Rev. Koshi Kuwahara
Rev. Koshi Kuwahara was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1934 as a son of a merchant, and led his youth in Tokyo in the most chaotic era; before and after World War II. After becoming a Zen monk, he attended Komazawa University to study Buddhism, and then volunteered for his first mission to Brazil in 1959. His duty began with traveling and serving the Japanese communities which were dispersed over the huge country, and he helped establish the missions in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1964, he came to the United States as a member of the Institute of Zen Buddhism in North America; its office was located at Zenshuji. While serving at Zenshuji, he attended local colleges and UCLA where he studied American cultures, English and translation of Buddhism materials. He then worked as a system analyst and manager in the business world for a while, and in 1999, he was assigned as residential minister of Zenshuji until his retirement in 2005. Currently he continues to serve Zenshuji by organizing and supporting a computer class, Japanese class, and Zen discussion class.
Rev. Wako Kato
Reverend Wako Kato, Ph.D., has served at Sokoji in San Francisco from 1952 to 1963 and at Zenshuji since 1963. He also holds the position of chief priest of Fuganji in Nara, Japan. Besides his priesthood, he held academic positions at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. After he moved to Los Angeles, he taught at California State University, Los Angeles, where he was granted Professor Emeritus. He was also a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Before this lecture series began, he was a Dean of International Studies at the Nagoya University of Foreign Studies in Japan for seven years and now, Professor Emeritus there. He has authored seven books and numerous articles in English and Japanese.
Rev. Shumyo Kojima 小島秀明開教師
Rev. Shumyo Kojima was born in Novemver, 1968, to Rev. And Mrs. Shuko Kojima in Imari, Saga prefecture, Kyushu, one month before the historic Apollo 8 Moon shot. The young future Rev. Kojima grew up with one older and one younger brother. Growing up as a priest’s son in their family temple, he naturally gravitated towards becoming a Buddhist priest himself. Upon graduating from Komazawa University where he studied Buddhist history and philosophy, he entered the Soto Institute for Buddhist Studies, education department, where he studied for three years. As a trainee from the institute he embarked to the U.S. to temporarily join the staff at Zenshuji Soto Mission in Los Angeles. He entered Eiheiji Monastery at the age of 25. In 1995, He returned to Zenshuji to become a full time minister where he has remained for over 15 years and is currently still assigned.
kojima@zenshuji.org
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The Ministers
General Director of the Soto Zen Administrative Office of North America, the abbot of Zenshuji.
Bishop Daigaku Rummé was born in Mason City, Iowa in 1950. He was ordained a Soto monk by Harada Sekkei Roshi in 1978. For more than twenty-seven years, he practiced under Harada Roshi at Hosshinji Monastery in Fukui, Japan. Since March 2003, he has been on the staff of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center located in San Francisco. He resides at the San Francisco Zen Center and is the translator of The Essence of Zen by Harada Roshi, which was republished by Wisdom Publications in 2008. On April 1, 2010, he was appointed as Director of the Soto Zen Buddhism North America Office.
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Rev. Gengo Akiba
Former Bishop of Soto Zen North America, the head minister of Zenshuji from 1997-2010.
Born in Kita-ku, Tokyo in 1943. After graduating from the Faculty of Letters of Komazawa University, he worked for an advertising company. In 1976, he entered Eiheiji Temple for monastic training for a period of seven years. Upon the completion of this training, he was put in charge of training monks at Eiheiji Tokyo Betsuin. He then served as abbot of Hosen’in Temple in Tokyo before coming to the United States, where he builds the Kojin’an Temple in Oakland, California. In 1997, he was appointed as the Bishop of Soto Zen in North America and in the following year, he was installed as the abbot of the headquarters in North America, Zenshuji Soto Mission in Los Angeles.
