en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensh%C5%8D
1 correction found
the first Western female Zen priest
This overstates Jiyu-Kennett’s precedence. Ruth Fuller Sasaki was already a Western woman ordained as a Zen priest in Japan years earlier.
Full reasoning
This claim is too broad as written. Houn Jiyu-Kennett was an important Soto Zen pioneer, but she was not the first Western female Zen priest.
Credible historical sources show that Ruth Fuller Sasaki—an American woman—had already been ordained in the Zen tradition in Japan and became a temple priest before Jiyu-Kennett's rise.
- The University of Chicago Library’s finding aid for the Ruth Fuller Sasaki archive states that Ruth Fuller Sasaki "was the first Westerner - and woman - to be made a priest of a Daitoku-ji Zen temple in Japan."
- Tricycle likewise states that Ruth Fuller Everett/Sasaki "was the first Western woman to ordain in the Zen tradition in Japan" and "the first to become abbot of a Japanese temple."
Because the article says simply "the first Western female Zen priest" without limiting that claim to a narrower context such as Soto Zen or teaching authorization in the West, it is factually incorrect.
2 sources
- Archive of Sokei-An (Sasaki Shigetsu) and First Zen Institute of America in Japan 1930-1969 — University of Chicago Library
Abstract: Ruth Fuller Sasaki (nee Everett, 1892-1967) was the first Westerner - and woman - to be made a priest of a Daitoku-ji Zen temple in Japan.
- How Rinzai Zen Came to America through an Unusual Pairing — Tricycle
She went on to achieve other historic firsts: she was the first Western woman to ordain in the Zen tradition in Japan and the first to become abbot of a Japanese temple.