Soyen Shaku
In 1919 Lewis entered a Sufi community in Fairfax, California where he met Murshida Rabia Martin, a student of the Sufi teacher and musician Inayat Khan. A year later he began Zen study with Nyogen Senzaki, a disciple of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist Abbot Soyen Shaku. The practices and tenets of both Sufism and Zen continued to influence him throughout his life.