Kazuaki Tanahashi

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Kazuaki Tanahashi, 2009, Upaya Zen Center

Kazuaki Tanahashi ( Japanese 棚 橋 一晃 , Tanahashi Kazuaki ; * 1933 in Japan ) is a Japanese calligrapher, artist, author, translator, peace and environmental activist.

Live and act

Kazuaki Tanahashi's father belonged to the military elite of Japan, warned the Japanese government of the attack on Pearl Harbor , fell out of favor and became a Shinto priest after the Second World War . Kazuaki Tanahashi became a student of Ueshiba Morihei , the founder of Aikido , as a teenager . In 1956 he began studying traditional Chinese ( shūfǎ ) and Japanese calligraphy ( shodō ). He also took private lessons in oil painting. During this time he met Soichi Nakamura, a Japanese Buddhist scholar and specialist in research on Zen master Dōgen (1200–1253) on his spiritual quest . Under Nakamura's guidance, Kazuaki Tanahashi began his dōgen studies and first dogen translations from medieval Japanese into modern Japanese. In 1964, on a trip to the USA, he first visited the Japanese Zen master Shunryū Suzuki in San Francisco , with whom he has been close friends ever since. In 1977, Kazuaki Tanahashi went permanently to the USA , where he lived and worked at the San Francisco Zen Center from 1977 to 1984 . In addition to his intensive artistic work with many exhibitions in Japan and the USA, he began an extensive Dōgen translation project at the San Francisco Zen Center together with a number of co-translators, including Sojun Mel Weitsman , Taigen Dan Leighton , Dan Welch and Peter Levitt only in 2010 with the publication of the translation of Dōgens famous work Shōbōgenzō found its climax and provisional conclusion.

In 1992 he founded together with the Japanese artist Mayumi Oda club Plutonium Free Future ( Plutonium Free Future ). The former President of Costa Rica , Rodrigo Carazo , disbanded the army in his country in 1949 and, with the money that was released, expanded his country's health and school system. Inspired hereby Kazuaki Tanahashi founded the Project A World Without Armies ( A world without armies ). On the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Nanjing Kazuaki Tanahashi organized together with Zhang Lianhong ( Nanjing Normal University , Research Center for the Nanjing Massacre), a large four-day conference in Nanjing, where he and other Japanese artists and scientists their shame and remorse about their fathers' war crimes and asked the Chinese for reconciliation. For his services as an artist, peace and environmental activist, Kazuaki Tanahashi was elected as a member of the World Academy of Art and Science .

In addition to his artistic and political work, Kazuaki Tanahashi teaches calligraphy and Zen meditation worldwide.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Buddhismus aktuell 4/2011, pp. 12–20, interview with Kazuaki Tanahashi.
  2. ↑ Interview with Kazuaki Tanahashi on October 18, 1994 (English)

Works

  • Ueshiba Morihei; Kazuaki Tanahashi; Roy Maurer, Jr .: Aikido. Hozansha Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 1962.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Enku: Sculptor of a Hundred Thousand Buddhas. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA., USA, 1982.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Penetrating Laughter: Hakuin's Zen and Art. The Overlook Press, New York, USA, 1984.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Brush Mind. Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA., USA, 1990.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi; David Schneider: Essential Zen. HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi (translator, editor): Dogen: Moon In a Dewdrop. North Point Press, New York, USA, 1995.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Doge: Enlightenment Unfolds. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA., USA, 1999.
  • Tanahashi, Kazuaki: Miracles of the Moment. Brush Dance, Mill Valley, CA. USA, 2001.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi (Editor): Dogen: Beyond Thinking - A Guide to Zen Meditation. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA. USA, 2004.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi; Peter Levitt: A Flock of Fools - Ancient Buddhist Tales of Wisdom and Laughter from the One Hundred Parable Sutra. Grove Press, New York, USA, 2004.
  • John Daido Loori; Kazuaki Tanahashi (translator): The True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans. Shambhala, Boston, MA. USA, 2005.
  • Sam Hamill (translator); Kazuaki Tanahashi (Calligraphy), Lao Tzu: The Tao te Ching: A New Translation. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA., USA, 2005.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi; Allan Baillie (Photographer): Lotus. Wisdom Publications, Sommerville, MA., USA, 2006.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi et al. (Translator): Dogen: Treasury of the True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA., USA, 2011.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: The Heart Sutra - A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism. Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA., USA, 2014.

German works and translations

  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: The Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku. DuMont, Cologne, 1989.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Zen mind, Zen art. Kristkeitz, Heidelberg, 1995.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi: Fools. Enso-Verlag, Frankfurt / M., 2010.
  • Sherry Chayat: CIRCLES - Zen calligraphy by Kazuaki Tanahashi. Enso-Verlag, Frankfurt / M., 2011.
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi; Friederike Juen Boissevain: High heaven, big wind - life, poems and calligraphy by the Zen master Ryokan. edition steinrich, Berlin, 2012
  • Kazuaki Tanahashi; Allan Baillie (Photographer): LOTOS . Texts / photos. Translated by Friederike Boissevain and Uwe Dehler. Sarasvati Ed., Berlin 2013.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tanahashi, Kazuaki
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 棚 橋 一晃 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese artist and peace activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Japan