Genpo Merzel Roshi (1944)

Genpo Merzel Roshi (1944, Brooklyn, USA) is the second dharma successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. After receiving dharma transmission in 1979 he stayed at the Zen Center of Los Angeles for four more years to assist Maezumi Roshi in teaching.

Since 1982 he also started visiting Europe several times a year to conduct Zen retreats and workshops, creating the international Kanzeon Sangha. For some twenty years he was particularly active in The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and France. And even though he was first installed as abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1988 and later moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, most of his students were European during those years.

Several times he invited Maezumi Roshi across the Atlantic to lead a series of sesshins in the various countries together with him. These visits were highly appreciated and are still treasured by sangha members as very precious occasions.

Maezumi Roshi passed away in 1995, and up till 2000 Genpo Roshi’s teaching was clearly based on the models he had inherited. Since then he started to diverge from those models and developed an interactive method called ‘Big Mind’, which combines the way of Zen with Western psychological insights. This method proved to be very successful and led him to conduct workshops and conferences for large groups all over the USA and Europe.

The “Maha Sangha Gathering”, an international retreat with the emphasis on Big Mind, held annually for many years on the island of Ameland, just off the northern coast of The Netherlands, ended up attracting over 300 participants; the last one of these retreats was held in January 2011.

For personal reasons, Genpo Roshi decided to give up the Salt Lake City Zen Center’s property, to resign from the White Plum Asanga, and to more explicitly follow his own course. He now focuses on teaching Big Mind as a secular practice at various locations primarily in the USA, including Maui, Hawaii.

Genpo Roshi has given Shiho (Dharma Transmission) and Inka, the final seal of approval, to Tenkei Coppens (1996 / 2006), to Myoho Gabrysch (2008 / 2011), and to a still growing number of other students (see bigmind.org).

Genpo Roshi is the author of five books: The Eye Never Sleeps, Beyond Sanity and Madness, 24/7 Dharma, The Path of the Human Being, and Big Mind/Big Heart: Finding your way and created numerous DVDs on Big Mind.