Shōhaku Okumura (奥村 正博, born June 22, 1948) is a JapaneseSōtō 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.
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]
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 parts of Okumura's way of thinking, how his views affected his parenting and the results this had on Yoko and her brother Masaki,[9] with a strong focus on Masaki.
Teaching
Okumura attributes his desire to become a Buddhist to 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
Uchiyama, Kosho (2018), Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary, translated by Okumura, Shōhaku; Wright, Daitsu Tom, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, ISBN978-1614293026
Okumura, Shohaku (2012), Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, ISBN978-1-61429-010-0, OCLC760977623
Uchiyama, Kosho; Thomas Wright; Jishō Cary Warner; Shohaku Okumura (2004). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Boston: Wisdom Publications. ISBN978-0-86171-357-8. OCLC54670173.
Okumura, Shohaku, ed. (2003). Dogen Zen and its Relevance for Our Time: An International Symposium Held in Celebration of the 800th Anniversary of the Birth of Dogen Zenji, Stanford University , October 23–24, 1999. San Francisco, CA: Sōtō Zen Buddhism International Center.
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