Philip Kapleau

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Philip Kapleau (1912 - 2004) was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and became a teacher of Zen Buddhism in the Harada-Yasutani tradition, a blending of Japanese Soto and Rinzai schools. These distinctions are primarily ones of form, since adepts in all schools of Zen aspire to complete enlightenment, known in Sanskrit as "anuttara samyak sambodhi."

Kapleau was born on August 20, 1912, in New Haven, Connecticut. As a teenager he worked as a bookkeeper. He briefly studied law and later became an accomplished court reporter. In 1945 he served as chief Allied court reporter for the "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal," which judged the leaders of Nazi Germany. This was the first of the series commonly known as the Nuremberg Trials. Kapleau later covered the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, commonly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. While in Japan he became intrigued by and drawn to Zen Buddhism. After returning to America, he studied Zen at Columbia University with D.T. Suzuki. But disaffected with a primarily intellectual treatment of Zen, he moved to Japan in 1953 to seek Zen's deeper truth.

He trained briefly with Soen Nakagawa (1907-1984), then rigorously with Daiun Harada (1871-1961), at Hosshin-ji. Later he became a disciple of Haku'un Yasutani (1885-1973), himself a dharma heir of Harada. After thirteen years of training, Kapleau was ordained by Yasutani in 1965 and given permission to teach. Yet, he sometimes eschewed the moniker "teacher," preferring to see himself as a fellow student of the way. In more subtle moments, he would even resist the label of "being" a Buddhist, in the spirit of Heraclitus: "Nothing Is; Everything Becomes."

Kapleau transcribed other Zen teachers' talks, interviewed lay students and monks, and recorded the practical details of Zen Buddhist practice. His book, The Three Pillars of Zen, was published in 1965, has been translated into twelve languages, and is still in print. It was one of the first English-language books to present Zen Buddhism not as philosophy, but as a pragmatic and salutary way of training and living.

During a book tour in 1965 he was invited to teach meditation at a small gathering in Rochester, New York. In 1966 he left Japan to create the Rochester Zen Center. In doing so, he became the first American to found and teach at a Zen training center.

For almost 40 years, Kapleau taught at the Center and in many other settings around the world, and provided dharma transmission to several disciples of both genders. He also introduced many modifications to the Japanese Zen tradition, such as chanting the Heart Sutra in the vernacular, English for example in the U.S., or Polish at the Center he founded in Katowice. He often emphasized that Zen Buddhism adapted so readily to new cultures especially because it was not dependent upon a dogmatic external form. At the same time he recognized that it was not always easy to discern the form from the essence, and one had to be careful not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Kapleau was an articulate and passionate writer. His emphasis in writing and teaching was that insight and enlightenment are available to anyone, not just austere and isolated Zen monks. Also well-known for his views on vegetarianism, peace and compassion, he remains widely read, and is a notable influence on Zen Buddhism as it is practiced in the West. Today, his dharma heirs, descendants and former students teach at Zen Centers around the world.

He lived with Parkinson’s Disease for several years, and while his physical mobility was reduced, he enjoyed lively and trenchant interactions with a steady stream of visitors throughout his life. On May 6, 2004, he died peacefully in the backyard of the Rochester Zen Center, surrounded by many of his closest disciples and friends.

[edit] Selected works

  • (French) "Questions zen" (Paris: Threshold/Points Wisdoms, 1979) ISBN 2-02-014596-0
  • (German) "Die drei Pfeiler des Zen. Lehre, Ãœbung, Erleuchtung" (Frankfurt am Main: O. W. Barth, 2002) ISBN 3-502-64355-5
  • (Italian) "I Tre Pilastri dello Zen: Insegnamento pratica e illuminazione" (Roma: Ubaldini Editore, 1981)
  • (Spanish) "Los Tres Pilares Del Zen. Enseñanza Práctica Iluminación" (Mexico: Pax-Mexico, 2005) ISBN 968-860-707-X
  • (English Audio) Phoenix Audio, 1995: Downloadable: <audiobooksdownload.com> or <audible.com> (Abridged length: 2 hours & 51 min)
  • (German) "Das Zen-Buch vom Leben und vom Sterben. Ein spiritueller Ratgeber" (Frankfurt am Main: O. W. Barth, 2001) ISBN 3-502-61057-6
  • (Chinese) [Chinese Title Unknown) (Twin Moon, 1998) ISBN 957-98414-8-9
  • "To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Vegetarianism" (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982) ISBN 0-940306-00-X
  • (Italian) "La nascita dello zen in Occidente" (Astrolabio: Roma, 1982)
  • (German) “Schluessel zum Zen. Der Weg zu einem achtsamen Leben” (Herder, Freiberg, 2000) ISBN 3-451-04570-2
  • "Zen: Merging of East and West" (New York: Anchor Books, 1989) ISBN 0-385-26104-7
  • "Zen Teaching, Zen Practice," edited by Kenneth Kraft, a festschrift honoring Kapleau (New York: Weatherhill, 2000) ISBN 0-8348-0440-9
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/h/i/Philip_Kapleau_ee58.html"
In other languages