Property:Bio
From Tsadra Commons
This is a property of type Text.
S
Chinese Chan master and reputed main disciple of the sixth patriarch Huineng; his collateral branch of Huineng’s lineage is sometimes referred to as the Heze school. Shenhui was a native of Xiangyang in present-day Hubei province. He became a monk under the master Haoyuan (d.u.) of the monastery of Kuochangsi in his hometown of Xiangyang. In 704, Shenhui received the full monastic precepts in Chang'an, and extant sources provide differing stories of Shenhui's whereabouts thereafter. He is said to have become a student of Shenxiu and later visited Mt. Caoxi where he studied under Huineng until the master's death in 713. After several years of traveling, Shenhui settled down in 720 at the monastery of Longxingsi in Nanyang (present-day Henan province). In 732, during an "unrestricted assembly" (wuzhe dahui) held at the monastery Dayunsi in Huatai, Shenhui engaged a monk by the name of Chongyuan (d.u.) and publicly criticized the so-called Bei zong (Northern school) of Shenxiu’s disciples Puji and Xiangmo Zang as being a mere collateral branch of Bodhidharma's lineage that upheld a gradualist soteriological teaching. Shenhui also argued that his teacher Huineng had received the orthodox transmission of Bodhidharma's lineage and his "sudden teaching" (dunjiao). In 745, Shenhui is said to have moved to the monastery of Hezesi in Luoyang, whence he acquired his toponym. He was cast out of Luoyang by a powerful Northern school follower in 753. Obeying an imperial edict, Shenhui relocated to the monastery of Kaiyuansi in Jingzhou (present-day Hubei province) and assisted the government financially by performing mass ordinations after the economic havoc wrought by the An Lushan rebellion in 755. He was later given the posthumous title Great Master Zhenzong (Authentic Tradition). Shenhui also plays a minor, yet important, role in the ''Liuzu tan jing'' ("Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch"). A treatise entitled the ''Xianzongji'', preserved as part of the ''Jingde chuandeng lu'', is attributed to Shenhui. Several other treatises attributed to Shenhui were also discovered at Dunhuang. Shenhui's approach to Chan practice was extremely influential in Guifeng Zongmi's attempts to reconcile different strands of Chan, and even doctrine, later in the Tang dynasty; through Zongmi, Shenhui's teachings also became a critical component of the Korean Sǒn master Pojo Chinul’s accounts of Chan soteriology and meditation. (Source: "Heze Shenhui." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 349. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Lama Shenpen Hookham is the founding Lama of the [https://buddhawithin.org.uk/about/ Awakened Heart Sangha] and principle teacher of the [https://ahs.org.uk/training Living the Awakened Heart training].
Lama Shenpen has trained for over 50 years in the Mahamudra & Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
She has spent over 12 years in retreat and has been a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, one of the foremost living masters of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, since the late 70s.
Lama Shenpen is fluent in Tibetan and has translated a number of Tibetan texts into English for her students. On Khenpo Rinpoche’s instructions she produced a seminal study of the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, published as ''The Buddha Within'', and gained a doctorate in this from Oxford University. She is also the author of ''[https://www.windhorsepublications.com/product/theres-more-to-dying-than-death/ There’s More to Dying than Death]'', ''[https://buddhawithin.org.uk/autobiography/ Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting and Other Stories]'', and ''[https://www.shambhala.com/the-guru-principle.html The Guru Principle]''.([https://ahs.org.uk/lama-shenpen Source Accessed July 21, 2020]) +
Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Michael Kohn) passed away on January 21, 2020.
Sherab did his dissertation at the Sorbonne, after which he jumped into publishing as a copyeditor for U Penn, then a senior editor at Encyclopedia Britannica on religion and philosophy. He became a student of Trungpa Rinpoche, later becoming his personal representative in Europe. He edited nine of his books and teachings including Mudra, Dawn of Tantra, Orderly Chaos, Crazy Wisdom, Lion's Roar, Illusion's Game, The Path is the Goal, Political Treatise, and Work, Sex, Money.
Sherab authored our Awakened One (now published as A Life of the Buddha) and co-edited Entering the Stream (now published as The Buddha and His Teachings). And he is the author of our forthcoming Bala Kids book on Padmasambhava.
