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| Reb Anderson Tenshin Roshi (1943 - ) |
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 Reb Anderson is the former Roshi of all three of San Francisco's Zen Centers, the City Center, Green Gulch Farm, and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Even though he is retired, he still teaches at the Green Gulch Farm. He gained a lot of local notoriety when he found himself in the middle of a crime investigation when he stumbled upon a dead body. Instead of informing authorities of what he found, he ended up frequently visiting the body to meditate over it. Though he was cleared of any crimes, he sustained a public relations hit. He was given a six-month suspension and when he returned was only named co-abbot. In addition, he also suffered a heart attack. But, Reb Anderson has continued to learn and better himself from these ordeals. He is still a highly respected teacher. [1] |
Date of Birth: 02 Jan, 1943
Location: United States
State: California
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Views: 142
Summary
Reb Anderson, born Harold Anderson, was born in 1943 in Mississippi and grew up in Minnesota. In 1967, Reb was studying Western psychology and mathematics, when he decided to give up school and learn the art of Zen Buddhism. He went to go study at the Zen Center under Suzuki Roshi in California. He became ordained in 1970 and was given the name Tenshin Zenki, which means "naturally real and the whole works." In 1983, he received his dharma transmission. In 1983, an incident occurred that would affect Anderson's life for the next several years. While jogging through Golden Gate Park one day, Anderson had deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over a period of several days to meditate over the corpse. On one such visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Upon his final visit, he found that the body was no longer there, and a fellow priest whom he had confided in showed him a newspaper article covering the apparent suicide. Five years later (in 1988), roughly fifteen months after Anderson had become abbot of the San Francisco, Anderson was arrested for brandishing this same firearm in public. He reports that he had been mugged at knife-point by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. He then drove after the alleged mugger and followed him into a housing project with the revolver (unloaded) in hand, being arrested minutes later by a police officer with his own gun pointed at him. [2] In 1986, he became the abbot of San Francisco Zen Center's three training centers: City Center, Green Gulch Farm, and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. He held this position for 9 years. Anderson still teaches at the Zen Center and still lives in San Francisco. He is also a successful author.
References:
1. Zen Master Who? James Ishmael Ford ISBN-10: 0861715098
2. Zen Master Who? James Ishmael Ford ISBN-10: 0861715098
Related Links:
www.rebanderson.org/bio.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tenshin_reb_anderson
www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=3,76,107&pageid=96
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