Hozan Kushiki Alan Senauke, a socially engaged Buddhist, abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center (BZC), and an accomplished traditional bluegrass musician, died on December 22, 2024. According to BZC, he passed peacefully from complications stemming from a cardiac arrest he suffered in 2023. He was 77 years old.

Born in 1947 to a secular Jewish family in Brooklyn, Senauke studied at Columbia University, where he was active in the 1968 student strike and nonviolent occupation to protest the Ivy League school’s ties to the Vietnam War and plans to expand into a private park. His role as an activist would later continue in his own writing, in his decade-long tenure at Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and in other international endeavors of Engaged Buddhism. 

Senauke became a devoted Zen student in his 30s in the Bay Area “after seeming to come to the end of the script for my life,” he said in an interview with San Francisco Zen Center, in 2022. 

“I had done many things—working as an editor, driving a taxi, performing music, and doing various low-level jobs that were not particularly satisfying. I felt that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. Then I threw myself into Zen practice,” Senauke said. 

Senauke became a resident at BZC in 1985 and was ordained as a Zen priest four years later. His children were raised at BZC, and Senauke’s wife, Laurie Schley Senauke, also became an ordained Zen priest. He received dharma transmission from his teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman (1929–2021), at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, in 1998. 

In 1991, Senauke became the executive director of Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and served in the role for the next ten years. He was particularly involved in supporting Dalit Buddhists in India, Rohingya refugees in Myanmar, and ending capital punishment in the US. After his tenure at Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Senauke established the Clear View Project, an international Buddhist relief organization, and the Buddhist Humanitarian Project, which focused specifically on Rohingya refugees. 

A statement posted to Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s Instagram page read that Senauke’s “commitment to Engaged Buddhism was unwavering, and his vision of the dharma as a force for both social service and for structural transformation has inspired generations of BPF leaders who followed him. We wish we had known him better. His passing reminds us how important it is for us to connect with our elders while they are still here.”

Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, an American Theravada Buddhist monk, recalled first meeting Senauke in early 2008, when he visited Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, New York, where Ven. Bodhi resides. 

“Over the next few years, whenever he was in the area, he would stop by for lunch and an afternoon chat, and occasionally I would meet him at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. Through our shared interests and concerns, we became close dharma friends. Our discussions instilled in me a deep respect for Alan’s acumen about global issues and his capacity for balanced judgment, which always fused keen insight with gentle, but nonsentimental, compassion. I often relied on him to understand social and political issues more clearly.”

Ven. Bodhi said that he was establishing Buddhist Global Relief around the same time Senauke was starting the Clear View Project. 

“Though our missions differed, we shared a conviction that, in today’s world, the vitality of Buddhism largely hinges on its ability to respond effectively to people afflicted by the most debilitating forms of suffering. In our view, compassion only comes to fulfillment in conscientious action on multiple fronts.”

Ven. Bodhi also recalled remarks Senauke gave, in 2010, at an Engaged Buddhist symposium hosted by Roshi Bernie Glassman.

“He distinguished two types of activities that both come under the canopy of Engaged Buddhism. One promotes humanitarian service—guidance for the sick and dying, psychological counseling, prison chaplaincy, mindfulness programs for inner resiliency, etc. The other engages in critical inquiry into the deep systemic dynamics responsible for collective suffering—exploring militarism, economic disparities, and environmental destruction, among many interwoven issues. While the organizations we established operate in the former mode, we both inclined to the other mode, which attempts to understand the detrimental forces at work in today’s world and advocates Buddhist values as a template for social transformation.”

In November 2023, Senauke and Ven. Bodhi started an online petition calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

In early 2021, Senauke was installed as the second abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, the Soto Zen temple founded, in 1967, by Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Acknowledging he was becoming an abbot at a later age, Senauke hoped to encourage a group of younger, more diverse leaders to continue Suzuki Roshi’s teachings. 

In late 2023, Senauke suffered a cardiac arrest. Though he never fully recovered, he had resumed some teaching before his death.  

Senauke authored several books, including Turning Words: Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers (2023), Heirs to Ambedkar (2013), and The Bodhisattva’s Embrace (2010). He edited several books of essay collections and frequently wrote for Inquiring Mind and other Buddhist publications, including Tricycle. 

He leaves behind five dharma heirs and many Buddhist students and friends. He is survived by siblings Suzie Senauke Laskin, Scott Senauke, Lisa Senauke, and Tracey Stein West, wife Laurie Schley Senauke, daughter Silvie Senauke (Cooper Long), and son, Genpo Alexander Senauke. 

Condolences can be sent to the Senauke family and sangha through Berkeley Zen Center, 1931 Russell Street, Berkeley, CA 94703. A statement posted on the Clear View Project says the organization will no longer accept donations and suggests contributing to the International Network of Engaged Buddhists in Thailand. 

A memorial is being planned, with details forthcoming.