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Shohaku Okumura (奥村 正博, b. 1948) is a Japanese Soto Zen priest and the founder and guiding teacher of the Sanshin Zen Community (Sanshinji) located in Bloomington, Indiana[1], where he and his family currently live. Okumura also currently serves as director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco, California, which is an administrative office of the Soto school of Japan (formerly located in Los Angeles California under the name North American Soto School in Los Angeles).[1] Okumura is also the editor in chief of the semi-annual Soto Zen Journal, published by the Soto Zen Education Center.[2]
[edit] Biography
Shohaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1948. He received his education at Komazawa University in Tokyo, Japan, where he studied Zen Buddhism. On December 8, 1970, Okumura was ordained as a monk at Antaiji by his teacher Kosho Uchiyama, where he practiced until Uchiyama retired in 1975.[2] He then traveled to the United States, where he continued his Zen studies at Pioneer Valley Zendo in Massachusetts until 1981. After 1981 he returned to Japan and worked on translating works by Uchiyama and Dogen from Japanese to English. In addition, he has also been a teacher at the Kyoto Soto Zen Center, followed by the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1993.[1][3] Okumura's wife, Yuko Okumura, is a professional chef.[4] In recent years, Okumura gave Dharma transmission to Taiun Michael Elliston of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center, helping to further legitimize Elliston's previous transmission in the sometimes disputed lineage of Soyu Matsuoka.[3] The author James Ishmael Ford describes Okumura as, "...a tireless worker bridging the gap between Japanese and non-Japanese practice communities.[4]
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] See also
- ^ a b Okumara; Kokoro
- ^ Uchiyama, xvii-xxi
- ^ Silence, please!
- ^ Ford, 139
[edit] References
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