Louisville Zen Center
Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede
Bodhin Kjolhede graduated from the University of Michigan and came to the Center in 1970. He was ordained as a Buddhist priest in 1976 and went on to spend several years traveling extensively with the Center’s founder, Roshi Philip Kapleau, and working closely with him on three of his books.
After completing twelve years of koan training under Roshi Kapleau, Roshi Kjolhede spent a year on pilgrimage through Japan, China, India, Tibet, and Taiwan. In 1986 he was installed by Roshi Kapleau as his Dharma successor and, the following year, Abbot of the Center. Since then he has conducted hundreds of meditation retreats, most of seven days, in the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Mexico. He has published numerous articles and traveled widely to participate in Buddhist teachers’ conferences.
In his more than 35 years of teaching, Roshi Kjolhede has sanctioned nine of his students as Zen teachers; they now lead Zen centers in the United States, Mexico, Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. Two of those teachers, Sensei John Pulleyn and Sensei Dhara Kowal, currently serve as Spiritual Co-Directors of the Rochester Zen Center. In semi-retirement since 2022, Roshi Kjolhede now serves as the RZC’s Spiritual Director Emeritus, and lives with his wife in Florida.
Sensei Ven. Jissai Prince-Cherry (Our Teacher)
Jissai Prince-Cherry served in the United States Air Force for eight years and holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Southern Illinois University. She worked in the engineering field for nearly 15 years before dedicating her life to the Buddhadharma.
She began practicing Zen in 1994. In 2022 she was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in the Three Jewels Order of the Cloud-Water Sangha. Her Dharma name, “Jissai” (pronounced JEE-sigh), means “true encounter.” In 2025, she was formally sanctioned as a fully authorized Zen teacher by her teacher of 30 years, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede.
In addition to her teaching role at the Louisville Zen Center, Sensei Jissai Prince-Cherry also serves as a teacher at the Rochester Zen Center, alongside Sensei Dhara Kowal and Sensei John Pulleyn.
You can support her Dharma work through financial gifts via PayPal.Me or Cashapp (cash.app/$jissaipc) or by contributing personal items or materials on her Amazon wish list.
Roshi Zentetsu Philip Kapleau
Philip Kapleau was one of the founding fathers of American Zen. He made it his life’s work to transplant Zen Buddhism into American soil, bridging the gap between theory and practice and making Zen Buddhism accessible to all.
Kapleau was born in 1912 and grew up in Connecticut studying law in his youth and serving for many years as a court reporter in the state and federal courts of Connecticut. At the end of WWII, he was appointed chief reporter for the International Military Tribunal at Nurenberg, then was sent to cover the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo. In 1953 he gave up his business in America and left for Japan to seek the Dharma.
Philip Kapleau spent 13 years undergoing Zen training in Japan under three Zen masters before being ordained by Hakuun Yasutani-roshi in 1965 and given permission by him to teach.
Roshi Kapleau published The Three Pillars of Zen, the first book to explain the practice of Zen to Westerners in 1966. Still in print today, The Three Pillars of Zen has become a Zen classic and has been translated into 12 languages.
Shortly after the publication of Three Pillars, Roshi Kapleau came to Rochester, New York, and founded the Rochester Zen Center. Other books soon followed including Zen: Merging of East and West, Straight to the Heart of Zen, Awakening to Zen, and The Zen of Living and Dying: A Practical and Spiritual Guide.
Philip Kapleau retired in 1986 after 20 years as Abbot of the Rochester Zen Center. He died in May 2004 at the age of 91.
Ordination of P.K. by Hakuun Yasutani-roshi