Zen’s Glass Gate

AS WITH MUCH OF SOTO ZEN in Japan, there is a lot that Westerners don’t know about the world of Japanese nuns. At the forefront of their lineage and training is Shundo Aoyama Roshi: an enigma, a rock star, a laughing buddha, and a fiercely dedicated, humble practitioner of the Way. One American monk described her as a mountain—a mountain on fire.

Aoyama Roshi, eighty-six years old, entered temple life at age five. Now the abbess of Aichi Senmon Nisodo, or Women’s Monastic College, she learned the traditional nun’s way, and then later also explored the traditional monk’s way, as well as the scholar’s way. A few years ago, she was awarded the title of, or Master of Zen Masters, making her the highest-ranking nun in the history of Soto Zen. For Zen women, this is a very big deal—to have a nun teaching monks is virtually unheard of, and Aoyama Roshi trains Zen masters, not novices. As a Zen master’s master (or a nun’s nun) she has broken through Zen’s glass gate.