I am a teacher and trainer in Applied Meditation Therapy®, a counselor in the embodiment of Visceral Core Intelligence, a practicing Zen Buddhist Roshi, and a spiritual mentor in the embodiment of Faith & Transpersonal intimacy. I am also an internationally published author on Zen Meditation & the practice of living enlightenment right here and now. I have been married for 45 years and have been blessed with two wonderful sons, two gracious daughter-in-laws, and four precious grandchildren. I am deeply grateful that both my sons requested that I officiate at their weddings. Next to the joy of marrying my wife, conducting their marriage ceremonies was another deeply precious and fulfilling part of my life.

A few weeks after my marriage in 1966 I was in a very serious motorcycle accident. After I recovered from my surgeries, I became increasingly interested in learning about Western depth psychology and the variety of Asian philosophies that focused on the daily practice of mindfulness and meditation. This was when I first started my faithful and diligent embodiment of meditation in zazen-only. I practiced zazen meditation by myself for 15 years in order to clarify the great matter of life and death, investigate the true nature of humanness as it is, and expereince the deepest most unconditioned embodiment of reality in a ever changing world embedded in vast impermanance. During that same time of increasing intellectual study and deepening Zen meditation practice, I received my Bachelors and Master's degrees from San Francisco State University. My Master's Degree focused on the client-centered therapy of Carl Rodgers, the Self-Actualization Psychology of Abraham Maslow, and the General Semantics Psychology of Alfred Korzybski. My Master's thesis focused on "ego-self ideal discrepancy" and its impact on objective and openhearted interpersonal listening.

In 1978, I received my Doctoral Degree in Humanistic Psychology from Saybrook University in San Francisco. My doctoral dissertation emphasized zazen meditation as a valid scientific methodology for investigating the true nature of being reality as core Self in this Only Moment Body of boundless intimacy with all beings and things . The dissertation also explained how mystical, spiritual, and religious expereinces are the natural intimate expression of the quantum depth level of our human nervous system functioning. You can view two diagrams of my quantum nervous system model and read about their theoretical bases in neuron functioning by Clicking Here.

The integration of zazen meditation into my professional practice, education and training is deeply influenced by the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi, a Soto Zen Master, Buddhist priest and founding teacher of San Francisco Zen Center. From 1976 to 1987, I studied, trained, and practiced at Genjo-ji Temple under the guidance of Jakusho Kwong-Roshi, a Soto Zen priest in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. During my practice at Genjo-ji, I was ordained as a lay-monastic practitioner in the Buddha Way.

In 1988, I left Genjo-ji and founded Jotoku-Ji Zen Training Temple in Rohnert Park, CA. There I officiated my formal Tokudo ordination ceremony as a Zen Buddhist priest which was intimately witnessed and supported by my immediate family. At Jotoku-Ji, I have educated, trained and counseled beginners and veteran practitioners in the Way of zazen-only for over twenty years. I am currently the founder and Zen teacher for active Jotoku-ji Zen dojos in Long Beach, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Sonoma CA, and Kamuela, HI.

In my professional face-to-face counseling practice, I work with individuals, couples, and groups from all religious beliefs and walks of life. I also have a telephone and video counseling practice that extends throughout the USA & all other countries around the world. In my worldwide counseling practice, I teach, mentor, and train individuals, couples and small groups in the embodiment skills, behavioral techniques, and mindfulness principles of Applied Meditation Therapy® (AMT). AMT is a "Somatic Core Self Mindfulness Based Practice" that promotes optimum wellness, longevity, stress reduction, personal growth, loving relationships, spiritual fulfillment, enhanced sports performance, peak states of human embodiment, competitive integrity, and visionary leadership.

Applied Meditation Therapy® (AMT) evolved over fourty four years of my own study, practice and training in the body of Zen meditation and my professional research studies into the higher potentials of human consciousness, peak states of experiencing, and the farther reaches of living everyday life and relationships with unconditional compassion, boundless intimacy, and bright wisdoming. I founded and publically extended AMT as an empowering therapeutic modality in 1996 and established its official trademark in 2002.

In 1996 I also extended my professional guidance and counsel in the field of Applied Meditation Therapy and my teachings as a Zen Meditation Roshi to the global Internet community and created the domain of ZenDoctor.Com, a free worldwide educational service in Applied Meditation Therapy®.

As of January 2005, my wife and I relocated from California to the Big Island of Hawaii. I feel blessed to have our two sons and their families with us here on the Big Island. While enjoying and deeply appreciating the simple blessings of life with my wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren, I continue to counsel and teach individuals and groups, conduct workshops, develop and maintain my global website, direct the evolution of the Applied Meditation Therapy Institute (AMTIonline.Org), publish a monthly newsletter to 18,500 subscribers, and author a wide variety of articles in Europe and the United States. I am also in the process of completing my first hardbound book entitled: