Shōhaku Okumura

Shōhaku Okumura
Shohaku3.jpg
Shōhaku Okumura in 2006
TitlePriest
Personal
Born (1948-06-22) June 22, 1948 (age 71)
ReligionZen Buddhism
NationalityJapanese
SpouseYūko Okumura
ChildrenYōko and Masaki
SchoolSōtō
EducationKomazawa University
Senior posting
Based inSanshin Zen Community
PredecessorKosho Uchiyama
SuccessorHōkō Karnegis

Shōhaku Okumura (奥村 正博, b. 22 June 1948) is a Japanese Sōtō Zen priest and the founder and abbot of the Sanshin Zen Community located in Bloomington, Indiana,[1] where he and his family currently live. From 1997 until 2010, Okumura also served as Director of the Sōtō Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco, California, which is an administrative office of the Sōtō school of Japan.

Biography

Shōhaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1948. He received his education at Komazawa University in Tokyo, Japan,[2] where he studied Zen Buddhism. On December 8, 1970, Okumura was ordained at Antaiji by his teacher Kōshō Uchiyama, where he practiced until Uchiyama retired in 1975.[3]

Following Uchiyama's wishes,[2] Okumura traveled to the United States where he co-founded Valley Zendo in Massachusetts[4] and continued Uchiyama's style of zazen practice there until 1981.[4] In that year, he returned to Japan and began translating the writings of Uchiyama and Eihei Dōgen from Japanese into English. He spent some time teaching at Kyoto Sōtō Zen Center.[5]

After returning to the United States, Okumura was a teacher at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1993[1] to 1996[6] and then founded the Sanshin Zen Community in 1996.[7]

Okumura's daughter, Yoko Okumura, made a short documentary film entitled Sit described as "a film about purpose in life, seen through the eyes of a Buddhist monk and his son."[8] The film explores how Okumura's Buddhism affected his parenting and the results it had on Yojo and her brother Masaki.[9]

Teaching

Okumura attributes his desire to become a Buddhist the discovery of a book while he was in high school called Self (自己, jiko) by Kōshō Uchiyama, who would become his teacher not long after. After Okumura became a teacher in his own right, his message remained much the same as Uchiyama's and is centered around the practice of zazen, largely to the exclusion of other rituals associated with the tradition. Okumura also focuses on the translation of the works of Eihei Dōgen and associated texts into English, as well as aiding his students in the study of such writings. His practice of zazen is built on what Uchiyama called "sesshin without toys.” These sesshins of three, five, or seven days are completely silent and consist of fourteen hours of zazen each day, punctuated only by meals and sleep in the evening. There are no services, chants, or work periods. These alternate with "genzō-e retreats", which are five days of intensive study of one or more fascicles of Dōgen's collection of writings called the Shōbōgenzō. He has published several translations of material previously unavailable in English such as Dōgen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community and Eihei Kōroku, both with Taigen Dan Leighton.[2]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Okumura, Shohaku (Fall 2005). "Kokoro". Buddhadharma: the Practitioner's Quarterly. Archived from the original on February 6, 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  2. ^ a b c Haederle, Michael (12 November 2013), "Profile: Sanshin Zen Community", Lion's Roar, retrieved 2018-05-08
  3. ^ Uchiyama, Kosho; Thomas Wright; Jishō Cary Warner; Shohaku Okumura (2004). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Wisdom Publications. pp. xvii–xxi. ISBN 978-0-86171-357-8.
  4. ^ a b Okumura, Shohaku (2012). Living By Vow. Wisdom Publications. pp. 182–183. ISBN 9781614290100.
  5. ^ "Shohaku Okumura Roshi". Upaya Institute and Zen Center. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  6. ^ Okumura, Shohaku (2012). Living By Vow. Wisdom Publications. pp. ix. ISBN 9781614290100.
  7. ^ "About Sanshin Zen Community". Sanshin Zen Community. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  8. ^ "Watch the beautiful short film, SIT — plus a bonus clip". Lion's Roar. September 23, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  9. ^ Buder, Emily (April 25, 2019). "A Monk's Son Struggles to Find Meaning". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 24, 2019.

External links


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