Chronology

Kobun was the youngest of six children in the Otogawa family.

medium confidence — attaches to the birth; the birth-order dispute stands

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

The Jikoji biography states that after Kobun's father died the family was left scavenging for food in a devastated Japan, sometimes eating pumpkins and sometimes only the stems. It frames the poverty of Kobun's childhood immediately after the war.

Kamo, Niigata, Japan · between 1946 and 1950 · medium confidence — An institutional biography's telling, not an eyewitness account.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun massaged his mother's shoulders as a small boy, learning the touch from her directly - 'from very little boy, teacher is the mother' - and says he could feel which part of the muscle was wrong. He also mentions a summer vacation spent with friends where, seeing him off at the train station, one of them said he could go but had to leave his hands behind.

between 1943 and 1952 · medium confidence — His own telling in 1973 of childhood episodes; no dates attach to the memories themselves.

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Kobun says that in elementary school, whenever there was a large gathering or celebration, he would be singled out to stand up and chant a long sutra. He offers it as evidence for what rote memorisation actually produces: not thinking, but a clear impression that stays available.

Japan · between 1944 and 1950

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Kobun describes the nun who drilled him in sutra memorisation as a child. He had privately nicknamed her after the triangular rice ball her face resembled. He says she was kind but that he experienced her as harsh, because she struck him with a small bamboo stick whenever he made a mistake in recitation. He connects the memory to the way he still presses his thumbs together in the mudra when he wants to fix something in memory.

Japan, presumably the family temple at Kamo · between 1945 and 1953

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Kobun was already a skilled calligrapher and academically promising as a young boy, and found his mentor in Hozan Koei Chino Roshi, at which point serious Zen training began.

between 1946 and 1951 · medium confidence — Undated; the biography sets it only between his father's death and the ordination at twelve.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

In the same 1978 lecture Kobun says his ordination master, who transmitted the Buddha's precepts to him, was the first and one of the greatest of his masters, names him Kin-ei Otogawa Zenji, and says the man appears to him over and over and that he almost always feels himself in that hand like a little ant walking. He calls him the law itself and discipline itself, in contrast to Kodo Sawaki, whom he calls undisciplined and perfect freedom, and says Sawaki was invited to Sogenji, his ordination master's temple, where Kobun began sitting with him.

medium confidence — Undated; the identification attaches to the 1951 ordination, for which no master was otherwise recorded.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1979

Kobun tells of a time he got lost in the mountains and did not reach the temple until past midnight. His mother and his brother had waited up for him; a hot bath, dinner and a warm bed were ready. He describes himself arriving as a wet, hungry rat, and says he understood then that there was no difference between his mother's mind and the Buddha's mind.

the family temple, Japan · between 1946 and 1956

Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

The biography reports that once Kobun was ordained as a boy his shaved head made him a target of teasing from schoolmates. It is offered as a detail of what early ordination cost him socially.

Kamo, Niigata, Japan · between 1951 and 1954 · medium confidence — No independent date; it attaches to the ordination itself.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun recalls a school assignment in junior high school requiring him to compile a list of the world's great figures and look into their biographies. He says he still remembers how proud he was of the way Shakyamuni lived and died naturally. It is one of the very few things he says about his schooling outside the temple.

Japan · between 1950 and 1954

Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

Kobun describes koan training given to him by his elder brother, whom he refers to as Hojosama, in a way he says reduced him to tears and then to fistfights, because it was his brother doing it. He recounts two of the koans: one about a deep hole and a national-treasure Buddha statue, which he settled by putting the statue on the bank and jumping in himself, and which ended in an hour of wrestling; and a second at the family lotus pond their father had built, where he was told to catch a large koi without wetting his hand. That one took him about a week, resolved by recalling a saying about knowing the mind of the water. Kobun says he does not know where his brother got the koans.

the family temple, Kamo, Niigata · between 1948 and 1956

Embracing Mind (PDF)

Kobun told the group that at a very young age, as a small monk sent to lay people's houses to chant, his recitation never came out right — he would slip from one line to another and back again, so the sutra never ended, and his friends enjoyed teasing him about never finishing.

between 1951 and 1956 · medium confidence — His own telling; he gives neither age nor year, only that he was still a novice.

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Kobun's training under Chino was aimed at his inheriting the abbacy of Kotaiji.

between 1952 and 1962 · medium confidence — Stated as the adoption's purpose rather than documented independently.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Attended Kamo High School in Niigata, 1954-57. His English teacher there was Koei Chino Roshi, who would adopt him.

Kamo-shi, Niigata

Kobun CV / Resume

After the adoption, Kobun's training to inherit the Kotaiji abbacy involved going with Chino Roshi from household to household to perform ceremonies. The biography notes Chino's own emphasis was chanting rather than seated meditation.

Japan · between 1952 and 1957 · medium confidence — Undated; set only in the boyhood years after the 1952 adoption.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun serves as head practitioner (risshin) at Kogenji temple, age ~18.

Kogenji, Japan

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun told his students in 1978 that in his first year of university study he went back to Reiyu Tamiya Roshi's temple, was chosen as head practicer for a ninety-day period, and had a shuso ceremony conducted entirely in Zen terminology, like a Shakespearean play, with people coming from many places. The hardest part, he said, was answering three travelling monks who specialise in ten pa, special questions prepared with many tricks to make you fall, and who live for shaking people up in public. He said he was very young and it went very well.

between 1957 and 1958 · medium confidence — His own telling sets it in his first university year; another account puts a similar ceremony in 1956.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1979

Kobun tells the group that the first time he heard the Rinzai master Mumon Yamada speak was at a memorial service in Tokyo marking a Sixth Patriarch anniversary. He was sitting far at the back. What stayed with him was Yamada's description of his own zazen as a long dark tunnel with water flowing through it; Kobun says he recognised his own experience in it immediately.

Tokyo · between 1956 and 1961

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Listing the teachers he had at university, Kobun singles out Sokuo Eto, whom he describes as a kind of theologian of zazen, and who clarified for him why Dogen is regarded as the founder of zazen in Japan and how Rujing's way differed from Dogen's. Kobun says Eto died while he was still in school, and that he owes him a great deal both personally and in his study of Buddhism.

Japan · between 1957 and 1961

Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

During his Komazawa years Kobun lived in the Doken-ryo dormitory, where academic study sat inside a full daily practice schedule under Professor Sokuo Eto, and where Sawaki led a weekly Tuesday evening sitting.

Komazawa University, Tokyo · between 1957 and 1961 · medium confidence — Known only from Kobun's own resume; undated within the Komazawa years.

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun tells the group that during his university years he shared a household with his elder brother under a very tight budget, taking turns cooking a week at a time. Both had let their hair grow a little long. On one shopping trip he bought hair oil with what little money there was; his brother asked whether they needed it, Kobun apologised and offered to return it, and from that day both of them cut their hair. He told it in a talk on nonattachment, about hair and nails as the outside: 'It is important what is inside — inside of the clothes, underneath the hair, underneath the skin.'

Japan · between 1957 and 1961

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Kobun ran the student zazen group at Komazawa, and his resume connects this role to the period when Taisen Deshimaru — later the founder of Soto Zen in France — joined Sawaki's practice.

Komazawa University, Tokyo · between 1957 and 1961 · medium confidence — An aside in Kobun's own resume, given without a year.

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun practised with Kodo Sawaki in Kyoto (the article spells it 'Koto Sawaki').

between 1958 and 1965 · medium confidence — Undated; the window follows from his Kyoto years and Sawaki's death in 1965.

Kobun Chino's Legacy

Received a high-school English teaching certificate.

Japan

Kobun CV / Resume

In his second year at the monastery his master telegraphed and he rushed to Kamo, spending a month at the temple as his master's only disciple. He was told to copy three materials in his own hand onto seven-foot lengths of silk two feet wide, a chart on which his name was written and joined to the line running back to Shakyamuni. He says the name given was Shin Kobun, new Kobun, because the full title Buddhabuchi is not received until one has a successor, as one is not called father until one has a child. At the end of the month his master told him he could go back to the monastery or wherever he wanted, which Kobun reads as being pushed out of his master's influence and toward America.

between 1962 and 1966 · medium confidence — His own placement in his second Eiheiji year sits awkwardly with the 1962 date given elsewhere for his transmission.

Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama (auto) · Embracing Mind (PDF) · Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

In the same account of his transmission, Kobun says that when the recall telegram came he went to Tatsugami Roshi's room at Eiheiji. He describes Tatsugami warmly as a lovely master, and passes on the nickname the monks used for him, drawn from the big square wooden clogs in the toilet, because of his large dark face. Kobun says he learned only later that his own master and Tatsugami had settled the matter between them by letter. This is a first-hand record of a relationship the chronology otherwise only touches through Tatsugami's later American visits.

Eiheiji · between 1962 and 1966

Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

Before entering the monastery, Kobun asked a couple of priests around town what practice there was actually like. They would not answer and only said it was fantastic - afterward. He adds that he thought at first Eiheiji was a factory of masochists and sadists, it was so painful, and that once you started to sit you could never move or the senior students would hit you.

between 1962 and 1965 · medium confidence — His own telling, fixed only as before he entered the monastery.

Embracing Mind (PDF)

Alongside his teacher-training internship at Eiheiji, Kobun worked on the monastery's magazine Sansho under Zenko Amafuji Roshi, editorial work that ran until he left Japan.

Eiheiji, Fukui, Japan · medium confidence — Kobun's own resume gives only the span 1965 to 1967.

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun: 'After last Sesshin I wrote Rev. Suzuki.' Likely Rohatsu sesshin Dec 1966.

Eiheiji, Japan · medium confidence

Letter: Kobun Chino to Graham Petchey (1967-01-14) · Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama (auto)

Kobun repeatedly made mistakes ringing the bell in the monastery, striking it more times than needed and having to apologise, with everyone remarking that somebody was hitting the bell in a funny way. He says he was always embarrassed because in the monastery you live by your actions and lay your body down in tradition, and that a mistake always appeared when he moved from reality toward the ideal.

between 1962 and 1967 · medium confidence — His own story of his monastery years, told in a talk dated 1974; the events themselves undated.

Heart Sutra commentary (Kobun)

Kobun: 'my father (Dharma master) and Rev. Taishun Sato have complied with your request.'

Japan · with Hozan Koei Chino

Letter: Kobun Chino to Graham Petchey (1967-01-14)

Appointed HOKUBEI KAIKYOSHI, minister for North America, by Abbot Rosen Takashina Zenji Kancho. Left Japan by ship.

Japan

Kobun CV / Resume

Introducing the story of being summoned back from the monastery, Kobun said his master never spoke to him about men-ju until he was on the ship bound for this country.

medium confidence — His own compressed telling, which could mean the master spoke of it on the boat or at departure.

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Yoshimura Sensei teaches at Haiku Zendo from approximately 1967-1969, overlapping with the early period of Kobun's arrival.

Los Altos, CA · medium confidence

Cuke Audio - Haiku Zendo Kobun & Kayes

Kobun's resume names Dainin Katagiri as an elder colleague from his first year in America, with the two families described as close friends.

San Francisco, California · medium confidence — Known only from Kobun's own resume; no other account records the relationship's beginning.

Kobun CV / Resume

Bob Halpern offered Kobun a cigarette. Suzuki said: 'Kobun Chino does not smoke.'

Sokoji Temple, San Francisco · with Bob Halpern, Shunryu Suzuki · medium confidence

SFZC Alumni Memories of Suzuki Roshi (Tassajara 2012) · Haiku Zendo Ho To Newsletters Index (1974-1980)

Resided at the Tokyo branch of Eiheiji for two months in spring 1967, assisted by Abbot Niwa Renpo Zenji.

Tokyo

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun pointed to Suzuki: 'a great Soto teacher', indicated Yasutani: 'a great Rinzai teacher', then Nakagawa Soen: 'too much personality.'

Tassajara · with David Chadwick · medium confidence

Cuke.com Kobun Main Page · Kobun remembrance (anonymous)

Kobun says he learned breathing from butterflies. One day sitting at Tassajara he felt in tune with the breath of everything: the trees breathing, and about twenty butterflies on white hot rocks with clean water running between them, all opening their wings at once. He says he tuned in to them and found it fantastic.

Tassajara · between 1967 and 1970

Embracing Mind (PDF)

Illustrating how a teacher opens a closed craft to a student, Kobun said that the Tassajara cook let him in a few times when no one else was admitted, and called it a great experience.

between 1967 and 1970 · medium confidence — The line is garbled in the typescript and the identification of Ed Brown is an editor's guess.

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

In the mid-to-late 1960s San Francisco Zen Center community Kobun was addressed as 'Chino Sensei', in the same register as 'Katagiri Sensei' and 'Reverend Suzuki', because students found the title Roshi hard to say.

between 1967 and 1969 · medium confidence — One practitioner's memory of forms of address from his own arrival in the mid-sixties.

