Issho Fujita

Isshō Fujita was born in Niihama, Ehime, Japan and was head teacher at Valley Zendo, a Sōtō Zen practice center in Charlemont, Massachusetts, USA. Fujita had done studies in child psychology at Tokyo University Graduate School, but abandoned them and became a Zen monk. At the age of twenty-nine, on 8 December, Fujita was ordained a Zen priest, along with Ryōdō Yamashita, by Kōhō Watanabe at Antai-ji temple.