Kazuaki Tanahashi

Kazuaki Tanahashi (Japanese棚 桥 一晃, Kazuaki Tanahashi, born 1933 in Japan) is a Japanese calligrapher, artist, author, translator, peace and environmental activist.

Life and work

Kazuaki Tanahashis father was a member of the military elite of Japan, the Japanese government warned of the attack on Pearl Harbor, then fell into disgrace and was after the 2nd World War, Shinto priests. Kazuaki Tanahashi was already as a young student of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido. In 1956 he began the study of traditional Chinese ( shūfǎ ) and Japanese calligraphy ( Shodo ). He also took private lessons in oil painting. During this time he met on his spiritual quest Soichi Nakamura, a Japanese Buddhist scholars and specialists of research on Zen Master Dogen ( 1200-1253 ). Under instructions Kazuaki Tanahashi, Nakamura began his studies Dogen Dogen and the first translations of the medieval Japanese in the modern Japanese. In 1964 he went on a trip to the USA for the first time the Japanese Zen master Shunryu Suzuki in San Francisco, with whom he has since developed a close friendship. In 1977, Kazuaki Tanahashi went permanently to the United States, where he lived from 1977 to 1984 in the San Francisco Zen Center and worked. In addition to his intense artistic work with many exhibitions in Japan and the U.S., he began at the San Francisco Zen Center, along with a number of co - translators, including Sojun Mel Weitsman, Taigen Dan Leighton, Dan Welch and Peter Levitt an extensive Dogen translation project only in 2010 with the publication of the translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo famous work culminated and provisional closure.

In 1992 he founded together with Japanese artist Mayumi Oda the club Plutonium Free Future ( Plutonium Free Future). Former President of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Carazo had 1949 dissolved the army in his country and expanded with the released funds health care and education system of his country. This inspired Kazuaki Tanahashi founded the project A World Without Armies ( A world without armies ). On the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Nanjing Kazuaki Tanahashi organized together with Zhang Lianhong (Nanjing Normal University, Research Center for the Nanjing Massacre ), a large four - day conference in Nanjing, where he and other Japanese artists and scientists their shame and remorse expressed about the war crimes of their fathers and the Chinese asked for reconciliation. For his merits as an artist, peace and environmental activist Kazuaki Tanahashi was elected as a member of the World Academy of Art and Science.

In addition to his artistic and political work Kazuaki Tanahashi teaches calligraphy and Zen meditation worldwide.