Robert Baker Aitken

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Robert Baker Aitken

Information
Born: July 19, 1917 (1917-07-19) (age 90)
Place of birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
School(s): Zen Buddhism
Lineage(s): Harada-Yasutani
Title(s): Roshi
Education: University of Hawaii
University of California
Teacher(s): Soen Nakagawa
Nyogen Senzaki
Predecessor(s): Yamada Koun
Spouse(s): Anne Hopkins Aitken
Children: Tom Aitken
Website
Website: www.robertaitken.net

Portal:Buddhism

Robert Baker Aitken Roshi (b. July 19, 1917)[1] is a roshi practicing in the Harada-Yasutani lineage living in retirement in O'ahu, Hawaii since 1996. He is former head abbot and roshi of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in Honolulu, Hawaii, which he had led and co-founded with his late wife Anne Hopkins Aitken since 1959. He now lives in retirement at the Palolo Zen Center in Honolulu, where he is in declining health. Aitken was reluctant to embrace his role as an authority figure in Zen, deciding to live as a layperson following his receipt of Dharma transmission from his teacher Yamada Koun. He is a socially engaged Buddhist, having advocated for social justice pertaining to gays, women, and Native Hawaiians throughout his career. He was one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in 1978, and never shirked away from speaking out against injustice.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Robert Baker Aitken and Anne Hopkins Aitken
Robert Baker Aitken and Anne Hopkins Aitken

Robert Aitken was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1917, then was raised in Hawaii from the age of five. Living in Guam as a civillian working construction—at the onset of World War II—he was detained by the Japanese and held in internment camps for the duration of the war. In one such internment camp in Kobe, Japan in 1944 he met the scholar Reginald Horace Blyth, with whom he had frequent discussions on Zen Buddhism and anarchism. At the conclusion of the war he returned to Hawaii and obtained a BA in English literature and an MA in Japanese from the University of Hawaii.[1][2]

In the late 1940s, while going to classes briefly at the University of California in Berkeley, California, he met Nyogen Senzaki. Originally in California hoping for an encounter with Krishnamurti, he began to study with Senzaki in Los Angeles. Even at such an early stage in his Zen practice, Aitken showed his social conscience by advocating for pacifism and labor rights. As a consequence of his ideologies, he was investigated during this period by the FBI. In 1950 he went back to Japan, under a grant to study haiku and through Senzaki's advisement to study Zen there. There he experienced his first sesshin at Engaku-ji, a temple in Kamakura, Japan. Soonafter he met Nakagawa Soen, who convinced him to come for a stay at Ryutakuji for the next seven months. During this period Soen took over for the ailing abbot of the temple, Yamamoto Gempo. Aitken then came down with a case of dysentery, and returned home to Hawaii in 1956 to find his marriage had ended. He soon married his second wife Anne Hopkins—opening a bookstore with her in Honolulu—and made occasional trips back to Japan.[3][4][1][2]

In 1959 he and Anne began a meditation group in Honolulu at their residence, which became known as the Koko-an zendo. The community that gathered at this zendo were then named the Diamond Sangha by the two. In 1961 Aitken left for an extended stay in Japan to study under Haku'un Yasutani. He was also teaching at the University of Hawaii at the time, retiring from his professorship in 1969 to devote more of his time to Zen practice. He and Anne moved to Maui, Hawaii that year and founded Maui zendo. Under invitation from Yasutani and Soen Nakagawa, Koun Yamada became roshi there in 1971. In 1974 he was given the title of roshi by Yamada Koun in Kamakura, Japan, receiving full Dharma transmission from him.[3][5]

Due to his skepticism of authority, and informed by certain anarchistic beliefs, Aitken Roshi accepted transmission but remained a layperson. He took over as abbot at Diamond Sangha and, though he was anti-authoritarian in his beliefs, he did have rules at the temple that he expected others to follow. While he took his duties as roshi quite seriously, he refused to run the center as if in a league of his own. He simply wanted to help students along on their paths, not to entrap them into seeing him as an exalted figure.[2]

Robert Aitken has been socially active throughout his life, i.e. his protestation of nuclear testing during the 1940s. He was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and became a strong opponent of the nuclear arms race that followed in the years ahead. He was among the earlier proponents of deep ecology in religious America, and was outspoken in his beliefs on the equality of men and women. In 1978 Aitken helped found the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, an organization that advocates for conflict resolution globally.[2]

[edit] Today

Aitken has been in declining health recently, suffering from a stroke in 2004 and facing numerous hospitalizations for respiratory infections in the years since. In 2006 he moved in to Palolo Zen Center in Honolulu, Hawaii—where he is looked after and plans to spend the remainder of his life. Now wheelchair-bound, Aitken still manages to participate with the rest of the community for zazen and kinhin—both performed in his wheelchair. In response to rising medical costs and expenses associated with tending to his care, the Friends of Robert Aitken have created the Dana for Aitken Roshi website.[2]

[edit] Dharma heirs

The following individuals are Dharma heirs of Baker:[3]

[edit] Gallery

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Aitken, Robert, Merwin, W.S. (2003). A Zen Wave: Basho's Haiku and Zen. Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers, p. xi, xii. ISBN 1593760086. 
  2. ^ a b c d Queen, Christopher S (2000). Engaged Buddhism in the West. Wisdom publications, pp. 70-73. ISBN 0861711599. 
  3. ^ a b Prebish, Charles S (1999). . University of California Press, pp. 19, 20, 21. ISBN 0520216970. 
  4. ^ Wenger, Michael (2001). Wind Bell: Teachings from the San Francisco Zen Center (1968-2001). North Atlantic Books, p. viii. ISBN 1556433816. 
  5. ^ Chappell, David W (2000). Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace. Wisdom Publications, p. 93. ISBN 086171167X. 

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