New Zen Teacher and Priest
I am pleased to announce that I gave Dharma transmission to June Ryushin Kaililani Tanoue on October 11, 2014. She received full empowerment as a Zen Priest in a Denkai ceremony and full empowerment as a Zen teacher (Sensei) in Shisho ceremony. These were witnessed by Bernie Glassman Roshi, Eve Marko Roshi, Susan Anderson Roshi, Annie Markovich and Peter Cunningham.
June has been practicing Zen for over 20 years. She is also my wife. In 1992, together, we founded the Zen Center of Hawaii. We eventually ended up in Chicago where, in 2010 we started the Zen Life & Meditation Center of Chicago.
June is also an accomplished teacher of hula, a Kumu Hula, and runs Halau i Ka Pono - The Hula School of Chicago. She has a Masters in Public Health Nutrition from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a BS in Biology from the University of Redlands. For most of her life she has directed and run food banks in Portland, Oregon and on Hawaii Island.
Taizan Maezumi Roshi married us at the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1988.
In early 2001, June and I moved from Hawaii to work for the Zen Peacemakers. Two years later, we moved to Chicago where June took up work with Feeding America, the National Food Bank Network's headquarters. In 2010 she left Feeding America to work full time helping to run the Zen Life & Meditation Center of Chicago and her hula school, Halau i Ka Pono.
Continue to Do Good
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