Steve Kanji Ruhl

Author / Teacher

Reverend Steve Kanji Ruhl, MDiv, is an innovative Zen Buddhist minister ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order, now teaching independently and instructing Zen students through his Touch the Earth cyber-sangha.
Reverend Kanji received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University and is a Buddhist chaplain at Deerfield Academy, a Buddhist Adviser at Yale University, and faculty member of the Shogaku Zen Institute. Kanji has been a guest speaker or workshop facilitator at Harvard’s Center for World Religions, Yale Divinity School, the International Conference on Socially Engaged Buddhism, the Omega Institute, and elsewhere. He is the author of the critically accalimed, award-winning spiritual memoir "Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma," as well as "Enlightened Contemporaries: Francis, Dogen & Rumi -- Three Great Mystics of the Thirteenth Century and Why They Matter Today." He also has published two volumes of poems, "The Constant Yes of Things" and "Paintings of Rice Cakes Satisfy Hunger." He has recently finished writing a new book about his personal experience of spirituality and wellness called "The Whole Earth is Medicine: Science, Zen, and Healing Body and Mind in a Journey through Cancer."