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 twelve of his students as Zen teachers; they now lead Zen centers in the United States, Mexico, Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. 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)
Sensei Jissai Prince-Cherry, born in 1967 in North Carolina, served eight years in the U.S. Air Force and earned a degree in Industrial Engineering from Southern Illinois University. After nearly 15 years in the field, she turned her full attention to a life dedicated to the Buddhadharma.
She began practicing Zen in 1994. In addition to the traditional Zen training she received at the Rochester Zen Center, she also made pilgrimages to a Rinzai Zen monastery in Japan for residential practice and sesshin.
Ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 2022, she received the name, “Jissai” (pronounced JEE-sigh), which means “true encounter.” In 2025, after nearly 30 years of training with her teacher, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, she was formally sanctioned by him as a fully authorized Zen teacher. For more about her journey, listen to her 50-minute Coming to the Path talk.
In addition to teaching at the Louisville Zen Center, Sensei Jissai Prince-Cherry also teaches at the Rochester Zen Center and serves as the resident meditation teacher at Chautauqua Institution for one week each year.
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