Eshin Nishimura
Title	Rōshi
Personal
Born	Japan
Religion	Rinzai
Nationality	Japanese
Senior posting
Based in	Hanazono University

Eshin Nishimura (西村 惠信; born 1933) is a Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, the former president of Hanazono University in Kyoto, Japan, and also a major modern scholar in the Kyoto School of thought.^[1] 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.^[2] The author of many books, most written in the Japanese language, Nishimura has been a participant in many dialogues on the relationship of Zen to Christianity and Western philosophy.^[3]

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."^[4] Nishimura graduated from Hanazono University from their Department of Buddhist Studies in 1956.^[4] In 1969 he came to Oberlin College to give talks on Zen, and in 1970 and 1971 he taught a course for ten weeks on Zen at Carleton College^[2] and another course at Carleton on Keiji Nishitani's Religion and Nothingness in 1989.