Eshin Nishimura（西村 惠信, 1933-） is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, the former president of Hanazono University

Hanazono University

is a private university located in Kyoto, Japan that belongs to the Rinzai sect, a major competitor of the Sōtō college in Tokyo known as Komazawa University. Despite the university's sectarian affiliation, the school does also accept Soto students as well. The school operates two research centers...

 in Kyoto, Japan, and also a major modern scholar in the Kyoto School

Kyoto School

The Kyoto School is the name given to the Japanese "philosophical movement centered at Kyoto University that assimilated western philosophy and religious ideas and used them to reformulate religious and moral insights unique to the East Asian cultural tradition." However, it is also used to...

 of thought. A current professor of the Department of Buddhism at Hanazono University, he has lectured at universities throughout the world on the subject of Zen Buddhism. The author of many books, most written in the Japanese language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Nishimura has been a participant in many dialogues on the relationship of Zen to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 and Western philosophy

Western philosophy

Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....

.http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=62,4006,0,0,1,0

Biography

Eshin Nishimura was born the youngest child of six siblings to a family of Rinzai practitioners. According to his own account, "Blessed with a profound karmic relationship with the Buddha, I entered the priesthood at age two and left my parents to live in a Zen temple as a priestling." Nishimura graduated from Hanazono University

Hanazono University

is a private university located in Kyoto, Japan that belongs to the Rinzai sect, a major competitor of the Sōtō college in Tokyo known as Komazawa University. Despite the university's sectarian affiliation, the school does also accept Soto students as well. The school operates two research centers...

 from their Department of Buddhist Studies in 1956. In 1969 he came to Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 to give talks on Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

, and in 1970 and 1971 he taught a course for ten weeks on Zen at Carleton College

Carleton College

Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

 and another course at Carleton on Keiji Nishitani's Religion and Nothingness in 1989.