Kuushu Damir Jamsek and Doshin David Schubert are named as Shinge Roshi's Dharma Heirs

Dear Sangha and Dharma Friends,

On May 4, 2025, we held a beautiful ceremony for Jika Lauren Melnikow. She became my first Dharma Heir at the Zen Center of Syracuse, following the conferring of inka shomei, Dharma Transmission, to Zen Studies Society teachers Chigan Dokuro Jaeckel Roshi and Hokuto Daniel Diffin Osho. Jika-shi is serving admirably as a Transmitted Dharma Teacher at HoenJi and in the Syracuse community. From the beginning we agreed that she would not take on the role of abbot after my departure, due to her family and health responsibilities.

With that in mind, I have decided to name two monks who have been my students for more than thirty-five years as my next Dharma Heirs and future co-abbots. They are Kuushu Enshin Damir Jamsek and Doshin Gendo David Schubert. Their inka shomei will be held on May 3, 2026, at the Zen Center of Syracuse HoenJi, and I hope you will be present to witness this important ceremony.

Under their leadership, with Jika-shi as their mentor and with thoughtful guidance from our Sangha elders and the Board of Trustees, I feel confident that HoenJi will thrive as an inspiring, caring, and rigorous center for Zen Buddhist practice on this endless path.

Kuushu, who was born in Salzberg, Austria, came with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, before his first birthday, and grew up there, attending Catholic schools. In the fall of 1987, while a graduate student in computer engineering at Syracuse University, he attended a talk I gave at Hendricks Chapel, and began sitting at our attic zendo on a snowy day in January, 1988. At a Jukai sesshin in 1990 I gave him the Dharma name Kuushu, "Empty Hand,” in recognition of his dedicated Zen and martial arts practices.

Kuushu moved to Austin, Texas, to take a position at IBM Research as a chip designer, and in 1999 he started a small sitting group and a martial arts school there. He came east for sesshin at HoenJi and Dai Bosatsu Zendo, and I went to Austin to lead sesshin there. His long-held wish to ordain was finally realized at HoenJi on Mandala Day, September 21, 2020, and his dedication to the practice here led him and his wife, Mary, to move from Austin to Central New York.

Doshin was born in Syracuse and grew up in Baldwinsville, where he was an active member of the 4-H Club and Boy Scouts, reaching the rank of Eagle Scout. Fascinated by the insect world, he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in ecology and entomology at SUNY-ESF; during his campus days he read extensively in Buddhism, audited Professor Richard Pilgrim’s classes on Zen, and began sitting on his own. He began working at Beaver Lake Nature Center and then the Burnet Park Zoo, where he was lead aquarist and herpetologist.

On July 7, 1990, his best friend died suddenly of a heart attack. This propelled him toward committed Zen practice; he discovered our attic zendo just before his 30th birthday, and took Jukai in 1992. Two years later he left his job to join fall kessei at DBZ, and on October 2, my birthday, he was ordained there and continued his training until the spring of 1999, when he entered ShogenJi in Gifu, Japan, practicing in the traditional Rinzai Zen monastic Way under Sogen Yamakawa Roshi until the following spring, when he returned to DBZ and then to HoenJi. He met and married Cara Lindsay, and was hired as Park Naturalist/Camp Director at Beaver Lake Nature Center. Their daughters, Madeline Grace and Allison Rose, were born in 2007 and 2010 respectively.

On the day of his retirement as Senior Naturalist in 2022, County Executive Ryan McMahon presented him with a certificate, declaring it “David Schubert Day.” Since retiring, Doshin has devoted himself to HoenJi with renewed vigor.

In 2023, after a period of advanced practice led by Chigan Roshi, Hokuto Osho, and myself, Doshin and Kuushu were acknowledged as Junior Dharma Teachers. In addition to serving the Zen Center of Syracuse with dedication and constancy, each leads meditation weekly at Colgate University and attends sesshin regularly here and at Dai Bosatsu Zendo.

Let True Dharma Continue!

Gassho,

Shingeshitsu Roko Sherry Chayat

Abbot