Haiku Zendo Ho To Newsletters Index (1974-1980)

A story told about Kobun's Tassajara years: the pauses between his sentences ran so long that on one occasion he went to sleep in the middle of giving his own talk. Bodian reports it as something several people who were there confirmed, not as something he witnessed. It belongs to the period when Kobun's reputation at Tassajara was for gentleness, meticulousness, solitude and very slow speech.

between 1967 and 1970 · medium confidence — Bodian's memory; datable only between Kobun's Tassajara residence and the 1970 Haiku Zendo appointment.

Kobun Chino Otogawa (Stephan Bodian)

At Kobun's request, Ryogen Yoshimura and his family came to San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara to teach, 1969-71.

San Francisco

Kobun CV / Resume

Talking about pain in zazen, Kobun says his legs hurt at Eiheiji, and that strangely, after he came to America and Suzuki Roshi ordered him to face out rather than face the wall, the pain went. He half-jokes that maybe everyone should face out, then adds that the pain was still there but that the situation had become so serious it eased. This is a first-hand record of a specific instruction Suzuki gave him.

California · between 1967 and 1971

Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

The Les Kaye family bought Marion Derby's house partly so that the zendo could continue there after Derby gave up householder life to train full time at Tassajara.

between 1967 and 1970 · medium confidence — Undated; the purchase is known only to fall between the zendo's 1966 founding and 1970.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

At Kobun's request, Ryosen Tatsugami Ino Roshi of Eiheiji came to Tassajara to teach for several practice periods.

Tassajara

Kobun CV / Resume · Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

In a comment on Taido's post, Stephan Bodian says his period of close study under Kobun started around the year Taido was born and ran for roughly six years until he moved to Los Angeles to train elsewhere. He describes himself as among the first people Kobun ordained as a monk.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence

Remembering Kobun

This secondary account gives an end year for Kobun's Tassajara period, saying he served as Suzuki Roshi's assistant at the monastery until 1970 and then moved to Los Altos.

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, California · medium confidence

Kobun Chino Roshi (1938-2002)

Clifford Isberg records meeting Kobun in early 1970 at Les Kaye's house, where students sat in a circle putting dharma questions to him. Isberg's impression was that Kobun said very little.

Los Altos, California

Kobun Recalled

The cuke compilation of interviews about Suzuki's years in Japan carries an aside that a passage explaining Soto transmission - the robe handed down, the master regarding the disciple as a master, Buddha meeting Buddha - was probably written by Kobun, and elsewhere Suzuki refers to the records Chino Sensei holds while working out which of his temple appointments is missing from the list.

between 1967 and 1971 · medium confidence — The identification of Kobun as the helper is inferred, not stated; the work predates Suzuki's death.

Shunryu Suzuki in Japan — Interview Selections · Haiku Zendo Ho To Newsletters Index (1974-1980)

Isberg describes asking for a private meeting after some months of occasional sitting. When he apologised for knowing nothing about Zen, Kobun nearly shouted him down and then gave minutely physical instructions for zazen, which Isberg privately resisted as having nothing to do with meditation.

Los Altos, California · between 1970 and 1971

Kobun Recalled

Kobun relates an exchange at his master's temple in Japan. A young American came and asked directly whether God exists. His master answered that God must exist, certainly must exist. Pressed on why he put it that way, the master said it was very convenient: only when you become helpless do you cry out for help, and then help comes with a reprimand about your attitude, while in good conditions you never think of him. Kobun says his master always spoke to him that way, and that he heard the story afterwards from his master's wife, who had been serving tea.

his master's temple, Japan · between 1962 and 1975

Embracing Mind (PDF)

Katagiri-roshi, Kobun-sensei, and senior monks accompanied Baker down the stairs to the buddha hall for his installation as chief priest. Suzuki's last public appearance.

San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page St · with Dainin Katagiri Roshi, Richard Baker, Shunryu Suzuki

Bob Watkins — Cuke People Page · Crooked Cucumber Ch.19 — Ryuho (Final Season)

Anti-war institute at Joan Baez's ranch on Page Mill Road above Stanford. Geodesic domes and teepees. Kobun and Trungpa both attended. Discussion on Buddhism and peace. Trungpa told a worried man 'You should enlist in the army... It's called infiltration.' Kobun said 'You can't expect to change the world without engaging in it.'

Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA · with Joan Baez · medium confidence

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

Kobun begins traveling to Santa Cruz weekly for Tuesday evening sits and dharma talks. Initially he had no driver's license; David Caruso drove him over Highway 17.

Santa Cruz, CA · medium confidence

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance · Kobun Chino Roshi obituary · jakkoan.net/Kobun/

Silas: 'He put 'em on Kobun too' — Suzuki pressured Kobun to remain, similar to Katagiri.

San Francisco / Tassajara · with Shunryu Suzuki · medium confidence

Silas Hoadley Interview · Vanja Palmers — Cuke People Page

David Chadwick studied Japanese texts with 'Katagiri and Yoshimura and Kobun and then with Suzuki.' Places Kobun as a teacher of chanting at Tassajara.

Tassajara · with David Chadwick

Yvonne Rand Interview

Became a friend to Vajradhatu, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's organisation, teaching and leading sesshin at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, Naropa Institute and other centres in Europe and America.

Colorado

Kobun CV / Resume

Patrick Curry, then a novice, took a class from Kobun at SFZC covering basic Buddhist practice together with the Japanese cultural forms around it. One session went through Basho's haiku in detail, praising their precision, before Kobun added, to general bewilderment, that it would have been better still had Basho been able to say nothing at all. Another taught the kinhin mudra by assigning each finger a cosmological realm.

San Francisco Zen Center · medium confidence — A memory written forty years after the fact; the year is the writer's own.

Remembering Kobun (radical kindness)

Several regular members rented a house on Swift Street and converted the living room into a meditation hall, which allowed daily group sitting in addition to the Tuesday lectures, mostly attended by those living in the house. Much of the money, materials and encouragement for the Swift Street period came from Ruth O'Neal. The arrangement ended when the owner sold the house.

114 Swift Street, Santa Cruz, California

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

Niels Holm: 'there were no priests at Tassajara except for Suzuki and Kobun.' Confirms Kobun's formal priestly status.

Tassajara · with Shunryu Suzuki

Niels Holm Interview · Cuke Transcripts Proper Nouns Index

Ryosen Tatsugami, ino at Eiheiji and a sumo champion there, came to Haiku Zendo to speak. Kobun bustled about getting things right and took the side seat, giving Tatsugami his own place. Tatsugami looked at Kobun's unshaved head, leaned over, put his whole hand on it and asked, grinning, what this was; the two laughed hard together. After the talk in Japanese Kobun asked the room whether they needed a translation.

between 1970 and 1972 · medium confidence — Undated; known only to fall within the Haiku Zendo years.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

Kobun performed wedding ceremony at his home. Chose the date saying 'there are a lot of flowers.'

Los Altos, CA · with Eric Rci

no source recorded

The Santa Cruz zendo moved to Jim Goodhue's house at 113 School Street.

Santa Cruz

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

Kobun asked Barbara Hiestand to write a short history of the zendo, telling her to work forward from Marian Derby's 1969 annual report, and separately proposed that memories of Suzuki Roshi be gathered from as many older students as possible while they could still be collected. The result became the two-part Chronicles of Haiku Zendo.

Los Altos, California

Haiku biography page

Small group of younger students purchase 160-acre mountaintop property in Mendocino County (Foster Mountain, east of Willits). Ten contributors, $12,000 down on $36,000. Spring Mountain Sangha formed as nonprofit. 24-foot teepee zendo built in old-growth pines.

Mendocino County, CA · medium confidence

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

The group's first sesshin, held in the spring of 1972 under Kobun. That summer the group held its first business meeting, prompted by the sale of the Swift Street house, the group being flat broke, and Ruth O'Neal leaving for Japan.

Santa Cruz, California

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

Asked whether people often ask him why he sits, Kobun says nobody asks that, but that he is often asked why he came to this country. He recalls that the man from the Palo Alto Times opened with the question of why he was here, and that Kobun turned it back on him and asked why he had come. It documents local press attention to Kobun in the early Los Altos years and, more usefully, his standing refusal to give an account of his own motives.

Palo Alto area, California · between 1970 and 1973

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

In the middle of a discussion about what a teacher is, Kobun mentions that Mumon Yamada is calling him today or tomorrow, gives his age as seventy-four, and explains that Yamada is a pure Rinzai teacher whom he counts as the eighty-second in his transmission line from the Sixth Patriarch. It is a rare glimpse of Kobun still being sought out by senior Japanese teachers five years into his American life.

California

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

Asked how things are at his house, Kobun says he had not expected two babies so close in age to get on so well. He had been sanding the back of the house, then washing dishes at noon, when he heard the baby cry and then stop. A few minutes later he looked up to find the toddler carrying her, upside down and backwards, and his eyes popped out. He adds that the previous night was the first he had asked Harriet to sleep with the baby, and that he got four straight hours. This is Kobun's own contemporaneous confirmation of both children in the household.

Los Altos, California

Kobun — Thursday Mornings (32 talks)

The Haiku Zendo Foundation issued the first part of its history, edited by Barbara Hiestand, covering 1964 to 1971. Arthur Bradley, then president, oversaw the printing; Sonja Margulies as secretary gave editorial help. The book carries a copyright notice in the Foundation's name.

Los Altos, California

Haiku biography page

Carolyn Atkinson, later a Soto priest and one of the students whose transmission Vanja Palmers completed after Kobun's death, dates the start of her study with him to 1973.

Santa Cruz, California · medium confidence — The year is her own dating.

Carolyn Atkinson - A Light in the Mind (Sweeping Zen)

For many months a small group met with Kobun every week to make new English versions of the Zen precepts, the four bodhisattva vows and the robe chant, even though San Francisco Zen Center already had versions approved by Suzuki Roshi. Bodian says Kobun's concern was that students not read the precepts as rules of conduct but as a description of how an awake person behaves without deciding to.

between 1970 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; Bodian places it only within his Los Altos years with Kobun, 1970 to 1976.

Remembering Kobun, my first Zen teacher · Precepts PDF — Kobun and Les Kaye (2021) · Sesshin Talks (Kobun)

Undeterred by the language barrier, Kobun ran a weekly class on the Lotus Sutra, and taught the roots of Zen in the Indian Mahayana more broadly, including the Prajnaparamita. He was particularly fond of Bodhidharma, whose version of the precepts the group studied, and of Huineng, and he taught that the distinction between sentient and insentient beings is misleading.

between 1970 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; known only to fall within Bodian's Los Altos years, 1970 to 1976.

Remembering Kobun, my first Zen teacher

Under sustained pressure from Koei Chino Roshi to come back to Japan, Kobun asked Eric to write a letter on his behalf telling his master how much he was appreciated and needed in America. Eric wrote it; Kobun read it, said one thing was missing, and handed it back. Eric searched for the answer in zazen, rewrote it and returned it, and Kobun thanked him.

between 1970 and 1978 · medium confidence — Undated; it belongs somewhere in the long dispute with his home temple before the formal separation.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

After months of work by a few people the group became a non-profit corporation with by-laws, a board and the name The Santa Cruz Zen Center; rejected alternatives were Zen Center Santa Cruz and The Wall of the Western Barbarian. About the same time Jim Goodhue announced he was going to Japan for a very long time and offered the group both School Street houses if it would clear his debts, which were small against what he had already paid on them and large against the group's loose cash. Everyone agreed to produce a hundred dollars each within three weeks and did. Concurrently Mrs. Frances Brier, who had lived at 115 School Street for twenty-five years, moved to a nursing home, and a burst of group energy turned that building into the zendo. The group also ran its first sandwich booth at the Santa Cruz Spring Fair that spring, which became an annual event and eventually made the centre solvent.

between 1973 and 1974 · medium confidence — No date survives for either the incorporation or the purchase; the window is roughly 1973 to early 1974.

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

Several students including Steve, Claus and Balin shared a rented house near the zendo that Sonja Margulies nicknamed the Bodhisattvas club.

between 1970 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; recalled alongside the early-1970s ordinations.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

The 1974 autumn practice period began on 1 October with a three-day sesshin. Buff Bradley served as shuso, Jerry Halpern as assistant shuso, and the period closed with Rohatsu sesshin from 1 to 8 December.

Los Altos

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974

Eric Remington arranged permission from Stanford to take the former elementary school apart for materials for the projected temple, in exchange for helping build a roofed porch at the new Stanford Children's Center. Crews of five to thirty-five worked weekends and then straight through to 27 October, pulling cabinets, windows, floors, joists and roof beams from a 1930s building of fir, redwood and hard maple. Perhaps eighty people took part. The salvage was hauled to Hidden Villa Ranch and stacked ahead of the first autumn rain; a carpenter valued it at $7,800.

Stanford University / Hidden Villa Ranch, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974

The second of the introductory seminars was held in the house under construction on the Big Sur coast. Eight people including Kobun gathered for sitting and discussion and walked to a waterfall in the afternoon. The house is the one Kobun would consecrate as Daisho-an.

