Richard Baker (Zen teacher)
Zentatsu Richard Baker | |
|---|---|
| Title | Zen Master |
| Personal life | |
| Born | Richard Dudley Baker March 30, 1936 |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse |
|
| Children | Elizabeth Baker, Mrs. Jason Kibbey Sally Baker Sophia Baker |
| Education | Harvard University University of California, Berkeley |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Buddhism |
| School | Sōtō |
| Lineage | Shunryu Suzuki |
| Senior posting | |
| Based in | Crestone Mountain Zen Center Zen Buddhistisches Zentrum Schwarzwald (Johanneshof) |
| Predecessor | Shunryu Suzuki |
| Successor | Reb Anderson Philip Whalen Issan Dorsey Dan Welch Paul Rosenblum Rocio Maria Hernández Pozo Gerald Weischede Ottmar Engel David Beck Christian Dillo Nicole Baden. |
| Website | www.bakerroshi.com www.dharma-sangha.de www.dharmasangha.org |
Richard Dudley Baker (born March 30, 1936) is an American Soto Zen master (or roshi), the founder of Dharma Sangha—which consists of Crestone Mountain Zen Center located in Crestone, Colorado and the Zen Buddhist Center Black Forest (Zen-Buddhistisches Zentrum Schwarzwald, or, Johanneshof) in Germany's Black Forest. As the American Dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, Baker assumed abbotship of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) shortly before Suzuki's death in 1971. He remained abbot there until 1984, the year he resigned his position after it was disclosed in the previous year that he and the wife of one of SFZC's benefactors had been having an affair. Despite the controversy connected with his resignation, Baker was instrumental in helping the San Francisco Zen Center to become one of the most successful Zen institutions in the United States.