Soyu Matsuoka

The monk who first gave Master Shih Shen-Lung the Three Refuges and then later the Ten Precepts of the full Soto Sect Ordination is the Venerable Soyu Matsuoka-Roshi.

Reverend Soyu Matsuoka was born in Japan into a family which has a history of Zen priests dating back hundreds of years. After the Reverend graduated from Komazawa University, he spent several years in Sojiji Monastery. He then was assigned a mission of establishing a temple at Karfuto, in the northern part of Japan.

Matsuoka-Roshi then received a special assignment to the United States, where he served as a Zen priest in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Zen Temples.

The Reverend then established the Chicago Zen Buddhist Temple, the first Zen Temple in the Midwestern states. This establishment is still in operation under the able direction of Dharma descendents of Venerable Kongo Langlois Roshi.

Besides managing the temple in Chicago, the Reverend undertook many activities. He conducted Zazen for the students of the Chicago Judo-Karate School, and was registered at the Chicago Central YMCA as a special instructor in Japanese culture and its relation to Zen Buddhism.

In addition, Matsuoka-Roshi lectured intensively throughout the United States and abroad, including an eight month tour of Japan, which was sponsored by the American Embassy to Japan. On this tour he spoke about the "Unknown America" to groups all over Japan.

In the United States, Matsuaka-Roshi spoke to hundreds of religious, professional and social groups, and at martial arts schools and penitentiaries. It was at Master Shen-Lung's Martial Arts Dojo near Seattle that the two first spoke at length. It was a short time later that Matsuoka Roshi told the one who was to become Master Shen-Lung to "stop fooling around" and become a monk because anything (or everything) else was "just a waste of time."

In August of 1971, Matsuoka-Roshi established the Zen Center of Long Beach (Zen Buddhist Temple) where he served as the superintendent until ill-health forced his retirement in 1995. During his career, Matsuoka-Roshi helped thousands of people find their first faltering steps on the Dharma path. It is not to his memory, but his legacy that this page is dedicated.