Ralph Baldwin Chapin (July 3, 1915 – August 8, 2000) was a member of

Rochester Zen Center The Rochester Zen Center (RZC) is a Sōtō and Rinzai school, Rinzai Zen Buddhist sangha in the Kapleau lineage, located in Rochester, New York and established in 1966 by Philip Kapleau. It is one of the oldest Zen centers in the United States. ...

and one of the earliest ''American Zen'' practitioners.

Biography

He was born in

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

, New York. He graduated from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

in 1937 with a degree in

Business Administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

and

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

. He also had business dealings in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

making flashlights. In 1945 Ralph returned to Batavia and with his family they settled into the Mill House and began a long-term project to rehabilitate the buildings and grounds. They set up a company, the R. E. Chapin Manufacturing Works, Inc., which Ralph joined and where he held the position of

Chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

and

Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

. in 1965 he met Philip Kapleau in Japan shortly before the publication of his seminal book, ''The Three Pillars of Zen''. He introduced this book as well as Roshi Kapleau to Dorris and Chester Carlson, whose Rochester meditation group later formed the bases of the ''Rochester Zen Center''.

Historical significance

He was Sangha member of the

which he had joined in 1965. Longtime friend of Philip Kapleau. He was notable for his continued donations to the fledgling center in the 1960s. In 1996 there was the Zen Center's 30th anniversary and on this occasion, Ralph Chapin donated Chapin Mill to the Center. In a letter to the Center's members he told that, ''“This is all an accumulation of years of thinking about how Chapin Mill could be used by the Center to continue building a strong and active Sangha, a strengthened transmission of Zen teaching, and the potential for a larger community to benefit from the many levels of Zen practice.”'' The center immediately broke ground for the retreat center. In 2007 the zendo was finally completed and regular sesshin are held there.

R.E. Chapin Manufacturing Works

Founded by his grandfather R. E. Chapin in 1884, the company originally started in the back of a hardware store in

Oakfield, New York Oakfield is a town in Genesee County, New York, United States. The population was 3,250 at the 2010 census. The name of the town is derived from a number of trees, including the oak. The town is on the northern border of Genesee County. Within ...

, producing

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

oil storage containers for oil lamps. Early in the 1900s, after relocating to Batavia, the company began producing hand-operated garden sprayers, and today builds household, industrial and professional sprayers for worldwide distribution.

References

R.E.Chapin Manufacturing
*Rochester Zen Center. About Ralph Chapin. https://www.rzc.org/chapin-mill/about-ralph-chapin/ Retrieved: 22 January 2015. American Buddhists 1915 births 2000 deaths People from Batavia, New York 20th-century American Buddhists MIT Sloan School of Management alumni 20th-century American businesspeople {{NewYork-bio-stub

Biography

Historical significance

R.E. Chapin Manufacturing Works

See also

References