Brian Daizen Victoria

Brian Daizen Victoria is a fully ordained priest of the Sōtō Zen school. He trained at Eiheiji, one of the sect’s two head monasteries, and received Dharma transmission in Japan. He holds an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from Komazawa University in Tokyo and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Temple University.

His best-known work, Zen at War (1997; second edition 2006), documents how Japan’s Buddhist institutions, and Zen above all, supported Japanese militarism from the Meiji era to 1945. Its Japanese edition led two branches of the Rinzai sect to apologise publicly for their wartime role. He continued the investigation in Zen War Stories (2003).