was 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 roshi

Roshi

is a Japanese honorific title used in Zen Buddhism that literally means "old teacher" or "elder master" and sometimes denotes a person who gives spiritual guidance to a Zen sangha or congregation...

 and former abbot of Ryōkōin, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji

Daitoku-ji

is a Buddhist temple, one of fourteen autonomous branches of the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen. It is located in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The "mountain name" , who is known by the title Daitō Kokushi, or "National Teacher of the Great Lamp," that he was given by Emperor Go-Daigo...

 in Kyoto, Japan. A student of the late Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature...

, Sōhaku was fluent in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

http://www.ithaca.edu/news/release.php?id=2395 and known to hold regular sesshin

Sesshin

A sesshin , literally "touching the heart-mind" , is a period of intensive meditation in a Zen monastery....

s until the 1980s which many Americans

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 attended. One of his American students is James H. Austin

James H. Austin

James H. Austin is Clinical Professor of Neurology, University of Missouri Health Science Center, and Emeritus Professor of Neurology, University of Colorado Health Science Center. Austin is the author of his well known book Zen and the Brain, which aims to establish links between the neurological...

, author of Zen and the Brain.http://www.ithaca.edu/news/release.php?id=2395 Austin writes of his teacher, "This remarkable person, Kobori-roshi, inspired me to begin the long path of Zen and stick to it. As a result, I have since continued to repair my ignorance about Zen and its psychophysiology during an ongoing process of adult reeducation."