Shuichi Thomas Kurai (December 14, 1947—June 29, 2018) was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

-born

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 ...

roshi and head abbot of Sozenji Buddhist Temple in

Montebello, California Montebello (Italian for "Beautiful Mountain") is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located just east of East Los Angeles and southwest of San Gabriel Valley. It is an independent city. east of downtown Los Angeles. It is ...

. Raised in a Soto temple in Japan, he moved to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

with his parents in 1952, where his father (Reverend Shuyu Kurai) served as priest at the Zenshuji Soto Mission in Little Tokyo. In addition to his role as a Zen teacher, Kurai also instructed others in how to play

taiko are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming m ...

. Kurai was a member of the

American Zen Teachers Association The American Zen Teachers Association (AZTA) was founded in the late 1980s as the Second Generation Zen Teachers Group. It is a peer-group organization of ordained and lay Zen Buddhist teachers, all of whom have received either teaching authorizat ...

.Paul
Kurai died on June 29, 2018, at the age of 70 following a diagnosis of adult T-Cell leukemia.

Notes

References

* * Soto Zen Buddhists Zen Buddhist abbots Japanese Zen Buddhists American Zen Buddhists 1947 births 2018 deaths People from Montebello, California People from Mie Prefecture Japanese emigrants to the United States Rōshi {{US-reli-bio-stub