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Taigen Dan Leighton
Taigen Dan Leighton (born 1950, grew up in Pittsburgh, PA) 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''). Biography Leighton's father was a medical school professor and cancer researcher, his mother a high school French teacher and librarian. Leighton began his Zen practice in 1975 at the New York Zen Center, training under Kando Nakajima rōshi. He studied at Columbia University, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies. Leighton worked as a television and film editor in New York City, and then San Francisco. In 1978, he moved to California and eventually became a resident at San Francisco Zen Center, where he worked at Tassajara Bakery and other of Zen Center's businesses. In subsequent years, Le ...
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United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ...
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San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. Today SFZC is the largest Sōtō organization in the West. History On May 23, 1959, Shunryu Suzuki (then age 55) came from Japan to San Francisco to serve as head priest of Sokoji—a Soto Zen temple then located at 1881 Bush Street in Japantown. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. Sokoji—founded by Hosen Isobe in 1934—had been housed in a former Jewish synagogue that is now Kokoro Assisted Living. Upon Suzuki's arrival at Sokoji, the congregation was composed entirely of members of the Japanese-American population. Unlike many of his predecessors, Suzuki was a fluent speaker of English. Suzuki's arrival cam ...
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University Of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in 59 major programs. In addition to its main campus in the Golden Gate area, it has satellite campuses in downtown San Francisco, Orange County, California, Orange County, Sacramento, California, Sacramento, San Jose, California, San Jose, and Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa. History Founded by the Jesuits in 1855 as St. Ignatius Academy, USF started as a one-room schoolhouse along Market Street (San Francisco), Market Street in what later became downtown San Francisco. Father Anthony Maraschi was the college's founder and first president, a professor, the college's treasurer, and the first pastor of St. Ignatius Church. Under Maraschi, St. Ignatius Academy received its charter to issue college degrees on April 30, 1859, from the Stat ...
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Ōtani University
is a private Buddhism, Buddhist university in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. Ōtani University is a coeducation institution with an emphasis on Buddhist studies. A two-year private junior college is associated with the university. The university is associated with the Ōtani-ha, Ōtani School of Jōdo Shinshū, or Shin, school of Buddhism. History Ōtani University traces its origin to the early Edo period (1603 – 1868). It was founded in 1655, and served as the seminary of Higashi Hongan-ji. The ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Ieyasu founded Higashi Hongan-ji in 1602 by splitting it from Nishi Hongan-ji to diminish the power of Buddhism's Shin Buddhism, Shin sect. The seminary was strengthened and revived in 1755, and developed a broader curriculum throughout the 19th century. The modern university was founded in 1901 as Shinshū University in Tokyo's Sugamo neighborhood. Shinshū University was closely associated with Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903), a Shin Buddhist reformer from a low-ranki ...
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Kansai University
, abbreviated as or , is a Private school, private non-sectarian and coeducational university with its main campus in Suita, Osaka, Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Osaka, Japan and two sub-campuses in Sakai, Osaka, Sakai and Takatsuki, Osaka. Founded as Kansai Law School in 1886, It has been recognized as one of the four leading private universities in western Japan: , along with Kwansei Gakuin University, Doshisha University, and Ritsumeikan University. The athletic teams at Kansai University are known as the Kaisers and are primarily members of the Kansai Big 6. The Kansai–Kwansei Gakuin rivalry is a college rivalry between two universities located in Kansai, Japan. History Early history of Kansai University Origins The academic traditions of the university reach back to the Hakuensyoin (:ja:泊園書院, 泊園書院), a Edo-period, Tokugawa shogunate (徳川幕府; 1603–1867) school for local citizens founded by Tōgai Fujisawa (:ja:藤沢東畡, 藤沢東畡) in 1825. Kansa ...
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Engaged Buddhism
Engaged Buddhism, also known as socially engaged Buddhism, refers to a Buddhist social movement that emerged in Asia in the 20th century. It is composed of Buddhists who seek to apply Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation practice, and the teachings of the Buddhist dharma to contemporary situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering, and injustice. Modern engaged Buddhism emerged in Vietnam in the 1950s, from the teachings of Thiền Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh. It was popularised by the Indian jurist, politician, and social reformer B. R. Ambedkar, who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement in the 1950s. It has since spread to the Indian subcontinent and the West. During the 1960s, the terms "engaged Buddhism" and "socially engaged Buddhism" were taken up by loosely-connected networks of Buddhists in Asia and the West to describe their adaptation of Buddhist values and ethical conduct to social and political activism. This incl ...
