34 Zen Buddhist priests

Marc Dennis Anderson is an American born percussionist, composer, poet and Zen Buddhist priest. Best known for records and live performances with guitarist and composer Steve Tibbetts, he has recorded and performed with dozens of notable artists. His interests and studies in non-western instruments and musical traditions are a signature of his sound and technical style.

Gen Atem is a visual and performance artist, musician, writer, and Zen-master. He lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland.

Angie Boissevain is a Sōtō Zen roshi currently leading the Floating Zendo in San Jose, California. A Dharma heir of Vanja Palmers, for many years she was director and then teacher of Jikoji in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Today she leads meditation retreats in California.

Rev. Nonin Chowaney (OPW) is a retired American Soto Zen priest and brush calligrapher. A Dharma heir of the late Dainin Katagiri-roshi, Chowaney received Dharma transmission in 1989 and was the founder of an organization of Soto priests known as The Order of the Prairie Wind (OPW), which is now defunct. Having studied Zen in Japan as well as at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Chowaney was certified by the Soto School of Japan.

Eijun Linda Cutts is a Sōtō Zen priest practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, a Senior Dharma Teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center. Cutts is a Dharma heir of Tenshin Reb Anderson, having received Dharma transmission from him in 1996. She served as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center from 2000 to 2007, and had first begun practice at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971; later, she was ordained a priest by Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1975. Currently living at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, as abbess she had been aware of the significance in being a woman in a leadership position in religion that has historically been a patriarchy. In this vein, within her first year as abbess she instituted the ceremony in which female ancestors could be honored. She became Central Abbess of San Francisco Zen Center in 2014.

Dōgen Zenji, also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), or Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師), was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan.

Myōan Eisai/Yōsai was a Japanese Buddhist priest, credited with founding the Japanese line of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism. In 1191, he introduced this doctrine to Japan, following his trip to China from 1187 to 1191, during which he was initiated into the Linji school by the master Hsü an. It is also said that he popularized green tea in Japan, following this same trip. He was also the founding abbot of Japan's first Zen temple Shōfuku-ji and Kennin-ji. He is often known simply as Eisai/Yōsai Zenji (栄西禅師), literally "Zen master Eisai".

Zoketsu Norman Fischer is an American poet, writer, and Soto Zen priest, teaching and practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988. Fischer served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1995–2000, after which he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of Buddhist practice group and related projects in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Fischer has published more than twenty-five books of poetry and non-fiction, as well as numerous poems, essays and articles in Buddhist magazines and poetry journals.

James Ishmael Ford is an American Zen Buddhist priest and a retired Unitarian Universalist minister. He was born in Oakland, California on July 17, 1948. He earned a BA in psychology from Sonoma State University, as well as an M.Div. and an MA in the Philosophy of Religion, both from the Pacific School of Religion.

Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi is a psychotherapist and an expert on post-Vietnam stress syndrome. He is an ordained Soto Zen priest and the founding abbot of the Order of Clear Mind Zen and a leader of the Zen community in southern New Mexico. He was featured in a documentary on Vietnam Veterans that aired on both National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" and PBS station KRWG-TV. During combat in the Vietnam War Hilbert was shot in the head, leaving him paralyzed on the left side of his body. Despite his injuries, Hilbert went on to college.

Kazuo Inamori, is a Japanese philanthropist, entrepreneur and the founder of Kyocera and KDDI. He was the chairman of Japan Airlines.

Emperor Kameyama was the 90th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1260 through 1274.

Bodhin Kjolhede is a Sōtō/Rinzai Zen roshi and Abbot of the Rochester Zen Center (RZC), a position he assumed when Philip Kapleau retired from teaching in 1986. He was ordained as a priest in 1976 and received Dharma transmission in 1986. He has authorized six of his disciples as teachers in their own right: Sante Poromaa, Kanja Odland, Sevan Ross, Gerardo Gally, Amala Wrightson, and Robert Goldmann. Additionally, Kjolhede has been offered transmission in a Sōtō lineage, but has thus far chosen to decline.

Seirin Barbara Kohn is a Sōtō Zen teacher and head priest of The Austin Zen Center (AZC) in Austin, Texas, practicing in the lineage of Shunryū Suzuki. She was ordained as a Soto priest by Reb Anderson and received Dharma transmission from Zenkei Blanche Hartman—Kohn being Hartman's first Dharma heir. The Austin Zen Center's temple name, Zenkei-ji, is named after Blanche Hartman. Kohn became head priest and resident teacher of AZC on October 13, 2002. Before assuming her leadership of AZC, Kohn served as President of the San Francisco Zen Center. Kohn is a supporter of LGBT rights, having been known to offer "commitment ceremonies" for same-sex couples, stating, "I simply treat them all the same."

Taigen Dan Leighton is a Sōtō priest and teacher, academic, and author. He is an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryū Suzuki and is the founder and Guiding Teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago, Illinois. Leighton is also an authorized teacher in the Japanese Sōtō School (kyōshi).

Shunmyō Masuno is a Japanese monk and garden designer. He is chief priest of the Sōtō Zen temple Kenkō-ji, professor at Tama Art University, and president of a design firm that has completed numerous projects in Japan and overseas. He has been called "Japan's leading garden designer".

Peter Matthiessen was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA officer. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review, he was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both nonfiction and fiction. He was also a prominent environmental activist.

Gudo Wafu Nishijima was a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest and teacher.

Eshin Nishimura is a Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, the former president of Hanazono University in Kyoto, Japan, and also a major modern scholar in the Kyoto School of thought. A current professor of the Department of Buddhism at Hanazono University, he has lectured at universities throughout the world on the subject of Zen Buddhism. The author of many books, most written in the Japanese language, Nishimura has been a participant in many dialogues on the relationship of Zen to Christianity and Western philosophy.

