Keido Chisan and Jiyu Kennett
In 1960, an Englishwoman named Peggy Kennett met a Japanese Zen teacher when he was visiting London. His name was Keido Chisan, and he suggested she come study with him in Japan. Kennett did not appreciate at the time what a radical and unusual suggestion this was. Keido Chisan Koho Zenji (1879-1967) was abbot of one of the two head training monasteries of the Soto Zen Buddhism sect in Japan. No foreigner and especially no woman had ever trained at this monastery.
Two years later Peggy Kennett arrived at Sojiji, Keido Chisan’s monastery, and insisted on staying. Because of her gender and nationality she faced countless challenges in her training in addition to the ones anyone would face during intensive Zen practice. Peggy, later Roshi Jiyu Kennett, completed her training in Japan with public, formal ceremonies that previously women had had to do in private. It turns out Keido Chisan was a quiet but formidable champion of women’s equality within the Soto organization in Japan.
After Keido Chisan’s death in 1967, Roshi Kennett came to the United States and began teaching. In 1970 she established Shasta Abbey, a training monastery in Mt. Shasta, California, which is still thriving. Her teaching was characterized by a strong emphasis on awakening, monastic practice, an intense student-teacher relationship, and Precepts.