Sōiku Shigematsu
Sōiku Shigematsu (born October 13, 1943) is a Japanese Zen priest of the Myoshin-ji branch of the Rinzai School. He serves as abbot of Shōgen-ji Temple in Shimizu, Shizuoka, and is an author and translator who helped introduce Zen literature to the West in the late 20th century. He taught English literature at Shizuoka University and spent time in the United States, including a Fulbright year in 1985–86. In 1987 he won the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from The American Poetry Review.
Born in Shimizu during World War II, he learned Zen from his father, Kijū Shigematsu, a Zen priest and skilled calligrapher. Kijū also taught Robert Aitken during his training at Engaku-ji. Shigematsu studied English at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (graduating in 1967) and did graduate work at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University (completed 1971). He then taught English literature at Shizuoka University (1975–2001) and lectured at Shizuoka Women's University (1972–75). He conducted research at San Diego State University and UC Davis during his Fulbright year.
His translations of Zenrin-kushū (A Zen Forest, Sayings of the Masters) and Zenrin Segoshū (A Zen Harvest, Japanese Folk Zen Sayings) are regarded as major contributions to contemporary English-language Zen. He also translated poetry and sermons by Musō Soseki and Zen haiku by Natsume Sōseki. In addition to translations, he writes free-verse poetry in Japanese. He is currently working on an anthology of Zen sayings drawn from English and other languages; parts have appeared in Shizuoka University’s Studies in Humanities, including selections from Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and others.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:12 (CET).