Sojun Mel Weitsman

Sojun Mel Weitsman (20 July 1929 – 7 January 2021), dharma name Hakuryū Sōjun (白龍祖珣), was a senior American Sōtō Zen teacher and the founding abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, which he co-founded in 1967 and led as abbot from 1985 onward^[1]. He met Shunryū Suzuki in 1964, was ordained as a priest by Suzuki in 1969 at the Berkeley zendō, and was Suzuki's close student until Suzuki's death in 1971 — but Suzuki died before he could give Weitsman formal Dharma transmission, and the shihō was completed in 1984 at Rinso-In in Japan by Suzuki's son Hoitsu Suzuki^[1][2]. From 1988 to 1997 Weitsman also served as co-abbot of SFZC alongside Tenshin Reb Anderson. He transmitted Dharma to twenty-two named successors, including Blanche Hartman (1988), Zoketsu Norman Fischer (1988), Hozan Alan Senauke, Edward Espe Brown, Gil Fronsdal, Sojun Michael Wenger, and Myogen Steve Stücky^[2].