Soko Roshi was one of Japan’s foremost Rinzai Zen masters. He served as the abbot of Daitokuji Monastery and the head of Hanazono University, one of the chief training universities for Buddhist monks in Japan. Morinaga Roshi died in 1995. “The Samadhi of Play” is excerpted from Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity by Soko Morinaga Roshi, translated by Belenda Attaway Yamakawa. © 2001 by Wisdom Publications. Reprinted by arrangement.