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Shihō
refers to a series of ceremonies in Sōtō Zen Buddhism wherein a '' unsui'' receives Dharma transmission, becoming part of the dharma lineage of his or her teacher. Ceremony ''Shiho'' is done "one-to-one in the abbot's quarters (''hojo'')". ''Shiho'', or ''denpo'', is the Dharma transmission ceremony where the student inherits the Dharma, and is empowered to transmit the lineage. In the ''denpo'' ceremony, the student becomes an ancestor of the tradition and receives a robe and bowl, among other objects. During the denpo ceremony the student receives a Shoshike certificate, which grants the power to perform Jukai, and the documents known as the "three regalia of transmission": The Sōtō-shu also confers inka shōmyō (or ''inshō'') " rantingthe seal of approval to a realization of enlightenment", upon students. This is an In the White Plum Asanga, a shiho ceremony can last anywhere from one to three weeks. Prior to dharma transmission, transmission of the precepts f ...
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San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of 2024, San Francisco is the List of California cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population, 17th-most populous in the United States. San Francisco has a land area of at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the County statistics of the United States, fifth-most densely populated U.S. county. Among U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. San Francisco anchors the Metropolitan statistical area#United States, 13th-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Francisco Bay Area ...
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San Rafael, California
San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city in and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 61,271, up from 57,713 in 2010. San Rafael was founded by the Spanish in 1817, when Vicente Francisco de Sarría established Mission San Rafael Arcángel, initially as an Asistencias, ''asistencia'' (sub-mission). San Rafael Arcángel was upgraded to full Spanish missions in California, mission status in 1822, a month before Alta California declared independence from Spain as part of First Mexican Empire, Mexico. Following the American Conquest of California, the community of San Rafael incorporated as a city in 1874. History San Rafael was once the site of several Coast Miwok villages: ''Awani-wi'', near downtown San Rafael, ''Ewu'' ...
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Bolinas, California
Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,483. It is located on the California coast, approximately (straight line distance) northwest of San Francisco, and by road. History Prior to the European colonization of California, the Coast Miwok lived in the area, possibly calling the area "Bali-N". Bolinas and present-day Stinson Beach were once encompassed by Rancho Las Baulines, a Mexican land grant given by Governor Pío Pico to Gregorio Briones in 1846. The first post office in the town of Bolinas opened in 1863. The post office closed on March 3, 2023, leaving the town more isolated. The town's residents have petitioned for it to reopen. In 1927, a former dairy farm on the Big Mesa was subdivided into a grid of streets and 5,336 lots measuring . Many of these lots were sold for $69.50 by the San Francisco Bulletin as a subscription promotio ...
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Shōhaku Okumura
Shōhaku Okumura (, born June 22, 1948) is a Japanese Sōtō Zen priest and the founder and abbot of the Sanshin Zen Community located in Bloomington, Indiana, 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, 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. Following Uchiyama's wishes, Okumura traveled to the United States where he co-founded Valley Zendo in Massachusetts and continued Uchiyama's style of zazen practice there until 1981. In that year, he returned to Japan and began translating the writings of Uchiyama and Eihei Dōgen from Japane ...
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Dōgen
was a Japanese people, Japanese Zen Buddhism, Buddhist Bhikkhu, monk, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He is also known as Dōgen Kigen (), Eihei Dōgen (), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (), and Busshō Dentō Kokushi (). Originally ordained as a monk in the Tendai, Tendai School in Kyoto, he was ultimately dissatisfied with its teaching and traveled to China#Imperial China, China to seek out what he believed to be a more authentic Buddhism. He remained there for four years, finally training under Tiantong Rujing, Tiāntóng Rújìng, an eminent teacher of the Caodong, Cáodòng lineage of Chan Buddhism, Chinese Chan. Upon his return to Japan, he began promoting the practice of zazen (sitting meditation) through literary works such as ''Fukan zazengi, Fukanzazengi'' and ''Bendōwa''. He eventually broke relations completely with the powerful Tendai School, and, after several years of likely friction between himself and the establishment, left ...
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