Big Sur, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974

Lay ordination at Haiku Zendo. His shuso ceremony followed on 27 November.

Los Altos

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974 · Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

Jikoji's archive index lists eight surviving issues of a newsletter called HoTo, running from an autumn 1974 issue through a winter 1978 issue, under a heading that frames the series as covering 1970 to 1980. This is a periodical distinct from the Chronicles of Haiku Zendo.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence

archive.jikoji.org

Eric noticed Bill Kwong leaving Kobun's house by car several weeks running as he arrived for dokusan, and asked about it. Kobun said Kwong had been coming every week to study the Blue Cliff Record with him, that they had finished that day, and that he had told Kwong he was now a Zen master.

between 1970 and 1978 · medium confidence — Undated; fixed only to Kobun's Los Altos home during the Haiku Zendo years.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

Kobun dug up his own front yard and put in a pond with a Japanese wooden bridge, working on the rebar himself. He told Eric it was in the shape of the Japanese character for heart, and that it was deep, and asked him to bring frogs and turtles for it. When told they would not stay and would be run over on the road, he looked disappointed.

between 1970 and 1978 · medium confidence — Two independent witnesses place it at the Los Altos house, but neither gives a date.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

When Kobun came to dedicate the small barn zendo on Ford Street he brought a piece of calligraphy on rice paper to hang above the altar. Caruso still had it on his wall forty years later.

between 1973 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; bracketed only between the zendo's opening in August 1973 and the 1976 move to Potter Valley.

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

Eric arrived at Kobun's house to find him with an attractive young Japanese woman whom he introduced as his niece, saying she was a Rinzai Zen master and that Eric should have dokusan with her sometime, and that she would be hard on him. Eric drove them to San Francisco airport. On the way Kobun said a Zen teacher and students are like a nursery school teacher and children, with a view from a little higher up.

between 1970 and 1978 · medium confidence — Undated; fixed only to the Los Altos house during the Haiku Zendo years.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

During the autumn practice period the zendo began a series of introductory seminars led by Kobun and zendo members, aimed at neighbours who had never come to the zendo. The first was held in the fireside room of the Palo Alto Unitarian Church with twenty-two people attending; Jan Derksen gave the posture instruction, the day was spent sitting and questioning the point of sitting at all, and Kobun closed with a talk followed by tea.

Palo Alto Unitarian Church, Palo Alto, California · medium confidence — The first seminar carries no date; September is inferred from its place in the autumn practice period.

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974

Kobun met a class of about twenty-five students for meditation and discussion on Thursday evenings through De Anza College's continuing education programme in Cupertino. This is the earliest documented instance of him teaching inside a college programme, predating the Stanford and Foothill teaching already in the record.

De Anza College, Cupertino, California · medium confidence — Reported as ongoing in an autumn 1974 newsletter; no start date was given.

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1974

A poem for Kakuho, Jim Black's dharma name, describes the poet turning his head in his hands and listening to the scrape of the razor against the scalp, and is marked as begun 25 November and completed 8 December 1974. If the poem was written in response to the shaving rather than long afterwards, it places the ceremony in that window, which spans the 1974 Rohatsu sesshin.

medium confidence — Only the dates of a written composition anchor it, and those are not the ceremony's date.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975 · Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Kobun recounts that on his most recent visit to Japan he woke in the middle of the night in a completely dark temple, having heard a low animal-like cry and groaning which he says he recognised as a sound he had in himself. Half-asleep he followed it and found his sister-in-law gripping a table in the bedroom with his elder brother holding her shoulder. He asked his brother whether he could do anything and was told she was all right. Going back to bed he passed his mother, still awake and writing a letter. He describes the whole household living with her illness.

the family temple, Japan · between 1969 and 1974

Heart Sutra commentary (Kobun)

Fran Lewis recalled that the Karmapa performed the black crown ceremony in San Francisco with about three thousand people present, and that Kobun sat on the stage with him and the monks. Kobun confirmed it.

between 1974 and 1980 · medium confidence — Fran Lewis's claim, with Kobun's assent a single word; the stage detail is weaker than the ceremony.

Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

Kobun taught workshops and courses through Foothill College and UC Santa Cruz as well as Stanford.

between 1971 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; grouped by recollection with his other early-1970s college teaching.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Sonja Margulies served as Kobun's jisha for a few years in the period when he was pressing the 'guerilla' model of practice, and told him she did not want to become a professional religious.

between 1970 and 1978 · medium confidence — Her own account, placed only 'early on', before the teaching-stick exchange.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Dainin Katagiri, then of the Minnesota Zen Center, took time from his San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara commitments to visit Kobun's sangha on September 17th and 18th, and the newsletter printed a revised version of his September 17th lecture alongside a Kobun piece.

between 1973 and 1974 · medium confidence — The day and month are given but not the year, which is inferred from neighbouring newsletter items.

Knowing Others (Kobun)

Weekly study session: Dōgen's life; his poems read from Kobun's books; shōken and menju introduced; kyōge betsuden; Dōgen's first meeting with Rujing at Tiantong.

Gert's house, Los Altos · with Ann, Babette, Barbara, Carmelia and 7 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

The winter practice period began with a six-day sesshin at Hidden Villa Hostel. Steve Bodian (Ikko) served as shuso.

Hidden Villa Hostel, Los Altos Hills, California · medium confidence — The dates are given plainly, but the newsletter's 'Rohatsu' label is anomalous for February — likely a slip.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

Christine Sebert, daughter of Charles and Joyce Sebert, died on this date. At the burial service she was given the precepts and the dharma name Homyo Reiko, dharma sprout and dawn light. Her mother Joyce would herself be ordained by Kobun two years later.

Los Altos area, California · medium confidence — The officiant is unnamed; Kobun is inferred as the only priest serving this community.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

Weekly study session: reading the Menju fascicle; face giving, face receiving; the obtaining of the marrow.

Glenna's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Babette, Barbara and 11 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: what kind of meeting menju is; Way-seeking Mind; four stages; Christian parallels.

Glenna's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Barbara, Carmelia, Edie and 10 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: ichigo ichie ('once a life, or all the time'); juki; Tōzan; 'Way-seeking Mind is very blind'.

Glenna's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Babette, Barbara, Carmelia and 9 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: Mahākāshyapa and Shakyamuni; Ananda; the Fifth and Sixth Patriarchs; faith; transmission for laymen and women.

Ruth's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Babette, Barbara, Carmelia and 12 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: two moons; the real face; the sword of nothing; Keizan and Meihō; ends 'Like look into zazen with binoculars'.

Ruth's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Barbara, Carmelia, Gert and 7 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: Moses and Jesus on TV; baptism; the ant; Rujing and Dōgen.

Ruth's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Barbara, Carmelia and 11 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

David Caruso (Sunyo Joko) ordained by Kobun at Spring Mountain Sangha's Ukiah Zendo. Buddhist name: Sun Yo Jo Ko (Spring Sun Samadhi Light), designation Jo Za (High Seat). Given two sets of old priests' robes that belonged to Kobun's father.

Ukiah, CA · with David Caruso

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance · Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

The officers appointed a committee of Angie Boissevain, Bill Brown, Hathaway Gamble, Jerry Halpern, Barbara Hiestand, Sonja Margulies and Buff Bradley as chairman. It met every other week through the summer, studied comparable non-profit structures both Buddhist and secular, and examined the sangha's own history and internal working. Kobun took part in the discussions of traditional Japanese organisational structure and of what forms would suit this country.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975

Ikko sat before the assembly holding the staff of the lineage and took questions. Asked what love is he said it is taking care of all beings, and that each moment contains all beings. Asked why Bodhidharma came from the West he answered with the question of whether the spring flower or the spring breeze comes first. Asked what faith is he said it is what makes it possible to go on living.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975 · Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: the shuso ceremony; the udumbara flower; knocking from both sides (sottaku); zazen, bowing, acceptance.

Hathaway's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Barbara, Carmelia and 10 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: menju in the broader sense — the teacup; the secret of the glaze; friendship, form, and the guru's favor.

Hathaway's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Barbara, Carol and 8 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Les Kaye, Trout Black and others had been negotiating with the Jesuit retreat community next door, which offered three of its thirty acres for $150,000. The meeting was to decide whether to counter at $90,000. Kobun told them the first question was whether the place actually suited the practice, and warned that if they jumped too far from reality to ideal they could spend many months on organisation and fundraising with no chance to sit. Members split between wanting land and wanting a house now; the meeting ended without consensus and the negotiations were dropped.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

Weekly study session: juki as promise of future menju; 'Attachment is simply memory'; something is missing; extension and samadhi.

Hathaway's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Carmelia, Gert, Glenna and 8 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: the way of meeting; the tower of the Diamond Sutra; Kannon-gyō and atman; the mirage city (gandharva-nagara).

Judy Cosgrove's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Babette, Bob Weinberg and 12 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Weekly study session: Kobun's trip to Padma Jong; expressing colorless light with colors; 'By color to express no color'; art and reality.

Judy Cosgrove's house, Los Altos · with Angie Boissevain, Ann, Babette, Carmelia and 10 others

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Six days before Robb Crist's funeral Kobun explained the practice of the turning word left with someone who has died. He described it as a word that keeps the dead person continuing with you and shows a truer figure of who they were, that draws a returning response, and that can stop a strong flow like wind and turn it. Where there is mutual attachment that cannot be controlled, he said, ittengo has the power to cut it. He added that if you are the one who has died, then you say the word.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975 · Knowing Others (Kobun)

The service was held beside a young tree at the top of the Stanford amphitheatre. Robb Crist's son attended along with friends from the Free University, Prometheus and Haiku Zendo. He was given the precepts and the dharma name Tengai Daiko, heaven-reaching cliff and great sunlight. Everyone offered incense, the Heart Sutra was chanted, and friends spoke turning words to him. Kobun said during the ceremony that no one could have understood what Crist had done in his lifetime. Crist had drowned in a backyard tub; his own rewriting of the Four Vows, dated April 1975, was printed alongside the accounts.

Frost Amphitheater, Stanford University, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975 · Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

The Spring Mountain group held its summer sesshin in Ukiah rather than on the mountain, because the road up to the property could not be cleared that year. The group had also begun all-day sittings on the second Saturday of each month at the Ukiah zendo.

136 Ford Street, Ukiah, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

Josephine Duveneck told Jim Black that Charles F. Pentler had left his forty-six-acre estate to the Palo Alto Friends Meeting; at about the same time Marilyn Anderson told Sonja Margulies the same thing. This is the origin of a property search that would occupy the sangha for the next three years.

Cupertino, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

The Haiku Zendo Temple Committee and other sangha members met members of the Palo Alto Friends Meeting on the property. Nine days later Hathaway Gamble and Jim Black sent a letter describing the sangha's intention to create a centre for seminars, workshops, guest lectures and retreats, open and available to all, and their wish to sustain the Soto tradition Mrs. Pentler had already brought to the place.

Pentler Estate, Cupertino, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

After two marathon committee meetings in August the proposal was put to a general meeting and went through a seven-hour presentation, judged successful, five weeks before the vote.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975

An attorney, William Parker, gave the sangha free legal advice for the Bodhi incorporation.

medium confidence — Undated; known only to fall during the incorporation effort.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

A week-long seminar at Esalen on the Big Sur coast. The spring 1975 issue announced it as 9 to 14 November and described Kobun as giving it; the autumn issue gives 9 to 15 November and describes him as participating.

Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California · medium confidence — Two newsletter notices disagree on the end date and on the nature of his role.

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975

When the Los Altos group incorporated as the nonprofit Bodhi, the bylaws stated at Kobun's suggestion that all beings are members of the sangha. The biography attributes the wording directly to him.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence — The year is that of the incorporation itself; the bylaw text is not separately dated.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Large sheets of rice paper laid on the floor, green tea and sake, ink being mixed. Kobun deferred and Trungpa went first, writing Tibetan letters for the names of Kobun's two children; Kobun answered with the names of Trungpa's children in Japanese, explaining the characters. It turned into a kind of playful dharma combat, ending with Trungpa writing that mindfulness is the way of all the Buddhas and Kobun answering with a flourish, 'Great no mind', to general laughter. Two independent witnesses describe the same session.

between 1973 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; it can only be bracketed between Yoshiko's birth in 1973 and Trungpa's death in 1987.

Trungpa and Zen — David Schneider · Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

At the suburban home of Sonja Margulies, with students watching, the two teachers spread out a large sheet and took turns kneeling, writing, and translating what they had written, until it turned into a playful dharma combat. Kobun wrote the names of Trungpa's children in Japanese and Trungpa wrote the names of Kobun's children in Tibetan. At one point Trungpa, in suit and tie, wrote that mindfulness is the way of all the buddhas. Kobun loaded a large brush, paused, and wrote Great no mind. The room broke up.

between 1973 and 1976 · medium confidence — Undated; Bodian's memory, told twice decades later, the second telling adding details the first lacked.