He also translated many books for us from German, and French: Anytime Yoga, Siddhartha, Singapore Dreams, Samurai Wisdom Stories, Inner Art of Karate, Natural Laws of Children, True Love, You Are Here, Miyamoto Musashi, Rilke’s Stories of God, The Prince and the Zombie, A Pleas for the Animals, Archetypal Dimensions of the psych, Meditation for Kids, Francoise Cheng’s Empty and Full, A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, The Compassionate Brain, The Very Lowly (originally published as The Secret of Francis of Assisi), and Ayya Khema’s Give You My Life. And that is just for us – he did occasional work for others too. (Source: [https://www.shambhala.com/passing-of-sherab-chodzin-kohn/ Shambhala Publications])
Michael Kohn's library was [[:Category: Michael Kohn Donation 2020|donated to Tsadra Foundation after his passing]]. +
Shinge-shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat (born 1943) is the current abbot of the Zen Studies Society, based at the International Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji monastery, outside Livingston Manor, NY, and at the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji on the upper east side of Manhattan. She is also the abbot of the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji. Chayat is an advocate for the use of meditation in medical settings, with Hoen-ji running the program ''Well/Being Contemplative Practices for Healing'' for healthcare professionals. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Chayat Source Accessed Nov 15, 2019]) +
Born in Singapore, Shi Zhiru is an ordained Chinese Buddhist nun in the lineage of the great scholar-monk Master Yinshun. Shi Zhiru received her M.A. degree from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Arizona. She is currently professor of Religous Studies at Pomona College in Southern California. She is the author of ''The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva: Dizang in Medieval China'', Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism no. 21 (2007), and has also published on modern Chinese Buddhism and Taiwanese Buddhism. She is currently working on two research directions: Buddhist women and architecture in contemporary Taiwan, and Buddhism in tenth-century Hangzhou. A scholar-practitioner, she was named one of the Outstanding Women in Buddhism in Bangkok 2010. ([https://buddhism.arts.ubc.ca/shizhiru/ Source Accessed June 20, 2023]) +
Cheng Yen or Shih Cheng Yen (Chinese: 證嚴法師, 釋證嚴; pinyin: Zhèngyán Fǎshī; born Chin-Yun Wong; 14 May 1937) is a Taiwanese Buddhist nun (bhikkhuni), teacher, and philanthropist. She is the founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, ordinarily referred to as Tzu Chi, a Buddhist humanitarian organization based in Taiwan. In the West, she is sometimes referred to as the "Mother Teresa of Asia".
Cheng Yen was born in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. She developed an interest in Buddhism as a young adult, ordaining as a Buddhist nun in 1963 under the well known proponent of humanistic Buddhism, master Yin Shun. After an encounter with a poor woman who had a miscarriage, and a conversation with Roman Catholic nuns who talked about the various charity work of the Catholic Church, Cheng Yen founded the Tzu Chi Foundation in 1966 as a Buddhist humanitarian organization. The organization began as a group of thirty housewives who saved money for needy families. Tzu Chi gradually grew in popularity and expanded its services over time to include medical, environmental, and disaster relief work, eventually becoming one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world, and the largest Buddhist organization in Taiwan.
Cheng Yen is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the development of modern Taiwanese Buddhism. In Taiwan, she is popularly referred to and is the last surviving of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Taiwanese Buddhism, along with her contemporaries Sheng-yen of Dharma Drum Mountain, Hsing Yun of Fo Guang Shan and Wei Chueh of Chung Tai Shan. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Yen Source Accessed Aug 8, 2023]) +
Buddhist Research Institute, Taisho University +
Shinjō Suguro (1925–2012) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and author. He is best known for his work ''Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra'' (Jain Publishing 1998), which was published to help make this central Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture more accessible to beginning students of Buddhism. His other works include ''Studies on Early Vijñaptimātra Philosophy'', which presents a reexamination of early Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy (Shinjū-sha 1989). +
Shinran (1173–1263) lived during the late-Heian early-Kamakura period (1185–1333), a time of turmoil for Japan when the emperor was stripped of political power by the shōguns. Shinran's family had a high rank at the Imperial court in Kyoto, but given the times, many aristocratic families were sending sons off to be Buddhist monks instead of having them participate in the Imperial government. When Shinran was nine (1181), he was sent by his uncle to Mount Hiei, where he was ordained as a śrāmaṇera in the Tendai sect. Over time, Shinran became disillusioned with how Buddhism was practiced, foreseeing a decline in the potency and practicality of the teachings espoused.
