Below is a timeline of important events regarding Zen Buddhism in the United States. Dates with “?” are approximate.

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. . . Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States . . .

• 1893: Soyen Shaku comes to the United States to lecture at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago
• 1905: Soyen Shaku returns to the United States and teaches for approximately one year in San Francisco
• 1906: Sokei-an arrives in San Francisco
• 1919: Soyen Shaku dies on October 29 in Japan
• 1922: Zenshuji Soto Mission is established in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles, California
• 1922: Nyogen Senzaki begins teaching in California with his “floating zendo“
• 1930: Sokei-an establishes the Buddhist Society of America (now First Zen Institute of America)
• 1932: Dwight Goddard authors A Buddhist Bible, an anthology focusing on Chinese and Japanese Zen scriptures
• 1938: Ruth Fuller Sasaki became a principal supporter of the Buddhist Society of America (later known as the First Zen Institute of America),
• 1939 Zengaku Soyu Matsuoka arrives in America
• 1945: Sokei-an dies
• 1949: Soyu Matsuoka establishes the Chicago Buddhist Temple (now the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago)
• 1949: Soen Nakagawa makes his first trip to the United States to meet with Nyogen Senzaki

• 1951: DT Suzuki begins teaching seminars on Japanese culture, aesthetics, and Zen at Columbia University in New York. Among the students are many influential artists and intellectuals, including Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, John Cage, and Allen Ginsberg.[1]
• 1953: Philip Kapleau begins formal Zen training in Japan.
• 1956: Taizan Maezumi arrives in Los Angeles to serve at the Zenshuji Soto Mission
• 1956: The Zen Studies Society is established by Cornelius Crane
• 1957: Alan Watts‘ The Way of Zen is published, the book first popularizing zen with an American audience
• 1957: The Cambridge Buddhist Association is founded by John and Elsie Mitchell in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 1957: Jack Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Bums is published
• 1958: Nyogen Senzaki dies on May 7
• 1959: Shunryu Suzuki arrives in San Francisco to lead Sokoji
• 1959: Hsuan Hua arrives in the United States and establishes the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
• 1959: Robert Baker Aitken and Anne Hopkins Aitken found the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu, Hawaii

. . . Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States . . .

. . . Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States . . .