Roshi Philip Kapleau,
founder of the Rochester Zen Center, was buried on Sunday at the Chapin Mill
Retreat Center, the Zen Center’s site in Batavia. Roshi Kapleau, who wrote The Three Pillars of Zen, one of the
seminal books on Zen practice, was 91 and died from complications of
Parkinson’s Disease.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Originally trained as a court reporter, Roshi Kapleau was
selected to be the chief court reporter for the Nuremberg trials and, later,
for the war crime trials in Tokyo. Hearing stories of the horrors committed
during World War II had a profound effect on him and led to a deep questioning
of life. It was in Japan that he was first exposed to Zen, something to which
he would eventually devote himself.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Returning to New York after the conclusion of the war
trials, Roshi Kapleau studied Buddhist philosophy but, dissatisfied with an
intellectual approach to Zen practice, sold his court reporting business and returned
to Japan, where he would spend the next 13 years in Zen training. He was
ordained as a Buddhist priest in 1965. He returned to the US in 1966 and
founded the Zen Center the same year.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย “He is one of the original teachers who brought Zen from
Asia to the West,” said Sensei Bodhin Kjolhede, the Abbot of the Rochester Zen
Center. One of Roshi Kapleau’s greatest contributions to bringing Zen to the
West was his book The Three Pillars of
Zen which explained, for the first time, how to practice Zen.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Roshi Kapleau was someone who was known for his “upright
conduct,” said Sensei Kjolhede. “He really distinguished himself by his
impeccable integrity. He tried, as best he could, to live the teaching.”
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย A funeral service for Roshi Kapleau will be held at 11 a.m.
May 23 at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center. For more information, call the Center
at 473-9180.
This article appears in May 12-18, 2004.
