The draft biography below, of Kobun Otogawa Roshi, was compiled under the guidance of Angie Boissevain Sensei, the senior author and editor.

Many of the Zen Centers Kobun helped start are linked explicitly below and also linked in the text, with links to stories of their founding, related centers, teachings, and teachers.



Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi

Dated Draft of Biography
With Added Links and Other Resources

Born February 1, 1938 into the Otogawa family, a family including a lineage of priests in the little town of Kamo in Niigata prefecture in Northwest Japan at the family temple, Jokoji, Kobun was the youngest of six children. When he was eight years old, his father died of cancer during a time when Japan had been almost completely devastated by the war, with continuing food shortages. His mother somehow fed her family, sometimes with stems of pumpkin when the pumpkins were gone, and with food foraged in the woods. Ordained at age twelve (in school he was teased for his shaved head), he was adopted at fourteen by Hozan Koei, Chino Roshi, whose temple, Kotaiji, was about a mile from Kobun's family home. Chino Roshi, without heirs, trained Kobun so that, in the Japanese tradition, Kobun would inherit the abbacy of Kotaiji. Chino Roshi had a deep, resonant voice and chanting, not Zazen, was his main practice. Kobun's training often took place as he followed his teacher through the fields as they walked to households in need of their ceremonies and prayers, chanting as they went. He received dharma transmission from Koei Chino Roshi in Kamo in 1962.

Kobun attended Komazawa University 1957-1961 in Kyoto. After university, he went to Eiheiji monastery for the training that would give him the skills he needed to inherit his master's temple. Kobun returned to Kyoto University for a master's degree in Mahayana Buddhism in 1965, in part so he could sit sesshin and study with Sawaki Kodo Roshi at Antaiji temple; he had studied with Kodo Roshi since his high school in the mid-1950s. His master's thesis subject was Enlightenment. Sawaki Kodo-Roshi was a strong advocate of revitalization of Zazen as the central practice of Soto Zen. During his years in Kyoto Kobun also trained in Kyudo with the archery master, Kanjuro Shibata Sensei. Also, from an early age, he was an intuitive and skilled calligrapher.

Later he was asked to train incoming monks at Eiheiji. The kyosaku, a large flat stick used to encourage sleepy or daydreaming monks by hitting them on the muscles between neck and shoulder during long sittings, had by Kobun's time developed into a cruel hazing tool which often injured young monks. Kobun broke tradition by getting permission to put the stick aside during his training of novices.

In 1967, while at Eiheiji, he received a letter from Suzuki Roshi, who had been teacing zen in San Francisco since 1958 and had established the San Francisco Zen Center. Suzuki Roshi invited Kobun to California to help create the first Zen monastery, at Tassajara in America. It was a dream come true for him. When he asked his master's permission, however, Chino Roshi said No, three times. Ignoring the ancient tradition to accept a third denial, Kobun took ship for San Francisco in 1967, bringing with him a huge drum, bell, and mokugyo, which were the gift of Eiheiji to the new monastery (these instruments all burned in the Zendo fire of 1978, including the bell which melted into a puddle of bronze). He was very young, and shy, but he contributed to the Zendo forms still in use today at Tassajara and SF Zen Center--oryoki, sounding the han, the drum, the bells and so forth. He was a resident priest at Tassajara until 1969.

Kobun's history in his words

"I don't think people realize how important he was in establishing Tassajara Zen Center, says Bob Watkins, who studied with Kobun for thirty-five years. "There were only a handful of us there at the time, sitting on army blankets in the old building we used as a Zendo. In the beginning Kobun taught us everything--how to put the Zendo together, breathing, posture, how to do oryoki meals in Navy surplus bowls".

Suzuki Roshi in 1966 helped inspire the development of a small suburban sangha made up of students and householders. Katagiri Sensei, another Japanese monk who later founded the Minneapolis Zen Center, also helped develop the sangha and their practice. Haiku Zendo was converted by the sangha from a former garage in Marion Derby's home in Los Altos. Haiku Zendo's sangha later raised the funds for Kobun's 1967 journey to America with the promise that he would become a resident teacher for them. Suzuki Roshi however first had Kobun spend two years helping develop Tassajara, the San Francisco Zen Center's mountain monastery. Basically, the sangha for the second time helped to get Kobun to come from Japan and expected him to be the resident priest---and this time, Kobun had firmly decided that that was what he would do. In 1970 Kobun became abbot of Haiku Zendo. The Les Kaye family had purchased the Derby home in part to help maintain the sangha's zen practice there after Marion decided to give up being a householder and instead to became a full time student at Tassajara. After some time staying with the Kaye family, Kobun, with his new American wife Harriet, moved into a house around the corner from the Zendo. He continued Suzuki Roshi's teaching schedule of Wednesday evening Dharma talk, Thursday morning breakfast and informal discussion, and Monday morning study.