Remembering Kobun, my first Zen teacher · Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

When a longtime student lost the person she lived with, Kobun gave her a large calligraphy scroll to hang in her house and later conducted the funeral outdoors on the grass at Frost Amphitheater on the Stanford campus. He had to explain to her afterwards that the scroll needed to be returned.

between 1971 and 1980 · medium confidence — Undated; the witness's decade with Kobun, 1971 to 1980, is the only bracket.

Memory of Kobun

Fran O'Connell (Tennen Myoshin), Phil Olson (Unkai Daicho, monk), Jerry Halpern (Sessan Yudo, monk), Tom Tucker of Santa Cruz (Kokai Dokushu), and Tina, Eric and Eyjo Remington. The notice records that Phil Olson had received lay ordination from Suzuki Roshi in spring 1971 and Jerry Halpern from Kobun in spring 1975, so both were now taking the second step.

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos, California · medium confidence — The ceremonies are undated in the newsletter; the month is inferred from the issue itself.

Ho To Newsletter — Autumn 1975

The spring 1975 issue reports the ordinations as having taken place 'during the past months', individually and in family groups. Two members are separately dated: David Caruso in March 1975 and Jerry Halpern's lay ordination in spring 1975. The rest are undated.

between 1974 and 1975 · medium confidence — Dated only by newsletter silence and then report: absent in autumn 1974, recent by spring 1975.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1975

The summer 1977 issue advertises three soft-cover books published in past years by Haiku Zendo and available from Bodhi: an oryoki manual by Les Kaye covering construction, use and history of the eating bowls, illustrated, forty-six pages; a forty-two-page history of the sangha with students' memories of Suzuki Roshi; and a twenty-eight-page collection of poems by sangha members. The second is the Chronicles of Haiku Zendo. The oryoki book was being prepared for publication in autumn 1974 with Judy Liggett handling it and was taking advance reservations at $2.50.

between 1973 and 1977 · medium confidence — Publication dates are unrecorded; one book carries no date at all, the others only bracketing mentions.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Kobun opened a study-group meeting by thanking three of the women present by name for the sesshin meals, and said the sesshin had felt rich and full of energy.

California · medium confidence — The sesshin is undated; it is known only from thanks recorded at a meeting on 5 May 1975.

Menju study group transcripts, Los Altos, Feb-May 1975

Kobun asked Stephan Bodian to take care of Taido and Yoshiko if anything ever happened to him.

between 1973 and 1976 · medium confidence — Bodian's memory; datable only between Yoshiko's birth in 1973 and his departure in 1976.

Remembering Kobun

Hollis DeLancy, naming the circle around Kobun in Los Altos: 'there's a man whose name is Bill [Glockner]. He was an artist as was Kobun. And so he and Kobun used to go walking in the hills in the Palo Alto area and do watercolours together.' The archive holds Kobun's calligraphy and his brush; this is the first record of him painting, and of a painting companion.

Palo Alto · with Bill Glockner · between 1970 and 1984 · medium confidence — One witness, known through a rough transcript; the painter's surname is unverified.

Hollis DeLancy, telephone call with Anton Borzov, 27 October 2025

Jobs (with Chrisann Brennan) began appearing at the Haiku Zendo ~1975 after returning from India, drawn by the zendo's posters around town; sought Kobun one-to-one — midnight calls, waiting outside the house; catchphrase 'Let's go see Kobun!' (Kottke). Bodian and Kaye date it 1975; Harriet: after Suzuki's death (so 1971+).

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos · with Steve Jobs

Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

On the afternoon of Buddha's birthday the Spring Mountain Sangha signed the final contract for a forty-acre farm in Potter Valley, California, expecting to move in during the first week of May.

Potter Valley, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

A supper and discussion at which the decision was taken to press all members to pledge monthly support for the teacher.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Announced in the spring 1976 issue.

Hidden Villa Hostel, Los Altos Hills, California · medium confidence — Announced in advance; no later report confirms it took place.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Kobun's support for himself and his family stood at $717 a month, drawn entirely from individual contributions. The Board had voted a four per cent cost-of-living adjustment in January but did not think it adequate, and the sangha resolved to raise the figure by $200 a month, with members visiting one another to ask for pledges under Les Kaye's coordination. General fund income for January to April 1976 was $4,441 against $4,428 of expenses, leaving a balance of thirteen dollars.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Held at the Palo Alto Unitarian Church, the same room used for the first introductory seminar in autumn 1974.

Palo Alto Unitarian Church, California · medium confidence — Announced in advance; whether it took place is not separately recorded.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Soen Nakagawa's invitation was to the opening ceremony and sesshin of the new Zen Studies Society country temple on Beecher Lake in the Catskills. The spring 1976 issue reports that Kobun and Glenna Houle planned to attend. Steve Bodian had visited the site under construction in June 1975 and reported the $2 million fundraising had fallen several hundred thousand short.

International Dai Bosatsu Zendo, Catskill Mountains, New York · low confidence — Only the invitation is documented, and he may have been in Michigan that week; attendance is unconfirmed.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Told the Quakers' asking price would fall between $200,000 and $600,000, the board of Bodhi decided against purchase, ending a search that had run for most of two years.

Los Altos

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978 · Unknown author - Kobun remembrance · cuke.com - Jobs page

Announced in the spring 1976 issue.

Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, Colorado · medium confidence — Announced in advance; no later report confirms it happened.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Kobun performed the wedding of two sangha members.

Los Altos

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

Announced in the spring 1976 issue as beginning on 27 September.

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Announced in advance; not confirmed afterward.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Members inspected a house at 514 Lytton in Palo Alto, offered at $75,000 by the Committee for the Study of Non-Violence, with a basement and a garage large enough for meetings, though the Palo Alto building code would not have permitted that use and there was constant traffic noise. At the annual meeting most who had seen it thought it would serve as an interim temple. Kobun saw it afterwards and said it did not look forward to the future, and the search moved on. Interest then turned to the Squire house at 900 University, a colonial house on three quarters of an acre listed at $175,000, which sold to a family for $135,000 while the sangha was still deliberating.

Palo Alto, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

Organised out of the Santa Cruz zendo for the end of October.

Ben Lomond, California · low confidence — Announced only as 'the end of October'; neither the exact date nor its occurrence is confirmed.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Maria Wallace, ordained as a nun with the name Shogetsu Shuko in the 1974-75 group and co-builder of the Big Sur house Kobun consecrated as Daisho-an, had her shuso ceremony on 21 November.

California · medium confidence — Day and month are recorded; the year is inferred from the newsletter issue.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

Two disciples of Maezumi Roshi came to Haiku Zendo in early November, a year after Maezumi's own visit.

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Given only as 'early November'; the year is inferred from the newsletter issue.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

Members of Bodhi and of the Palo Alto Friends Meeting began coming together once a month through the winter to talk about practice and to sit together. The Friends became aware of the depth of silence in zazen; Bodhi members took an interest in Quaker social action and in their consensus procedure. Several Bodhi members began attending Sunday Meeting and some Quakers began sitting at home.

Palo Alto, California · medium confidence — The start is inferred from a report that meetings ran 'once a month throughout the winter'.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Announced in the spring 1976 issue.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Announced only as 'the first week of December'; no exact dates were given.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

As of 20 November 1976 the building fund held $14,306 in the bank and about $18,000 in stock. General fund income for the year was $10,376 against $10,203 of expenses.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

between 1975 and 1976 · medium confidence — Brennan's telling; datable only as a few months before a later remark she reports.

no source recorded

Huge mudslide blocks road to Foster Mountain. Property sold. 40-acre farm purchased in Potter Valley. Seven of Kobun's students move there. 24x38 zendo seating 45. Active until early 1980s.

Potter Valley, CA · medium confidence

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

Trudy Goodman first encounters Kobun Chino, beginning a long student-teacher relationship.

Los Altos, CA · with Trudy Goodman · medium confidence

Buddhist Geeks - Trudy Goodman on Kobun

Kobun invited Taizan Maezumi, head of the Zen Center of Los Angeles, to visit, and told Bodian to come and meet him. Bodian, hurrying up the path adjusting his rakusu, nearly walked into him, and was struck by how rooted Maezumi seemed next to Kobun. The meeting decided Bodian's departure for ZCLA. When he told Kobun, Kobun's only comment was that Maezumi was very traditional, which in his mouth was not praise.

Los Altos, CA · medium confidence — Eyewitness memory; the year is inferred from Bodian's own move to Los Angeles, not from the visit.

Remembering Kobun, my first Zen teacher

After Bodian moved to the Zen Center of Los Angeles, friends reported that Kobun had given a talk mocking concentrated, goal-directed sitting as a misunderstanding of practice, naming Bodian, and telling his students to sit soft instead. It is the sharpest surviving instance of Kobun taking a public position against another teacher's style, and of his being wounded by a student's departure.

Los Altos, CA · medium confidence — Secondhand: Bodian was not present and reports what friends told him.

Remembering Kobun, my first Zen teacher · Remembering Kobun

Nora Reza Girshick (Eigetsu Jikai), Steven Girshick (Juho Shinpu), June French (Hakuho Shijun), Hideo Korematsu (Eiko Ekai, monk's ordination) and Ruth Sicular (Chogetsu Hosen). A poem in the same issue records that a cat walked into the zendo on Hideo's ordination day, greeted each guest, crossed the altar inspecting the ritual objects, and was gently evicted.

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos, California · medium confidence — The ceremonies are undated; they fall somewhere in the months before spring 1976.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1976

Teaching on merit in the Platform Sutra, Kobun mentions that a friend of his, a Jesuit Father, came round right after New Year's breakfast simply to wish him a happy new year and to say God bless you. Kobun says he thanked him, that the words were like the sound of wind, and that he could not think in terms of one of them being a Jesuit priest and the other a Buddhist monk. He gave him a small present of incense from Japan, and says he was glad to be inside the huge world he sensed in the other man's mind.

California · between 1971 and 1979

Platform Sutra commentary (Kobun)

Walking Brennan through his house, Kobun spoke with visible pride about having wanted a strong student and having found one, dismissing everyone who had practised at Tassajara as incapable of that strength. Brennan read the moment as gloating and it unsettled her.

Kobun's house, Los Altos, California · between 1975 and 1976 · medium confidence — Brennan's memory, undated; fixed only as a few months before a later remark she reports.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

In a question-and-answer session Kobun described seeing Ginsberg go down to the ground bowing to Trungpa in the street, half joking and half in earnest, and noticing his own reluctance to do the same — which he identified as pride, and enjoyed noticing.

New York · between 1971 and 1986 · low confidence — Rests on a quotation from an unverified transcript of a recorded talk; undated.

Presentation Plan

between 1971 and 1986 · medium confidence — Undated; possible any time between their 1970 meeting and Trungpa's death.

no source recorded

A sangha-wide visit to the property, eight days before the general meeting that authorised negotiation.

Cupertino, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

Members decided to negotiate with the Quakers. Jim Black and Les Kaye then met them to discuss a fair price based on appraisals commissioned by each group, and $360,000 was agreed.

Los Altos and Palo Alto, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

Announced in the winter 1976 issue for February 1977.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Known from the advance announcement; not separately confirmed afterward.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1976

Ordained with the name Shun Ko, Myo Kuo, spring light and wonderful emptiness. She would go on to edit Ho To and to host a weekly sitting at her Santa Clara house that ran at least through 1980.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence — The day is recorded beside her photograph; the year is inferred from the newsletter issue.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Ordained with the name Kishin, Hokyo, joyful mind and jewel mirror. Her daughter Christine had been given the precepts posthumously at her burial two years earlier.

Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Only the month appears beside her photograph; the year is inferred from the newsletter issue.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Held on the Spring Mountain farm. A poem in the following issue headed 'Potter Valley 5/13-15/77' describes the same occasion as running from the 13th.

Potter Valley, California · medium confidence — Two records of the same weekend differ: the report says 14–15 May, a poem 13–15 May.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Kobun went to the Zen Studies Society's New York Zendo and saw the Hannya mask that the Pentlers had given Soen Nakagawa for Dai Bosatsu, describing it afterwards as dark blue with golden fiery eyes, scarlet lips and snow-white teeth, a long curved horn on each side, and the mouth split from ear to ear. Eido Shimano and students from the New York Zendo were planning to visit Bodhi that July.

New York Zendo, New York City

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

A Sunday-evening festival in the Japanese garden at Saratoga, with about a hundred guests. Mrs. Shimaoka and ten of her students played koto and served tea; there was shakuhachi music, a formal tea ceremony, sushi and conversation; and Kobun did calligraphy before a roomful of still spectators. The writer called it Bodhi's first personal contact with the wider community. The event raised money for the Pentler purchase and was one of a set of fundraisers that brought in about $4,000 that year.

Hakone Gardens, Saratoga, California · low confidence — Recalled only as 'one warm evening last Spring'; May is a guess from that phrasing.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

A three-day festival at Tresidder Union, Stanford University, opening with an evening concert of shakuhachi and koto.

