now encountered the physical nyoho-e, people actually wearing and practicing with it, and Dogen’s teachings and texts.
As we've seen, the foundation of the dispute over robes during the reform movement was the question of what has authority: artwork and artifacts, like antique robes, or vinaya and Zen text sources. Reading what Sawaki Roshi himself says about his early encounters with the robe makes it clear that that question is still very much alive for him. He’d done plenty of scholarship, but that wasn't enough. When he realized he couldn’t understand Jiun Onko’s text, he says:
At that time, since I had dictionaries for philosophy and Buddhism, I tried hard to use these to look up words, but I could not understand [the text] at all. I realized that the study of dharma clothing must begin with the study of Buddha statues. In general, I did not understand the actual kesa. I asked the nuns, and they knew nothing about kesa scholarship , but they knew the physical kesa well. So this time I asked questions of the nuns.
Studying statues became an important part of his research, and also working his connections to get access to old robes and see how they were made. This wasn’t an academic project for him. He felt a deep personal dharma or practice connection with the robe.
The other major figure in the 20th century nyoho-e movement was Eko Hashimoto Roshi. He and Sawaki Roshi had studied together with Oka Sotan. In the early 20th century, it wasn't easy to get access to commentaries and books about robes. It was a rather scholarly niche; materials weren’t widely published and many were in academic Chinese. Together Sawaki Roshi and Hashimoto Roshi published some earlier instructions and commentaries by those involved in the robe reform discussions, and they spoke and wrote about robe practice and encouraged people to sew and wear okesa according to these texts. In 1931 Sawaki Roshi gave a lecture series on one of those texts, and the hall was full of 600 people a day. At the same time he also gave practical instruction on robe sewing, and repeated the same series later in the year. He was reaching a significant audience and he became a public figure and popular speaker. His students started publication of a journal of his talks and schedule of appearances. As a result of his lectures, a group of nuns began sewing okesa and donors engaged in fundraising for the cloth.
While Sawaki Roshi certainly he spent time practicing and teaching in temples, since he never settled down for the long term in any one of them, he spread nyoho-e practice mainly outside of the established temple system. Hashimoto Roshi, on the other hand, worked to establish the practice inside the senmon sodo with the novices.
Nyoho-e were not the only kind of robes available. There were and are commercial businesses making okesa for sale, and this becomes a bone of contention in the world of Soto Zen. To Sawaki Roshi, a nyoho-e is made by hand using the kyakushi backstitch as indicated in the vinaya, and with a mind of faith, preferably by the person who wears it. On that basis, he says, commercial robes aren’t real robes. Of course, robe businesses aren’t happy with him either because he’s criticizing and cutting into their livelihood. It takes time to make nyoho-e by hand, and they weren’t willing to make them this way. Sawaki Roshi says, in his characteristically blunt way:
[Those] without belief, without heart, without intelligence, and without connection to the Buddhadharma make something that resembles kesa, but the kesa made by businessmen without heart [just] imitate kesa. They are merchandise. Since [commercial robe makers] have no connection to belief at all,
they just regard the idea of making each robe imbued with one’s spirit as the sleepy talk of an idiot.
As we've seen, the foundation of the dispute over robes during the reform movement was the question of what has authority: artwork and artifacts, like antique robes, or vinaya and Zen text sources. Reading what Sawaki Roshi himself says about his early encounters with the robe makes it clear that that question is still very much alive for him. He’d done plenty of scholarship, but that wasn't enough. When he realized he couldn’t understand Jiun Onko’s text, he says:
At that time, since I had dictionaries for philosophy and Buddhism, I tried hard to use these to look up words, but I could not understand [the text] at all. I realized that the study of dharma clothing must begin with the study of Buddha statues. In general, I did not understand the actual kesa. I asked the nuns, and they knew nothing about kesa scholarship , but they knew the physical kesa well. So this time I asked questions of the nuns.
Studying statues became an important part of his research, and also working his connections to get access to old robes and see how they were made. This wasn’t an academic project for him. He felt a deep personal dharma or practice connection with the robe.
The other major figure in the 20th century nyoho-e movement was Eko Hashimoto Roshi. He and Sawaki Roshi had studied together with Oka Sotan. In the early 20th century, it wasn't easy to get access to commentaries and books about robes. It was a rather scholarly niche; materials weren’t widely published and many were in academic Chinese. Together Sawaki Roshi and Hashimoto Roshi published some earlier instructions and commentaries by those involved in the robe reform discussions, and they spoke and wrote about robe practice and encouraged people to sew and wear okesa according to these texts. In 1931 Sawaki Roshi gave a lecture series on one of those texts, and the hall was full of 600 people a day. At the same time he also gave practical instruction on robe sewing, and repeated the same series later in the year. He was reaching a significant audience and he became a public figure and popular speaker. His students started publication of a journal of his talks and schedule of appearances. As a result of his lectures, a group of nuns began sewing okesa and donors engaged in fundraising for the cloth.
While Sawaki Roshi certainly he spent time practicing and teaching in temples, since he never settled down for the long term in any one of them, he spread nyoho-e practice mainly outside of the established temple system. Hashimoto Roshi, on the other hand, worked to establish the practice inside the senmon sodo with the novices.
