ZEN MESTEREK ZEN MASTERS
« Zen főoldal
« vissza a Terebess Online nyitólapjára

Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat (1943-)

Dharma name: 心華露洸 Shinge Rokō

Shinge-shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat (1943-)
https://www.charlesriverzen.org/about/lineage/

Sherry Chayat was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1943 and grew up in New Mexico and New Jersey.

She read her first book on Zen Buddhism while in the eighth grade, and decided she would one day study it abroad. During the 1960s, while attending college at Vassar College, she began an informal study of Buddhism by reading works by D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and many others. She studied art at the New York Studio School for Drawing and Painting.

In 1967 she joined the Zen Studies Society in New York City, training under Eido Tai Shimano, Haku-un Yasutani and Soen Nakagawa and received the Dharma name Rokō (露洸 meaning sparkling dew). She moved to Syracuse and left Zen Studies Society in middle seventies, joining a small sitting group that had been founded in 1972 by some Syracuse University graduate students and later became the group’s leader.

In 1984 Roko invited Maurine Stuart Roshi to lead the first sesshin and in 1985 Maurine ordained her as a Zen priest. After Maurine’s death in 1990 Roko resumed her studies at Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji. She was reordained by Eido Shimano Roshi in 1991. In 1992 she was given teaching permission and then received Dharma transmission in 1998 from Eido Shimano. Roko was the first American woman to receive transmission in the Japanese Rinzai school of Buddhism. On October 12, 2008, after a 10-year process of advanced training culminating in a ceremony called shitsugō (室号literally “room-name”), she received the title of roshi and the name Shinge (心華 “Heart/Mind Flowering”) from Eido Roshi. It was the first time that this ceremony was held in the United States. Sherry Chayat was installed as the second Abbot of Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji on New Year’s Day 2011.

*

Shinge Roshi Roko Sherry Chayat
https://www.zencenterofsyracuse.org/biographies/shinge-roshi-roko-sherry-chayat

Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi was born in Brooklyn in 1943. Her father, Leonard Corlan, was killed during World War II. Her mother later married sculptor Maxwell Chayat and the family moved to rural New Jersey. Sherry studied Buddhism on her own during the early 1960's, while pursuing a degree in creative writing at Vassar College and doing graduate work in painting at the New York Studio School. She began Zen practice in 1967 with Eido Tai Shimano Roshi at the Zen Studies Society, where she also studied with Hakuun Yasutani Roshi and Soen Nakagawa Roshi on their periodic trips to the United States.

She received lay ordination from Maurine Stuart at the Cambridge Buddhist Association in 1985 and full ordination from Eido Roshi at Dai Bosatsu Zendo in 1991. Eido Roshi acknowledged her as a Dharma teacher in the Rinzai tradition on December 8, 1992, and installed her as abbot of the Zen Center of Syracuse on October 18, 1996. Two years later, he gave her inka shomei, Dharma transmission, in the Hakuin/Torei lineage. She thus became the first American woman to receive official Rinzai Zen transmission. On October 12, 2008, after a 10-year process of advanced training culminating in a ceremony called shitsugo, literally,“room-name,” she received the title of roshi and the name Shinge (“Heart/Mind Flowering") from Eido Roshi. It was the first time that this ceremony was held on American soil.

On January 1, 2011, Shinge Roshi was installed as Abbot of Dai Bosatsu Zendo Monastery, located in the Catskill Mountains outside of Roscoe, NY.

Shinge Roshi travels widely to give Zen talks, workshops, and retreats. She compiled, edited, and wrote the introduction for Eloquent Silence: Nyogen Senzaki's Gateless Gate and Other Previously Unpublished Teachings and Letters. With Eido Tai Shimano Roshi and Kazuaki Tanahashi, she compiled, translated, and edited Endless Vow: The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa. She wrote the introduction to, compiled, and edited Subtle Sound: The Zen Teachings of Maurine Stuart (both 1996: Shambhala Publications). The author of Life Lessons: The Art of Jerome Witkin (1994: Syracuse University Press), she has written many articles and reviews for such journals as Buddhadharma, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Sculpture Magazine, ARTnews, American Ceramics, Present Tense,and Lilith. She is a member of the Round Table of Faith Leaders of InterFaith Works, and is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association.

Shinge Roshi has one child, Jesse Hassinger, a filmmaker.

*

Shinge-shitsu (心華室) Rōkō (露光) Sherry Chayat named Kyō-on (杏園) Dokurō (獨樓) Roland Jaeckel her first dharma heir in a dharma transmission/inka shōmei ceremony conducted on November 25, 2017 at Dai Bosatsu Zendō Kongō-ji, and subsequently as a Rinzai Zen Master in a chamber name/shitsugo ceremony conducted remotely on November 29, 2020, in which she bestowed him the chamber name Chigan-kutsu (智鑑窟).
Chigan Rōshi trained first in the community founded by the late Denkyō-shitsu (傳響室) Kyōzan (杏山) Jōshū (承周) Sasaki (佐々木) Rōshi, receiving temple dharma transmission from Jōshū Rōshi in 2004; more recently under the tutelage of Shinge Rōshi, whom he met in 2010 while serving as abbot of the Cambridge Buddhist Association.

https://www.zencenterofsyracuse.org/teachings
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/chayat-sherry-1943-roko-sherry-chayat

Dharma Lineage

白隱慧鶴 Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769)
峨山慈棹 Gasan Jitō (1727-1797)
卓洲胡僊 Takujū Kosen (1760-1833)
蘇山玄喬 Sosan Genkyō (1798-1868)
伽山全楞 Kasan Zenryō (1824-1893)
宗般玄芳 Sōhan Genhō (1848-1922)
玄峰宜雄 Gempō Giyū (山本 Yamamoto, 1865-1961)
宋淵玄珠 Sōen Genju (中川 Nakagawa, 1907-1984)
榮道祖泰 Eidō Sotai aka 無位室 Muishitsu (島野 Shimano, 1932-2018)
心華露洸 Shinge Rokō (Sherry Chayat, 1943-)

haiku

walking before dawn
crescent moon among the stars
nothing more than this

wind roars through the trees
wherever each leaf alights
a golden temple

filaments of rain
on this late summer morning
slow saturation

late autumn windstorm
everything has blown away
dawn comes undeterred

after last night’s storm
snow blossoms on bare branches
welcome cries of geese

long-fingered shadows
sweep down the frost-tinged hillside
crow rends the silence

moment by moment
in today’s soft steady rain
a green unfurling

birds insects humans
taking refuge in the green
rain day after day

breeze moves through the trees
branches nod in agreement
then utter stillness

Shinge Roshi