Reb Anderson
Encyclopedia
Tenshin Zenki Reb Anderson (born 1943), is a Zen
teacher and lineage holder in the Sōtō
Zen tradition of Shunryu Suzuki
. He is a Senior Dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center
and at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center
in Marin County, California
, where he lives. According to author James Ishmael Ford
, "Reb Anderson is one of the most prominent of contemporary Western Zen teachers."
Reb Anderson was born as Harold Anderson in Mississippi
in 1943 and grew up in Minnesota
. His father left the family when Anderson was eleven. In his youth, he was a Golden Gloves
boxer
. Anderson developed an interest in Buddhism
while still in his teens. In 1967, he abandoned his graduate studies in psychology
and mathematics
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 天眞全機 (Naturally Real, the Whole Works). In 1983 Anderson received shiho
from Zentatsu Richard Baker
, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir. However, when Baker was forced to resign amid complaints about his affairs with female Zen Center members and his purchase of expensive luxury goods, Baker claimed Anderson never completed the entire transmission ceremony. The board of the San Francisco Zen Center disagreed, understanding Anderson to be Baker's Dharma heir (Baker has since agreed.) After Baker's resignation, Anderson replaced him as abbot.
In a controversial incident, while jogging in Golden Gate Park
in 1983, Anderson found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Anderson returned to the body over a period of several days to meditate over the corpse, on one visit taking the revolver. In 1985, Anderson was mugged
one block away from the San Francisco Zen Center. He retrieved the unloaded revolver and chased the perpetrator to a nearby tenement, where both were quickly arrested. The incident received local and national media coverage. The affair has at times impacted Anderson's reputation as a teacher.
The Zen Center Board of Directors sent him on a leave of absence
for six months. When he returned, he served as co-abbot with Mel Weitsman
from 1986-1995. Regarding this ordeal, Anderson has written of his remorse and insight garnered from the experience.
In October 1999 Anderson suffered a heart attack while conducting dokusan. He later underwent a successful emergency angioplasty
.http://www.cuke.com/sangha_news/sangha.html
, "...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." To some students, "...Reb's practice invites comparison to the legendary Japanese samurai, the warriors who trained in medieval Zen monasteries."
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. Furyu Nancy Schroeder received shiho 1999, as did Myo Denis Lahey, now head teacher of the Hartford Street Zen Center
, Issan-ji, in San Francisco. In 2000 Taigen Dan Leighton
received shiho. Leighton has since gone on to establish the Mountain Source Sangha http://www.mtsource.org/bios/taigenbio.html and after moving to Chicago, Ancient Dragon Zen Gate http://www.ancientdragon.org. In 2002 Meiya Wender received shiho. She now conducts japanese tea ceremony
classes at Green Gulch.http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=3,76,107&pageid=263 In 2003 Gaelyn Godwin became Tenshin Roshi's Dharma successor in the U.S. and became Houston Zen Center's Abiding Teacher. In 2005, she received the title of 'Kaikyoshi' from the Soto School of Japan
(as had Leighton previously). In 2005 Kiku Christina Lehnherr received shiho from Tenshin Roshi. Taiyo Lipscomb received shiho in 2009, and in 2010, Kōkyō Henkel received shiho. He is currently Head Teacher at Santa Cruz Zen Center.
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
teacher and lineage holder in the Sōtō
Soto
Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...
Zen tradition of Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
. He is a Senior Dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
and at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center
Green Gulch Farm Zen Center
Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, or Soryu-ji is a Soto Zen practice center located near Muir Beach, California that practices in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. In addition to its Zen training program, the center also manages an organic farm and gardens...
in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, where he lives. According to author James Ishmael Ford
James Ishmael Ford
James Ishmael Ford is an American Zen Buddhist priest and Unitarian Universalist minister. He was born in Oakland, California on July 17, 1948...
, "Reb Anderson is one of the most prominent of contemporary Western Zen teachers."
Biography
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
in 1943 and grew up in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. His father left the family when Anderson was eleven. In his youth, he was a Golden Gloves
Golden Gloves
The Golden Gloves is the name given to annual competitions for amateur boxing in the United States. The Golden Gloves is often the term used to refer to the National Golden Gloves competition, but it also can represent several other amateur tournaments, including regional golden gloves...
boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
. Anderson developed an interest in Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
while still in his teens. In 1967, he abandoned his graduate studies in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
to study Soto Zen under Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
at the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
.
Anderson was then ordained as a priest in 1970 by Suzuki, who gave Anderson the Buddhist name Tenshin Zenki 天眞全機 (Naturally Real, the Whole Works). In 1983 Anderson received shiho
Shiho
refers to a series of ceremonies in Sōtō Zen Buddhism wherein which a priest receives full transmission, inheriting the Dharma from his/her master and becoming empowered to transmit the precepts and lineage to others. A shiho ceremony can last anywhere from one to three weeks, with the final...
from Zentatsu Richard Baker
Zentatsu Richard Baker
Zentatsu Richard Baker , born Richard Dudley Baker, is an American Soto Zen master , the founder and guiding teacher of Dharma Sangha—which consists of Crestone Mountain Zen Center located in Crestone, Colorado and the Buddhistisches Studienzentrum in Germany's Black Forest...
, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir. However, when Baker was forced to resign amid complaints about his affairs with female Zen Center members and his purchase of expensive luxury goods, Baker claimed Anderson never completed the entire transmission ceremony. The board of the San Francisco Zen Center disagreed, understanding Anderson to be Baker's Dharma heir (Baker has since agreed.) After Baker's resignation, Anderson replaced him as abbot.
In a controversial incident, while jogging in Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
in 1983, Anderson found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Anderson returned to the body over a period of several days to meditate over the corpse, on one visit taking the revolver. In 1985, Anderson was mugged
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
one block away from the San Francisco Zen Center. He retrieved the unloaded revolver and chased the perpetrator to a nearby tenement, where both were quickly arrested. The incident received local and national media coverage. The affair has at times impacted Anderson's reputation as a teacher.
The Zen Center Board of Directors sent him on a leave of absence
Leave of absence
Leave of absence is a term used to describe a period of time that one is to be away from his/her primary job, while maintaining the status of employee...
for six months. When he returned, he served as co-abbot with Mel Weitsman
Mel Weitsman
Sojun Mel Weitsman , born Mel Weitsman, is the founder, abbot and guiding teacher of Berkeley Zen Center located in Berkeley, California. Weitsman is a Soto Zen roshi practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, having received Dharma transmission in 1984 from Suzuki's son Hoitsu...
from 1986-1995. Regarding this ordeal, Anderson has written of his remorse and insight garnered from the experience.
In October 1999 Anderson suffered a heart attack while conducting dokusan. He later underwent a successful emergency angioplasty
Angioplasty
Angioplasty is the technique of mechanically widening a narrowed or obstructed blood vessel, the latter typically being a result of atherosclerosis. An empty and collapsed balloon on a guide wire, known as a balloon catheter, is passed into the narrowed locations and then inflated to a fixed size...
.http://www.cuke.com/sangha_news/sangha.html
Teaching style
According to James Ishmael FordJames Ishmael Ford
James Ishmael Ford is an American Zen Buddhist priest and Unitarian Universalist minister. He was born in Oakland, California on July 17, 1948...
, "...Anderson Roshi is one of the first people to have worked hard to bring Dogen
Dogen
Dōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there...
studies West. He has also stretched much of Zen's traditional approach to psychology by drawing upon other ancient Buddhist sources, including Abhidharma
Abhidharma
Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
and Yogachara teaching, while at the same time being solidly informed regarding Western approaches to the discipline." To some students, "...Reb's practice invites comparison to the legendary Japanese samurai, the warriors who trained in medieval Zen monasteries."
Dharma heirs
Sobun Katherine Thanas received shihoShiho
refers to a series of ceremonies in Sōtō Zen Buddhism wherein which a priest receives full transmission, inheriting the Dharma from his/her master and becoming empowered to transmit the precepts and lineage to others. A shiho ceremony can last anywhere from one to three weeks, with the final...
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
The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The semi-fictional accounts in the novel are based upon events that occurred years after the events of On the Road...
. Anderson gave shiho
Shiho
refers to a series of ceremonies in Sōtō Zen Buddhism wherein which a priest receives full transmission, inheriting the Dharma from his/her master and becoming empowered to transmit the precepts and lineage to others. A shiho ceremony can last anywhere from one to three weeks, with the final...
to his student Jiko Linda Cutts
Jiko Linda Cutts
Jiko Linda Ruth 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...
in 1996, who went on to serve as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
from 2000 until 2007. Furyu Nancy Schroeder received shiho 1999, as did Myo Denis Lahey, now head teacher of the Hartford Street Zen Center
Hartford Street Zen Center
The Hartford Street Zen Center, temple name Issan-ji , is a Soto Zen practice-center located in the Castro district of San Francisco. Issan Dorsey brought the center from its early beginnings as The Gay Buddhist Club of 1980 to the modern-day Hartford Street Zen Center, becoming Abbot there in 1989...
, Issan-ji, in San Francisco. In 2000 Taigen Dan Leighton
Taigen Dan Leighton
Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and teacher, academic, and author. He is an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki, and is the founder and Guiding Teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago, Illinois.Leighton began his Zen practice in 1975 at the...
received shiho. Leighton has since gone on to establish the Mountain Source Sangha http://www.mtsource.org/bios/taigenbio.html and after moving to Chicago, Ancient Dragon Zen Gate http://www.ancientdragon.org. In 2002 Meiya Wender received shiho. She now conducts japanese tea ceremony
Japanese tea ceremony
The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called . The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called...
classes at Green Gulch.http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=3,76,107&pageid=263 In 2003 Gaelyn Godwin became Tenshin Roshi's Dharma successor in the U.S. and became Houston Zen Center's Abiding Teacher. In 2005, she received the title of 'Kaikyoshi' from the Soto School of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(as had Leighton previously). In 2005 Kiku Christina Lehnherr received shiho from Tenshin Roshi. Taiyo Lipscomb received shiho in 2009, and in 2010, Kōkyō Henkel received shiho. He is currently Head Teacher at Santa Cruz Zen Center.