His style was informal. He preferred to be called Kobun, not Sensei, and never Roshi, and he encouraged his students to think of him as friend not master. His unpredictable and subtle style resonated with the times as he emphasized life-in-the-world, encouraged his students to marry and have children, and to live the Dharma like guerillas, devotedly, but in secret.

During those early days, he was almost always available to his students night and day, to Harriet's dismay, especially after their two children, Yoshiko and Taido, were born, Taido in October 1971, and Yoshiko in May 1973. He gave workshops and courses through Stanford University, Foothill College and U.C. Santa Cruz. The course Kobun taught at Stanford, which was offered through an extended education program open to the entire community, was called "The Roots of Zen" and focused on Indian Madhyamika and Yogachara philosophies. He was also, after Suzuki Roshi's death in 1971, on call to San Francisco Zen Center and helped Baker Roshi especially with teaching the forms of Zen--instructions for ceremonies, translations of chants and sutras, funerals, and ordinations. He did the calligraphy on the early rakusus at SFZC, and on the stupas marking ashes' burial sites.

Maria Wallace, a long time student of Kobun's, and her partner Janet Crew were building a house in Big Sur which overlooked the rugged coastline. Kobun used to go and visit them in Big Sur, and consecrated the house and its still incomplete zendo as a temple in 1972.

Four seven-day sesshins a year were held in a youth hostel a few miles from Haiku Zendo on the Duveneck ranch, Hidden Villa, in Los Altos Hills. After a few years of hauling cushions, food, mats, tan and pots back and forth, the sangha decided to look for a permanent place to practice, and began to incorporate as a nonprofit in the state of California with the name, Bodhi. An attorney, William Parker, gave free legal advice for the incorporation effort. At Kobun's suggestion, in the bylaws it was stated that all beings are members of our sangha.

During this time, too, Kobun became a very close personal friend of Chogyam Trungpa Rinopoche, who made a pact with Suzuki Roshi to establish a Buddhist university. After Suzuki Roshi passed away, Trungpa Rinpoche asked Kobun's help to establish this vision and to help instruct his students in Zazen, drumming, bowing, oryoki and calligraphy. Kobun introduced Rinpoche to Shibata Sensei, which relationship became the source of kyudo practice in the Shambala tradition, still led by Shibata Sensei today. Kobun taught first at Trungpa's request at the inaugural summer session of Naropa in 1974. He returned to what is now Shambhala Mountain Center and Naropa University every year since 1974, to teach and lead Sesshins.

The Santa Cruz Zen Center was founded in 1971 by Kobun Chino-Roshi and his students, with Jim Goodhue as the first director. Kobun led sitting practice and lectured every week there for over ten years, frequently driving alone over a treacherous mountain road at night from his Los Altos family home. He also helped found Spring Mountain north of San Francisco, a zen center with a residential community in the early 1970s, but Spring Mountain was eventually migrated to another use.

Trout Black, Stephan Bodian, Buff Bradley, Phil Olsen, Jerry Halpern, and Elmer Caruso (who headed the Spring Mountain Effort) were among first "monks" ordained by Kobun, in the early 1970s. Steve, Claus, Balin, and various other students lived in a rented home near the zendo, whimsically named the Bodhisatvas club by Sonia Margulies. Sonia once described her relationship with Kobun as follows:

Kobun and his students began searching for a better place to practice in the mid-1970s, as described in The Founding of Jikoji, which also discusses the other sites considered (the main alternative was the Pentler Estate, that the sangha almost selected, rather than Jikoji or Kannon-do.). Funds were raised over a period of several years, but the initial sites selected did not work out. Eventually the sangha decided to buy both a rural center in the countryside and an urban city center in Mountain View. The city center was founded and named Kannon-do by Kobun in a large Bodhi meeting one day. Kobun was the sole teacher there through the early ‘80s. Kobun named Les Kaye as its guiding teacher when Kobun left on his long retreat, starting about 1982. The city center, now Kannon-do Zen Meditation Center, was taken over by Les, who had hosted Kobun and Haiku Zendo in his Los Altos home and had helped to establish Zen in the area. Les was formally recognized in 1986 as a Zen teacher and dharma heir in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki by Shunryu's son and dharma heir, Hoitsu.

Kobun named the countryside site Jikoji (see Jikoji's Web Site) meaning Compassion Light Temple. His elder brother, Keibun, abbott of the family temple in Japan, Jokoji, came to America to inaugurate the new temple with a Dai Segaki, a Hungry Ghost Ceremony, in the early 1980s.

Kobun and his wife separated in the late 1970s, and finally divorced in the 1980s. Harriet moved with the children to Little Rock, Arkansas, where she had family roots and could continue her graduate education in nursing. Kobun helped his family move to Arkansas. Missing them greatly, he wanted to be within at least one day's driving distance of his children, in case of any emergency. Taos, New Mexico, in the American Southwest, met Kobun's criteria of proximity to his children, so he settled there, and his children visited him there on school vacations. Kobun's student, Bob Watkins, was looking for land on which to create a small monastery.

