Gordon Greene – Zen Leadership
Close Menu

Gordon Greene

Roshi, Abbot, Chosei Zen, Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, University of Wisconsin

Gordon Hakuun Greene is the Abbot of Chosei Zen, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist training organziation headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Head Priest of Spring Green Dojo, its rural training center. He received inka from Tenshin Tanouye Roshi of Chozen-ji in 1996 and founded Spring Green Dojo in 2006. Greene Roshi serves on the Board of Directors for Chosei Zen and the Institute for Zen Leadership.

Dr. Greene received his PhD in Physical Geography in 1981 from the University of Michigan. His formal monastic training took place at Chozen-ji from 1984 – 87, and he was ordained as a priest in 1988. He joined the faculty of the John A. Burns School of Medicine as a medical educator in 1991, serving in both the Department of Family Medicine and the Office of Medical Education until moving to Wisconsin in 2006. Within that Office, he founded the Program for Medical Education in East Asia and has maintained teaching and consulting ties with medical schools and hospitals in Japan ever since.

In Wisconsin, he is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, serving as Clinical Professor of Family Medicine. He has also trained and served as a hospital chaplain and has published an account of his training experience in a book Facing Suffering.

He lives at Spring Green Dojo, actively running four sesshin each year as well as other training events. He also trains in Zen calligraphy (shodo) and has exhibited his work.