Kakushin

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Kakushin also Shinchi Kakushin (1207–98). Japanese Zen master who did much to establish kōan practice in Japan, not least by introducing the Wu-men-kuan (see KŌAN). In 1249, he visited China and trained in (or perhaps established) the Fuke school (where playing the flute replaces sūtra recitation), but settled with Wu-men Hui-k'ai, of the Yōgi school of Rinzai. He returned to Japan in 1254, and founded Saihō-ji (later called Kōkoku-ji). His teaching remained eclectic, but with concentration on kōans of the Mumonkan (Wu-men kuan) especially its opening kōan on ‘nothingness’.