Stanford

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Judy and Dave Robison had settled in Oregon and formed a weekly sitting with six people from nearby Corvallis. They held their first Salem weekend sesshin in July and planned more; Mary Kate Spencer came up from Menlo Park to sit it with them. A new outpost of the network, listed alongside Los Altos, Santa Cruz, Potter Valley and Michigan.

Salem, Oregon · medium confidence — The month is recorded; the year is inferred from a report on 'this past year'.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

Over the summer the Santa Cruz sangha finished a dokusan room and library, reroofed the zendo in August so that it was dry for the first time, and removed the kitchen at the back to expand the hall for a growing sangha. A larger mokugyo and bell arrived, sent by Jim Goodhue from Japan.

113 School Street, Santa Cruz, California · medium confidence — Only the reroofing is dated to August; the rest is reported simply as 'this summer'.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

A wedding at the Los Altos zendo planned by the couple and the priest with only a few close friends present. Kobun wore a purple and gold kesa; the groom wore a brown robe and yellow rakusu, the bride a white robe and black rakusu. The ceremony ran forty-five minutes. The couple spoke of their commitment to each other and renewed their commitment to the precepts, and at the end Kobun invited the guests to speak of what the occasion had raised in them. Kobun's gift to them was a pair of pine plants set at the entrance. The account is by the bride's mother, who had helped clean the zendo floor that morning.

Haiku Zendo, Los Altos, California · medium confidence — Day and month are recorded; the year is inferred from the newsletter's account of that autumn.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

The sesshin began badly because a labour crew was jackhammering the street outside the windows, but quiet came with the holiday.

113 School Street, Santa Cruz, California · medium confidence — Identified only as the Labor Day sesshin; the date follows from the 1977 holiday.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

Seven Japanese films were shown on consecutive Friday evenings at Tresidder Union, including Woman in the Dunes, Ugetsu and Ikiru. About eighty series tickets were sold, attendance averaged three hundred to three hundred and fifty a night, and two showings sold out. Jim Black gave the introductory talk on the opening night. The organisers had never done anything like it and had screened a surviving print of an Ozu film so degraded that three of the four screeners fell asleep or left.

Tresidder Union, Stanford University, California · low confidence — Reported only as 'this fall'; October is a guess from that phrasing.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

The sangha met at Josephine and Frank Duveneck's home after the anticipated bank loan was refused, leaving them to decide whether to go on alone. Sixty people attended and pledged $79,000 that evening in direct contributions and loans, which the newsletter took as reassurance that the centre would happen. Against a purchase price of $360,000 the fund then stood at $281,000, with $79,000 left to raise by 18 January 1978.

Hidden Villa, Los Altos Hills, California

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1978

Without telling his parents, ten-year-old Michael Caruso asked Kobun for a child's ordination, and Kobun agreed. The ceremony was held that spring in front of much of the Spring Mountain community, and Michael's fourth-grade teachers came too. His father, who was himself ordained by Kobun two years earlier, calls it unique in his experience.

Potter Valley, CA

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

Isberg records that Kobun supported his going to Tassajara for a practice period in 1977. It is one of the few concrete instances in this account of Kobun directing a lay student's training elsewhere.

Tassajara, California

Kobun Recalled

The summer 1977 cover carries Kobun's calligraphy of Haku Un, White Cloud, captioned in the credits as a possible name for the new temple. The Pentler property never came into the sangha's hands and the name was never used; the city centre eventually opened as Kannon-do and the mountain site as Jikoji.

medium confidence — Undated; it falls between the February 1977 option signing and the collapse of escrow in January 1978.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1977

Ahead of Brennan's trip to India, Kobun gave her a rule for homesickness: wait two weeks before acting on the wish to come home. She recalls it as one of the few pieces of direct guidance he gave her.

Los Altos, California · between 1975 and 1977 · medium confidence — Brennan's memory, written decades later; no year is given.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

When Brennan came back from India, Kobun greeted her with a remark that she had not been human before she left but was now, and asked what had happened to her there.

Los Altos, California · between 1975 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan's own memory of words spoken to her; undated.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Kobun repeatedly told Brennan he would give her money and raise the child himself, for as long as she wanted. When she objected that his wife would never accept another woman's child in the house, he answered that he would divorce Harriet if she objected. Brennan found the bravado alarming rather than reassuring.

Los Altos, California · between 1977 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan is the only witness, and she writes openly as a critic of Kobun.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Brennan went to Kobun's house to talk about how she was being treated. He listened privately in the dining area, then, to her acute embarrassment, called in two older students who had flown across the country to be with him, and told them the story. They responded with kindness and she left shaken but steadier.

Kobun's house, Los Altos, California · between 1976 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan's own memory; the two students are unnamed and the episode undated.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Kobun made Clifford Isberg a sangha officer and later a board member, each for a few years, without ever proposing ordination to him.

between 1971 and 1985 · medium confidence — Isberg's own account; he dates neither term.

Kobun Recalled

between 1977 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan's memoir gives no year; the order rests on her chapters' sequence.

no source recorded

Bodhi met the Friends' negotiating committee ready to make a formal offer in contract form of $285,000, split between their appraiser's $300,000 and Bodhi's $220,000. The appraisals were so far from what the Friends had expected to discuss that the committee would not negotiate until it had consulted its general business meeting. A week later that meeting heard the offer, agreed the property was worth a great deal more, and decided to put it discreetly on the market. Bodhi then revised its offer downward to $240,000, saying it could not in conscience pay more than fair market value given its obligation to contributors. The Quakers rented the house out for six months, and Bodhi's effort was suspended.

Palo Alto, California

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1978

In a Santa Cruz lecture Kobun said that after many contented years of sitting one's understanding of mind and body changes, that what had seemed the invisible and visible qualities of the same thing turn out to be one thing, and that physically one feels no division between the body and air, earth, the solar system. He allowed the distinction while denying the division, calling it all one piece of great happening.

Santa Cruz Zendo, California

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

Jim Black (Sen Ko, Kaku Ho) took dharma questions at a house in Menlo Park rather than in the zendo. Asked whether there is understanding in the practice he said yes, reached through practice step by step; asked who experiences it he told the questioner to take a walk in the river. Asked by his own wife what fear is he said she could not depend on her husband to answer that. Asked where the emptiness is in a life full of joy and sorrow he said life is as full of sunshine as the colour of the questioner's shirt and that there is no emptiness here.

915 Hermosa Way, Menlo Park, California

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1978

The farm carried its Buddha statue up the hill, decorated it with flowers, bathed it in sweet tea and chanted, then shared a birthday cake.

Potter Valley, California · medium confidence — The month is recorded; the year is inferred from the newsletter issue.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1978

Organised by Sally Jarman for the second year running; members contributed everything from clothing and pottery to swimming pools and heating systems, stored at the Kayes' house the week before.

Los Altos, California

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1978

Josephine Duveneck died on the summer solstice. She had opened Hidden Villa for the sangha's sesshins for years and her home for its gatherings, and had worked with the Quakers on Bodhi's behalf over the Pentler purchase. It was she who first told Jim Black about the Pentler bequest in August 1975. The sesshins that ran three or four times a year at the Duveneck ranch hostel were the backbone of Kobun's retreat schedule for most of the 1970s.

Los Altos Hills, California · medium confidence — The memorial says only 'died on the summer solstice'; the date follows from the 1978 calendar.

Ho To Newsletter — Summer 1978

At the end of September Bob and Becca Foster moved to a small house in Ukiah and Larry Cornman moved in with friends there soon after, which the farm treated as the local sangha growing rather than shrinking. Diane Darling and her son moved onto the farm in September and William Stocker, the carpenter who had built Haiku Zendo out of Marian Derby's garage in 1966, moved there in November. A weekly Wednesday evening sitting followed by dinner was established for local people.

Potter Valley, California · medium confidence — The months are recorded; the year is inferred from a report on the past season.

Ho To Newsletter — Spring 1979

Asked what Gate Gate Paragate means Kobun said it does not mean anything, that everything is falling apart, that all together everything falls apart and nothing can be done about it, and that there is nothing to hang onto. Asked about bowing in the service he called it a powerful action destroying the continuous birth of the ego, said joined hands are a kind of sword thrust and two people bowing are two swords or two arrows merging so that it is unclear which cuts which, and told students not to treat it as a group ritual but to do it alone and to bow toward someone far away whom they care for. He added that if the world's situation is a great problem, bowing to the world is a way to swallow the whole problem as one's own rather than running around biting at parts of it.

Santa Cruz Zendo, California

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

A seventeen-part series of dharma lectures on the Buddhist precepts, running to roughly nine and a half hours, was recorded and later uploaded to the Kobun Chino Archive on SoundCloud. It is the earliest material in that archive and predates the sesshin talks that became the Embracing Mind collection.

medium confidence — Month rests on a playlist description; the recordings themselves are private and the venue unstated.

SoundCloud archive catalog · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

A recorded Tuesday-night dharma talk at Santa Cruz Zen Center, preserved in the centre's audio archive.

Santa Cruz Zen Center, California

SCZC Newsletter Archives (1978-2021)

Six talks totalling about four and a half hours were recorded during the December Rohatsu sesshin, the retreat marking the Buddha's awakening, and later archived on SoundCloud.

medium confidence — Known only from a playlist description; the recordings are private and the venue unstated.

SoundCloud archive catalog · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

James Hardy sat a summer sesshin with Kobun in Colorado and recalled two things: in his interview Kobun conveyed, largely through posture and eyes, an unusually direct acknowledgement of pain and friendship; and across the retreat Kobun took the Greek story of Orpheus descending to retrieve Eurydice, and losing her by looking back, as his teaching theme, reading the condition not to look back as a figure for faith in practice. Hardy noted the bitter echo when he later learned Kobun had died failing to retrieve his own daughter.

Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, Colorado · medium confidence — Written from memory years later; the writer himself hedges the retreat's length.

Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese) · Presentation Plan

Kobun taught a residential retreat at Cloverdale in northern California, which Brennan attended while heavily pregnant. She recalls his teaching there on a spiritual logic of saying no and saying yes, and a public exchange in which he laughed at her answer in front of the whole group.

Cloverdale, California · between 1977 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan attended, but gives no year — only 'that spring' within her pregnancy narrative.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Driving back to the Peninsula after the Cloverdale retreat, Kobun stopped at a woman's cabin in the hills near Sebastopol. He and the woman smoked a joint, he asked her repeatedly for more of her dried buds, told her never to let unenlightened people onto her land, and, pointing at a bird overhead, said it was him watching over her. Brennan, pregnant and sober in the room, recorded the whole episode as the moment her idealism about him broke.

Near Sebastopol, California · between 1977 and 1978 · medium confidence — Rests on one witness, openly critical of Kobun; undated and unverified elsewhere.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Kobun did not see Brennan after the birth but called her the following day to offer his good wishes. She next saw him only at a Wednesday evening meditation during a two-week window when she was back in the Bay Area.

medium confidence — Brennan's memory; the date follows a birth that is itself undated in her account.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

between 1977 and 1978 · medium confidence — Brennan's telling; fixed only as spring during her pregnancy, between undated neighbouring episodes.

no source recorded

A recorded dharma talk at Santa Cruz Zen Center.

Santa Cruz Zen Center, California

SCZC Newsletter Archives (1978-2021)

The SoundCloud archive holds roughly an hour and a half of Kobun's dharma lectures given for a Buddha's-birthday sesshin in April of this year. It is the only recorded sesshin set between the 1978 material and the run that starts in 1987.

medium confidence

SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

A Kobun talk on the three bodies of Buddha was recorded and archived by Santa Cruz Zen Center, four months after the March talk on solitude and emptiness already in the chronology.

Santa Cruz, California

Kobun Talk Index

The Santa Cruz journal, written on 13 February 1979, reports that Bodhi, comprising the Santa Cruz, Los Altos and Spring Mountain sanghas, had just purchased property in the Santa Cruz Mountains as a focal point for future practice, and notes that because the site lies about equidistant from Los Altos and Santa Cruz the centre of gravity of the organisation would shift southward. The property, listed later that year as Bodhi Skyline and Bodhi Pacific at 12100 Skyline Boulevard, Saratoga, is the site of Jikoji, which carries the same address. This places the acquisition of the Jikoji land two years before the temple's founding date.

12100 Skyline Boulevard, Saratoga, California · medium confidence — The record says only 'has just purchased' as of 13 February 1979; the month is approximate.

Sangha — Santa Cruz Zen Center Journal

On his first visit to the property that became Jikoji, while remnants of the Pacific High School community were still living there, Eric was met at once by Kobun, who wanted to explain that he had signed the bill of sale without taking it to Bodhi's board of directors. Eric said he did not need an explanation; Kobun gave one anyway, saying this was a special place that would take care of everyone's practice.

between 1978 and 1979 · medium confidence — Undated; it can only be bracketed between the 1978 board decision and Jikoji's establishment in 1981.

