This was posted here a couple of weeks ago:

Well, Lost, my favorite current TV show just got, um, favoriter.

Don’t know how I missed this initially, but one of the newly-returned show’s newest characters, a Japanese guy who is “Master” of the mysterious, rebirth-granting temple recently found by the Losties, is named Dogen. As in “Eihei Dogen,” founder of the Japanese Soto school of Zen Buddhism.

This is probably not insignificant, not on a show whose characters are named things like “John Locke,” “C.S. Lewis,” and “Daniel Faraday.” Also, of course, the whole thing centers around an enigmatic organization called “The Dharma Initiative.”

My eyes will be on the show and on Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays Dogen, for more. The second episode of the season is on tonight. Get caught up with last week’s premiere here.

But now, in a new interview with the New Yorker’s Vulture blog, Sanada denies a Buddhist connection:

Dogen translates roughly to “the temple of eternal peace.” Also, Dogen was a thirteenth-century Buddhist teacher. Any significance to your character?

Yeah, he’s not a Buddhist. Dogen’s name is inspired by a famous Buddhist in Japan a long time ago. He’s not a Buddhist, per se; it’s just a name. And also he has another real name from growing up in Japan.