Kanja Odland Roshi is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher, in the lineage of Harada-Yasutani. She was born in Stockholm 1963.

Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism.

Ōmori Sōgen was a Japanese Rinzai Rōshi, a successor in the Tenryū-ji line of Rinzai Zen, and former president of Hanazono University, the Rinzai university in Kyoto, Japan. He became a priest in 1945.

Kōbun Otogawa was an American Sōtō Zen priest.

Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), and A Tale for the Time Being (2013), seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, and deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war and global popular culture. Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages. She teaches creative writing at Smith College where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature.

Josho Pat Phelan, Buddhist name Taitaku Josho, is a Sōtō Zen priest and current abbot of Chapel Hill Zen Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina—she has served as abbot there since 2000. Before coming to Chapel Hill, she practiced for twenty years at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center. Phelan began leading the Chapel Hill Zen Center in 1991, when there were just eight members including herself. As of 2001, the center had forty-five members and provides meditation instruction for approximately one-hundred and fifty people every year. Ordained as a priest by Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1977, she began Zen practice in 1969 and has also trained under Sojun Mel Weitsman, Robert Baker Aitken and Tenshin Reb Anderson Additionally, Phelan is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association, and in 1995 she received shiho from Sojun Weitsman at Tassajara.

Sante Poromaa Roshi is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher, in the lineage of Harada-Yasutani. He was born in 1958 in Kiruna, Sweden, and commenced his Zen training in the early eighties, as a student of Roshi Philip Kapleau. When Roshi Kapleau went into semi-retirement, he also became a student of Kapleau's successor, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede.

Rev. Kyōki Roberts (OPW) is a retired American Sōtō Zen priest. The single Dharma heir of Nonin Chowaney-roshi, Roberts received Dharma transmission in June 2001 and was a founding member of an organization of Sōtō priests known as the Order of the Prairie Wind (OPW), which is now defunct. Having studied Zen in Japan at the Zuiō-ji (瑞応寺) and Shōgo-ji (聖護寺) monasteries and in the United States at Minnesota Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, and Green Gulch Farm, Roberts was certified by the Sōtō School of Japan.

Hozan Alan Senauke is a Soto Zen priest, folk musician and poet residing at the Berkeley Zen Center (BZC) in Berkeley, California, where he currently serves as Abbot. He is a former Executive Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), holding that position from 1991 to 2001. Alan also was a founder of Think Sangha, a group of writers and intellectuals that are affiliated with the BPF and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Think Sangha is a group of individuals who meet together to identify some of the most pressing social issues that they feel engaged Buddhists should be addressing. Senauke, who was born to a secular Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, arrived in the San Francisco Bay area in 1968 and soon started sitting at the Berkeley Zen Center. Along with his Dharma sister Maylie Scott, Senauke received Dharma transmission from his teacher Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1998 during a ceremony at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.

Sesshū Tōyō was the most prominent Japanese master of ink and wash painting from the middle Muromachi period. He was born into the samurai Oda family (小田家), before being brought up and educated to become a Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest. However, early in life he displayed a talent for visual arts, and eventually became one of the greatest Japanese artists of his time, widely revered throughout Japan.

Sōiku Shigematsu is a Japanese priest of Myoshin-ji branch of Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism, abbot of Shōgen-ji Temple in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, author and translator of books and essays on Zen that were instrumental in spreading interest in Zen literary tradition to the West in the latter half of the 20th century. Shigematsu taught English literature at Shizuoka University also visiting the United States on several occasions, most notably in 1985-6 as a Fulbright scholar. He won the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from The American Poetry Review in 1987.

Bonnie Myotai Treace is a Zen teacher and priest, the founder of Hermitage Heart, and formerly the abbot of the Zen Center of NYC; she teaches currently in Black Mountain and Asheville, North Carolina. Myotai Sensei is the first Dharma successor of John Daido Loori, Roshi, in the Mountains and Rivers Order, having received shiho, dharma transmission, from him in 1996. Serving and training for over two decades eventually as vice-abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, she was the establishing teacher and first abbess of the Zen Center of New York City. At the Monastery she was the Vice Abbot, the first director of Dharma Communications, editor of Mountain Record, and coordinator of the affiliates of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Treace, ordained as a Zen monastic, now lives as a lay teacher, working primarily with her long-term students.

Jisho Warner is a Sōtō Zen priest and abiding teacher of Stone Creek Zen Center in Sonoma County, California. Warner is a former president of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, and its first female and first LGBTQ president. Having graduated from Harvard University in 1965, she became an artist and freelance editor. She has edited books by Robert Thurman, Ed Brown, Wendy Johnson, Jane Hirshfield, Dainin Katagiri, and many others. She is a co-editor of the book Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama, whose teachings she first encountered in the 1980s while practicing at the Pioneer Valley Zendo in Massachusetts under Koshi Ichida.

Angel Kyodo williams is a writer, activist, ordained Zen priest and the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, published by Viking Press in 2000, and the co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, published by North Atlantic Books. Called "the most vocal and most intriguing African-American Buddhist in America" by Library Journal, Williams is the Spiritual Director of the meditation-based newDharma Community and founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley, California and is also credited with developing fearlessMeditation, fearlessYoga and Warrior Spirit Training. As of October 2013, she is the world's 2nd female Zen teacher of African descent. Her given Buddhist name, Kyodo, means "Way of Teaching."

Hakuun Yasutani was a Sōtō rōshi, the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan organization of Japanese Zen.