Eric Rci - Kobun remembrance

The mountain property arrived with about fifty people whose commune down the road had just been bulldozed by the sheriff; they moved into geodesic domes left from a school Buckminster Fuller had helped build. Stoned hippies and alienated veterans brought their complaints to Bodhi board meetings. Asked how long it would take for the place to become a proper meditation centre, Kobun drawled that it takes about five hundred years. Angie Boissevain says he was happy in that period and really loved those people, invited them all into the zendo, and that many of the runaway kids started sitting and came back as caretakers; his answer to the pressure was that they would work with them.

between 1979 and 1981 · medium confidence — Undated; two independent accounts agree on the squatters but neither dates the moment.

Remembering Kobun (Carol Gallup)

The Winter 1979-80 issue is given over to photographs of a new zendo, Kannon-do, Place of Compassion, Sitting Place of the Bodhisattva of Mercy, at 292 College Avenue, Mountain View, and calls its opening the fruit of many years' search for a meditation hall in the local area. It was already running a full schedule: zazen every morning at 5:30 and 6:10, Wednesday evening at 7:10, a lecture by Kobun on Wednesday at eight, and a Buddhist studies group on alternating Sunday evenings under a study director. The newsletter shows the interior transformed into a zendo by many hands. Note that Haiku Zendo continued in parallel at 746 University Avenue with a weekday 5:30 morning sitting, so Kannon-do supplemented it rather than replacing it.

292 College Avenue, Mountain View, California · medium confidence — The opening falls in late 1979 or early 1980; December is an inference, not a recorded date.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1979-80 · Precepts PDF — Kobun and Les Kaye (2021) · Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

A Monday to Friday seven o'clock morning sitting at 250 Oak Grove Avenue joins the network of sitting places, alongside Kannon-do, Bodhi Skyline, Santa Cruz, Haiku Zendo, Edie Norton's house in Santa Clara, the Monday morning group, Spring Mountain and So-Getsu-In. A Catholic retreat house hosting a daily Zen sitting is a small but concrete instance of the interfaith practice that had begun with the Jesuits at El Retiro in 1975 and the Quakers from 1976.

250 Oak Grove Avenue, Menlo Park, California · low confidence — Known only from a directory listing with no start date; the month is an inference.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1979-80

The Winter 1979-80 issue continues the All Are Buddhas series with a talk on sange, repentance or avowal, which Kobun defines through tanza jisso, sitting straight in actual phenomenal form. He says recognition of one's own fault is never merely personal because once it occurs it occurs in reality and so in the universal scene, illustrates the racing mind with overtaking and being overtaken on the freeway and with winning at cards, observes that it is in man's nature to enjoy the mistakes of others and that man is accustomed to being negative, and says that when there is no sense of racing one can congratulate another's success as if one had experienced it oneself. He adds that repentance returns rather than happening once, and that the body checks it continuously, finding a level place to sleep and correcting a tilted posture without consultation.

between 1978 and 1980 · medium confidence — The lecture continues a November 1978 series but itself carries no date.

Ho To Newsletter — Winter 1979-80

Isberg notes that through the 1970s Kobun was strict about not being addressed as Roshi and preferred Sensei or simply Kobun. By 1980 he permitted the title, though in practice most people still used his name alone.

California

Kobun Recalled

Isberg asked Kobun in early 1980 to marry him and his fiancée, and Kobun met the couple several times beforehand. He then turned up about twenty minutes late to a full house, having left his VW parked across the pavement.

California

Kobun Recalled

Brought back kyudo equipment and Shibata Sensei himself.

Japan · with Bob Halpern · medium confidence

Kobun and Kyudo — Bob Halpern Account · Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

On a spring day Kobun pulled the car onto the shoulder, took a two-metre bow and a quiver of hand-carved arrows from the trunk, walked across the road to the cliff and shot a single arrow in a long arc out over the surf until it dropped into the water. The student who watched, whose eyes never left Kobun's hands, told the story in a New England zendo decades later. He had also seen Kobun split a blade of grass at twenty-five metres.

between 1970 and 1990 · medium confidence — Told at second hand, dated only as thirty-five years before the retelling; nothing fixes the year.

Kobun-sama.org — Anecdotes page · Anecdotes - Kobun Chino Otogawa

Brennan records that within roughly two years of the pregnancy conversations, Harriet ended the marriage and took the two children to live in another state. The excerpt gives no year and no location for the move.

between 1978 and 1982 · low confidence — Brennan's vague 'within two years' of an undated conversation; she was not party to the divorce.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

between 1978 and 1982 · medium confidence — Brennan's 'within two years' of an undated conversation is the only anchor.

no source recorded

A nursing job offer took the family to the Caribbean for a half-year attempt at starting over; the marriage did not recover. Kobun swam in the Caribbean — Harriet's proof he could swim.

Dominican Republic · with Harriet Chino

Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

Talking at Jikoji, Kobun says the date on which the place could legally operate as a temple is the same day as Kannon-do's, and that somebody tricked him because the day was his birthday, so it came to him as a birthday present. He says he felt trapped. Kobun's birthday is 1 February. This bears on the open question of whether Kannon-do was dedicated in 1981.

between 1980 and 1982 · medium confidence — The tie to 1 February is remembered rather than documented; the year rests on the temples' 1981 dates.

Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama (auto)

Angie Boissevain directed Jikoji under Kobun for nearly twenty years and began teaching at his encouragement, later leading the Floating Zendo in San Jose.

medium confidence — Placed at Jikoji's establishment, where she is first named director.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Keibun Otogawa, Kobun's elder brother, was abbot of the family temple Jokoji in Japan and came to America to open Jikoji with a Dai Segaki, a hungry ghost ceremony, in the early 1980s.

between 1981 and 1983 · medium confidence — Given only as 'the early 1980s', bracketed by the 1979 purchase and 1982 inauguration.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun gave one of the regular Saturday morning public dharma talks at SFZC and closed it with the line about zazen sometimes getting up and walking around. Mark Foote, who heard it, spent years afterwards trying to make that happen and eventually made peace with it not being something he could force.

between 1980 and 1985 · medium confidence — The listener recalls only that it 'must have been in the early 80's'.

Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese)

Willem Malten moves to Santa Fe, NM in late 1983, founding Cloud Cliff Bakery in December. This precedes Baker Roshi's scandal, not a consequence of it.

Santa Fe, NM · with Willem Malten · medium confidence

Cuke Audio - Willem Malten · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989)

Bob Watkins was looking for land on which to build a small monastery when Kobun settled in New Mexico.

between 1982 and 1983 · medium confidence — Undated; told only as the immediate prelude to finding the Hokoji property.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Tracy McCallum: Baker 'showed up in New Mexico one day looking for Kobun, trying to consolidate some support.'

New Mexico · with Richard Baker

Tracy McCallum Interview · Jerry Halpern — Cuke People Page

Bob Watkins recalled walking in the mountains above El Salto with Kobun when they came upon the traditional adobe that became Hokoji. Watkins also recalled spending his last money on the striker for the bowl gong, and Kobun's remark that the place would belong to whoever used it.

El Salto, near Taos, New Mexico · between 1982 and 1983 · medium confidence — Watkins's own telling, quoted in a memorial; undated beyond falling before the 1983 founding.

Remembering Kobun (collected)

Having bought land down the road from the Hokoji zendo, Kobun began building a house in the forest whose foundation was ringed by a coiling dragon made of set coloured stones. The biography dates the purchase to 1984.

Arroyo Seco, New Mexico · medium confidence — The year is that of the land purchase; the building itself is not separately dated.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

A commenter who knew Kobun asserts that his sole motive for moving to Taos was to be within a day's drive of his children, correcting a published remembrance by Carol Gallup.

between 1983 and 1984 · medium confidence — One commenter's assertion of motive, offered as a correction; a claim about intent, not a dated act.

Remembering Kobun

Kobun visits Trudy Goodman's halfway house for troubled youth in Cambridge, MA. Demonstrates unconventional teaching style with the residents.

Cambridge, MA · with Trudy Goodman · between 1980 and 1989 · low confidence — the eighties, after Trudy Goodman became his student

Buddhist Geeks - Trudy Goodman on Kobun

DC and mate Elin visit Kobun during last hours of a 7-day sesshin. Kobun ends sesshin on the spot. Introduces DC as 'a very evil monk.' They go out to a balcony with Alan Marlowe.

Arroyo Seco, NM

no source recorded

Three years after the Taos site was founded, the zendo was formally opened. Until then the place had been little more than a plain adobe house.

Arroyo Seco / Taos, NM · low confidence — Rests on a single secondhand account; no other testimony mentions a 1986 opening.

Hokoji — Phoenix Light Temple

Les Kaye, who had housed the Haiku Zendo in his Los Altos home and then served as chief priest of Kannon-do in Mountain View, was recognised as a Zen teacher and dharma heir in Shunryu Suzuki's line rather than Kobun's.

Mountain View, CA · medium confidence — The year appears in two versions of the same biography, not in independent accounts.

jakkoan.net/Kobun/ · Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center · Precepts PDF — Kobun and Les Kaye (2021)

Hollis DeLancy: 'I travelled to Japan with Kobun when he was asked by the bishop to try to deal with the ethics situations in the US with the Soto Sect in Japan.' The bishop is unnamed. The American ethics cases of the period — Richard Baker at San Francisco Zen Center in 1983 among them — would put it in the 1980s, but that is inference, not testimony.

Japan · with Hollis DeLancy · between 1983 and 1995 · medium confidence — A single companion's testimony; undated, and no other record mentions the trip.

Hollis DeLancy to Anton Borzov, 23 October 2025

During an archery intensive in Colorado, Kobun gave a recorded talk and question session on the aims of the way of the bow. He unpacked the terms for shot-form, shot-mind and shot-dignity, told the story of the archer Gei and his teacher shooting at each other in the dark, and said that although he had put down the bow for about ten years his mind had never left the archery path. He also said his root master had never taught him zazen, and gave that master's whole teaching as an instruction to be like him and not to be like him.

Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, Colorado

Kobun-sama.org — Kyudo page

Forsberg, who had begun sitting with Kobun in 1976, relocated to New Mexico as Hokoji was being formed. He spent a year in retreat in a small cabin next door and then moved into the main house, where he lived alongside Kobun for the following nine years. He describes what passed between them in that period as an energetic rather than a formal transmission, and now serves as Hokoji's guiding teacher.

Arroyo Seco, NM · medium confidence — First-person; the stated nine-year residence overlaps years he spent mainly in California and Europe.

hokojitaos.org

Morales lived at Jikoji for three years, was ordained by Kobun, and served as head student for a practice period. He gave a talk at Jikoji in 2012 looking back over the twenty-five years since.

Jikoji, Los Gatos, CA · medium confidence — The year rests on a podcast episode description, not a primary record.

Podcasts about Kobun catalog · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989)

From 1987 the spring Tanjo-e sesshin marking the Buddha's birth and the autumn Denko-e sesshin on the transmission of the light were recorded in pairs each year, mostly April and October or November, through 1993. Around eighty hours of talks from these retreats sit in the SoundCloud archive, and they cover the same period the Embracing Mind collection draws on.

medium confidence — Dates rest on playlist descriptions; the 1990 winter ceremony is absent, so the recorded cycle is incomplete.

SoundCloud archive catalog · Carolyn Atkinson - A Light in the Mind (Sweeping Zen) · Sesshin Talks (Kobun) · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

After Kobun moved to New Mexico, practice at the Potter Valley farm gradually stopped. With no students left, the board leased the property to a school for disabled children; when the school moved on a few years later the board voted to dissolve Spring Mountain Sangha as a legal entity, and the real estate and financial assets were donated to Bodhi, the successor to Haiku Zendo.

between 1984 and 1990 · medium confidence — Undated; one trustee's account, tying the decline to Kobun's departure for New Mexico in the early 1980s.

David Caruso - Spring Mountain remembrance

During the visit to the Kamalashila Tibetan Buddhist Center near Köln and Bonn that opened his European teaching, Kobun met two Kathmandu lamas of the Nyingma and Kagyu worlds, extending the Tibetan friendships that had begun with Trungpa.

Köln / Bonn, Germany · medium confidence — The names and setting rest on Kobun's own resume alone.

Kobun CV / Resume

Shibata Sensei shot at the target and handed Kobun the bow to demonstrate. Kobun turned away from the target, shot the arrow off the cliff into the Pacific, and called it a bull's eye. A second version has Kobun teaching an archery course at Esalen with the target set on the grass at the cliff edge, and the arrow sailing over target, railing and cliff into the sea below.

between 1980 and 1996 · medium confidence — Undated, and the two tellings disagree over whether Shibata was present and what Kobun was doing.

Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese) · Absolute Belief in Zazen · Personal essays about Kobun

Opening a Tanjo-e talk, Kobun tells the assembly that they have been sitting week-long sesshins on the occasion of the Buddha's birth for twenty-one years, ever since he came to this country. It fixes the practice as unbroken from the beginning of his American teaching, and gives an internal timestamp for the talk itself.

not stated · between 1987 and 1989

Embracing Mind (PDF)

Kobun's resume lists a Swiss zendo, Hosen-in, directed by Vanja Palmers and Lorly Palmers, alongside his first European visit — the earliest Swiss practice place in his own list, predating the Puregg foundation already in the chronology.

Luzern, Switzerland · between 1987 and 1989 · medium confidence — Kobun's resume lists it without a year; its position suggests the late 1980s.

Kobun CV / Resume

On one of his European trips Kobun went to the French Soto centre founded by Taisen Deshimaru, whom his resume connects to his own Komazawa student days.

La Gendronnière, near Blois, France · between 1987 and 1990 · medium confidence — Kobun's resume lists the visit without a year, near its 1988 entries.

Kobun CV / Resume

between 1987 and 1990 · medium confidence — Undated in Kobun's resume; position suggests the first European period, before 1990.

no source recorded

1988 or '89: Jobs stayed ~3 days at Hokoji with Tina Redse, in near-dokusan privacy with Kobun; never sat with the sangha. Pressed Kobun to live in a house he would provide in California — even to build him one. Kobun declined repeatedly, then half-accepted: the Jackling House became his California base.

Hokoji, Taos · with Steve Jobs

Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

Kobun taught the summer session at Naropa and four sittings were taped: meditation instruction on the third, a longer talk on the fifth covering bowing, offering incense and walking meditation, a morning talk on the nineteenth on the Heart Sutra, self-inquiry and mudras, and an all-day sitting on the twenty-third on breath and the life of meditation. Roughly six hours in all. These are the only recordings of Kobun at Naropa that are publicly accessible; they come from private tapes at Hakubai, not from Naropa's own archives, which hold nothing of his.

Naropa University, Boulder, CO

Naropa Digital Archives research · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989) · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

Visited Thailand, Singapore, Nepal and Sikkim as the guest of Ken Wing. The Karmapa had invited him to Rumtek many times. The purpose was to help meet the needs of Chogyam Trungpa's young adult son, then living at Rumtek for ten years, and he helped arrange the son's eventual departure for America.

Rumtek, Sikkim

Kobun CV / Resume · Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

The Jakkoan biography records that Kobun performed his first Denpo, the full transmission ceremony, at Jikoji in this year. The recipient is not named.

Jikoji, Los Gatos, CA · medium confidence — No recipient named, and it sits two years before the transmission otherwise counted as his first.

jakkoan.net/Kobun/ · Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

On Kobun's encouragement, Jobs went back into Tina Redse's life after they had separated and asked her to marry him, despite her own judgement that she would never marry him.

between 1985 and 1991 · medium confidence — Brennan reports the influence at second hand, not the conversation itself; undated.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Dedicated Jakko-in at Puregg, Austria near Salzburg - an alpine barn and farmhouse converted to zendo and retreat residence. Founded by the Palmers family; Vanja Palmers founding director, Brother David Steindl-Rast honoured teacher. Kobun led the Genzo-e sesshin there each February.

Puregg, Austria

Kobun CV / Resume

Established Raigo-in, a newly built Japanese farmhouse in Santa Cruz for Ken Wing and Hollis DeLancey Wing, and Blue Heron Zendo in Ojai with Enrico and Nadia Natali.

California

Kobun CV / Resume · Carolyn Atkinson - A Light in the Mind (Sweeping Zen) · Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center · Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese) · jakkoan.net/Kobun/

Alone in a house lent to him by an old practitioner in Arroyo Seco, Kobun answered a knock from a young man who said his life was a mess. Kobun said his own life was a mess too and that he doubted he could help; the man pressed, and Kobun let him in, sat him down and excused himself to the bathroom. He never came back. Eventually the man opened the bathroom door onto an empty room and an open window.

between 1984 and 1997 · medium confidence — Undated; both tellings descend from Rick Fields's single account, written down from memory by another hand.

Kobun Escaping Through Window — Rick Fields · Window - Kobun remembrance

Cita Ortega suggested Kobun see a Pueblo elder, a former governor and healer she knew, about a coin-sized sore on the back of his neck that he kept worrying at. Driving in, they gave a lift to an old grandmother who eventually slapped his hand away and told him to leave it alone. At the house Kobun bowed and presented a box of the good incense used at Eiheiji; Ortega describes the two men as looking and mumbling alike and taking to each other immediately, though they had never met. A paste was mixed, the recipe withheld. On the way out Kobun noticed a bow and arrows hanging on the wall and bowed deeply to them.

between 1984 and 2001 · medium confidence — First-person memory from the Taos years; no year given.

Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese)

At a house in Arroyo Seco lent to him by Jonathon Altman, a young man knocked saying his life was a mess and he needed help. Kobun said his own life was a mess too and that he did not think he could help. The man pleaded, so Kobun let him in, told him to take a seat, and excused himself to the bathroom. After a long wait the man opened the door on an empty room and an open window.

between 1984 and 1997 · medium confidence — Secondhand — Chadwick had it from Rick Fields — and undated beyond the Taos years.

Window - Kobun remembrance

Talking about how hard monastic sitting is, Kobun mentions that he recently had to translate a Japanese video film shot at Eiheiji about the monks' life there, with about fifty monks around twenty-two or twenty-three years old and deep, beautiful falling snow. He says it looked like very hard practice, and that it is indeed a very hard life, but that once you are inside it you become able to live it.

United States · between 1980 and 2000

Embracing Mind (PDF)

With Kobun's help Sonja Margulies ordained a few students, whom he registered with the Japanese headquarters, until changes in both their lives ended that.

between 1983 and 2000 · medium confidence — Her own account, dated only by its place after the teaching-stick exchange.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

David Chadwick records that Jobs, having taken Kobun as teacher, gave him somewhere to live on his property. Separately, Bob Watkins said he once rang Jobs asking for money to help Kobun and was told the money would come only if Kobun moved back there. When Watkins asked Kobun why he had never asked Jobs for money himself, Kobun said it had never occurred to him.

between 1990 and 1992 · medium confidence — Neither the arrangement nor the phone call is dated; both fall somewhere in the long Jobs friendship.

cuke.com - Jobs page · The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts · Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

Jikoji holds a resume Kobun wrote around 1990, put together with help from Stephanie and Hollis. It was made for a Japanese publication commemorating his father's legacy.

between 1989 and 1992 · medium confidence — The account says only '1990-era'; no precise year is claimed.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun set down a structured account of his own life — education, ordination and transmission ceremonies, teachers, and every practice place he had founded or served, in reverse chronology through 1992 — with help from Stephanie and Hollis. It lists his addresses at Shingetsu-in in Woodside, Saiho-in in Arroyo Seco, and his brother's temple in Kamo. The document was faxed to a Taos number in March 2001.

Woodside, California

Kobun CV / Resume

Kobun taught calligraphy/brushstroke at a Shambhala Seminary in 1992.

medium confidence

no source recorded

While living at Jobs' Woodside property, Kobun assembled a large, cluttered, tiered altar carrying photographs of Jobs' relatives. Brennan, visiting with her daughter, read it as either generous accommodation or a needling of her host, and regretted not looking at it more closely.

Woodside, California · between 1991 and 2001 · medium confidence — Brennan saw it herself, but dates it only relative to an earlier, itself undated, visit.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

At a dinner attended by Jobs, his sister, his girlfriend, Kobun's partner Stephanie, Brennan and her daughter, Kobun made a series of testing and demeaning remarks at Jobs' expense, including something to the effect that making a computer was no different from growing a plant. Jobs held his tongue. Brennan read it as a teacher using his role to settle a personal grievance, and noted that Kobun was drinking heavily in that period.

Woodside, California · between 1991 and 1994 · medium confidence — Brennan was at the table; she gives mid-October but no year.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Kobun was present at the death of Paul Jobs (Steve Jobs' adoptive father), holding his feet.

between 1992 and 1994 · medium confidence — Paul Jobs died in 1993; Kobun was at his side

Cuke Audio - Vanja Palmers

Kobun travels to the Netherlands to be present when Willem Malten's mother is dying, demonstrating his care for students' families.

Netherlands · with Willem Malten · between 1984 and 2002 · medium confidence — after Willem became his student; midpoint of a long friendship

Cuke Audio - Willem Malten

Six talks during the first week of the month-long dathün — tangaryo, oryoki, Trungpa, the split self. They were given toward a Shambhala Publications book planned for the benefit of Taggie Mukpo, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's son.

Karme Chöling, Barnet, Vermont

no source recorded

Photographs credited to Nicolas Schossleitner and captioned 1994 show Kobun at Puregg Zendo in the Austrian Alps, one of them explicitly during a calligraphy seminar he was leading. The date matters because these were the years Kobun had withdrawn from public teaching for his second family; the photographs put him teaching in Europe inside that window.

Puregg Zendo, Austria · medium confidence — Rests on magazine photo captions rather than any narrative testimony.

BD - Kobun Chino memorial

Kurt KyuSei described telling Kobun that his house in Germany taught zazen and bow work together as one package, using bows that were not kyudo bows and without the traditional outer forms, and that dogmatic Zen circles disapproved. He asked whether what they were doing was legitimate. Kobun told him to keep going and not be swayed. The group went on to fold in Indian archery.

between 1988 and 2002 · medium confidence — Undated; it can only be set after his first European teaching visits.

Kobun-sama.org — Anecdotes page · Anecdotes - Kobun Chino Otogawa

After the divorce Kobun told his friend Martin Mosko that he was withdrawing into retreat. The biography uses this to explain the years when he was least publicly active as a teacher.

between 1993 and 1997 · medium confidence — Undated; accounts differ over whether the withdrawal was for family or followed the divorce.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Kobun supplied the traditional prohibitory wording of the ten precepts in a collaboration with Les Kaye, who wrote a parallel contemporary version; the pairing was later issued as a printable sheet.

between 1986 and 2002 · medium confidence — Undated; the collaboration can only be bracketed between Kaye's recognition and Kobun's death.

Precepts PDF — Kobun and Les Kaye (2021)

Hollis DeLancy: 'I have a wonderful series of lectures of Kobun when he left for three years and didn't teach. And then his first sesshin — that series of lectures is really amazing. And I have a lovely excellent transcription of it.'

between 1990 and 2000 · low confidence — One witness, undated; she may mean withdrawal from one community rather than from teaching altogether.

Hollis DeLancy, telephone call with Anton Borzov, 27 October 2025

Dan Zigmond ordained by Kobun.

with Dan Zigmond · medium confidence

from our own compilation; no outside source recorded

A set of about two hours and twenty minutes of Kobun talking, known only under a German title, survives from the years between the early-nineties sesshin recordings and the 2002 Naropa lectures. The German title suggests a European occasion, though the catalog does not state where it was given.

medium confidence

SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

The biography credits Kobun's encouragement and practical help for several new European Zen centres set up by Vanja Palmers, naming Felsentor alongside Puregg. Kobun co-led sesshins and ordained students in that European circuit over several years.

Switzerland · between 1990 and 2002 · medium confidence — The founding is not dated in this account.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center · Kobun Chino's Legacy

Janet Solyntjes hosted Kobun for a class at Naropa, handling registration, driving and lodging; he thanked her afterwards specifically for a glass of water she had given him before a lecture.

between 1990 and 2002 · medium confidence — Undated; the engagement can only fall within his decades of Naropa teaching.

Personal essays about Kobun

Kobun told Kaufman not to talk so much about 'original nature', as though naming it diminished it.

between 1990 and 2002 · medium confidence — The author's own memory of a direct exchange; no date or setting given.

Personal essays about Kobun

Yokoyama Taiken, head of Eiheiji's International Division, sitting at Green Gulch during his American mission (1993-2005), finds Steve Jobs strolling in unassuming, in jeans, slipping naturally into the circle and receiving no special treatment. Of Kobun's students at Eiheiji: 'what strikes the heart is the sight of them practicing a pure Buddha-way, natural, without admixture or stain — this is Chino-san's stream after all.'

Green Gulch Farm, California · with Steve Jobs, Yokoyama Taiken · medium confidence — Yokoyama's mission ran 1993-2005; the sitting is not dated more closely.

Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

For the quarter-century of Naropa's founding, Kobun sat on a panel with Kanjuro Shibata Sensei, Fran Lewis, Daishin Sensei and others, and the group spent about an hour recalling Chogyam Trungpa. The recording survives through Hakubai.

Naropa University, Boulder, CO

Naropa Digital Archives research · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989) · Hakubai Podcast - Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

Kobun, Vanja Palmers, and David Chadwick attended Oktoberfest. Kobun danced on a table with a barmaid. They rode a multi-loop roller coaster. Earlier, they attended Baker/von Baden wedding at Schloss Salem.

