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Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler (1976-)

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He lives and teaches at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center , co-teaches at the Buddhadharma Sangha of San Quentin State Prison, and is working towards a graduate degree in Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley . Ordained a priest in 2002 and serving as shuso in 2008, he lived and worked full-time in temples and monasteries in the U.S. and Japan from the age of twenty, in 1996, to the age of thirty-five. While he still resides at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center with his family, he is currently a full-time graduate student at UC Berkeley. He is the author of the book Two Shores of Zen , and his writing ocassionally appears in the Buddhist periodicals Buddhadharma and Turning Wheel. Along with his brother, Rev. Hondo Dave Rutschman, he maintains the blog No Zen in the West.

Autobiography
http://www.shoresofzen.com/about.htm

I began my residential Zen practice in 1996, at the age of twenty, at the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), a Soto Zen temple founded by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. After a few weeks of residence, I sat my first 7-day sesshin meditation retreat and was hooked on Zen practice. Soon after, I moved to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the most remote and monastic of the SFZC temples, and from 1997 through 2002 I alternated living at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm. In 1999 I took the 16 bodhisattva precepts as a layperson, and in 2002 I completed the ritual sewing of the okesa robe and was ordained as a Soto Zen priest. Both of those ordinations were performed by my root teacher, Seido Lee deBarros, also of SFZC.

Both before and after my ordination at Green Gulch Farm, I travelled to Japan in order to experience Zen nearer to the source of the tradition than the California Zen I'd experienced. I ended up practicing in Japanese monasteries for a year and a half, primarily at Bukkokuji, a Rinzai Zen-influenced Soto temple in the town of Obama, but also at the more formal, mainstream, and monastic Soto Zen sodo of Hokyoji, in Echizen- Ono. Some stories of my Zen training in Japan, presented alongside my very different training in the U.S., are recounted in my book Two Shores of Zen.

I returned to the U.S. in 2004, and after travelling to various temples, I decided to continue my training at SFZC. While back at Green Gulch Farm, I met my wife. We subsequently trained together at Green Gulch and Tassajara, and were married in 2007. Our son was born in 2010.

In the spring of 2008, I co-led a 2-month practice period at Green Gulch Farm as shuso under SFZC abbot Myogen Steve Stucky. That ceremonial time marked the completion of my training as a junior priest, and the blessing of the Sangha to begin formally teaching Zen under the auspices of SFZC. Though ordained by Seido and shuso under Myogen, I have worked closely in practice periods with many of the senior Dharma teachers at SFZC, including Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, and Tenshin Reb Anderson. I am deeply grateful for their teachings, and all of the many SFZC teachers who have guided me in my practice. In addition, I have joined in the practice at other American temples and have learned immensely from Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Shohaku Okumura Roshi, the monastics of Shasta Abbey, Toni Packer of the Springwater Center, and others.

Currently my primary Dharma teacher is Sojun Mel Weitsman. I was born in Argentina in 1976, son of parents both born and raised in Latin America by Mennonite missionaries. We moved to the U.S. in 1979, and soon after my parents converted to Quakerism, the religion of my upbringing. I was raised primarily in New Mexico and Chicago.

At eighteen, I moved to California to attend the tiny and prestigious Deep Springs College on a full scholarship. During my time there, I had the transformational opportunity to visit Green Gulch Farm. Shortly after experiencing Green Gulch, I left Deep Springs and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I worked and pursued a variety of wholesome and unwholesome spiritual practices. My independent spiritual efforts proved unsatisfactory, and within less than a year I moved into SFZC as a resident.

In 2010, while maintaining my temple life at Green Gulch, I completed my BA degree, doing interdisciplinary work at the California Institute of Integral Studies. In 2012 I received support from Green Gulch to continue my residence while pursuing full-time graduate studies at UC Berkeley. I am currently working towards an MA degree in Asian Studies there, under the mentorship of Buddhist Studies faculty and with a strong focus in Chinese and Japanese Buddhist Studies.

Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk's Japan
by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler
Publisher: lulu.com (2010), 194 pages
PDF: Excerpts

When a young American Buddhist monk can no longer bear the pop-psychology, sexual intrigue, and free-flowing peanut butter that he insists pollute his spiritual community, he sets out for Japan on an archetypal journey to find "True Zen." Arriving at an austere Japanese monastery and meeting a fierce old Zen Master, he feels confirmed in his suspicion that the Western Buddhist approach is a spineless imitation of authentic spiritual effort. However, over the course of a year and a half of bitter initiations, relentless meditation and labor, intense cold, brutal discipline, insanity, overwhelming lust, and false breakthroughs, he grows disenchanted with the Asian model as well.Two Shores of Zen weaves together scenes from Japanese and American Zen to offer a timely, compelling contribution to the ongoing conversation about Western Buddhism's stark departures from Asian traditions. How far has Western Buddhism come from its roots, or indeed how far has it fallen?

PDF: Soto Zen in Meiji Japan: The Life and Times of Nishiari Bokusan
A thesis in Buddhsit Studies for UC Berkeley by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, 2014

Some published Dharma writing from Jiryu Rutschman-Byler
http://www.shoresofzen.com/jiryu/articles/

Isn't Buddhism Supposed to be Apolitical?   Lion's Roar, 2017

It's Ok. Really.    Buddhadharma, Fall 2011

Notes from an A-Bomb Tour    Turning Wheel, Summer 2010

Do Not Call Winter the Beginning of Spring    Puerto del Sol, 2006

Daikon Harvest    Puerto del Sol, 2006

An American Monk's Japan    Buddhadharma, Winter 2005