Shohaku Okumura

Shohaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1948. He studied Zen Buddhism at Komazawa University in Tokyo and was ordained by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi in 1970. They practiced together until 1975, when Rev. Okumura came to the United States. After practicing at the Pioneer Valley Zendo in Massachusetts until 1981, he returned to Japan, where he began translating Dogen Zenji's and Uchiyama Roshi's writings into English. Rev. Okumura was a teacher at the Kyoto Soto Zen Center and later at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has led sesshins and dharma study groups around the United States. In 1997 he was designated the director of the Soto Zen Education Center in Los Angeles, an office of the Administrative Headquarters of the Soto Zen School of Japan. The office has since changed its name and the location; today it is in San Francisco and is called Soto Zen Buddhism International Center, but Rev. Okumura is still its director, though he lives and practices at Sanshinji in Bloomington, IN. He is married and has two teenage children.

Rev. Okumura has translated many books, including Opening the Hand of Thought by Uchiyama Roshi as well as Dogen's Extensive Record with Taigen Dan Leighton. Click here for a complete list of his publications.

Our Ancestors and Lineage

Kosho Uchiyama Roshi , Shohaku Okumura's teacher, is one of the most highly respected modern Japanese Zen Masters. In 1912, he was born in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Master's Degree in Western philosophy from Waseda University in 1937 and was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 1941 under Kodo Sawaki Roshi. Upon Sawaki Roshi's death in 1965, Uchiyama Roshi became the abbot of Antaiji, a monastery and temple then located in Kyoto, Japan. In 1975, he retired from Antaiji and lived with his wife at Noke-in, a small temple outside Kyoto until his death on March 13, 1998.

Kodo Sawaki Roshi has been described as, "like an ancient Zen master: fearless and unconventional", by his disciple Uchiyama Roshi. By age 7, both his parents had died, an uncle who adopted him had also died and he was adopted by a professional gambler. At age 16, he went to Eiheiji aspiring to become a monk. The next year he was ordained by Koho Sawada, abbot of Soshinji, and given the name, "Kodo". In 1923, he began travelling around Japan giving lectures and leading sesshins (retreats). He became a professor of Zen literature at Komazawa University in 1935 and taught there until 1963. He established Antaiji Shichikurin Sanzen Dojo in 1949 and died there in 1965.