Hozan Alan Senauke (born 1947) is a

Soto Zen Soto may refer to: Geography *Soto (Aller), parish in Asturias, Spain * Soto (Las Regueras), parish in Asturias, Spain * Soto, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles *Soto, Russia, a rural locality (a ''selo'') in Megino-Kangalassky District of the Sakha ...

priest,

folk musician Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...

Buddenbaum, 398–399 and poet residing at the Berkeley Zen Center (BZC) in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, where he currently serves as Abbot. He is a former Executive Director of the

Buddhist Peace Fellowship The Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) is a nonsectarian international network of engaged Buddhists participating in various forms of non-violent social activism and environmentalism. The non-profit BPF is an affiliate of the international Fellowship ...

(BPF), holding that position from 1991 to 2001. Alan also was a founder of Think Sangha, a group of writers and intellectuals that are affiliated with the BPF and the

International Network of Engaged Buddhists The International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) is an organization that connects engaged Buddhists from around the world with the aim of addressing with environmental concerns, human rights, and conflict resolution. It was established in Febru ...

. Think Sangha is a group of individuals who meet together to identify some of the most pressing social issues that they feel engaged Buddhists should be addressin

Senauke, who was born to a secular Jewish family in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, arrived in the

San Francisco Bay area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

in 1968 and soon started sitting at the Berkeley Zen Center. Along with his Dharma sister Maylie Scott, Senauke received

Dharma transmission In Chan Buddhism, Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken Lineage (Buddhism), lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretica ...

from his teacher

Sojun Mel Weitsman Hakuryu Sojun Mel Weitsman (July 20, 1929 – January 7, 2021), born Mel Weitsman, was an American Buddhist who was the founder, abbot and guiding teacher of Berkeley Zen Center located in Berkeley, California. Weitsman was a Soto Zen Rōshi, r ...

in 1998 during a ceremony at

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center is the oldest Buddhism in Japan, Japanese Buddhist Sōtō Zen monastery in the United States. It is on the border of the Ventana Wilderness and within the Los Padres National Forest, southeast of Carmel-by-the-S ...

Biography

Alan Senauke was born in 1947 to a secular Jewish family in

, New York. While attending

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, Senauke participated in the Columbia University strike of April 1968. That same year he left for California, arriving in the

where he began sitting

zazen ''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technicall ...

at the Berkeley Zen Center. He became Executive Director of the

in 1991, a position in which he served until 2001 (though he remains active in the organization

Though he was a peace and

civil rights activist Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

of the 1960s and 1970s, by the 1980s Senauke had more or less allowed his activism to become an exercise in intellectualism. His becoming director of BPF, as well as the emergence of the

Persian Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

, allowed Alan's activist tendencies and

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

practice to merge. Together, he and his colleague Tova Green brought BPF to the forefront of American

engaged Buddhism Engaged Buddhism, also known as socially engaged Buddhism, refers to a Buddhist social movement that emerged in Asia in the 20th century, composed of Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation ...

.Queen, 77 Along with Green, Senauke helped the BPF "become a place in US society, and in the world, where the sources of violence could be contemplated. The debate on the Gulf War was vital to this development."O'Grady, 399 During the late 1990s Alan also was a founder of Think Sangha, a group of writers and intellectuals that are affiliated with the BPF and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists

In 1998 Alan received shiho (or, Dharma transmission) from his teacher

along with Maylie Scott at

. Alan is a past board member of

Nevada Desert Experience Nevada Desert Experience is a name for the movement to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing that came into use in the middle 1980s. It is also the name of an anti-nuclear organization which continues to create public events to question the morality ...

, an organization which holds various retreats, protests and conferences on the subject of

nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...

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He is also the founder of the Clear View Project, which focuses on social change and relief efforts in Asia, most recently in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. As a result of the recent uprisings in Burma and the subsequent repression by Burma's Military Junta, Alan has become increasingly involved in activism related to the cause of the Burmese people. During 2008 and early 2009, Alan has made several trips to Burma along with other members of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and visited communities and Buddhist temples affected by the repressive government

Alan was installed as Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center on January 31, 2021. Alan was a member of the bluegrass ensemble Bluegrass Intentions with Suzy Thompson (fiddle, Cajun accordion, vocals), Eric Thompson (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Larry Cohea (bass, vocals), and Bill Evans (bluegrass), Bill Evans (banjo, vocals). They released the 2002 album ''Old as Dirt'' on the Native and Fine record label.

Bibliography

* * * *

Music

* * Alan Senauke, Everything is Broken: Songs about Things as they Are, 2012

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links