Kobun had met Stephanie, a Juilliard-trained violinist then in law school, after Harriet had taken the children to Arkansas. Stephanie was ordained as Saiho, and Kobun named the house they rented in Taos Saiho-in.

Property in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos was found, under the brow of El Salto mountain at an elevation of 8,000 feet. The property included a small adobe house, with a garage that could be converted to a small Zendo. Kobun named it Hokoji, that he translated as Pheonix Light Temple, founded in 1983. Hokoji can also be translated as Wisdom Light Temple. In 1984 Kobun himself bought a piece of property down the road, not far from the Zendo, and began to build a house in the forest, with a coiling dragon of embedded colored stones encircling its foundation. Kobun also returned often to California to lead sesshins at Jikoji.

Later Kobun became known as a traveling teacher as he divided his time among the Jikoji, Hokoji (New Mexico), and Shambhala sanghas in the United States and Europe. Late in the 1980s Kobun also began traveling to Europe to help a friend and former student at Tassajara, Vanja Palmers Sensei, who was leading groups of Zen students in Germany and Switzerland. Kobun helped Vanja lead Sesshins, and in teaching and ordaining many students over the course of several years. With Kobun's help and encouragement, Vanja established several new Zen centers, particularly Felsentor and Puregg.

During this time Kobun also met his future wife Katrin. Before he married Katrin, Chino Roshi, realizing that Kobun would not return to head his temple in Japan, had formally separated from Kobun. Kobun was re-adopted into the Otokawa lineage and he took that name. Consequently his first two children have the name 'Chino' and the second family has the name 'Otogawa'. In the 1990s Kobun returned to Japan and reconciled with his old master, Chino Roshi.

Kobun and Katrin moved to Santa Cruz in the 1990s, where they lived in a home Kobun named Raigho-in, a centuries-old style Japanese farmhouse newly built and owned by Ken Wing and Hollis DeLancy. Hollis and Ken generously worked to help support Jikoji and Kobun for many years, and had guested him on trips to Japan, India, and elsewhere.

After his divorce from Harriet, Kobun had told a friend, Martin Mosko, he was going into retreat. After the birth of Alyosha, the son with Katrin, he told Martin he was coming out of retreat and wanted to teach again. This motivated his move to Colorado when he was offered a venerable position on the Naropa faculty. Kobun was appointed to the highest chair at Naropa in 2000 (World Wisdom Chair). Shortly after the birth of their third child he and Katrin moved to Colorado and took up residence at Shambhala Mountain Center, and he commuted to Boulder to teach.

Martin Mosko, a landscape architect and garden designer based in Boulder Colorado,  was a long time student and friend of Kobun's.  Martin also had a deep connection with Kobun's older brother, Hojosama Keibun Otogawa. He had studied with Hojosama in Japan, and received Dharma Transmission from him.  In 2001, during a ceremony for a friend who had died, Kobun consecrated a property Martin had developed as a zen center and noted garden as Hakubai Temple. Martin (Hakubai Zenji) was installed as abbot of Hakubai in the Mountain Seat Ceremony in the spring of 2004.

By 2000 Kobun had given the precepts to over one hundred students. Most ceremonies were Zuike Tokudo, or lay ordination; several were Shukke Tokudo, or novice priest ordinations. He did his first Denpo transmission in 1989 at Jikoji.

On july 26th 2002, Kobun drowned in Switzerland while trying to rescue his 5 year old daughter Maya from a pond she had fallen into; she also drowned. Following Kobun's accidental death, Vanja completed transmission for teachers Kobun had been encouraging for many years, including Jean Leyshon, Angie Boissevain, Caroline Atkinson, Bob Watkins, and later Michael Newhall, the current Resident Teacher at Jikoji. Angie Boissevain served as Director of Jikoji under Kobun for almost two decades, and began teaching with his encouragement; she now leads the Floating Zendo in San Jose. Carolyn Atkinson founded and leads the Everyday Dharma Zen Center in Santa Cruz. Bob Watkins was ordained back in the early seventies  and his transmission, started by Kobun, was finished by Vanya. Ian Forsberg also received transmission from Vanja, after Michael Newhall. Both Ian and Jean Leyshon are active at Hokoji, each leading at least one yearly sesshin, and are also traveling to lead sesshins. Bu-tan Stan White, another old student and friend from Kobun's Tassajara period, serves as chief priest at Hokoji.

One student, Jerry Halpern, wrote "possibly Kobun's finest quality as a teacher was that he required his students to live their own lives, and he encouraged them to become free to do so. He did not allow them (or exploit them by allowing them) to become dependent on him."



Kobun's 1990-era resume (as a large image file) can be viewed or downloaded from Kobun's Resume. Kobun prepared it, with help from Stephanie and Hollis, for a publication honoring his father's legacy in Japan.