Munich, Germany

Kobun remembrance (anonymous)

David Chadwick records Kobun laughingly declining to give him an interview on the grounds that he was not going to be put online. Chadwick published the remark after Kobun's death anyway.

Germany · medium confidence — First-hand; the year rests on the story's adjacency to a 1999 episode, not a stated date.

Kobun remembrance (anonymous)

After Kobun moved back to the Santa Cruz area, Atkinson asked whether the long-time students could gather to sit with him again and he assented. About ten of them met one Sunday afternoon a month at her house, five minutes from where he was living, and kept it up for something like eighteen months to two years until he and his family left for Colorado. At the last of these meetings, not known at the time to be the last, he gave the answer to the perennial question of why they sit that Atkinson wrote down and later published: that we sit to make life meaningful, that self-acceptance is the hardest thing, and that practice is a candle in the darkest room.

Santa Cruz, CA · medium confidence — First-person, but dated only 'late 1990s'; the start year is estimated from surrounding events.

Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese) · Carolyn Atkinson - A Light in the Mind (Sweeping Zen)

Patrick Curry took lay vows at Puregg, Austria, with Vanja Palmers and Kobun.

Puregg, Austria

Remembering Kobun (radical kindness)

The kobun-sama biography records that by 2000 Kobun had given the precepts to over a hundred people. Most of those were Zuike Tokudo, lay ordination; several were Shukke Tokudo, novice priest ordination. It is the only quantified statement in these sources about the scale of his transmission of the precepts.

medium confidence — A community biography's round figure; no roll of names survives to check it.

Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama · Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

In a later conversation about how Brennan had been treated, Jobs acknowledged that he should have taken responsibility and said he was sorry, adding that the failure was his own and not Kobun's. Brennan records her own suspicion of the disclaimer.

between 1985 and 2011 · medium confidence — First-hand as to Jobs's words to her; undated.

The Bite in the Apple — Kobun excerpts

Martin Mosko studied with Kobun's elder brother Keibun in Japan and received dharma transmission from him.

between 1990 and 2004 · medium confidence — Undated; given only as background to the 2001 Hakubai consecration.

Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center

Richard Haspray, teaching Warrior Assembly at the Shambhala centre Dechen Choling, dropped in on a calligraphy course Kobun was giving at family camp. Kobun described how he learned the kneeling posture himself at three or four, sitting in his father's lap, and said he could still feel the warmth of his father's breath on his head when he wrote. When a student could not get the grip, he would kneel behind them, hold them like a child, take their arms and do it with them.

Dechen Choling, France · medium confidence — The year is inferred from 'last year' in a Winter 2002 publication; it is not printed.

Remembering Kobun (Carol Gallup)

A ceremony at Naropa marked the passing of the World Wisdom Chair from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi to Kobun. Seven photographs from the rabbi's papers survive, showing him speaking and seated beside Kobun, with Naropa's president John Whitehouse Cobb in attendance and Rabbi Jack Gabriel and Adena Shoshan performing. The archive's own dating of the photographs is loose, spanning 2001 to 2003, with one sheet labelled two years late.

Naropa University, Boulder, CO · medium confidence — The photographs say only 'ca. 2002'; January comes from Naropa Magazine and Reginald Ray's contemporary account.

CU Boulder - World Wisdom Chair (7 photos)

Andrew Schelling and a companion, walking open space by Boulder Creek, watched a barn owl drop into a cottonwood and screech until they were out of earshot. He learned of the drowning afterwards and could not stop turning the coincidence over, half-dismissing it as superstition and half-drawn to the fact that an owl's brain builds an exact map of auditory space so that the gateway between its mind and the dark meadow stands completely open.

medium confidence — Remembered only as 'the night before Kobun's death'; no calendar date was written down.

Kobun Chino Roshi obituary

At the funeral, Kobun's drowned daughter was ordained and given a rakusu and a dharma name meaning Water Phoenix — Phoenix also being a character in her father's own dharma name.

Engelberg, Switzerland · medium confidence — Rests on David Schneider's account; he was present and helped close the coffin.

David Schneider — funeral account (cuke.com)

Vanja and David Schneider closed coffin lid; chanted Heart Sutra. Convoy drove an hour through mountains to crematorium. Katrin wept quietly. Vanja arranged international transport of ashes.

Engelberg, Switzerland · with Emila, Tensho David Schneider

David Schneider — funeral account (cuke.com)

Steve Jobs personally calls Vanja Palmers to inform him of Kobun's drowning.

with Vanja Palmers · medium confidence

Cuke Audio - Vanja Palmers

Jikoji, Los Gatos, CA

Cuke.com Kobun Main Page

Exhibition of calligraphy by Sakyong Mipham, Kobun, and Marlowe Brooks at Naropa University. John and Margo Steiner attended.

Boulder, CO · with John Steiner

John Steiner - Kobun remembrance

Close to twelve hours of dharma lectures given at Naropa in Kobun's last year were taped and sit in the SoundCloud archive.

Naropa University, Boulder, CO · medium confidence — Known from a playlist description; the recordings are private and no month is given.

SoundCloud archive catalog · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

In his last spring of teaching at Naropa, Kobun was showing a documentary on brush making when the image of the first Buddhist priest to bring calligraphy to Japan appeared. He straightened into zazen posture and held it for the remainder of the film.

Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado · medium confidence — Known through a memorial's quotation of Keith Abbott, who co-taught the class.

Remembering Kobun (collected)

Teaching excerpts that had run in Jikoji's own newsletters were republished in the Winter 2002 issue of Buddhadharma, in the months after Kobun's death — six pieces including 'Who Is Your Teacher?' and 'Udumbara'.

medium confidence — Attested by the temple's old web pages rather than the magazine issue itself.

Jikoji Excerpts Extraction

Reginald Ray published an account of knowing Kobun, hosted by Lion's Roar.

between 2002 and 2003 · medium confidence — Undated; known only to have appeared before the Jikoji collection.

Absolute Belief in Zazen

A limited-edition volume assembled by Vanja Palmers and others brought together autobiography, biography, more than sixty student remembrances, photographs and selected teaching texts.

between 2002 and 2012 · low confidence — Known only by report; no date, publisher, or copy of the book has been examined.

Presentation Plan

Mountain Seat Ceremony. Martin Mosko also received dharma transmission from Keibun Otogawa (Kobun's brother), not from Kobun.

Boulder, CO · medium confidence

Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama · Kobun Biography — Jikoji Zen Center · Otogawa Kobun (1938-2002) biography (Japanese) · jakkoan.net/Kobun/

After Kobun's death his most senior heir completed dharma transmission for Angie Boissevain, Carolyn Atkinson, Jean Leyshon and Bob Watkins, and later for Michael Newhall, who became resident teacher at Jikoji; he also transmitted to Ian Forsberg in Taos. Boissevain had directed Jikoji under Kobun for nearly two decades and went on to lead the Floating Zendo in San Jose; Atkinson founded Everyday Dharma Zen Center in Santa Cruz; Forsberg and Leyshon stayed active at Hokoji. Atkinson notes that she had not completed transmission before Kobun died, and Gallup that Boissevain was mid-transmission at his death.

between 2002 and 2015 · medium confidence — Undated; known only to fall between Kobun's death in 2002 and a further transmission in 2015.

Gratefully Remembering Kobun Sama · Carolyn Atkinson - A Light in the Mind (Sweeping Zen)

Jikoji posted a body of Kobun's teachings to its website before the book appeared, expanding on the fragments that had circulated online.

between 2002 and 2016 · medium confidence — Undated; a reviewer places it only between years of scarcity and the printed collection.

Absolute Belief in Zazen

Stephan Bodian's recollection of his apprenticeship under Kobun ran in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, in the magazine's Ancestors column, carrying the standing line about remembering a warm-hearted roshi. A portrait of Kobun by the photographer Nicolas Schossleitner illustrated it. This is the first publication of the memoir that Bodian later rewrote at greater length and posted on his own site in March 2021 — the fuller version. The Tricycle text is the shorter, earlier draft of the same account.

Kobun Chino Otogawa (Stephan Bodian)

Carolyn Atkinson published a short book about studying with Kobun that traces how his statements about zazen evolved toward one final formulation.

between 2003 and 2016 · medium confidence — No publication date is given; the book was simply available by 2017.

Absolute Belief in Zazen

Led by Vanja Palmers, honoring 10th anniversary of Kobun's passing.

with Vanja Palmers

Cuke.com Kobun Main Page · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989) · Personal essays about Kobun · archive.jikoji.org

Kobun's son Taido contributed a short reflective essay about his father to a collection assembled for the tenth-anniversary memorial of Kobun's death. He later posted it on his own blog.

Remembering Kobun

The author writes that she was to be ordained as a priest the following day, with her head shaved and a procession down a mossy bank into the zendo. She frames it as someone needing to carry the lineage forward. The dating rests on the paragraph's adjacency to the tenth-anniversary scene rather than on any stated date.

Santa Cruz mountains, California · low confidence

Personal essays about Kobun

A short graphic novel from Forbes and JESS3, written by Caleb Melby, dramatised the friendship between Jobs and Kobun.

between 2011 and 2012 · low confidence — The publication year is unrecorded here; the book is a fictionalised treatment in any case.

Presentation Plan

Floating Zendo, Everyday Dharma Zen Center, Hakubai, Sokukoji and O-An Zendo are counted as part of Kobun's lineage.

between 2002 and 2012 · medium confidence — A 2012 retrospective's list; the individual founding dates are not given.

Kobun Chino's Legacy

On the eleventh anniversary of Kobun's accidental death, the Jikoji community held a commemoration at which members read passages from an autobiography Kobun had written. The recording was posted to the centre's audio archive.

Jikoji, Los Gatos, California

Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989)

Kaizan Doug Jacobson receives transmission at Jikoji, extending Kobun's lineage.

Jikoji, CA · with Kaizan Doug Jacobson

no source recorded

After 8 months of Facebook messages, Kobun's daughter met Yanagida in Santa Cruz for two days — the only extended on-record testimony from the second family, including her eyewitness account of 2002-07-26 and the family's decade of collapse and slow recovery. 'If I could, I would rather not even call him father.'

Santa Cruz, California · with Tatsuko Otogawa

Yadonashi Kobun (Homeless Kobun: Steve Jobs' Zen Monk) — Yanagida Yukiko

Watkins, ordained by Kobun and the co-founder of Hokoji, whose Arroyo Seco house became the group's temple, died at three in the afternoon on Buddha's Enlightenment Day, surrounded by friends. Fifteen minutes before he died Vanja Palmers and Sandy, his longtime partner, recited the Maha Prajna Paramita Sutra. A service for him was held at Hokoji that evening. He had had a fall earlier in the year, and liver cancer was found during treatment.

Taos / Arroyo Seco, NM

Cuke Audio - Bob Watkins (Hokoji co-founder)

Jikoji Zen Center brought out a collection of Kobun's talks edited by Judy Cosgrove and Shinbo Joseph Hall, issuing it themselves rather than through a trade publisher and distributing it via Amazon. The only date anchor in this source is the review itself, which treats the book as newly out.

Jikoji, Los Gatos, California · low confidence — Accounts disagree — one gives 2002, an editor's note is dated December 2014, another implies later still.

Absolute Belief in Zazen

White Pine Press issued a facing-page volume pairing Kobun's calligraphy with English translations by Gary Young, in its Companions for the Journey series.

medium confidence — The publication details have not been checked against the book itself.

Presentation Plan

Hakubai Zen Center launched a podcast with Kobun's Naropa talks, releasing the first episode thirty years to the day after it was recorded. The centre describes holding talks spanning thirteen years, of which only five episodes have been published.

Boulder, CO

Naropa Digital Archives research · Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989)

By Yukiko Yanagida McCarty, Shueisha International Japan.

Japan

Cuke.com Kobun Main Page

A downloadable sheet was released pairing the ten prohibitory precepts in Kobun's wording, printed in black, with Les Kaye's contemporary restatement of each in blue. The sheet is presented as a joint work by the centre's first teacher and its current abbot.

Kannon Do, Mountain View, California · medium confidence

Precepts PDF — Kobun and Les Kaye (2021)

An anonymous curator opened a SoundCloud account and over about ten days uploaded twenty playlists totalling roughly a hundred and six hours of Kobun's recorded talks, spanning 1978 to 2002. Nineteen of the twenty playlists are private; only two tracks, both an untitled dharma talk of unknown year, are publicly streamable.

SoundCloud archive catalog · SoundCloud Kobun Chino Archive

Pamela Chobun Nenzen Brown receives dharma transmission at Felsentor, Switzerland. Becomes Resident and Guiding Teacher at Jikoji.

Felsentor, Switzerland · with Pamela Chobun Nenzen Brown

no source recorded

The dharma teacher and InsightLA founder Trudy Goodman spent a roughly hour-long podcast conversation recalling Kobun as her teacher, describing his compassion toward people who were suffering and a teaching manner that was both serious and playful.

Hakubai Podcast - 4 Naropa talks (1989)