Konrad Tenkan Beck

Konrad Tenkan Beck is a German Sōtō Zen monk in the Deshimaru–Wang-Genh line and the senior dharma heir of Olivier Reigen Wang-Genh. He began zazen practice under Master Taisen Deshimaru and was ordained as a Zen monk (shukke tokudo, 出家得度) in 1988 (per the Ryūmon-ji teachers' biographical page at meditation-zen.org)^[1].

He founded the Zen-Dōjō Freiburg (Hō Un Dō) in Baden-Württemberg and led it until 2009, after which he relocated to the area near Nuremberg. In June 2011 he received dharma transmission (shihō, 嗣法) from Olivier Reigen Wang-Genh — the first formal shihō Wang-Genh conferred (per meditation-zen.org's biography of Wang-Genh, which calls him "his oldest disciple"). In 2012 and 2013 he completed extended further training at the Japanese Sōtō monasteries Shōgō-ji and Chōsen-ji^[2].

He currently serves as tantō (単頭, training-hall supervisor) at Kōsan Ryūmon-ji — Wang-Genh's monastery in Weiterswiller, Alsace — and as one of the principal teachers of the Zen-Buddhistische Gemeinschaft Nürnberg / Bad Windsheim. His role at Ryūmon-ji places him institutionally as the senior monk of the second generation of the Wang-Genh community^[3].