The importance of examining the role of the Ōbaku school and its prominent monks in the story of Edo Buddhism cannot be overstated. Buddhism during the Edo period, and in particular the Zen school, faced a new challenge and stimulus with the rise of the Ōbaku school and its Ming Buddhist models. The reaction to the new infusion of Continental culture was to leave an indelible print on the face of Japanese Zen. This story, a glaring scholarly lacuna, had been largely overlooked in the West until the publication of Helen Baroni's important book, Obaku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Sect of Zen in Tokugawa Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000). The work under review, Iron Eyes: The Life and Teachings of Ōbaku Zen Master Tetsugen Dōkō, is another welcome addition by Baroni to the growing corpus of Ōbaku scholarship.
Broadly, the book comprises two main sections....
