Sanbo Kyodan
Lay Zen sect
Sanbo Kyodan (三宝教団, Sanbō Kyōdan; literally "Three Treasures Religious Organization") is a lay Zen school derived from both the Soto (Caodong) and the Rinzai (Linji) traditions. It was renamed Sanbo-Zen International in 2014. The term Sanbo Kyodan has often been used to refer to the Harada-Yasutani School. However, a number of Yasutani's students have started their own teaching lines that are independent from Sanbo Kyodan. Strictly speaking, Sanbo Kyodan refers only to the organization that is now known as Sanbo-Zen International.
History
Sanbō Kyōdan was founded by Hakuun Yasutani in 1954, when he "finally gave up his membership in the Sōtō School and professed himself to be connected directly to Dōgen Zenji." It is also called the "Harada-Yasutani School," in reference to Yasutani's teacher Harada Daiun Sogaku, a Sōtō priest who also studied with Rinzai priests. Both Harada Roshi and Yasutani Roshi were strong promoters of Zen practice for lay practitioners, and for people of other (non-Buddhist, non-Asian) faith communities and cultures. Their openness to lay practitioners was in line with the modernizing tendency of the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868. Starting in this period, various Zen institutions began to give permission to lay followers to practice Zen.
The leaders of the Sanbo Kyodan were involved in the contemporary social and cultural developments in Japan, which followed the abandonment of the medieval feudal system and its opening up to foreign influences and modern western technology and culture.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as lay Zen sect. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2468087. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 1954 and 1868.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sanbo Kyodan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.