Shinran left his role as a dosō ("practice-hall monk") at Mount Hiei and undertook a 100-day retreat at Rokkaku-dō in Kyoto, where he had a dream on the 95th day. In this dream, Prince Shōtoku appeared to him, espousing a pathway to enlightenment through verse. Following the retreat, in 1201, Shinran left Mount Hiei to study under Hōnen for the next six years. Hōnen (1133–1212) another ex-Tendai monk, left the tradition in 1175 to found his own sect, the Jōdo-shū or "Pure Land School". From that time on, Shinran considered himself, even after exile, a devout disciple of Hōnen rather than a founder establishing his own, distinct Pure Land school. ([https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Jodo_Shinshu Source Accessed October 16, 2019]) +
Shinsui (Mamiko) Okada, a professor emerita at the University of Hyogo, earned a Dr.Phil. at the University of Bonn, Germany. She is an ordained Nichiren-shū priest and a member of the Science Council of Japan. She was also one of the organizers of the Japan Religion Coordinating Project for Disaster Relief, which was organized after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. ([https://rk-world.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DW18_7-12.pdf Source Accessed Sep 17, 2021]) +
Shintarō Arakawa (荒川 慎太郎, Arakawa Shintarō, born May 1971) is a Japanese linguist who specializes in the study of the extinct Tangut language.
Arakawa graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University in 1995. He stayed on for graduate studies at Kyoto University, from where he received his doctorate in 2002. Since 2003 he has been teaching at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, with the position of associate professor since 2007.
Arakawa specializes in the study of the Tangut language, in particular Tangut phonology and the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Tangut characters. In 2006 he co-edited a Tangut-Russian-English-Chinese dictionary with Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov, for which he provided the reconstructed Tangut readings. He has also published a number of studies of bilingual Tangut-Tibetan texts.
In 2016 Arakawa received the prestigious Kyōsuke Kindaichi Memorial Award (金田一京助博士記念賞) for his study of the Tangut version of the ''Diamond Sutra''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintar%C5%8D_Arakawa Source Accessed April 15, 2025]) +
Shinya Moriyama 護山真也 is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Shinshu University in Japan. His main research interests lie in the Buddhist epistemology of Dharmakīrti and his followers. He has recently published a book entitled ''Omniscience and Religious Authority: A Study on Prajñākaragupta’s'' Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya ''ad'' Pramāṇavārttika ''II 8-10 and 29-33'' (2014). ([https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/4-publikationen/hamburg-buddhist-studies/hamburgup-hbs03-authors-linradich-mirror.pdf Source Accessed June 29, 2020]) +
Dr. Henry Shiu is the Shi Wu De Professor in Chinese Buddhist Studies at Emmanuel College on Toronto, Canada. Dr. Shiu holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2006). He is currently a Sessional Lecturer in the Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health Program at New College; and Emmanuel College. Dr. Shiu’s teaching of Buddhist Contemplative Care represents a development of the principles of Engaged Buddhism. He brings expertise in the foundational areas that contribute to the Buddhist focus within Emmanuel’s Master of Pastoral Studies Program, including the foundational tenets and practices of Buddhism, Buddhist ethics, and Buddhist meditative traditions. As the coordinator of the Applied Buddhist Studies Initiative at Emmanuel College, he facilitated connections with the local and international Buddhist communities. His published research focuses on early Mahayana Buddhism and the transmission of Buddhism to China. He has recently completed articles about Buddhist women in the Chinese diaspora and about the construction of Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Canada. He is also the author of numerous scholarly works in Chinese, including his forthcoming book with Oxford University Press, ''The Cultural Interpretation of the Heart Sutra in India, China, and Tibet''. ([https://emmanuel.utoronto.ca/home/henry-shui/ Source Accessed June 1, 2020]) +
Shiv Nath Sharma was a scholar who assisted in the translation and study of Buddhist texts, particularly the Gilgit Manuscripts. He worked alongside other scholars such as D. M. Bhattacharya and Nalinaksha Dutt in the analysis and publication of these important Buddhist texts. Sharma held the title of Vidyavaridhi, indicating his high level of scholarly achievement. His contributions were significant in making ancient Buddhist texts more accessible to modern scholars and practitioners. +
Sheng'an Shixian was a Chinese Buddhist monk born in 1686 in Changshu, Jiangsu province. He came from a Confucian family background, which was common for many educated individuals during the Qing dynasty period. Shixian later became known as a Buddhist master, with the honorific title "Shengan fashi" (Dharma Master Shengan) attached to his name.
