Biography
Reb Anderson was born as Harold Anderson in Mississippi in 1943 and grew up in Minnesota. His father left the family when Anderson was eleven. In his youth, he was a Golden Gloves boxer. Anderson developed an interest in Buddhism while still in his teens. In 1967, he abandoned his graduate studies in psychology and mathematics to study Soto Zen under Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco Zen Center.
Anderson was then ordained as a priest in 1970 by Suzuki, who gave Anderson the Buddhist name Tenshin Zenki 天眞全機 (Naturally Real, the Whole Works). In 1983 Anderson received shiho from Zentatsu Richard Baker, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir. However, when Baker was forced to resign amid complaints about his affairs with female Zen Center members and his purchase of expensive luxury goods, Baker claimed Anderson never completed the entire transmission ceremony. The board of the San Francisco Zen Center disagreed, understanding Anderson to be Baker's Dharma heir (Baker has since agreed.) After Baker's resignation, Anderson replaced him as abbot.
In a controversial incident, while jogging in Golden Gate Park in 1983, Anderson found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Anderson returned to the body over a period of several days to meditate over the corpse, on one visit taking the revolver. In 1985, Anderson was mugged one block away from the San Francisco Zen Center. He retrieved the unloaded revolver and chased the perpetrator to a nearby tenement, where both were quickly arrested. The incident received local and national media coverage. The affair has at times impacted Anderson's reputation as a teacher.
The Zen Center Board of Directors sent him on a leave of absence for six months. When he returned, he served as co-abbot with Mel Weitsman from 1986-1995. Regarding this ordeal, Anderson has written of his remorse and insight garnered from the experience.
In October 1999 Anderson suffered a heart attack while conducting dokusan. He later underwent a successful emergency angioplasty.
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