Biography

Sando Kaisen

Alain Kaisen Krystaszek was born in Noyon in the Oise department in 1952.

He spent his early childhood amid choking fumes from factories and frequent disputes at home. From the age of 6, he aspired to a peace that he was able to find only in the forest of Compiègne which surrounded the city of his birth. He left Noyon when his father decided to bring him to Poland, his country of origin. He received a strict education from his authoritarian, communist grandmother, and the repressive atmosphere of the regime and the age led to feelings of painful incomprehension.

As he grew up, he questioned more and more the cruelty and foolishness of humanity, all very much contrary to the feelings of his own youthful heart. The Christian education he received in Poland while serving an elderly bishop furnished the beginnings of an answer and, when he returned to France, he took on a role as guardian in the Noyon cathedral, and worked as a guide at the museum dedicated to John Calvin. He even planned to become a priest.

But other questions arose within him: he could not accept that peace and happiness of the spirit can exist only within the four wall of a church and that, outside those walls, the world is nothing but suffering and ignorance.

In pursuit of his quest, he set out on the road, traveling from community to community. A musician, he won several prizes for drumming and played in rock and blues bands as a way of making money. From 1968 to 1972, Eastern philosophy was booming. Passionate about the martial arts he had learned from Caucasian instructors in Poland and Russia, he decided to travel to China to study at the source. A true journey of initiation, this epic voyage saw him travel alone and on foot across the massif of the Himalayas and through Communist China, finally reaching a monastery lost in the Waifangshan mountains.

There he practiced kungfu and meditation under the supervision of an old Chinese master, who also taught him the basics of traditional Chinese medicine.

Back in Paris, he found Master Taisen Deshimaru, with whom he practiced zazen several times at the Gretz dojo of Monsieur Joli. In him, he finally recognized a living example of that which he had always sought, and chose to become his disciple. Through him, and thanks to zazen, he found confirmation of that which he had always believed: that an inner search must be accessible to all. That the answer cannot be philosophical, mystical, esoteric, moral, or even divine. That if there is a common light, it necessarily shines in all sentient beings without distinction, and cannot remain the exclusive domain of a few high priests, gurus, or masters, any more than it can of traditional monasteries and sacred texts. Physical practice having always seemed essential to him, he quickly realized that the secret of being lies in the reality of the body, and not in any imagined spirituality, whatever it might be.

In 1977, he received ordination as bodhisattva and, in 1979, was ordained as a monk under the name Sando Kaisen, “solitary hermit in the deep mountain of satori.”

He devoted himself completely to practicing and teaching the posture of zazen, while also studying the arts of ikebana, calligraphy, and bonsai. He practiced Chinese medicine for almost 20 years. He further refined his kungfu while teaching it, until he realized that silent seated meditation surpasses all other forms of practice, however much they may be perfected. It was then that he stopped practicing martial arts for good.

Overflowing with energy, he attracted more and more disciples around him, creating many associations and founding multiple dojos dedicated to the practice of zazen.

In 1990, his travels brought him back to Eastern Europe, to further the teaching of Zen as transmitted by his master. Independent of any organization, his authenticity, plain-speaking, and determination brought him immediate popularity in the very heart of Christianity, in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. He taught the posture of zazen and the awakening that leads one beyond all human fabrications, that touches the essence of life and death by overcoming fears, excesses of morality, and all that can imprison a being in search of answers.

He often says in his lectures, “In fact, there is no answer to give, because the answer is in every moment of life. One need only be a question. If the question is sincere, it contains its own answer.”

At the invitation of a spiritual family that grows from year to year, he has lectured more widely, participated in conferences, and met with personalities from all walks of life.

He has intervened in political and scientific, as well as cultural and religious, circles. The media (television, radio, and the written press) have relayed his message, and have naturally made him famous through the growing success of his involvements in public life.

He does not hesitate to take a position on the question, debated since the era of the Buddha Shakyamuni, of the equality of men and women, allowing his female disciples---in precisely the same way as his male disciples---to receive ordination, to conduct ceremonies, and to become Zen masters.

An educator, builder, and missionary, he has created a European Zen, an essential renewal free of the militarism of the Japanese tradition.

In France in 1992, surrounded by his closest disciples, he began construction of a monastery. From a former jewelry factory, he created a place dedicated to the practice of zazen, the Sermon of the River monastery on the banks of the Auvezère in the heart of Perigord. The style of the place was unique, incorporating Slavic sensibilities and Japanese rigor into the local architecture. The monastery welcomed Zen monks and nuns who travelled to practice with him. There, as elsewhere, he transmitted to all comers the heart of his teaching, which is to look with spontaneity, freshness, and novelty at reality as it is. Just with one’s heart.

Artist, musician, chef, or botanist… his teaching embraces all of these aspects and adapts to circumstances. In addition to traditional kusens (improvised teachings during zazen) and mondos (question and answer sessions between the master and his disciples), his message can also be heard in the songs that he writes and performs. But he also says that nothing is a fit subject for teaching, because that which is observed with the heart needs no teaching. That seeking freedom is an error, and that there is no path by which to attain it. That freedom, like love, is noting but the expression of the pure joy that illumines all things. All that is needed is to be alive, to be creative, and to allow spontaneity to spring forth from the sincere and natural impulses that reside within us all.

In 2005, the Sangha bought a place in the Périgord noir, near Belvès, to establish a new center, Shining Peak, which welcomes disciples from six countries every two months. He teaches only one thing, “from my spirit to yours”: to break through the shell of habits and certainties that imprison our being in order to realize the Way, which is nothing but pure consciousness and resides in all things.

His website, the Zen of Kaisen, provides information on upcoming events and dates of future retreats.