Leadership
Gary Joshin Enns, Director and President
 |
| Joshin |
One of the founding members of the Zen Fellowship, Gary Joshin Enns began practicing Zen in 2011 under the guidance of Richard Collins Roshi. In 2012 at the New Orleans Zen Temple he received bodhisattva ordination from Robert Livingston Roshi, Collins’ longtime teacher and a close disciple of Master Taisen Deshimaru. In 2016 at the Temple, Enns received monastic ordination from Collins. In 2022 Collins certified Enns as shusso (teacher).
Enns holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His writing has appeared in literary and contemplative journals such as Granta, Missouri Review, Crazyhorse, Sweeping Zen, Southern Humanities Review, and The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature. In 2015 he wrote the glossary for Collins’ latest book, No Fear Zen. Currently, he co-edits and contributes articles and poems to Here and Now: the Newsletter of the American Zen Association.
Professor and chair of English at Cerro Coso College, Enns teaches literature, composition, and creative writing. In addition to leading practice at the Dustbowl Dojo, he enjoys acting, surfing, skiing, and music.
Enns lives in Bakersfield, California with his wife Cortnie and three children.
Richard Reishin Collins Roshi, Founder, Abbot of American Zen Association
 |
| Richard Collins at Ablin House, Bakersfield Photo by Cortnie Enns |
Richard Reishin Collins Roshi founded the Zen Fellowship of Bakersfield in 2010.
Collins was born in Eugene, Oregon in 1952. He grew up in Southern
California and earned a BA in English with honors from the University of
Oregon, and an MA and PhD from the University of California, Irvine. He
was a Fulbright scholar to London (1980-81), a Leverhulme
Commonwealth/USA research fellow at the University of Swansea (1984-85),
and a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Bucharest and Timisoara, Romania
(1992-94). He has taught literature at several universities in the
United States, as well as in Wales, Romania, and Bulgaria. At Xavier
University of Louisiana he was RosaMary Endowed Professor of English and
editor of the Xavier Review. In 2016, he retired from academia as Dean
Emeritus at California State University, Bakersfield, where he led the
School of Arts and Humanities for six years.
He began Zen
practice with Robert Livingston in 2001, receiving monastic ordination
in 2010 and permission to teach in 2012. With Livingston Roshi’s
retirement in 2016, he received shiho and became the second Abbot of the
New Orleans Zen Temple.
His Zen essays and poetry have appeared
or are forthcoming in Alien Buddha Zine, Azure: A Journal of Literary
Thought, Blue Unicorn, The Crank (UK), The Dead Mule School of Southern
Literature, Exquisite Corpse, Littoral Magazine (UK), Marrow Magazine,
MockingHeart Review, New Orleans Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of
Spirituality and the Arts, The Plenitudes, Poem Alone (UK), Religion and
the Arts, Sagesses Bouddhistes (France), Shō Poetry Journal, Shot
Glass, Synaeresis: art + poetry, Think Journal, Urthona: Buddhism and
the Arts, Willows Wept Review, and Xavier Review.
His books
include John Fante: A Literary Portrait (Guernica Editions, 2000) and No
Fear Zen (Hohm Press, 2015). He has edited several books on Zen,
including Deshimaru’s Mushotoku Mind: The Heart of the Heart Sutra (Hohm
Press, 2012). His translation of Deshimaru’s Autobiography of a Zen
Monk is available from Hohm Press (2022). His most recent book is a
memoir, In Search of the Hermaphrodite (Tough Poets Press, 2024).
