<P> Zen was introduced to the United States by Japanese priests who were sent to serve local immigrant groups . A small group also came to study the American culture and way of life . </P> <P> In 1893, Soyen Shaku was invited to speak at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago . In 1905, Shaku was invited to stay in the United States by a wealthy American couple . He lived for nine months near San Francisco, where he established a small zendo in the Alexander and Ida Russell home and gave regular zazen lessons, making him the first Zen Buddhist priest to teach in North America . </P> <P> Shaku was followed by Nyogen Senzaki, a young monk from Shaku's home temple in Japan . Senzaki briefly worked for the Russells and then as a hotel porter, manager and eventually, owner . In 1922 Senzaki rented a hall and gave an English talk on a paper by Shaku; his periodic talks at different locations became known as the "floating zendo". Senzaki established an itinerant sitting hall from San Francisco to Los Angeles in California, where he taught until his death in 1958 . </P> <P> Sokatsu Shaku, one of Shaku's senior students, arrived in late 1906, founding a Zen meditation center called Ryomokyo - kai . One of his disciples, Shigetsu Sasaki, better known under his monastic name Sokei - an, came to New York to teach . In 1931, his small group incorporated as the Buddhist Society of America, later renamed the First Zen Institute of America . By the late 1930s, one of his most active supporters was Ruth Fuller Everett, an American socialite and the mother - in - law of Alan Watts . Shortly before Sokei - an's death in 1945, he and Everett would wed, at which point she took the name Ruth Fuller Sasaki . </P>

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