Nyoho-e were not the only kind of robes available. There were and are commercial businesses making okesa for sale, and this becomes a bone of contention in the world of Soto Zen. To Sawaki Roshi, a nyoho-e is made by hand using the kyakushi backstitch as indicated in the vinaya, and with a mind of faith, preferably by the person who wears it. On that basis, he says, commercial robes aren’t real robes. Of course, robe businesses aren’t happy with him either because he’s criticizing and cutting into their livelihood. It takes time to make nyoho-e by hand, and they weren’t willing to make them this way. Sawaki Roshi says, in his characteristically blunt way:
[Those] without belief, without heart, without intelligence, and without connection to the Buddhadharma make something that resembles kesa, but the kesa made by businessmen without heart [just] imitate kesa. They are merchandise. Since [commercial robe makers] have no connection to belief at all,
they just regard the idea of making each robe imbued with one’s spirit as the sleepy talk of an idiot.
In the 1700s, those studying the okesa had been mainly concerned with figuring out what the proper form was according to the vinaya. No one was saying that only a mind of faith could make a real okesa, so Sawaki Roshi was taking a new perspective on this practice. He insisted that the teaching or practice and the form must be aligned. Even if businesses did take time to backstitch robes by hand, he said, they still wouldn’t be authentic because they were just things for sale. It wasn’t a practice of reverence.
It wasn’t just the commercial robe makers who objected. Sotoshu itself said that promoting nyoho-e practice was disruptive to the rules of the Soto School, and it told Sawaki Roshi to stop teaching the nuns. It also sent an official to the nuns' study center to warn them that the nyoho-e was "a violation of the 1889 unified rules of dress in the Soto school.” The articles that Hashimoto Roshi had been publishing about nyoho-e stop appearing after 1940. The nyoho-e movement was seen as disruptive to the compromise worked out between Eiheiji and Sojiji. However, there was never any written statement or regulation prohibiting nyoho-e, and of course we still see them today coexisting with commercial robes.
Not only does Sawaki Roshi disagree with commercial robe makers and with Sotoshu, he also disagrees with some of the earlier scholarship. He asserts that those scholars were simply studying the texts as texts. They liked the literary style and enjoyed spending time with them, he said, but they didn’t understand the okesa and didn’t even wear it properly. For him, unless the study of texts was deeply connected to the study of making, receiving and wearing the robe, the whole undertaking was inauthentic.
A sort of divide existed between nyoho-e practitioners and Sotoshu. Nonetheless, those who had been taught by Sawaki Roshi and Hashimoto Roshi continued to write articles and instructions, and they turned the more complex information into diagrams that were easier to understand. Some of these texts were sort of underground publications, shared privately, and nyoho-e practice survived in small groups of lay and ordained people.
Today, nyoho-e are not the official robes of Sotoshu, despite Hashimoto Roshi and Sawaki Roshi's aspiration. Nonetheless, attendees at Sotoshu functions in North American regularly wear nyoho-e. Although there’s a common assumption in North America that ordaining means sewing a robe, that’s not at all true within Sotoshu in general. In any event, because we are direct descendants of Sawaki Roshi, it feels important for us to know his story and to understand how critical it was to him that we connect study and practice. Study of the robe doesn’t end when we put down a book or finish sewing a rakusu. That’s when we take up studying the robe with the body, and that study goes on for the rest of our lives.
It wasn’t just the commercial robe makers who objected. Sotoshu itself said that promoting nyoho-e practice was disruptive to the rules of the Soto School, and it told Sawaki Roshi to stop teaching the nuns. It also sent an official to the nuns' study center to warn them that the nyoho-e was "a violation of the 1889 unified rules of dress in the Soto school.” The articles that Hashimoto Roshi had been publishing about nyoho-e stop appearing after 1940. The nyoho-e movement was seen as disruptive to the compromise worked out between Eiheiji and Sojiji. However, there was never any written statement or regulation prohibiting nyoho-e, and of course we still see them today coexisting with commercial robes.
Not only does Sawaki Roshi disagree with commercial robe makers and with Sotoshu, he also disagrees with some of the earlier scholarship. He asserts that those scholars were simply studying the texts as texts. They liked the literary style and enjoyed spending time with them, he said, but they didn’t understand the okesa and didn’t even wear it properly. For him, unless the study of texts was deeply connected to the study of making, receiving and wearing the robe, the whole undertaking was inauthentic.
A sort of divide existed between nyoho-e practitioners and Sotoshu. Nonetheless, those who had been taught by Sawaki Roshi and Hashimoto Roshi continued to write articles and instructions, and they turned the more complex information into diagrams that were easier to understand. Some of these texts were sort of underground publications, shared privately, and nyoho-e practice survived in small groups of lay and ordained people.
Today, nyoho-e are not the official robes of Sotoshu, despite Hashimoto Roshi and Sawaki Roshi's aspiration. Nonetheless, attendees at Sotoshu functions in North American regularly wear nyoho-e. Although there’s a common assumption in North America that ordaining means sewing a robe, that’s not at all true within Sotoshu in general. In any event, because we are direct descendants of Sawaki Roshi, it feels important for us to know his story and to understand how critical it was to him that we connect study and practice. Study of the robe doesn’t end when we put down a book or finish sewing a rakusu. That’s when we take up studying the robe with the body, and that study goes on for the rest of our lives.
