Roshi Paul Genki Kahn is founder and Spiritual Director of ZEN GARLAND: A Community Order for Zen Practice, Education & Service, in Wyckoff, New Jersey, USA.
Genki began dedicated yoga and meditation practice in the 1960s. In 1970 he entered residential Zen training with Aitken Roshi in Hawaii. He transferred to the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1972 to become amonk and priest under Taizan Maezumi Roshi, served as his personal attendant, and was the Director of Training there. In 1980 he came to New York with Roshi Bernie to establish what has become the Greyston Mandala. He received Final Vows as a Priest from Roshi Dennis Genpo Merzel. He is a Dharma Successor of Roshi Tetsugen Bernie Glassman and received Inka from him. He is a member of the White Plum Asanga.
Roshi Genki founded HMCLZC in 2004 with Sensei Ann Ankai Wagner and Sensei Bill Jikai Greenberg to bring a full range of contemporary Zen training to the greater metropolitan area. He is focusing his efforts on developing Socially Engaged Buddhism in the West, and providing thorough training paths for Zen practice both in lay and ordination paths.
Genki has served as President and Vice-Spiritual Director of the Zen Peacemakers in Montague, MA. He was also Executive Director of the Zen Peacemakers Sangha.
Over the past 25 years, Genki has designed and administered public and private mental health programs for disadvantaged people in New York and New Jersey. He pioneered quality treatment for persons with co-occurring conditions of mental illness and drug and alcohol addictions. During the crack wars in the South Bronx in the early ’90s, he created the MICA Program at Fordham Tremont Community Mental Health Center, that today still treats over 100 people daily.