Sensei Rick Smith

Sensei Rick Smith is the resident teacher of the Madison Zen Center and was authorized as a Zen teacher by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede in 2024. He served as group leader from 2010-2013 and again from 2016 to 2024. In between those times he spent a year and half on staff at the Rochester Zen Center.

He was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and became a member of the center in 2004. Prior to that, he explored various types of meditation and spiritual practices until finding his home in Zen practice.

He currently works at University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Research Specialist in the department of Psychiatry for the Center for Sleep and Consciousness. His primary interest and work involve investigating long-term meditators to explore how meditation induces neural plasticity and to test hypotheses related to integrated information theory of consciousness.

When he is not on the mat or working, he enjoys trail running, snowboarding, and travel.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

Bodhin Kjolhede graduated from the University of Michigan and came to the Rochester Zen Center in 1970. He was ordained as a Buddhist priest in 1976 and went on to spend several years traveling extensively with the Center’s founder, Roshi Philip Kapleau, and working closely with him on three of his books.

After completing twelve years of koan training under Roshi Kapleau, Roshi Kjolhede spent a year on pilgrimage through Japan, China, India, Tibet, and Taiwan. In 1986 he was installed by Roshi Kapleau as his Dharma Successor and, the following year, Abbot of the Center. Since then he has conducted hundreds of meditation retreats, most of seven days, in the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Mexico. He has published numerous articles and traveled widely to participate in Buddhist teachers’ conferences.

In his more than 35 years of teaching, Roshi Kjolhede has sanctioned nine of his students as Zen teachers; they now lead Zen centers in the United States, Mexico, Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. Two of those teachers, Sensei John Pulleyn and Sensei Dhara Kowal, currently serve as Spiritual Co-Directors of the Rochester Zen Center. In semi-retirement since 2022, Roshi Kjolhede now serves as the Center’s Spiritual Director Emeritus, and lives with his wife in Florida.

Philip Kapleau – Founding Teacher
1912-2004

Philip Kapleau was one of the founding fathers of American Zen. He made it his life’s work to transplant Zen Buddhism into American soil, bridging the gap between theory and practice and making Zen Buddhism accessible to all.

After a successful career as a businessman, Philip Kapleau spent 13 years undergoing Zen training in Japan under three Zen masters before being ordained by Hakuun Yasutani-roshi in 1965 and given permission by him to teach. In 1966 he publishedThe Three Pillars of Zen, the first book to explain the practice of Zen to Westerners. Still in print today, Three Pillars has become a Zen classic and has been translated into 12 languages. Shortly after the publication of Three Pillars, Roshi Kapleau came to Rochester to found the Zen Center. His other books include Zen: Merging of East and West, Straight to the Heart of Zen, Awakening to Zen and The Zen of Living and Dying: A Practical and Spiritual Guide

Roshi Kapleau died in May, 2004, at the age of 91.