He lived during a time of significant cultural and intellectual developments in China. The late 17th and early 18th centuries saw a revival of Confucian classicism alongside continued Buddhist influence, creating a complex religious and philosophical landscape.
Shixian's transition from a Confucian family background to becoming a Buddhist monk reflects a pattern seen in other notable figures of the time, such as Peng Shaosheng, who was a Confucian literatus turned Buddhist layman. This suggests that Shixian may have been part of a broader trend of intellectual and spiritual exploration during this period in Chinese history. (Generated by Perplexity Jan 15, 2025) +
Dr. Shizuka Sasaki is a Professor of Indian Buddhism at Hanazono University. His research focuses on Indian Buddhist monasticisms, history of Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhist philosophy, and the relationship between Buddhism and science. A recognized authority in these areas, Sasaki’s publications include a celebrated series of eight articles "Buddhist Sects in the Asoka Period" (1989-1999) and "A Study of the Origin of Mahayana Buddhism" (1997). ([https://frogbear.org/panelists-buddhism-and-business/ Source Accessed May 20, 2020]) +
Shogo Watanabe is Professor in the Department of Eastern Philosophy and Culture, Faculty of Letters, at Toyo University in Japan. His Research interests include Indian Buddhism, early Mahayana Buddhism, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, and Mahayana Buddhism. ([http://www.toyo.ac.jp/nyushi/en/column-en/video-lecture-en/20171220_05.html Source Accessed Aug 18, 2021]) +
Shohaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1948. He is an ordained priest and Dharma successor of Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi in the lineage of Kōdō Sawaki Roshi. He is a graduate of Komazawa University and has practiced at Antaiji with Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi, Zuioji with Narasaki Ikkō Roshi in Japan, and Pioneer Valley Zendo in Massachusetts. He taught at Kyoto Sōtō Zen Center in Japan and Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis. He was the director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center (previously called Soto Zen Education Center) in San Francisco from 1997 to 2010.
His previously published books of translation include ''Dōgen’s Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Kōroku''; ''Shikantaza: An Introduction to Zazen''; ''Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dōgen Zenji''; ''Heart of Zen: Practice without Gaining-mind'' (previously titled ''Dōgen Zen''); ''Zen Teachings of "Homeless" Kōdō''; ''Opening the Hand of Thought''; ''The Whole Hearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendōwa with Commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi''; and ''Dōgen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of Eihei Shingi''. Okumura is also the editor of ''Dōgen Zen and Its Relevance for Our Time''; ''Soto Zen: An Introduction to Zazen''; and ''Nothing is Hidden: Essays on Zen Master Dōgen’s Instructions for the Cook''.
He is the founding teacher of the Sanshin Zen Community, based in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives with his family. (''Realizing Genjokoan'', about the author) +
Shu-hui Jennifer Chen completed her doctorate in Buddhist studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998. According to her dissertation, her major advisor was Professor Gudrun Biihnemann. She also worked closely with Professor Minoru Kiyota, who introduced her to the topic of tathāgatagarbha. In addition, she also worked with Professor Tsai-fa Cheng, Professor Geshe Sopa, and Professor Muhammad Memon. +
Dr Shubhada Joshi has done her PHD in 'Lokyata' a Critical Study with Specialization in Indian Philosophy, Ethics, Metaethics, Saint Philosophy and Bhakti, Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Philosophy, Philosophy of 19th century, Maharashtra. Being in the teaching profession spanning 37 years, she was the Head, Department of Philosophy, 1991-2005 and 2008-2014 University of Mumbai. She was instrumental in introducing 10 Certificate and Diploma courses started in the Department of Philosophy, to introduce various Philosophical traditions to people from all walks of life from 1996 onwards. ([https://in.bookmyshow.com/person/dr-shubhada-joshi/1080441 Source Accessed Jan 28, 2021]) +
