Reb Anderson
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| Tenshin Reb Anderson | |
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| Information | |
| Birth name: | Harold Anderson |
| Other name(s): | Reb |
| Dharma name(s): | Tenshin Zenki |
| Born: | c. 1943 |
| Place of birth: | Mississippi |
| Nationality: | American |
| School(s): | Soto Zen |
| Lineage(s): | Shunryu Suzuki |
| Title(s): | Roshi |
| Workplace: | San Francisco Zen Center Green Gulch Farm Zen Center |
| Predecessor(s): | Zentatsu Richard Baker (with caveats) |
| Successor(s): | Ananda Claude Dalenburg, Zengyu Paul Discoe, Sobun Katherine Thanas, Jerome Petersen, Furyu Nancy Schroeder, Jiko Linda Cutts, Taigen Dan Leighton, Myo Lahey, Setsuan Gaelyn Godwin, Kiku Christina Lehnherr, Meiya Wender, Jakujo Gary McNabb |
| Spouse(s): | Rusa Anderson |
| Children: | Thea Anderson |
| Website | |
| Website: | www.rebanderson.org |
Tenshin Zenki Reb Anderson (b. 1943), born Harold Anderson, is a Senior Dharma teacher for the San Francisco Zen Center currently living at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, California. Anderson began his Zen practice at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1967 after leaving behind studies in mathematics and psychology. Ordained in 1970 as a priest by his teacher Shunryu Suzuki, Anderson was then given the Buddhist name Tenshin Zenki 天眞全機 (meaning Naturally Real, the Whole Works). In 1983 Anderson received shiho from Zentatsu Richard Baker, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir (though Baker disputes this). From 1986 to 1988 he served as abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center and from 1988 to 1995 he served there as co-abbot with Sojun Mel Weitsman. In addition to teaching at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, he is the teacher at nearby No Abode Hermitage (see website) where he leads retreats regularly. According to author James Ishmael Ford, "Reb Anderson is one of the most prominent of contemporary Western Zen teachers."[1]
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[edit] Biography
Reb Anderson was born as Harold Anderson[2] in Mississippi in 1943 and grew up in Minnesota, developing an early interest in Buddhism while still in his teens.[1] In his youth, he was a Golden Gloves boxer.[3] His father left his mother and he when Anderson was eleven.[4] In 1967 he left graduate school and abandoned his studies in psychology and mathematics, coming instead to study Soto Zen under Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco Zen Center. Anderson was then ordained as a priest in 1970 by Suzuki, who gave Anderson the Buddhist name Tenshin Zenki (meaning Naturally Real, the Whole Works).[5] In 1983 Anderson went through the shiho ceremony with Zentatsu Richard Baker, the sole Dharma heir of Shunryu Suzuki. However, when Baker was forced to resign as Zen Center abbot amid revelations of sexual liaisons with students, Baker claimed Anderson never completed the entire transmission ceremony. Members of the San Francisco Zen Center disagreed, and Anderson is understood to be the Dharma heir of Baker.[1]
Anderson became entangled in a strange incident that occurred in 1987 that reached back to 1983 — a period just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. While jogging through Golden Gate Park one day, Anderson had deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over a period of several days to meditate over the corpse. On one such visit he decided to take the revolver home with him.[6] Upon his final visit he found that the body was no longer there, and a fellow priest whom he had confided in showed him a newspaper article covering the apparent suicide. Five years later (in 1988), roughly fifteen months after Anderson had become abbot of the San Francisco, Anderson was arrested for brandishing this same firearm in public. He reports that he had been mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. He then drove after the alleged mugger and followed him into a housing project with the revolver (unloaded) in hand, being arrested minutes later by a police officer with his own gun pointed at him.[6]
This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, the incident having received local and national media coverage at the time of arrest. The San Francisco Board of Directors sent him on a leave of absence for six months, and when he came back they appointed Mel Weitsman as a co-abbot. Regarding this ordeal, Anderson has written, "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. Others were more forgiving, but their trust in me and my integrity was permanently shaken. Even newer students, who come to Zen Center and find out about these incidents, are sometimes confused and question whether I can be their teacher. These events are a helpful reminder—both to me and to others—of my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. I see how my empowerment to protect and care for the Triple Treasure inflated my sense of personal authority, and thus detracted from and disparaged the Triple Treasure. This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow."[6] In October of 1999 Anderson suffered a heart attack while conducting dokusan. Rushed to Marin General Hospital, he then underwent a successful emergency angioplasty.[1]
[edit] Teaching style
According to James Ishmael Ford, "...Anderson Roshi is one of the first people to have worked hard to bring Dogen studies West. He has also stretched much of Zen's traditional approach to psychology by drawing upon other ancient Buddhist sources, including Abhidharma and Yogachara teaching, while at the same time being solidly informed regarding Western approaches to the discipline."[1] To some students, "...Reb's practice invites comparison to the legendary Japanese samurai, the warriors who trained in medieval Zen monasteries."[3]
[edit] Dharma heirs
Sobun Katherine Thanas received shiho from Tenshin Roshi in 1988 and later was installed as abbess of the Santa Cruz Zen Center. Zengyu Paul Discoe and Ananda Claude Dalenburg also received shiho in 1988. Ananda was the inspiration for the character Bud Diefendorf in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Anderson gave shiho to his student Jiko Linda Cutts in 1996, who went on to serve as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center from 2000 until 2007.[7] Furyu Nancy Schroeder received shiho 1999, and she now serves as the director of Green Gulch Farm Zen Center.[2] In 2000 Taigen Dan Leighton received shiho. Leighton has since gone on to establish the Mountain Source Sangha.[3] In 2002 Meiya Wender received shiho. She now conducts japanese tea ceremony classes at Green Gulch.[4] Kiku Christina Lehnherr and Gaelyn Godwin both received shiho in 2005, the latter of the two since receiving the Kaikyoshi degree from the Soto School of Japan.[5]
[edit] Bibliography
- Anderson, Reb; Moon, Susan Ichi Su (2005). Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains: Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation. Rodmell Press. ISBN 1930485107.
- Anderson, Reb (2001). Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts. Rodmell Press. ISBN 0962713899.
[edit] Audio
- Anderson, Reb (1993). Basic Points of Buddhist Meditation. Big Sur Tapes. OCLC 30066463.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Anderson, Reb; Moon, Susan Ichi Su (2005). Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains: Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation. Rodmell Press. ISBN 1930485107.
- Anderson, Reb (2001). Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts. Rodmell Press. ISBN 0962713899.
- Downing, Michael (2001). Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center. Counterpoint. ISBN 1582431132.
- Ford, James Ishmael (2006). Zen Master Who?: A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0861715098.
- Gach, Gary (1998). What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop. Parallax Press. ISBN 0938077929.
- Prebish, Charles S.; Baumann, Martin (2002). Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 0520226259.
- Skinner Keller, Rosemary; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Marie Cantlon (2006). The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253346851.
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