Daio Kokushi (Jap.)
aka:  Nanpo Jomyo
born:  1235
died:  1308      73 years

place:  Japan and China
Zen masters:  Daikaku (Chinese master Lanxi, who
came to Japan), Xudang
Zen disciples:  15 recorded as Zen masters in
Japan
South Universal      Continue Brightness
Chin., Nanpu Shaoming
Nanpo Jomyo, who is usually known under his
posthumous name of Daio Kokushi (National
Teacher Daio), was an early Japanese Zen adept,
who traveled to China, and returned to Japan to
continue his spiritual path and teaching.
stories:

Osho
The Language of Existence, ch. 1

The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, ch. 5
           oshobob  The Living Workshop                                            
                                                      Zen Masters
Daio said to Genchu:

Since ancient times, the enlightened ancestors
appearing in the world relied just on their own
fundamental experience to reveal something of
what is before us: so we see them knocking
chairs and raising whisks, hitting the ground and
brandishing sticks, beating a drum or rolling
balls…

Daio continued:

Even though this is so, eminent Genchu, you
have traveled all over and spent a long time in
monasteries. Don’t worry about such old calendar
days as these I mentioned – just go by the living
road you see on your own; going east, going
west, like a hawk sailing through the skies. In the
blink of an eye you cross over to the other side.


The happening happens only in the blink of an
eye. The distance between the buddha and the
no-buddha is so small, the distinction between the
awake and the asleep is so small, that just in the
blink of an eye you have already moved to the
further shore, to the other shore.

It is to be understood clearly: the road is not very
long. To call it a road is simply symbolic; there is
no other way to say it. It is simply a change of
vision: you were looking out, you close your eyes
and you look within. And you go on, deepening,
inside, as far as you can, and you are bound to
find the source of your life.

It is just as if a roseflower were trying to find the
source of its life. Where is it going to find it? It will
have to move within, into the branches, towards
the roots, from where it is getting all its
nourishment and all its life.

We also have roots, but they are invisible.

Zen is nothing but a discovery of our roots. The
man who knows his roots is called the buddha...

                                              --Osho
The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, ch. 5